Bombsites and Prefabs

When I was a child in the sixties all the adults were always mentioning the War. The War this, the War that. “In the War ….” It was a normal topic on conversation. To us, as kids, it had a mythic status though being over long before we were born. As I grew into a teenager it seemed odd that they were still so driven by it.

As a man in my fifties looking back I begin to understand. When I do the maths the child I'm recalling must have been no more than eight which means the War had actually been over only twenty odd years and things like rationing and national service much less. Twenty odd years to the teenager still would seem to be a lifetime but twenty odd years later I look back at events from my teenage and early twenties and they seem like yesterday – and that didn't involve being bombed and losing my home nor the streets being filled with servicemen who may be off to battle tomorrow some never to return.

This blog is not about those people however, nor the War itself, but I have other memories about my youth which have echos from that time. In the early Sixties we still had bombsites to remind those adults about the war. Small parcels of land in the middle or end of a terrace boarded up and where emergency work had been done to clear the damaged buildings and weatherproof the ends of the remaining parts of the terrace with cement. Often used as dumping grounds (as such land often is) they were strewn with broken radios and fridges and the like. Kids liked the radios as the transformer cores could be broken into their laminates and they then got loads of steel “E”s which could be flicked like playing cards, as an adult I dread to think of the damage that they could have done if they'd hit someone in the eye, luckily the kids only used them to play up the wall.

Some of the old bombsites had been used to build “prefabs” however. These temporary prefabricated houses were the major part of the plan envisaged to address the post–War housing shortage. They had a planned life of up to 10 years and through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works, the programme got off to a good start, but more expensive to build than conventional houses, and of course only being temporary, in the end, of 1.2 million new houses built from 1945 to 1951 only 156,623 prefab houses were constructed.

The ones I knew were on these cleared bombsite in terraces, a couple here an odd one there, most have now been replaced by modern houses and few survive, though that they lasted into the seventies in many cases is itself a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years.

Once a common sight in inner south London they now have to be sought out and soon you will probably have to go to a museum. The last ones I know in south London, which I used to see on my way home from work, are on a back street in East Dulwich. So the other day I set off to see if they were still there. Well a couple were, but I'm sure there were more a few years ago, and next door a new block of flats, so even here it looks like they have been reduced in number. In the pictures above and alongside you can see the remaining ones I know and the wall of the house next door rendered to protect was originally built as an internal wall.

In Catford a whole estate has gone following a long battle which you can read about here. I've also linked to the film from youtube as it shows very well the types of buildings which were once a common sight on street corners in ones and twos and now are only memories.

Laurie

Fences and Flats

Near to where I went to school, both primary and secondary schools, and in fact across a lot of London stand blocks of flats built from the beginning of the 20th century, up until the Second World War. They come in many variations around the same idea, some in London Stock with Red Brick edging, some unusually in a Brown Brick. Most have white highlights on the balconies etc. They have stairs, which are sheltered but open, are often built around a courtyard, commonly have four floors above the ground level, (restricted by having no lifts of course) and, (this being the mysterious bit to me when I was a kid), have grass areas surrounding them with odd bulges and an odd design in fencing.

How odd is the design? Well the pavement boundaries are a low wall often topped with a glazed or polished brick, out of which sprang black metal uprights in pairs every 6-7 feet, fixed to these were horizontal poles which ran along and supported meshwork filling the gaps and making the fence.

So far nothing sounds odd, but there was a final element which defied my brain to suss it out for years. Inbetween the uprights, the horizontal poles zigged back from the straight for no reason making little "v"s all the way down the fence - a design element I thought, but why doesn't the mesh follow the zig-zag then, and why are the zig-zags so close to the ends?


In some of the green areas these fences surrounded, the ground bulged up into (often) squared off bulges and once I remember I saw an entranceway into one (Though I can't remember where! Any offers/photos?)

I was quite young and mother pointed out this was a bomb shelter so that made sense as these building were as I said pre-war.

