Thames Tributary Earl Sluice - Bricklayers

Thames Tributary Earl Sluice
Earl Sluice is said to have continued roughly on the line of Albany Road, crossing the Old Kent Road at the Thomas a Becket. It then turned east at Earl Road and continued roughly on the line of Rolls Road.
TQ 33517 78696

Inner city area lying along the Old Kent Road and the Roman route out of the city into Kent and ultimately Dover.  Here are the remains of the attempt to turn the area into a major railway terminus at Bricklayers Arms and the spaces which evolved into a major goods terminus. There are also the sites of what was an intensely industrialised area - many works which had links to the important centre of leather working here, glue and related trades. There is also the site of the original Brian Donkin factory where a number of important engineering concepts were developed in the early 19th. Much of the area is now housing but with many pubs, churches and organisations of social support.



Post to the north Bermondsey
Post to the west Walworth
Post to the south North Peckham
Post to the east Blue Anchor


Bagshot Street
37 Duke of York. Pub. Closed

Beaconsfield Road
Hour Glass pub and hotel

Bricklayers Arms
Flyover and junction.
Bricklayers Arms Station. Opened on 1st May 1844 by London and Croydon and S.E. Railways jointly in order to counter charges demanded by the Greenwich Railway for using London Bridge terminus. It was on the north east side of the Old Kent Road, south of the junction with Page’s Walk on the edge of the built-up area. It was on marshy land which had to be drained and raised and took its name from a local inn used as an intermediate coach stop. The line was laid out by William Cubitt, Engineer to the SER, and the station was designed by Lewis Cubitt - no relation. The contractors were Grissell and Peto. The last stages of the work was done in such a hurry that part of the station roof collapsed as men were nailing on the roof boarding and over 2,700 square yards of wood block paving were laid in the station forecourt in the three days before opening. There was a riot on the opening day of line and the station was very busy with significantly cheaper fares than journeys to London Bridge. However within a year both London and Croydon Companies stopped using it as the tolls to London Bridge were reduced. The station, which had been so busy for 84 days, went into terminal decline. In 1852 it closed and was converted into a goods depot – it had been open for seven years and eight months. It continued as a goods depot and loco shed for more than 100 years. In 1936 the frontage burnt down and was demolished and in 1983 goods operations ended. One remaining feature is four sandstone gate piers at the entrance. There is a considerable history to the various sheds and railway workings which took place on this site over a long period and repair and other work continued to take place until 1983 when work was transferred to Slade Green and Hither Green.
Archaeological digs on the site have found a timber platform, and stone Neolithic axes.

Burgess Park:
Lake of several acres.
Sculpture made by children from Cobourg school
Ice store –stood opposite the lake on north bank. Owned by Charles Newby who were also Billingsgate fish merchants. Closed 1920

Cobourg Road
31 oldest building in conservation area, 1800

Congreve Street
St.Mary Magdalene, 1842 demolished since 1950. By Ferrey

Cooper's Road
Peabody Estate, winning awards
23 Windsor Castle pub. Demolished 2004

Earl Road
The pattern of roads has completely changed in the area and the road has now gone - although some of its line may be reflected in internal roads in the trading estate and supermarkets on either side of Humphery Street. The name, however, appears to reflect that of Earl Sluice which turned course here to run east.

Fort Road
Suggestion of Cromwell's battlements
Havelock Arms

Grange Road
Fort Place. This name reflected the area of Grange Road near its junction with Southwark Park Road. It probably reflects a Civil War defensive structure here.
Brian Donkin’s Factory in Fort Place. This was originally to build a new Foudrinier paper machine. The work done at Dartford by Donkin was moved to Bermondsey in 1811 got the lease assigned to him after the Foudriniers had gone bankrupt. The works under successive members of the Donkin family became an important centre of engineering innovation – for example they also made preserved food to the Appert patents. The works closed in 1902 and the company moved to Chesterfield.
Bermondsey Health Centre. Built 1936 by H. Tansley. Modern brick front with angular corner windows. This belonged to the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey. Britain's first municipal solarium was here plus a variety of facilities including a foot clinic. infant welfare, ante-natal clinic, a tuberculosis centre, an electro-medical department, a dental clinic, an X-ray department and a laboratory for the public analyst.
Eonia Works. Atkinsons made perfume here.
4 Prockter & Bevington, manure and super phosphate
123 Spa Gelatine Works. B.Young & Co. The firm, which made gelantine, was formed in 1884 and Later acquired a glue and size works from Proctor and Bevington and in 1920 formed British Glue & Chemicals Ltd. About 3,5000 tons of Gelatine a year was produced in edible, photographic, pharmaceutical and technical grades – most of it low-grade edible 'Spa' gelatine. Taken over by Crodar Ltd. the factory closed in 1981 and the site was sold in 1982 for housing.
12
The Fort. Gay pub once called the ‘Royal Fort”

