Painting Peckham ............. standing in a pub with no beer ....... the Carlton Tavern on Culmore Road

Now it’s just one of those things that “there's nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.”*

The Carlton Tavern 2015 from a photograph, 2008

Which I guess might well be the closing words for the Carlton Tavern.

It did the business of pulling and serving pints on Culmore Road from 1867 till sometime around 2011.

But like so many pubs around the country that fateful mix of cheap supermarket beer, changing life styles and the onward march of the bar culture have done for so many traditional drinking places.

So as part of Peter’s ongoing project to paint the pubs of Peckham here is his painting of the Carlton Tavern taken from a 2008 photograph on London Pubology that excellent site for all things to do with London pubs and from where I discovered a little of his history.**

The Carlton tavern, 2015

And by sheer coincidence just a few days earlier Adam Burgess sent me another photograph of the place which he tells me “is now a block of flats but  has still got the advertising for the world cup on the blackboards” and if you look closely there also is the old  sign standing outside.

But for all that it is still a pub with no beer which brings me back to that song which I must have first heard sometime in the late 1950s.

It was adapted by Gordon Parsons from Dan Sheehan’s poem "A Pub with No Beer"  and was made popular by fellow Australian country singer Slim Dusty.

Since then it has been covered by a shedful of singers and has settled so deep into our culture that I assumed it was an old Victorian music hall song.

And along the way it has become the anthem for any one whose pub has temporarily run out of beer which is why it was such a hit in Ontario in 1958 when a strike at of Canadian brewery workers stopped the flow of beer for 48 days.

Slim Dusty

But that like the song is for another time leaving me only to reflect that having spent the last hour listening to the songs of Dusty Slim I have become a fan.***

Not that I suspect I will win many converts in our house for his brand of Australian country music which like all good country music mixes simplicity with a dash of truth and humour.

All of which is a long way from Culmore Road and that pub with no beer.

Location; Peckham, London

Painting; The Carlton Tavern, © 2015 Peter Topping from a photograph, 2008 in London Pubolgy 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Picture; The Carlton Tavern, 2015, courtesy of Adam Burgess and Slim Dusty reproduced from ABC News, 2003


*Slim Dusty sings a Pub with No Beer,  https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=Slim+Dusty+sings+a+Pub+with+No+Beer&fr=mcafee&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asb%2Crgn%3Atop&ei=UTF-8

** Carlton Tavern, 45 Culmore Road, Peckham SE15
http://pubshistory.com/LondonPubs/Camberwell/CarltonTavern.shtml

***State funeral planned for Slim Dusty, ABC News  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-09-19/slim-dusty-hangs-up-his-spurs/1481156

Celebrating Civic Art ………. "The History of the Old Kent Road"

Now, sometimes I think there is a cross over in stories I write about my own patch of south east London, and the places I have washed up in since I came north.

And this is one of those stories.

"The History of the Old Kent Road",  1965, is located on the former North Peckham Civic Centre.  It is a Ceramic tiled mural by Adam Kossowski, and was installed long after I left Peckham for Eltham.

That said on a rare return visit I came across it, and was impressed.  But in those days I didn’t own a camera, and have not been back since, so the mural depicting the story of the Old Kent Road was lost to me.

Until that is John King posted these three images a few years ago on a facebook site, and the rest as they say was an “instant snatch”.

I often use John’s extensive collection of pictures from where I was born and grew up, and he has always been most kind in granting me permission to use them.

And at times has sent over photographs which complement and add to the stories I post.

So back to the "The History of the Old Kent Road",  which was produced by Adam Kossowski, who was a Polish ceramic artist, who came to Britain in 1943.

At which point I could lift and repeat the  story of Mr. Kossowski which I found on Wikipedia, but that would not do.

Those who want to know more, should follow the link, and instead I will just reflect on the tradition of publicly commissioned artwork which used to adorn many of our civic buildings.*

I am sure it still happens, but I haven’t come across much of it recently, and that is a shame.

