- The arts and industrial archaeology
- Greater London news
- Another Russian submarine — U359
- Titanic — bad wrought iron?
- Woolwich Arsenal relics in Devon
- GLIAS Recording Group relaunched
- GLIAS/SIHG meeting: the Upper Wandle Valley
- CP remembered
- Chimney/Trollope and Son
- Hydraulic power
- Pedestrian subways
- Historic vehicle preservation
- 179news.pdf
Further to the letter by Mary Mills (GLIAS Newsletter August 1998) the piece on Enclosed Gasholders had been held back for further consideration and perhaps rewriting as a number of readers might have thought its contents somewhat unsuitable for this publication. It was also being considered for submission elsewhere and its appearance in the GLIAS Newsletter was a little unintentional.
Installation and site specific art are not particularly avant-garde or obscure as a trawl back through the arts sections of the major British newspapers over the past 10-15 years will readily establish. Such work receives almost as much coverage in these papers as, say, rock music, and note that we are referring to papers with a mass circulation and not specialist arts periodicals.
At the time of writing site-specific art in the form of posters is on display in London underground stations and is of a nature to catch the eye of GLIAS members (Yinka Shonibare, Diary of a Victorian Dandy, an opulent period library interior presently displayed at 55 sites). The idea of a ready-made or found object goes back as far as Marcel Duchamp circa 1915, before most of us were even born.
It might help readers to describe a fictitious but typical example of conceptual art of the kind which has been put before the public in recent years. Consider an abandoned Victorian factory with almost all the machinery removed. The artist might make a few subtle alterations to the interior before throwing it open as an exhibition. Some of the cobwebs might be sprayed silver using a paint aerosol, a pair of well-worn old boots and a bench might be placed in a corner and perhaps a few other items suggestive of people who might have worked there in the past judiciously positioned. In opening such an interior to the public as a work of art the artist is presenting the whole factory interior as a ready-made or found object. Fancifully it might be said that this is an activity in a 'parallel universe' which sometimes impinges on our own field of industrial archaeology. Our vice-president Kenneth Hudson conjured up some 'ghosts' for us when he addressed GLIAS following our AGM in April 1996 and feelings similar to his doubtless inspire the work of a number of artists.
The point being made in this note is that what quite a few artists are doing or did do has a resonance with our own particular interest, industrial archaeology and we should all be sympathetic to this activity. Many of the pioneer ready mades, pre-Second World War, were of an industrial nature, for instance Picasso with his gas ring (gas again), an 'icon of a scientific age'. Over the past century artists in general have had a fascination with mechanical technology and this extends to architecture. The late 1980s Tidal Basin pumping station in the Royal Docks by the Richard Rogers Partnership was inspired by 19th-century Russian circular battleships designed for use in the Baltic and High Tech flourishes still despite this being a Post Modern age. Bob Carr
In the centre of Greenwich a number of buildings have been demolished to make way for the extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Lewisham. A tunnel under the river is being made and a station is to be opened near the Cutty Sark. Considerable civil engineering work has been taking place at Greenwich station, Greenwich High Road.
Trains are now running directly from Paddington to the Heathrow Airport terminals. Near the site of Heathrow Junction station some remains of Pocock's Dock may still be found beneath undergrowth. A previous report (GLIAS Newsletter June 1998) might be taken to imply that destruction was total.
In Croydon, south west of the West station, work on a substantial concrete flyover to take the new trams across the railway is now well advanced. In Croydon itself we are beginning to see actual tramlines laid in the street. As a foretaste of things to come a Tramlink bus TL1 is now operating a limited stop service from Croydon to Wimbledon during the daytime.
What was reputedly London's last Second World War bombsite has recently disappeared beneath new buildings in the vicinity of St Paul's City Thameslink railway station. In 1945 after the Blitz bombsites accounted for one third of the area of the City. On the night of Sunday 29th December 1940 the Germans dropped 120 tons of bombs and 22,000 incendiaries in just three hours, almost creating what was later to become known as a 'fire storm', with great loss of life. It was during this catastrophe that the Blue Last public house just to the south east of Ludgate Circus met its end and its site is the bomb site mentioned above. One reason for its late re-use was that the owners, the brewers Bass, seemed unaware they owned it. The Blue Last pub was once a gathering place for shoemakers associated with the practice of 'talking cobblers'.
Sadly the technique of creating a fire storm became almost routine later in the war for RAF Bomber Command. When it is realised that the Lancaster bomber carried a bomb load of up to 20 tons and that raids using in excess of one thousand planes could take place, some idea of the damage inflicted on German cities can be appreciated. In a full-scale fire storm the combustion creates very high winds which do immense structural damage. The step from this form of destruction to the use of the small atomic bombs of 1945 is smaller than is popularly realised. An atomic bomb is only a more compact way of creating a fire storm of a different kind. The systematic quantitative study of such things is part of a discipline known as operations research which started during the Second World War and now has wide peaceful applications in industry and commerce.
