- Go to gaol
- Finchley Lido
- Richmond Ice Rink
- Camden Goods Yard
- Barford Engineering
- Greater London news in brief
- London's pneumatic street tubes
- Vicar's notes
- 150news.pdf - part 1
- 150news.pdf - part 2
A new museum was opened in London in 1993, dealing with a subject hitherto untapped in the metropolis, namely 'crime and punishment'. In the early 1970s I was privileged to visit some prison cells situated beneath the playground of a school in Clerkenwell. Inspecting these by torchlight, little did I realise that they would be open to the public as the 'House of Detention' some twenty or so years later.
As is the case with most new museums they have barely scratched the surface of their subject. That is not to say that the museum has not researched the Victorian detention and penal system well. Phase one of the project has opened up a series of passages, a kitchen, a laundry and about a dozen cells, all of which are below ground level. There are guides to show you around and offer explanations on the layout and 'walkman' cassettes provide additional information.
Work has commenced on phase two, which will extend access to the remainder of the underground complex of passages and cells. There is plenty to interest the industrial archaeologist in the construction of the prison and the various changes made over the many years of its life. For those interested in this particular social aspect of life in the Victorian era I can recommend a visit to the 'House of Detention', Clerkenwell Close, London ECIR 0AS (tel: 071 253 9494). The museum is open seven days a week, 10.00 till 18.00. Peter Skilton
As a recent evocative television programme testifies, along with the current interest in matters art deco the 1930s lido, or outdoor swimming-pool complex, is attracting a band of enthusiasts. Unhappily for these enthusiasts swimming outdoors is losing in popularity as more heated indoor accommodation, often with high-tech aquatic attractions, becomes available.
Finchley Lido in the London Borough of Barnet dates from the early 1930s and is thought by some to be architecturally the finest example of its kind in North London. Recently it has been leaking and has become dirty and was closed towards the end of 1992. Situated in Finchley High Road the lido was fully opened by 1934 and during the 1948 Olympic Games was the venue for the water-polo events. Plans for redevelopment mean that it is unlikely to retain its present form for long.
The main pool opened on 26 March 1932 and holds a maximum of 456,250 gallons. Its dimensions are 165 feet by 80 feet and it has a maximum depth of ten feet at the diving end. There is an elliptical children's pool of the same overall dimensions which opened on 12 July 1934. Its depth varies from zero to 3 feet 6 inches and it holds 138,000 gallons.
Work was carried out under the supervision of Mr P T Harrison MICE, Finchley Borough engineer and architect. The contractors for the children's pool were William Moss and Sons Ltd. Water filters were by the Patterson Engineering Company and the Becco Engineering and Chemical Company. There is a shelter for which W J Cearns were the contractors. It need hardly be mentioned that the Twentieth Century Society has been taking a great interest. Bob Carr
The Richmond Ice Rink in East Twickenham alongside the Thames closed in January 1992 and was demolished in May that year. Plans were to build 250 flats on the site and construct another ice rink elsewhere but various problems have delayed building. A recent alternative suggestion is not to build the flats and erect a new ice rink on the old site.
It would appear that the completion of the original Richmond ice rink was delayed by the First World War as the site had become an armaments factory in 1916. This was the Pelabon Works of Charles Pelabon, a French-speaking Belgian industrialist. The works employed Belgian refugees including unfortunate soldiers who had lost a limb and it must have been quite a Belgian colony of exiles, a history of the works in French is entitled (translation) 'A Belgian City on the Thames'; there were about 6,000 Belgians in all. Twenty beds were made available for Belgian soldiers on leave and it was proposed to fit the wounded with artificial limbs.
The ice rink finally opened on 18 December 1928 with a rectangular ice surface 286 feet long by 80 feet wide, the major axis being parallel with the river and Clevedon Road. Not surprisingly such proportions made the ice the longest in any indoor rink in the world. It was envisaged that a thousand skaters could be accommodated at the same time with up to 3,000 spectators. However, in 1935 the ice surface was shortened to 200 feet and thereafter dimensions remained the same until the 1990s. Making use of the space saved a small separate ice rink called the Arosa was opened on 26 October 1938 and it continued in use until recently. The Richmond ice rink site is an interesting subject and it is hoped to write more in the future. Bob Carr
Between the Roundhouse at Chalk Farm and the Regent's Canal, Camden Town, is an extensive area of former railway goods yard essentially at first-floor level with some tunnels and vaults beneath. During the construction of Robert Stephenson's London and Birmingham Railway in the mid 1830s clay was transported here from Primrose Hill tunnel and associated cuttings to make up the ground.