That is all there is to say, other than to thank John for sharing the mural with all of us who never get “home”, and equally for all those north, south west or east of Peckham.

And perhaps this will be the first of a new series where we share public “murials” paintings and statues  we like.

Location; North Peckham

Pictures; "The History of the Old Kent Road",  "The History of the Old Kent Road",  1965, Peckham 2020, from the collection of John King


*Adam Kossowski, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Kossowski

Walking past the Montague Arms, on Queens Road

Now the Monatgue Arms is one of the places that does not loom large in my memory.

I would have passed it regularly enough, given that Lausanne Road where we lived  was on the route via Queens Road and Kender Street  to New Cross Library.

But we left Peckham when I was thirteen so the place was  just  a pub I passed and never went in.

All of which means it's story and its history belong to others.

That said I rather think my old friend Peter has captured it well.

Peter and I have worked on many projects including an eighty meter instalation, and I rather think we just have begun a new one.

After all there are some fine buildings with intriguing stories waiting to be recorded.

Painting; The Montague Arms, © 2011 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Painting Peckham ............. baking a bun, and losing a pub The Bun House

Now there should be a competition for what to do with a redundant bakery in Peckham.

If this was 1896 the obvious answer would be to turn it into a pub and call it the Bun House, and when in the fullness of time the market for pubs dries up then there is always a chance a bookmaker will take it over.

Which I think pretty much tells the story of the Bun House on Peckham High Street.

I never went in there but I bet a lot of people did so perhaps Peter’s painting will set the stories rolling.

We shall see.

Location; Peckham, London

Painting; The Bun House Peckham High Street, © 2015 Peter Topping 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Painting Peckham ............ that Telephone Exchange

Now I recently used that well known phrase “you can take the boy out of Peckham but you can’t take Peckham out of the boy.”

It was during a conversation with my old friend Peter who reposted “you can take the boy out of Preston but you can’t take Preston out of the boy” which pretty much tells you where we were born.

All of which led to an exchange of banter about the merits of both places and at the end of it all I promised to write about Preston and Peter decided to paint Peckham.

I say paint Peckham but it would be more accurate to say he has set about painting some of those iconic buildings we all know and remember.

The series will run alongside “My Peckham” which reflects on some of the buildings and places which mean a lot to me.*

And in some cases Peter’s painting and my stories will replicate each other but then there will be plenty who say you can never get enough of Peckham.

He has already painted the Montague Arms, and the old New Cross Library which will appear later in the month.

And here because I like it and it struck such a resonance with everyone when I wrote about it the other day is the New Cross Telephone Exchange, which Peter painted from an original photograph by Stephen Craven.**

Painting; The New Cross Telephone Exchange © 2015 Peter Topping
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

* My Peckham .............. nu 1 the New Cross Telephone Exchange St Mary’s Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/my-peckham-nu-1-new-cross-telephone.html 


** New Cross Telephone Exchange, © Copyright Stephen Craven and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence, http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/23315

The gas mask and the pub sign without a pub ............ on Queens Road with one more half forgotten adventure

Me roundabout the time of the gas mask adventure

Now I know that we found the gas mask in a row of derelict houses on Queens Road up past the station.

I always thought that the block had been the victim of the Blitz, but it is more likely they were just awaiting demolition having done seventy or so years and were too tired to be saved.

But it will be 60 or so years since Jimmy, me and John Cox went exploring in the houses.

I remember they were still pretty much intact and somehow we got inside, wandered around and came across a pristine gas mask, still in its box.

It had that shinny look as if it had just come off the production line, with not a mark or scratch.

The filter I remember was white and there was a green painted strip around the black nozzle and I have no idea what happened to it.

It will have been the prize of the day but who took possession of it or what they did with it is lost but that was how adventures went back in the 1950s.