Still I never saw any link to the designer fencing....

.... for there is a link and it's also a good example of reuse of old items, which is more efficient that recycling and shows great ingenuity.


For the "fence panels" were originally stretchers, and as soon as you imagine them cut away from the uprights and rotated around their long axis you can see the zig-zags on the long rods are legs for keeping the stretcher off the ground.

It seems so clear to me now, as all things are when looked at with the right perspective; but I'm guessing there are still people who don't realise, particularly as the further we go on in time and more of these are replaced as they are damaged.

Right along from where I took these pictures other sections of the fencing have been changed out for boring arrowed railings and even these examples are not original as the original mesh was attached with metal straps which I presume allowed flexibility and movement; desirable in a stretcher, but not in a fence; the panels in the pictures above are welded, however these panels on the left are from Kennings Way and are original.


There are few like this about now - soon these too will probably be gone, but if they are being repaired to keep the zig-zag frames at least, there might still be kids in the future who will look at them and wonder.... and if they are cleverer than me, will puzzle it out.

Laurie Smith

What's in a Name?

When I was 16 I started work and had to travel out of the area I knew well and catch a bus off to various places in West London. To do this I usually caught a bus to the Elephant, as I previously mentioned on this blog, and then the Bakerloo line up to Charing Cross where I changed onto the District / Circle to Earls Court, South Kensington etc.

Those from a later time might be puzzled and ask, "change at Charing Cross for the district line? But it doesn't go there. don't you mean Embankment? Of course today it doesn't so today they'd be right.

***

A few years ago I was watching a old Dr Who film of Dalek Invasion Earth 2163 (I had seen it at the cinema when I was a kid - but let's not go there!) when I saw an anachronism which made me laugh. The "freedom fighters" were hiding in an old wrecked underground station, Embankment, but when the film was made Embankment station didn't exist. ....

***

The history of the underground is one which has loads to offer, from innovation, to reuse of assets originally built for a different purpose to sharp business practice and even dare one suggest even darker episodes, (of which more another time), But whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a straightforward well-planned project.

Built by several private companies competing, often to the detriment of each other, as well as the public and their shareholders, the station complex which is now Embankment illustrates the chaos which resulted very well.

The oldest part of the station was opened on 30th May 1870 by the Metropolitan District Railway (now the District line) at the time that the company extended its line between Westminster and Blackfriars in conjunction with the building of the Victoria Embankment. Due to its proximity to the South Eastern Railway's Charing Cross station, the station was called Charing Cross.

So it remained until 1906, (though there were some plans for an express route that never materialised), when the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo Line) opened its deep-level platforms beneath, and at ninety degrees to, the platforms of the Metropolitan District Railway. Though connected to the older station, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway decided to name its platforms differently, as Embankment.

Then in 1914, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (now a part of the Northern line) opened a one stop extension south from its terminus at Charing Cross. This was built to make a better connect between the Baker Street and Waterloo, and Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railways, as both lines were by then owned by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London which operated two separate, and unconnected, stations at the northern end of the Charing Cross mainline station; Trafalgar Square on the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway. and Charing Cross on the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway.

The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway extension was constructed as a single track tunnel running south from Charing Cross as a loop under the River Thames and back.

For the opening of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway extension, the deep-level parts of the station were named "Charing Cross (Embankment)" although the sub-surface platforms remained as Charing Cross, but in 1915, this was simplified by changing the name of the whole station to Charing Cross. The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway station at the northern end of the Charing Cross mainline station was renamed Strand at the same time.

In the 1920s, as part of the construction of what is now the Northern line, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway was extended south to Waterloo and Kennington where it was connected to the City & South London Railway. The loop tunnel under the river was abandoned (although the present northbound Northern line platform follows its course) and two new tunnels were bored south. The new extension was opened on 13 September 1926.