There has been considerable debate as to how this now derelict area is to be re-used but it looks as if the outcome will be a Safeway supermarket and some housing with the underground features remaining relatively undisturbed. Recently the area formerly occupied by railway tracks, which accommodated mostly covered vans, has been used for car parking. If the supermarket is to consist of a low rise shed with large car park the industrial archaeological implications are not too serious. It is local residents fearing even more traffic congestion in the area who are concerned, not to mention local small shopkeepers. Bob Carr
At the west end of Northumberland Park, London N17, near White Hart Lane railway station is an attractive building of modest proportions dating from 1852. It is on the south side of Northumberland Park behind an earlier listed house on Tottenham High Road, which house at one time in the 19th century was the residence of a draper who had a few female apprentices. Whether this is relevant to the history of the small building in question is at present unknown.
Inside the building the timber roof structure is worth some attention and there are remains of line shafting, three lathes, a mechanical saw and remnants of electrical equipment. S Barford and Sons ran an engineering business at this address in more recent years. Bob Carr
St Stephen's Church on the corner of Pond Street and Roslyn Hill, Hampstead, by Samuel Sanders Teulon dates from 1869 and is listed grade 1. It has been unused for 16 years and there are now plans by the North London College of Health to convert the building into a library and education centre for nursing staff. There is also a scheme for a community and arts centre. Alan Teulon, who lives in Northampton and is a descendant of the Architect, favours the community centre scheme.
At Chalk Farm the Roundhouse is likely to be refurbished as some kind of arts/entertainment centre but there are objections from local residents who would like restrictions on noise late in the evening. It has been stressed that a nightclub would be inappropriate for the area.
A notable industrial archaeological London landmark is the circular piano factory in Camden Town on the corner of Oval Road and Gloucester Crescent NW1. The building, listed grade 2, dates from 1851 and was the works of Collard and Collard. It has recently been refurbished and is notable for good natural light around the perimeter of its floors. Piano manufacture here ceased in the 1920s. The Collard family had the acquaintance of the Italian composer and pianist Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) and their business produced pianofortes for a fairly up-market niche in the Victorian market. (Camden Town pianos generally were of a less exalted kind). Clementi, who lived much of his life in England, was a particularly pianistic composer and had a personal interest in piano manufacture. He wrote more than 60 piano sonatas.
The art deco ABC bakery Camden Town was demolished in the mid 1980s (GLIAS Newsletter February 1987) and our nostrils are no longer assailed by the delicious smell of baking bread. Sainsbury's have built a supermarket on the site and at first glance the new structure, by architects Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, might be mistaken for a small football stadium. Opened in December 1988 weathering problems that could give rise to structural difficulties with the supermarket have been noticed and the matter might even result in court action. Prestigious work by Grimshaw's includes the Financial Times printing works on the East India Docks site and the new Channel Tunnel terminal on the west side of Waterloo railway station.
Many adventurous proposals are being put forward to celebrate the millennium. The moat of the Tower of London, dry since early Victorian times, may once again be filled with water. To celebrate the year 2001 it has been proposed to build temporarily a replica of Sir Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace on its original site in Hyde Park. The Victorian Society has shown an interest in this scheme but of course there is the problem of finance.
The Morris Singer fine-art foundry traces its history back to 1848 when a company was started in Frome, Somerset, by John Webb Singer. This undertaking soon became a major works for the production of sculpture for outdoor public display. Many famous London statues were made by them including the figure of Justice above the Old Bailey and Boadicea in her chariot by Westminster Bridge.
In 1927 Singer's moved to Dorset Road, Lambeth, and merged with the Morris Art Bronze factory to form Morris Singer. After the Second World War a long association developed with the sculptor Henry Moore and the firm cast more than one hundred bronzes for this artist. In 1967 Morris Singer moved to Basingstoke where business continued successfully. The firm has a reputation second to none worldwide but sadly recent financial problems have made it necessary to bring in the receivers. It is hoped a buyer for the famous firm may yet be found.
In Richmond Road, Kingston upon Thames, the British Aerospace (former Hawker) factory has been completely demolished. This includes the office facade dating from the late 1950s and financed by the success of Hawker jet fighters. GLIAS paid a memorable visit here, to what was known as the Ham Factory, on Saturday 7 December 1991 just before production of the Harrier finished (GLIAS Newsletter February 1992). Bob Carr
London's pneumatic street tubes
The article in GLIAS Newsletter October 1993 outlined the chequered history of the old pneumatic parcels tube from St Martin-le-Grand to Euston. As a pneumatic system it joined the atmospheric railways as one of the expensive dead ends of Victorian engineering. However, St. Martins-le-Grand is also associated with the network of some 70 miles of a pneumatic tube system which now lies abandoned beneath London's streets. Like the hydraulic power pipe network, the pneumatic tubes were overtaken by improvement in other technologies.