Turning to more pleasant topics a fragment of HMS Warrior has been returned to Newham, where the ship was built. At Canning Town interchange station a memorial incorporating part of the warship by sculptor Richard Kindersley was unveiled in February by Dr George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The station is close to the Thames Ironworks site where construction of the Warrior took place, she was laid down there in June 1859 and launched in December 1860. To the southeast at the Royal Victoria Dock an elegant new bridge has been built across the Dock to improve communication between new housing to the south and the Custom House area. Further south at Lyle Park iron gates from the now demolished Harland and Wolff works in Woolwich Manor Way are to be seen by the riverside.
Just to the north of the St Pancras railway station on the east side of the tracks is a redbrick former locomotive watering facility originally for the use of locomotives working in and out of the Midland Railway London terminus. It is listed Grade II but is in the way of the intended redevelopment of the area to accommodate Eurostar trains from the Continent. There was a proposal to dismantle the structure brick by brick and rebuild it to the northwest in St Pancras Gardens, near the Old St Pancras church. The style of the small building is vaguely Gothic but there were local protests. It was claimed the building would be unsuitable on the proposed site and as an alternative its components might be put in store instead, like the pieces of the famous gasholders which will also have to be moved to provide space for civil engineering enabling works when the Channel Tunnel line is finally brought to Sir George Gilbert Scott's hotel in the Euston Road next to the new British Library. At present all is quiet to the north of the great station while the problem of providing finance for a rapid rail link to St Pancras remains.
To the west at Mornington Crescent the underground station was officially opened in the spring after a closure of six years. A lift motor and switchgear c1920 from the old system went to the London Transport Museum. At one time the booking office was actually in the lift and the booking clerk rode up and down with the passengers, doubling as the lift operator. Camden Town underground station to the north is in need of refurbishment and if it has to be closed for renovation Mornington Crescent, five minutes walk away, will be very busy indeed. Bob Carr
Another Russian submarine — U359
Newsletter readers will be familiar with the Foxtrot class Russian submarine U475 which has been open to the public at Folkestone in Kent (GLIAS Newsletter June 1997). This is not the only example of such a vessel to be seen in the West, there is another, U359, in the harbour at Nakskov in Denmark. The latter submarine is smaller than the Folkestone example and is of the NATO class Whiskey V, about 76 metres in length, carrying a crew of 58 against the Foxtrot's 75. The patrol submarine U359 came to Denmark in 1994 following an initiative from a group of unemployed people who wrote to the Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev asking for one. Eventually their request was finally granted and it is now an exhibit run by unemployed people. U359 is displayed out of the water on a floating pontoon as part of a submarine centre, due for completion in 2001. The submarine is open to the public for some of this winter, closing in January, but for visitors from London a special opening can be arranged given notice. Bob Carr
For further information telephone 00 45 54 95 20 14
Recent metallurgical research in the United States suggests a new mechanism for the failure of the hull of the SS Titanic which sank fairly soon after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage in 1912. The vessel was claimed to be 'unsinkable' as the hull was subdivided by 15 transverse bulkheads into 16 watertight compartments and the watertight doors in the bulkheads normally open for communication were already starting to close just before the famous collision. Despite this seawater entered the hull at such a rate that the pumps could not stem the flow and the great ship went down in only about two hours.
It used to be conjectured that the ship sank so quickly because on striking the ice an underwater projection of the iceberg scraped along the starboard side of the ship and cut a fine horizontal gash about 300 feet long, letting water simultaneously into many of the watertight compartments. Apparently a French expedition visiting the wrecked Titanic in 1996, two-and-a-half miles underwater, saw no sign of a gash but noted vertical failures where the seams of the hull had partly opened on impact.
Metallurgical examination of wrought iron rivets recovered with debris from the wreck showed the samples contained two or three times as much slag as the best wrought iron. Excess slag would have made the rivets brittle and on impact such rivets would fail by losing their inner heads and fall out. The icy conditions would aggravate any tendency to brittle fracture. If the rivets tested were in any way typical of the whole a new explanation for the rapid sinking of the Titanic is at hand. Good wrought iron rivets might have held just that bit more. If just one more watertight compartment had held the Titanic would have stayed afloat long enough for the nearest ship, the Carpathia, to have reached the stricken liner in time and 1,500 lives would not have been lost. If three of the six ruptured watertight compartments had held the ship could probably have limped back into port and nowadays we would never have heard of the Titanic. However, this is no excuse for not carrying enough lifeboats. Bob Carr
Woolwich Arsenal relics in Devon
GLIAS members who took part in the AIA Conference in Devon this year may not have been aware that at Bicton Park, East Budleigh (SY 074 862), relics from the internal narrow gauge railway formerly in use at Woolwich Arsenal in south east London are still to be found on a preservation line.
The principal locomotive on the Bicton Woodland Railway is an outside cylinder 0-4-0 side tank from the Arsenal called 'Woolwich' which was built by the Avonside Engine Co Ltd, Bristol, in 1916.