So everything stayed until the Jubilee line came to town. As part of the new construction the two old stations, Trafalgar Square and Strand were to be linked, and new platforms added for the Terminus of the new line. Strand was closed for a long period for the work, then in 1976, shortly after I started work, the old Charing cross became Embankment, so that the merged Strand and Trafalgar Square stations could be named Charing Cross.

So the stations remain today, Embankment, where it belongs on the embankment and Charing Cross under the main line station of the same name.

How did the makers of the Dr Who film predict that in the 1960s?

St George the Martyr

At the end of Borough High Street in South London is a Church, surrounded on all sides by roads one of which is the main road to London Bridge it's not the most salubrious location, though by comparison with the history of this area and certain churchmen and "Winchester Geese" associated with it, a little traffic noise and pollution are a pretty tame.

The church building doesn't seem anything out of the ordinary either, but in fact dates back to the 1730s so is older than many Victorian Churches with which it might be confused.

There is an interesting story to be told about this particular church however, and it's about its clock. A few years ago my mother told me that one of the clock faces is black while the other three are white, which seems a little odd.

She told me that the black one points towards Bermondsey and, the story goes, is black because the people there refused to give money to help build the church.

All history papers record apparently is that it is painted “in as good and handsome a manner as the Clock at Greenwich Church” and was made by George Clarke of Whitechapel, costing a massive £90 in 1738.

So, using an appropriate religious reference, is it an apocryphal story? Well we may never be able to prove it, and it important to note that the relevant dial is the one over the roof of the main building which may explain the different colouration. The story is a fun one though so I hope it true.

Laurie Smith

London Stone

I only really became properly aware of the London Stone relatively recently, in the mid-Nineties when my then partner moved to London and went to work near The Bank.

Sometimes, as you do, you accompany your partner to work, or meet them after for various reasons and that meant arriving at Cannon Street station and crossing the road to walk up St Swithin's Lane.

Doing that took me past a very odd box set into the wall with a plaque set into the top. Well I'm a bit of a sucker for plaques and looking at it I found .....

"This is a fragment of the original piece of limestone once securely fixed on the ground now fronting Cannon Street Station

Removed in 1742 to the north side of the street in 1798 it was built into the south wall of Church of St Swithun London Stone which stood here until demolished in 1962.

Its origin and purpose are unknown but in 1188 there was a reference to Henry, son of Eylwin de Londenstane, subsequently Lord Mayor of London. "

Well as regular readers of my blog will know that was a reason to do some research and shortly I found a whole set of interesting myths.

The Stone is sometimes called the Stone of Brutus because one myth is that the stone was part of an altar built by Brutus of Troy, the legendary founder of London. Another part of that story is that "So long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish"

Other stories suggest that it is all that remains of an ancient stone circle, said to have once stood on Ludgate Hill, or even that it is the stone from which King Arthur drew Excalibur. A more likely tale is however that it is the the place from which the Romans measured all distances in Britannia.

Certainly it was at the heart of the City of London, and it is said was once a place where deals were forged and oaths were sworn and the point from which official proclamations were once made.

Originally it was situated in the middle of Cannon Street and was much larger than it is now. It was moved, (though why doesn't seem to be recorded), and set into the wall of St Swithin's Church, which was on this site before it was bombed during the Second World War. The Stone was unscathed, so the city survived as per the Brutus Legend.

The stone and the box, which with its substantial iron grille make seeing the stone itself difficult, was listed as a Grade Two Star structure in 1972.

So I don't think it very likely we will get better view of this ancient relic any time soon.

Seven Faces of the West End

Tucked away in the West End behind Leicester Square and Covent Garden is an unusually named area. I first heard of it when I was watching The Gentle Touch in the early 80s because that TV cop series was set there (albeit that many scenes were filmed in Kennington which I was much more familiar with).

I had no idea why it was called that and to start with I didn't know where it was, I even confused it with Seven Sisters in my mind at first, as I knew of that area from visiting an aunt. In fact however it was named for a sundial, a rather unique one however which has an interesting history.