The Grange
Kintore Way Children’s Centre

Hendre Road
The South Eastern Railway depot lay along the southern edge of the Bricklayers Arms site parallel with the Old Kent Road with its own entrance in this road.
Brick gateway, on of the few remains of Bricklayers Arms Station

Mandela Way
A new road built through the centre of what was the Bricklayers Arms railway site, and running between Page’s Walk and Rolls Road, some of which it has taken in.
Bricklayers Arms Business Centre and warehousing by David Richmond & Partners. It is a long range of warehouse units cut in two by cycle track.

Marcia Road
Gallions housing scheme, replicating houses which were demolished.

Mason Street
Townsend Primary School

Oakley Place.
Chapel.Wesleyan Methodist. In 1900 became St Georges Methodist Church until 1981. Now Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim.

Old Kent Road
Roman Road radiating from London Bridge. Long known as the resort of costermongers.
Earl Sluice. Rises near Denmark Hill, flowing into the River Thames at Deptford. Small stream now covered over which joins the Peck so named from the 1st Earl of Gloucester, illegitimate son of Henry I, who was given the manor of Peckham by his father.
106 John Edgington & Co. Ltd founded in 1805 and specialised in tent, rope and sail making. A plaque on their Old Kent Road shop front recorded: 'Hereabouts in 1552 was erected a tent of cloth of gold for King Henry VIII and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, before their entry into the City of London'. The factory, which occupied an extensive space of ground, was built nearly all of wood. During the Second World War the company manufactured a variety of products including shrouds for civilian war dead and inflatable pontoons for salvage work. The shop was removed in 1967 to make way for the Bricklayers Arms flyover. The original shop front can be seen at Woburn Abbey.
148 Virgos night club -was previously the Frog and Nightgown.
152 Cinema Palace. gone
205 Marcia Court. Site of pub at one time called the Gin Palace but originally the Castle
215 Carter’s warehouse. George Carter & Sons Ltd was a men's clothing shop until 1978. In 1851 he had founded his business in a cottage in Russell Place where he made silk hats for the wholesale trade. He erected a showcase in the front garden, and a shop was built. He made coins like a gold sovereign with his profile on one side and trade mark on them and threw handfuls from the tops of the trams. Eventually the firm had 30 branches, a factory and a warehouse. A little man on the frontage used to raise his hat. It became a tyre shop, collapsed and has now gone
200 Burtons shop in other use
216 arcaded area at the rear. In the 19th ‘Help Yourself Coffee Palace Company
218-250 incorporating Searle's houses of 1784 onwards, much altered.
265 World Turned Upside Down. This was once the 'home' pub of London's Pearly Kings and Queens.
276 Yummies restaurant in the Green Man pub. French style cafe/pub still retaining the original bar from the 1860's when the pub was built. Original tiled floor and walls. Plush sofas and marble topped tables
275 Redeemed Church of Mount Zion in tiled building previously Wells Bros shop
279 Dun Cow pub, became Doctor's Surgery
288 Mascot Electric Theatre. Gone
306-312 Fire Station. Arts and Crafts, idiosyncratic. 1903. by the London County Council Architects Department. Red brick with Portland stone dressings. Ground floor in use as antique fireplace warehouse. Upper floors have model firemen waving to the passers by.
320 Noilias Art Gallery - Thomas a Becket, supposed to be haunted - also known as Thomas a Watering. Large pub with boxing theme. Live music most nights. Closed.
361 Joseph Falkner. Wholesale decorators merchants
Burgess Park Entrance
365 Old Kent Road Mosque in the old Duke of Kent pub
375 Wessex House worth a look by Peter Moro & Partners, 1971-somewhat in the idiom of James Stirling, bright red brick three storeys, with much canting and recessing of bays and balconies to shield flats from the traffic3. 1971, 1958/62 Bermondsey Estates 1563 good intentions spoiled by unappealing surfaces
383 Herbert Faulkner. Wholesale builders merchant
386 Lord Nelson. 1810, later additions
388 Nelson Electric Theatre
464-470 few remnants of early c 19 ribbon development
613 Regal Cinema. Crompton organ installed ABC 3-6 + Melotone. Gone
Deaf and Dumb Institute 1880s. On the south side between Townsend Street and Mason Street
Earl Sluice Watersplash on the Earl Sluice section in this area open until 1831Gallows
Memorial to Chaucer
Ormond House, corner Trafalgar Avenue. Home of Benjamin Hawes, senior, Governor Gas Light and Coke Co., and Mrs. Donkin daughter in law of Bryan.
Peckham Estate, 1972 Flats, London County Council,
Waleran Buildings, 100 years old
Bricklayer's Arms, now demolished, now just a bus stop near the flyover. The huge railway terminus was named after the pub.