The London & Brighton Railway Hotel, 2008

Most never started out as adventures, just an aimless walk on a pretty ordinary day when you hoped it wouldn’t rain.

But sometimes the day was transformed and the memory of what you did stayed at the back of your mind to be brought out just occasionally.

So as you do I went looking for the site of that adventure.

It will have been somewhere along Queens Road just past the station but the search proved in vain.

On the corner of Asylum and Queens Road and the sign with no pub

Of course what replaced our row in 1960 may have been torn down but the walk was not entirely a waste of time because once again I was presented with that odd sight of a pub sign without a pub.

There on the corner with Asylum Road is a smart block of flats which went up last year and standing beside it was the pub sign for the old London and Brighton Hotel.

I don’t remember the pub and have fallen back on that excellent site London Pubology for this picture taken in 2008.*

The London and Brighton Railway Hotel opened in 1867 the same years as the railway station, and served its last pint in 2009 before being demolished in 2013.*

Nor is it the only local to be remembered by its pub sign.  Just over a month ago I came across the Railway Tavern on Gibbon Road and the Carlton on Culmore Road both now no longer offering up a night of beer and cheer but commemorated by their old signs.

It’s not something I have come across before but I like the idea and just wonder how many other old drinking haunts have their ghost sign.

It could even become a new set of adventures replicating those of 55 years ago and ably assisted by many of my new friends from Peckham and New Cross.

Leaving me only to reflect on the station opposite the old London & Brighton.  It is a place I haven’t used for half a century and yet I can vividly remember the long steps up to the wooden platforms some of which had gaps allowing you stare down.

All of which is a story for another adventure.

Pictures; in the spring of 1960, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, the London and Brighton Hotel, 2008 courtesy of London Pubology, the corner of Asylum and Queens Road, August 20015 courtesy of Adam Burgess and the Railway Tavern  with sign circa 1960 from the collection of Adrian Parfitt

*London Pubology, http://www.pubology.co.uk/pubs/13.html

On Vassall Road ............with a water trough, the Union and a butter factory

Vassall Road trough, 2015

Now I have Ros to thank for these fine pictures of the water trough at Vassall Road and as ever there is a story which unites the trough, the Union and a butter factory.

Vassall Road was outside my comfort zone when I was growing up in Lausanne because it was just a tad too far to walk looking for adventures.

Back then adventures started with a walk except on those rare occasions when we spent our pocket money on a train trip from Queens Road or bought a Red Rover.

Neither of which ever took me down towards Camberwell New Road.

So Ross’s water trough was new to me and unlike so many it has been preserved and in the absence of passing horses and other livestock has been filled with flowers.

But the inscription exhorting kindness “to your animals” can still be read even if one of the stone emplacements which would have protected the trough from wheel hubs of passing wagons has been lost.

And intrigued by its survival I went looking for it on the old maps and there it was just where Ros left it yesterday.

And in 1953

Sometimes these troughs were moved from the centre of a crossroads as part of road widening schemes or just because they were getting in the way of the growing amount of traffic, but ours seems to have been sited on Vassall Road by the early 1950s and while it doesn’t show up on earlier maps I am guessing this is where it has always been.

Close enough to the old Union public house for the odd carter to leave his wagon in charge of his assistant and while his horse drank from the tough nipped in to the pub for a quick pint.

And having chatted to Mr Cook the landlord of the Union our carter might have gone off to deliver to one of the many small factories in the area.

The trough, the Union and the Butter factory, 1953

Now Mr Cook was pulling pints at the pub in 1914 and not long before there had been a smithy just across the way on Farmer Road and later still a Butter Factory and Kenoval House (Roller Shutter Factory).

Today there are still some industrial units along the road opposite the Academy and bits of them may date back to our butter factory roller shutter factory but the set of streets which included Warrior Road, Westhall Road and Elfin Road have gone.

And even the Union has undergone change with part of it becoming Bar Lenuccia which makes the survival of the water trough something to marvel over.