The original layout of the Seven Dials area was designed by Thomas Neale in the early 1690s as part of the great rebuilding programme in London following the Great Plague and Fire. Originally there were to be six roads converging on a central circus, although this was later increased to seven probably in order to maximise the number of houses that could be built on the site, or at least the income that could be raised from the estate, as at that time rental values were based on the frontage, and not on the square footage.

In the middle of the circus was erected a doric column as a centrepiece, with a dial stone of six facets, each with sundials. So where is the seventh dial? Well, it's said that the column is itself the 7th gnomon and the circus the dial, though how you would read it and indeed how it would cast a shadow when it's often in the shade of one of the surrounding buildings is a question needing an answer! Sundials however were commonly used as public timepieces in late 17th Century London before the arrival of the accurate clocks of today, as similar 4 faceted ones erected at Convent Garden in 1688 and New Square, Lincoln's Inn from around 1700 testify.

Neale disposed of his interest in the site, and the rest of the development was carried out by individual builders over the next 15 years. Today his involvement is recorded only by two street names - Neal Street and Neal's Yard.

Over the years the area went into decline and by the middle of the 18th century to the extent that 39 night-watchmen were needed to keep the peace; and by the early 19th century the area became famous, together with St. Giles to the north, as the most notorious rookery in London

During this period the column was removed. There are various stories about why, that this was due to it being pulled down by an angry mob or that the column was destroyed in an attempt to find buried treasure which was rumoured to be underneath.

In fact the column was acquired by architect James Paine, who kept the stones at his house in Addlestone, Surrey for the following years.


There its story might have ended, but when a popular philanthropist died in Weybridge a collection in her memory was organised by local publican Joseph Todd for a monument to her, Princess Frederica Duchess of York, and the stones were re-erected as a monument in Weybridge. It was decided however that the dial stone was too heavy to cap it, and a ducal coronet was used instead with the base of the column inscribed to the Duchess.

The "Dial Stone" was used as a mounting block at first, later being moved to the Council Offices, then to the west side of the library where it can still be seen.

The Seven Dials Monument Charity was set up in 1984, at the request of Camden Council, to finally restore one of the City's 'great public ornaments' to the now historic conservation area of Seven Dials. Various attempts have made this century to have column the returned to its original site in Seven Dials, but Weybridge refused to return it.

Luckily for the Charity Edward Pierce's original working drawing was held in the British Museum, which enabled architect A.D. 'Red' Mason to faithfully reproduce 'this great public ornament'. One of the problems for the project was how to design the foundations so as to satisfy all the authorities whose services ran beneath the Dials. Eventually they built an underground platform which bridges the services.

The column, made from 'Whitebed', one of the finest types of Portland Stone was carved and erected in 1988/89 with the bulk of the work carried out by trainee masons at Vauxhall College and Ashby and Horner Stonemasonry, a large youth training project.

The trainee masons raised and lowered all the stones by hand, using similar methods to those used in the Seventeenth Century. Each section of the column sits on reinforcing pins joining it to the sections below. The whole erecting process took two and a half months.

Caroline Webb designed, carved and gilded the Dial faces with each face enabling different hours of the day to be read, so it was essential that each face was carved exactly to astronomical calculations, and then that the Dial stone, weighing 1 tonne, was placed accurately. In the end three days were spent with an astronomer on site setting the stone so that each of the 6 faces is now accurate within ten seconds.

Once erected two 40 foot Carlsberg Lager Cans hid the Monument until its unveiling, which was performed by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, accompanied by her husband Prince Claus 29th June 1989. The lager can advertising raised ￡10,000 for the charity.

Nowadays I often walk through the circus on my way from Charing Cross to Bloomsbury, there are often people hanging about, sitting on the Crepidoma or base around the column drinking either coffee or something stronger. Perhaps the undesirables in the area hanging around the original column was the cause of it being removed. We will never know for sure but it's certainly a nice area on a sunny day, let us hope this one stays put and doesn't move to the country.