Pages Walk
Pages Walk railway housing of the 1840s
Guinness Estate housing
Arcaded wall of the Willows Business Park
Statuary business of Abraham Staig, 1820
68 Victoria

Rolls Road
Rolls were a local family and developers.
Inwards Goods shed. At weekends when the goods depot was relatively excursion trains left from here. The shed was built in 1901. Later it was used as a carriage shed and eventually became a goods shed handling continental traffic and Huntley and Palmers biscuits from Reading

Rowcross Street
Southernwood Retail Park
Setchell Estate
Estate by Neylan & Ungless, for Southwark, 1972-8, of low-rise housing to be built inner London in the 1970s with nothing over three storeys. The houses with steeply pitched roofs and pale brick walls, with upper parts rendered tile-hung.
Tenants Hall with a very steep roof.
Southwark Park Road
An earlier name was Blue Anchor Road
52 Aranca
68 Rose and Crown, closed and now housing
Harris Academy
Alwyne School, 10 storey. clock, girls, 1965

Surrey Square.
This was another Rolls Estate development.
long terrace of 1793-4. The centrepiece has a pediment decorated with a fan. Some arched windows on the ground floor.
Surrey Square Junior School. Board School building
Church of the Lord (Aladura) 1959, replacing church of 1864 All Saints. Now 1959 by N. F. Cachemaille Day, replacing a church of 1864-5 by Parrisi Field, damaged in the Second World War. Some of Cachimaille Day's fittings now in St Peter, Liverpool Grove
Surrey Square Foundation Infant and Junior SchoolsSchool nature garden
5 Surrey Arms large and imposing. Closed

Willow Walk
Before the 19th Willow Walk was used by the tanning industry. A large plot of ground would have heaps of tan, and also skeleton frames 6 feet high. On shelves were put rectangular "tan-turf," which could be bought for fuel
Willow Walk goods depot for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway 1880. - The depot, separate from the main Bricklayers site was known as Willow Walk. Access for road vehicles was from Willow Walk. 1932, Southern Railway combined the two yards the alterations provided for Willow Walk depot to handle outwards traffic. Wall remains.
61 Tanner's Arms. Demolished and gone


Sources
Aldous. London Villages Beasley. Southwark Remembered
Beasley. Southwark Revisited
British Listed Buildings., Web site
Cherry & Pevsner. London South
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Codrington. London South of the Thames, 
Discused Statopms Web site
Donkin. History of Bran Donkin Co.
English Heritage. Web site
GLIAS. London's Industrial Archaelogy
GLIAS Walk and Newsletter
Humphery. Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Remembered
Ideal Homes. Web site 
London Archaeologist
London Borough of Southwark. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Pubs Project. Web site
Nature Conservation in Southwark, Ecology Handbook 
Pub History. Web site
Southwark Lost Places of Worship. Web site.
Survey of Industrial Monuments of Greater London
Talling. London’s Lost Rivers
Walford. Village London. 

Comments

adpmm said…
"Surrey Square.
...Church of the Lord (Aladura) 1959, Some of Cachimaille Day's fittings now in St Peter, Liverpool Grove"


For info, the fittings of Cachimaille Day's now in St Peter's, Walworth on Liverpool Grove are the pews, altar rails(?) and nave altar itself. The church is open for services and access can usually be gained Mon-Thu mornings. www.stpeterswalworth.org

AMM

Popular posts from this blog

Bromley by Bow

South Norwood

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town