Pictures; the water trough on Vassall Road, courtesy of Ros Parks, and detail of Vassall Road and Farmer’s Road, 1953, historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical.
 with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group

Find a sixpence and lose ten bob ............. another adventure down on Asylum Road

Find a sixpence and lose ten bob appealed to mother’s sense of morality and has stuck with me all my life.

And I can point to more than a few times when that momentary feeling of being  flush with luck was dispelled and dispelled in a big way.

Usually they happened during an adventure and the Saturday down at Asylum Road in the summer of 1959 was no exception.*

To this day I can’t remember how I got to know about the Fun Day at the old Alms Houses but there was that familiar mix of stalls, silly things to do along with popcorn, and gas filled balloons which lifted up into the air and were gone in an instant.

Back then I had no idea of the history of the place.

According to Historic England the former almshouse chapel at the heart of the complex which dates "from 1827-31 ...... is leased by the London Borough of Southwark to a local artists' group. The condition of the building continues to decline and extensive repairs are required. Discussions are progressing to identify funding for full condition and structural surveys in order to assess the extent of necessary works."**

All of which was lost on me back then.

I remember spending all my pocket money and then walking the long walk home under the railway bridge on Clifton Road, via Pomeroy Street to Lausanne Road.

And it will have been somewhere by the railway bridge that I found the parcel, neatly wrapped in brown paper tied with string with a local address.

I could have just left it on the pavement which would have been the easy thing to do or worse still opened it but no I chose to deliver it with that sense that this was the right thing to do superimposed  with the hope that here might be a reward.

I can’t now remember where on Queens Road but it will have been one of those houses between Lausanne and St Mary’s Road, which back then were trading on former glory and looked a little sad.

Undaunted I delivered the parcel, was thanked for my honesty and left on the door step with just the knowledge that it contained nothing more than a sandwich.

To this day I have no idea why it had an address or how it got to be under the railway bridge but it is one of those memories long lost which has been brought out into the day light by Adam’s pictures of the alms house in Caroline Gardens.

They were originally known as the Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum and provided homes for retired pub landlords.

“During the last war the residents had been moved out and while they returned when the war was over the decision was made to relocate to Buckinghamshire in 1959 and the asylum was sold to Southwark Council in 1960, "which to this day uses it as social housing. 

Southwark renamed it “Caroline Gardens” after Caroline Secker, a former resident and widow of James Secker, who was the marine in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), said to have caught Nelson when he fell."***

Now I have to confess I have never been back but I am minded to do so and may will revisit a few more of those “find a sixpence and lose ten bob” stories.

Well we shall see.

Pictures; Caroline Gardens, 2015 from the collection of Adam Burgess

* A day on Asylum Road trying to remember that event 56 years ago, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/a-day-on-asylum-road-trying-to-remember.html

** Licensed Victuallers Almshouses: Chapel, Asylum Road SE15 – Southwark, Heritage At Risk Register, 2015, http://risk.historicengland.org.uk/register.aspx?id=47500&rt=1&pn=48&st=a&re=London&ctype=all&crit=

***Asylum history, http://asylumlondon.org/history/

Down on New Cross Road with a ghost sign

Now what surprises me more than anything about ghosts signs is that so many of them have survived for so long.

For those who don’t know they are adverts for businesses and products which have long ago vanished.

Most will have been painted on the sides of buildings up to a century ago but despite no one looking after them they are still there.

Many have lost their original bright colour and are fading fast while others are quietly without fuss peeling away.

And so it is with this one captured by Adrian on the side of 102 New Cross Road.

I haven’t been able to date it but I am making a start.  Back in 1910 this was the premises of Edis Bertarm, tobacconist which gives me a century and a bit to play with.

And as you do I went looking for Mr Bertram who has proved elusive and instead I found John Cole Tyler and his wife Louisa Susanah who in the spring of 1911 were renting three rooms at 102.  He made a living from laying paving stones and they had been married for four years.