Laurie Smith

More information can be found at http://www.sevendials.com/the_seven_dials_monument_charity.htm

Additional Pictures can be seen by clicking on the links in the text

The Duke of York's Column

Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square is not only famous nationally, but internationally; one of the icons of London. Yet a few hundred yards away, and not even that as the pigeon flies, stands another, neglected column, this one to a soldier. Yet he also played an important role in the Napoleonic wars, and even has a nursery rhyme commemorating him -
even if not a complementary one!

I first saw him across the rooftops from the canteen in the first building I worked in and at first glance I thought it was Nelson I could see, but quickly realised it wasn't and went in search of him

The column is in memory of the Duke of York, the second son of George III and stands at the top of the Duke of York steps overlooking the Mall.
He was, it's said, his father's favourite son but remained, however, somewhat in the shadow of his flashy elder brother, George, Prince of Wales, especially after the latter became Prince Regent due to the mental incapacity of the King.

As many aristocratic sons did, he made a career in the army and in 1793, the Duke of York was sent to Flanders in command of the British contingent and as a result, his father promoted him to the rank of field marshal, and then Commander-in-Chief. So no nepotism there then!

His arrival at his second field command coincided with a number of disasters befalling the force, and as these military setbacks were inevitable given the Duke's lack of combat experience, the lamentable state of the British army at the time and the intervention of pure bad luck during the campaign; the Prince is perhaps unfairly, pilloried for
all time in the rhyme...

...The Grand Old Duke of York,

The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up.
And when they were down, they were down.
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.

Particularly unfair, as given his experience of the poor performance of the army in Flanders, he carried out many significant structural, training and logistical reforms during his service as the army's commander-in-chief. These reforms contributed to Britain's subsequent successes in the wars against Napoleon.

Another change he made, and one closer to the heart of many a squaddie was the introduction of "Beer money". The nickname was given to an allowance, started in 1800, that was given to non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Actually it was only a penny per day and was a replacement for a daily issuance of beer or spirits while troops were on home
service. The allowance continued until 1873 when it was rolled into the soldier's daily pay. So nothing extra in fact and one wonders if the penny would cover what the soldiers would actually spend on beer in a day!

When he died in 1827, the entire Army gave up a day's wages in order to pay for a monument to the Duke. Accounts vary as to how voluntary this was but that was the source of the money used to raise the column which was started in 1833 and finished a year later.

Inside the column is hollow and a spiral staircase of 168 steps leads to the viewing platform around the base of the statue. This however has been closed to the public for many decades. Though was once open in the afternoons for entry on payment of a fee.

The great height of the column - 123 feet 6 inches (37.64 m) - caused wits to suggest that the Duke was trying to escape his creditors, as the Duke died ￡2 million in debt. (An enormous sum in 1827! )Though I have also heard it said when Nelson's column was built the Navy insisted his column had to be higher as befitted a member of the senior service.

The stonework was designed by B. Wyatt in Aberdeenshire granite, the Tuscan column is topped by  the statue of Duke of York in the robes of the Order of the Garter, sculptured in bronze by Sir Richard Westmacott RA  it weighs in at well over 7 and half tons!!


Well, there he stands still, walked past by many who know little of him, and yet who know the rhyme belittling him. Sadly forgotten though maybe with his reforms, as important in his own way in beating Napoleon as either Nelson or Wellington.

The grand ol' Duke of York, appropriately, at the top of his own little hill of steps.

Laurie Smith

Monument at the Elephant

When I was child I remember being taken by my Mum and Nan to see the new shopping centre at the Elephant and Castle.

I'm not sure why we went, though I think there was something about going to the Green Shied Stamp shop for something, but while we were there we went up to the floor where the actual Elephant and Castle stood inside in the middle of the cross made by the walkways. In those days it was also not painted, just stone.