The tube network was focused on the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) in St Martinsle- Grand on the site now occupied by the BT headquarters building. CTO was the hub of the Post Office's telegraph network and some 70 pneumatic tubes radiated out to busy telegraph branch offices, commercial cable company offices, as well as some newspaper and other firms. The longest route was from CTO to the Western District Office, a distance of 4500 yards. Another long route (3992 yds) went to the War Office from where more tubes radiated to the House of Commons and various government departments. The purpose of the tubes was to convey telegram forms in bulk to and from CTO. At the CTO, messages would be received and transmitted throughout the telegraph cable network and, in the days before the advent of teleprinters and automatic switching, sending the original telegraph message forms to CTO obviated the need to retransmit messages with the possibility of adding errors in the process. An early paper claimed that one tube alone saved 14 clerks and 7 telegraph circuits. Most tubes were point-to-point but some had intermediate stations. The busy routes generally had dedicated 'go' and 'return' tubes. less loaded routes had one tube sometimes these only worked in one direction but others could be worked alternately in either direction.
The first tube was installed by the Electric and International Telegraph Co. in 1853 and connected their offices in Telegraph Street (between Moorgate and Throgmorton Street) to the Stock Exchange. When the PO took over all public telegraph services in 1870, 15 tubes were in service. It was soon found that TS (As the Telegraph Street premises were called), was becoming hopelessly overcrowded and so the CTO was opened in 1874. CTO, incidentally, retained 'TS" as its telegraph call sign. CTO then became the centre of tube operations and ultimately about 70 tubes radiated from there. The bulk of the system was constructed of 2¼ in. internal diameter tubes but the longer, high-traffic density routes used 3 in. tube. The earliest tubes were of cast iron but it was found that rusting gave rise to many blockages of the carriers. The standard construction then adopted was to provide lead tubes placed inside cast iron pipes. The end result was a highly reliable system the only real hazard being the unwanted attentions of other excavators. A particular problem was that all the utilities used iron pipes and it was often difficult to know what carried what. The only means to determine which pipe was which, was to drill a hole in it and see what comes out! The hole would then be sealed off with a plug. If it happened to be a pneumatic tube there was a good chance that the plug would protrude through the cast iron and distort the lead and cause a blockage.
The telegraph messages were transported in a tubular carrier', in the case of the 2¼ in. tube, these ware 5 in, long, the original ones being made of gutta percha (a naturally-occurring polymer much used before plastics), the tube being covered with felt and with a substantial felt buffer at one end. Such a carrier carried up to 12 forms. There was a clearance of about 1/8 in. between carrier and tube - although air could then escape through the gap, the clearance avoided the carrier sticking en route if the tube was not quite circular. A fully-loaded carrier weighed about 6 oz and travelled at 20 mph this velocity being a compromise between the economic use of power and speed of transit. In its heyday, 50,000 messages a day were being carried by the network.
The tubes worked on either a pressure of up to 12 psi or 14 ins of vacuum. These were maximum values and would be reduced for shorter routes. The earliest power source was provided by steam engines driving compressors and exhausters. The final installation of plant at CTO consisted of 3x80 hp electric motors driving the compressors and 3x60 hp motors driving vacuum pumps.
The system suffered severely from war-time bombing. CTO itself was burnt down in December 1940 and only the tube terminations in the basement survived, but temporary arrangements were made to extend the most important tubes to the nearby King Edward building, and these were brought into use in November 1941. The tubes too had also suffered from heavy debris falling on the road and distorting the tube, and ground vibrations from bombing caused joints to fracture. Nevertheless the complete system was refurbished and brought back into service in a rebuilt CTO in 1947 and continued to function until the CTO was closed in 1962. A few sections of the network not dependent on the CTO were still in use in the late 1960s. Although the street tubes retained their basic format over the years, the terminal equipment was considerably updated and a high degree of automatic working achieved.
Several other cities were provided with street tubes, and many PD buildings had use and ticket tubes which operated on much lower pressures and vacuua. The hous tubes within telegraph offices were much the same as those used in large department. stores but ticket tubes used in telephone trunk exchanges consisted of a rectangular tube through which the tickets were transported without the use of carriers. The street tube system is now largely forgotten, but in the century or more of operation it was clearly of some considerable engineering interest and many articles and papers were published in its day I have traced 25 papers ranging in date from 1871 to 1967! Don Clow
A half century ago, there were few voices being raised in praise of achievements in the last century. The emphasis was on the attainments of modern thinking and accomplishments. Victorian churches, stations and other large buildings had very few der champions. They were relics of a past age; we could easily do without them. A few lone souls spoke out in favour, the most well-known being Sir John Betjeman. Everything has now changed. The knowledge that many of the largest and renowned wonders of the fifties and sixties were shoddy and badly made has made people realise that perhaps our forebears did do worthwhile and often amazing things. So in these days we are keen to preserve what is left of some of the great Victorian and Edwardian achievements. Those of us who have always thought highly of these things can now take some satisfaction in the way things have turned out. The country is full of organisations preserving this, that and the other, and it is astonishing how many people belong to these societies.