The census return offered no clue as to whether Mr Bertram was still there or if the shop had become a grocers.

Of course he may have lived elsewhere which is even more frustrating given that at 100 I know John Henry Clarke was still carrying on his boot making business.

But there was quite a bit of turnover in both occupants and traders between the end of 1909 and the middle of 1911 so I shouldn’t be surprised at my failure to find him.

It will just mean a painstaking search of the directories which at some point will turn up a grocery shop with a date for when it opened its doors till it closed.

That may take some time but then the ghost sign is still there.

Picture; ghost sign, 102 New Cross Road 2015, from the collection of Adam Burgess

Back on Lausanne Road ............... sometime around 2000 with a little bit of technological history

Stepping back the 3310, circa 2000

Now as phones go the Nokia 3310 is as obsolete as our old valve wireless and sits in the history of mobile communication somewhere in the Dark Ages.

But long after the pop up hand set, or all the variations of smart phones have had their day there will be a place for the Nokia 3310.

It was released at the end of 2000 and replaced the 3210 which was the first mass market mobile with an internal antenna, allowed you to send preinstalled pictures and played Snake.

I think mine was a 3310 but it is just possible it was a 3210, but we are talking a long time ago and it may even be that I upgraded.

Either way I have decided to downgrade to the 3310 which is perhaps no great slide back into history given that my present phone is a 6310 which already puts me walking with dinosaurs.

My old 3310 long went, having been lent to two of my eldest sons when their more clever phones gave up the ghost.  It was much knocked about and finally was held together by celotape, but still it worked, until finally with no back, chipped and scratched it was lost.

So this relic of a past age which I shall be using belonged to Simone who would have bought it sometime around 2000 in Varese a small town an hour from Milan.

Discarded and forgotten

It did for him for 14 years and now sits in our house waiting for the bits to bring it back to life.

Already I have the sim card and eagerly await a charger which with luck will be here within the week.

All of which may seem a non story but the 3310 was and is a piece of history.  Its predecessor the 3210 sold 160 million while it sold 126 million and both are still fondly remembered.

And the general consensus has been that it is a pretty neat idea to bring such a stylish and historic phone out of the past and while I may not be able to find out the price of fish in Rome, or the best route to Halifax, the battery on my 3210 will not run out by midday, when I drop it it it will just bounce and yes I will in the absence of Wi fi and internet just sit and play Snake.

So a new lease of life for an old favourite which will be better than the assortment of discarded phones I found in a draw.

All were owned by various members of the family and all abandoned for  sleeker and more expensive models.

Now there is the germ of another story.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On washing a Nokia 6310

Today I washed my phone.

It was of course not prompted by a desire to give it a clean or even to test out how a fifteen year old Nokia hand set survives a 54 minute number 3 wash cycle.

It was instead just a daft mistake and is really a reminder of how checking in the pockets is a sensible thing to do.

And of course it raises again just how much we have all become reliant on these hand held communication devices.

Now using a telephone box won’t be that much of a hassle but I fear that for a while at least I shall be deaf to the world added to which we will have to make arrangements when we are both out in town as to where we will meet and when, rather than rely on a quick call.

Not that this will be that much of a chore it is after all how have we all got by before the mobile.

A little of me wonders whether given its very basic nature my Nokia might just come through after a long period in the sun.

In the meantime I could revert to my Nokia 3310 which has the added advantage that its battery lasts forever, it bounces when you drop it and it plays Snake.

Alternatively perhaps it is time to explore smart phones, which because they are bigger than my Nokia are less likely to be forgotten in a pocket on wash day.

We shall see.

Picture; Nokia 6310, 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Discovering what happened to our library on New Cross Road ............. a pretty neat story

The library in 1911

Now this is how I remember the library at New Cross.

It was an old fashioned style of library with neat solid reading tables, matched by sturdy bookshelves full of everything you might ever want to read and laid out in meticulous order.