Well for us living in Peckham there wasn't much to draw us all the way to the Elephant, probably mainly the aforesaid Green Shield Stamp shop, so I never knew it that well until I stated work, when I used to travel through there regularly to get to Westminster or Whitehall on the bus, or get off and onto the underground to go further afield.

It was then I first really took more notice of the giant silver cuboid in the middle of the roundabout. It was quite impressive, but what was it?

It was years later I found out, first that it was a large power substation and later still that it was in that silver box (rather than buried underground as the one in Leicester Square is) because is also has a second purpose – as a memorial.

However, getting back to my Mum a story she told was of her Headmaster, one Mr Crickmer who with an interest in local history told the kids in Scarsdale Road school, about the local area, including one story about Michael Faraday. So what is his story and why is a sub station on a South London roundabout a memorial to him?

Well Michael Faraday was born nearby in 1791 to a Blacksmith and his wife, but was apprenticed not into that trade, but as a bookbinder. Reading gave him an interest in science and soon he applied to Humphrey Davy (inventor of the Davy Lamp) as an assistant. It was here that he got his scientific education and by 1821 he was experimenting with electromagnetism! Working with Davy and William Hyde Wollaston who had both worked on electrical principles and theory, Faraday, went on to build two devices to produce what he called electromagnetic rotation: a continuous circular motion from the circular magnetic force around a wire and a wire extending into a pool of mercury with a magnet placed inside. This work led eventually both to the Electric Motor and later the dynamo.

Faraday also wrapped two insulated coils of wire around an iron ring, and found that, upon passing a current through one coil, a momentary current was induced in the other coil. This is of course the basis of a transformer, the underlying technology used in power transmission, and therefore in power substations. Faraday's iron ring-coil apparatus is still on display at the Royal Institution.

These brief notes can of course not possibly do justice to this man who was responsible for so much more than just some electrical work, but gives a flavour of why this man's memory is commemorated by of all things a power substation. For more information on Faraday's life click here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday

Back at the memorial it is said that when this twenty three metres wide and six metres tall cuboid was built in 1961 nobody really knew what it was. Well 30 odd years later the same was still true as in June 1995, the Evening Standard ran a story with a picture of the box headlined “But what on earth is it?” and this does make me wonder if actually the plan was to save burying the station and it was only later that someone had the wheeze of calling it a memorial.

However I've also read that its architect, Rodney Gordon, intended his design to embody the visionary credentials of our hero. It was originally to be a box of glass which would allow the public to see the transformer which sits within, but fears of vandalism scuppered this idea and with it the clearest link between Faraday’s work and the modern world, so it was that steel replaced glass as the primary construction material.

In 1996 Blue Peter held a competition for children to design a new lighting scheme for the site and in the same year the structure was given grade II listed status. It even has a long dedication in a series if stone plaques set into the ground in front of it – they read ...

“This Stainless Steel Sculpture commemorates MICHAEL FARADAY(1791 – 1867) English Chemist and Physicist Known For His Research Into Electricity and Magnetism Who Lived Locally”

The cuboid's 728 stainless steel panels have stayed very shiny at least from a distance, so it is a survivor and with its listed status will presumably be included into the redevelopment of the site, though, like the Elephant and Castle statue I originally saw in the middle of Shopping Centre, it might get moved around. After all the elephant stood originally on the top of a pub from which the area got its name, and now stands looking at the Metropolitan Tabernacle and has , in it's time been painted bright horrendous pink!

Faraday also moved around of course, and while born locally, died at his Grace and Favour house at Hampton Court on 25 August 1867.

He had previously turned down burial in Westminster Abbey, but he has a memorial plaque there, near Isaac Newton's tomb, but Faraday was actually interred in the dissenters' (non-Anglican) section of Highgate Cemetery.

So next time you're sitting in traffic around the Elephant roundabout spare a thought for the poor blacksmith's son turned good who's work not only helped start you vehicle it also helps light your home.

Laurie Smith