Parsons are well-known for their love of steam engines and railways in general. Some are quite fanatical. The late Fr. Haines, sometime Priest-in-Charge of St Alban's, spent all his holidays and days off on the railways. The present Vicar of Coulsdon in Surrey, when he was at King's with me knew the national railway timetable by heart - or so it seemed. As we assembled for a lecture on Ethics say at 10.55, he would boom out in a loud voice: The 10.56 to Slough, Maidenhead, Reading, Twyford and Henley-on-Thames is about to leave platform 8 at Paddington!'
One can understand the fascination of steam engines. They remind people of a tremendous sense of power which in turn makes us think of God's help and grace. Yet railways are more than steam engines. The fascination includes signals and signal-boxes, country stations and large termini, goods trains, porters, indicators and the announcements which are so often incredibly amusing. I don't think anyone has really come up with the answer as to why so many clergymen love trains. Eric Treacy, sometime Bishop of Pontefract, was our most outstanding figure.
It was my 2 year stint in the canteen at Newport Docks which began another love affair which has more recently become an obsession. For there in the Bristol Channel was the great P. and A. Campbell fleet of paddle steamers with evocative names like the Glen Gower, Cardiff Queen and Bristol Queen. Earlier this year when I was at Holy Nativity, Knowle in Bristol 1 mentioned these steamers in my sermon and afterwards a lady came up to me and said how locally they were known as the white swans of Bristol. These ships were quite magnificent and it was a sad day when they were eventually sent to the breaker's yard. We thought the paddlers had gone for good. But no within a few years, a group of enthusiasts, with Sir John Betjeman heading the list, was able to procure for only £1 the former L.N.E.R. Waverley a Clyde paddle steamer. She is now plying all around our coasts in the summer months, although the main season in July and August is naturally spent in her home waters on the Clyde and round the Western Isles. She has the same kind of thrill one gets with railway steam engines and one of the most enjoyable trips on her is to visit those mighty triple expansion engines and to get that tremendous sense of power and energy. Above the engines on the promenade deck you can see the amazing wake of the water at the stern as the great paddle wheels churn up the water on both sides. This season I have been lucky enough to have had trips on the Waverley on no less than six occasions - from Portsmouth, Tower Pier and Southend visiting places such as Sandown, Whitstable, Margate and Clacton.
The last of these trips was unscheduled. I had not intended to go it was the day before our Harvest Thanksgiving. A few days earlier someone telephoned me to enquire whether I would be willing to take a short Service on board during which ashes would. 'cast upon the waters of the deep." I readily agreed and caught the 12.30 sailing from Southend. There was a very good loading in spite of rain and black clouds. As we journeyed out into the wide estuary, the weather cleared and the little service was taken with me presiding from the bridge over the ship's tannoy system and the solicitor and a friend casting the ashes and wreath over the after sponson rail on the port side at the appropriate moment. We continued with two prayers - one for the society and the other for the captain. officers and crew, and we ended with a prayer for all the departed including those who lost their lives in the former Waverley, which was sunk at Dunkirk in 1940.
Shortly after the service we headed for Clacton Pier, but the sea became decidedly choppy and we had some difficulty in getting alongside the pier. As we did so, some damage was done to the rail of the ship and there was danger to the paddle box. The cause was due to nearly all the passengers and there were hundreds of them standing on the landward side ready to disembark. An officer who had jumped ashore from the ship to ease the tying-up process, exclaimed in a loud voice to the Purser Tell the buggers to move over!' We knew we couldn't be anywhere else but at sea! was a new experience and a delightful day and all the more exhilarating because 2 sea was decidedly choppy. But for all that, the Waverley at sea was as steady as a rock - no rolling, no great vibrations, simply the thrashing of the waters on either side by those great feathery wheels. And now as I write in mid-October she is now in the Bristol Channel for her final sailings of 1993. The last sailing of all will be a marathon one from Clevedon right down to Milford Haven. After that she will return light all the way up the Irish Sea past the Isle of Man and into the Clyde. There, Captain Neil will bring her safely into port and there will be the final message on the ship's telegraph 'Finish with engines'. They will remain silent For nearly 6 months until the 1994 season begins.
It gives me much comfort and solace in the knowledge that the Waverley and her sister ship the Balmoral will be back again in 1994 with engines at full steam ahead. If only the Church of England was as ship-shape and Bristol fashion! Rev J B Barnes