And because it was an old fashioned library the rule of silence sat on the place so that even the most accidental noise was greeted with a fierce glare by the librarian.

Of course it was impossible to completely screen out all sound.   Across in the Reading Room there would be the rustling of paper as the pages of the Times and Manchester Guardian were turned and along with that came the thump of the date stamp and the occasional loud bang as someone dropped their pile of books.

I had almost forgotten about the place until I came across an old library copy of a James Joyce book which mother had borrowed and never returned .

Sometime in the 1920s

And as you do I went looking for the library with little hope that it would still be there but the building has survived, although it no longer deals in books but has become home to the Music Room London which offers “a unique building with 5 different rooms ideally suited for a wide array of creative applications. Full bands, practicing drummers and instrumentalists, dance groups, theatrical productions, Photographic and video shoot applications will all find our facility an amazing resource for rehearsals and other sessions."*

In time I will take up their invitation and visit them but in the meantime I am very pleased that they turned over a collection of old images of the place with the promise of more to come.

Back in the 1950s we didn’t take pictures of the buildings we visited, after all if you went there regularly why would you?

But now a full half century on I wish I had access to more photographs of where I grew up especially given  trying to locate them is made just that bit more difficult when you live 180 miles north of New Cross.

Part of the problem is that some of the official images are copyright while the thousands that might have been taken as snaps have been lost or thrown out which in turn means that it can be difficult to get the picture you want.

So with that in mind here courtesy of the Music Room London are a fine collection pictures of the place.

The first was taken when it was opened on July 24 1911 and the second sometime in the 1920's

It was built as a Carnegie Library with money from the steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie, and was one of 660 which he funded in Britain, 1,689 in the United States, 125 in Canada and more elsewhere between 1883 and 1929.

And a day when the snow fell

From humble beginnings Mr Carnegie had built up a huge steel business before selling out for an estimated $500 million in 1901 and devoting himself to philanthropist projects.

Even before he retired he had been spending money on all sorts of projects of which the establishment of public libraries was just one.

And because everyone loves a then and now image here is our building again, but just a century or so later on a day when the snow fell from the sky.

All of which just leaves me to return to the story later in the month with more reflections on, New Cross Library, the London Music Room and the Police Gazette

Pictures; New Cross Library, July 1911, circa 1920's and after it had become the Music Room London 2014, courtesy of the Music Room London.



*Music Room London, http://www.musicroomlondon.com/

On Lausanne Road with that cast iron sewer pipe ................. now that’s a zippy tittle

Now I always took that tall cast iron sewer pipe beside the Swiss Tavern on the corner of Lausanne and Belfort Roads for granted.

Down in Plumstead

It was just one of those bits of street furniture you grew up with and as a result I never bothered to record it.

Happily our Colin took the one just down from Bastion Road in Plumstead and although it is painted in a slightly different colour it is no different.

Now I am pretty much sure I am going to be corrected today or at the very least attract someone who knows more about 19th century sewer ventilation pipes than I do.

They were for venting the sewers of the more obnoxious and even dangerous gasses which could accumulate down below and I suppose they are still necessary today.

Colin reckoned he heard running water when he took one picture of the base.

I have not come across one in Manchester but I bet there will be someone who has, and posts the fact with perhaps a picture.

I expect they help date the area.  One source I read suggested that they were erected in the years after the Great London Stink in 1858 and this would fit roughly with when my bit of Peckham was being laid out.

They were particularly necessary in hilly areas where gas could get trapped in pockets, and both my the area around Lausanne Road and Colin’s Plumstead are built on hills.

And at least one chap got in on the act and in 1895  Joseph Edmund Webb, of Birmingham, patented the

“Webb’s Patent Sewer Gas Destructor in  March 1895. 

At its top behind a glass, burned a small flame from the town’s gas supply. 

This acted as a chimney, drawing the sewer gas up to the flame, where it was ignited, thus illuminating the street. The cleverness of Mr Webb’s patent was the way it regulated the supply of sewer gas.
North Tyneside council has restored ten in Whitley Bay and Monkseaton. Blyth council has restored five. Sheffield, though, is the capital of the destructor.

Henry Eddie & Co, Bow Foundry

It was built on seven hills, so there were lots of folds and u-bends in its sewer system in which to trap gas.

From 1914 to 1935, it installed 84 destructors, of which 22 remain with three still at work, casting an orange glow on the Sheffield streets.*

And much to my surprise there is even a facebook page.**

Which I think might indeed be a fitting point to close on although I have yet to find Henry Eddie & Co Ltd or the Bow Foundry.

All I need now is someone to post me a picture of my old sewer pipe which will no doubt raise a verse of
“They are moving father’s grave to build a sewer," but that as they say is another story.***

Pictures; from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick 2013   

*The Northern Echo July 2008 http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/memories/3211527.Is_this_just_the_tip_of_the_stink_pole_/

**Sewer gas destructor lamp, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sewer-gas-destructor-lamp/138360699526339

***Of sewers, music halls and deep deep tunnels, Barlow Moor Road in 1911, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/of-sewers-music-halls-and-deep-deep.html

Standing on Willowbrook Road and wondering about the story behind the stone inscription on the Taylor Bridge

That stone, 1870

Now I just wonder what Edward Dresser Rogers would have made of the state of his foundation stone on Willowbrook Road.

It was laid in 1870 to mark the building of the replacement bridge over the Grand Surrey Canal.

The canal connected Camberwell to the Surrey Commercial docks and it opened in stages with the first stretch reaching the Old Kent Road in 1807, Camberwell three years later and finally arriving in Peckham in 1826.

Now according to my copy of Priestly* “the intended canal and cuts [were] supplied with water from the Thames, and all other rivers, streams, or brooks found in digging the said canal, except the River Wandle.”

But according to Mr Priestly “the work has not yet remunerated the proprietors for their outlay” and he was quite pessimistic it ever would.

That said the canal would still be doing the business until the end of the Second World War, when like so many canals it went into steep decline and was drained and filled in 1960.

So back in 1870 it was everything you would want of a working canal but needed a new bridge.  The old one known as Taylor’s was no longer fit for purpose and was replaced.

Which brings us to that stone foundation much weather worn and vandalised.

The canal making its way through Camberwell, 1830

With the help of that excellent site, Burgess Park and the story that featured the Bridge to Nowhere reflecting back in time** I know that “in 1870 bridge replaced an earlier one, possibly wooden and opening to allow barges through, which had probably begun to cause traffic congestion. 

The local vestry, St Giles Camberwell, provided the funds, and the foundation stone, which may be seen underneath on the old towpath, was laid by Edward Dresser Rogers, Chairman of the General Purposes Committee of the Vestry, in 1869. 

The designer of the new bridge is named in the records as Mr. Dredge, Junior, a civil engineer.”

But if you want more you will have to follow the link and read the full story along with some excellent pictures.

That said I think I want to know more about Edward Dresser Rogers who lived at Hanover-park Rye Lane and left his name on that stone..

So as they say in those old films. and with an apology to Fu Manchu, .......the world has not heard the last of Mr Edward Dresser Rogers.

Pictures; that foundation stone kindly supplied by Constance Marie Gurney, and detail of the Grand Surrey Canal, going through Camberwell, from 1830, The Inland Navigation of England and Wales 
1830, George Bradshaw, courtesy of Digital Archive Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways Throughout The United Kingdom, John Priestly, 1830

** The Bridge to Nowhere reflecting back in time, Burgess Park, http://www.bridgetonowhere.friendsofburgesspark.org.uk/the-story-of-burgess-park-heritage-trail/heritage-trail-m-w/willowbrook-bridge/