The railway's gauge is one foot six inches and it runs through an attractive setting. In addition to motive power there is also rolling stock from the Arsenal railway at Bicton. Bob Carr
Website: www.bictongardens.co.uk
Postscript: Bicton Gardens sold 'Woolwich' in 1999 to the Royal Gunpowder Mills.
Locomotive specification:
Avonside, 18" gauge, 0-4-0, oil-fired steam locomotive.
Year of manufacture: 1916, Engine Number 1748.
Weight: 11 tons 5 cwts.
Length: 15' 5"
Width: 5' 4 "
Height: 8' 6".
Cylinders: 8½" 0/ by 12" stroke.
At a meeting on 7th October 1998 to discuss GLIAS recording activity, it was agreed that Tim Smith should be co-ordinator of the Recording Group and that John Hinshelwood would be the Minutes and Agenda Secretary. Mary Mills no longer wished to be secretary of the group, however, agreed to be a broker for correspondence.
Tim Smith reported on his work to produce an inventory of the Wapping Hydraulic Power Station and showed his draft report with drawings. Chris Grabham showed prints of photos he had taken on site. It is proposed to have display panels ready for the Recording Lecture on 21st April next year. If further visits to the site are possible a schedule will be produced for those interested in helping complete this work.
Kate Jones, a Greenwich Resident/Librarian spoke to the meeting about her interest in the former printing works of the Kentish Mercury, Blackheath Road, and an interesting discussion followed.
At the time of the meeting the number of chimneys reported in the survey being undertaken was about 50. The number of reports coming in was increasing by the day. It is intended that the results of this survey will be summarised and reported at the Recording Lecture in April.
Chris Grabham demonstrated a database to the group which would be of great assistance in recording structures and sites in a form similar to the IRIS database. Work has started on importing some of the records from the draft GLIAS book as well as the chimney records, with a view to testing the database.
It was agreed that there should be four meetings a year when members should be encouraged to attend to discuss, or seek assistance with, their projects. The group would also like to encourage members to make presentations of their work. The date of the next meeting is 2nd December 1998. It will be held at Kirkaldy Testing Museum, 99 Southwark Street. John Hinshelwood
GLIAS/SIHG meeting: the Upper Wandle Valley
It was unfortunate that the joint GLIAS/SIHG meeting took place on one of the wettest and windiest days of the year. The adverse conditions which prompted 'do not travel unless you have to' warnings had a related adverse effect on attendance. In the morning eight of us met John Phillips of Sutton Heritage at the Honeywood Heritage Centre in Carshalton for a walk round industrial sites in the upper reaches of the Carshalton branch of the River Wandle. Despite the wet it was a very interesting morning. The enthusiasm of those taking part was evident when we were offered another half mile in the wet to another site, or an adjournment. Unanimously, the extra half mile was accepted.
In the afternoon we had two lectures. The first by Peter Harris of the Wandle Museum was a wide-ranging account of much of the area that some of us had covered in the morning. 'Wide ranging' is appropriate for a talk which also included Devonshire, Dorset and Cumbria with some superb slides.
The second talk, by Brian Sturt, gave us a fascinating and detailed account of the development and operations of the history of the Wandle collier fleet of specially designed boats which could navigate the Thames to convey of coal to the Wandsworth gas works. Brian was assisted by appropriate sound effects from the weather when he was talking of the hazards of sailing down the North Sea coast from the Tyne to the Thames.
This was a successful occasion apart from the attendance. Those who did not brave the weather missed a treat. Bill Firth
Bob Carr asked if anyone remembered the CP notices? (GLIAS Newsletter October 1998). His article brought back, for me, happy memories about Camden Town. I was born (1938) in a nearby 'settlement' called Somerstown. My grandmother and my mother owned a small corner grocery and general provisions store in this part of North West London, from the mid 1910s until the closure in the late 50s. The CP sign was displayed in one of the shop windows as an indication to the Carter Paterson van driver to call and collect goods for onward transmission. Most good ideas are generally of simple origin, and this system worked extremely well and was most effective. So much so, that a very similar system is in operation today with the 'White Arrow' van service. However this is used, in the main, for collection of goods from domestic properties (ie for mail order companies etc.)
The Gaumont cinema mentioned was a favourite haunt of mine. Might I make a small correction to Bob's presentation in that the organ console appeared to the left side of the stage/screen instead of the 'usual' central position. Also it emerged from behind a curtain; the Compton organ came into view guided by rails and not rising out of the floor. This manner of organ emerging, whilst not unique, was unusual. I remember well the community singing, the audience reading the words projected on the screen. Does anyone remember the bouncing ball? This ball, (usually red in colour) bounced along the top of the line of the words in time with the tune being played. This bouncing ball technique is currently employed for a TV advertisement.
The fruit and veg market in nearby Inverness Street still trades, albeit on a much smaller scale to that remembered when I was a child. The tricycles displaying 'STOP ME AND BUY ONE' referred to the Ice Cream ('WALLS 'generally) that they offered for sale and were carried in the ice box over the front wheels of the trike. Ted Brittin
As readers may recall, I am researching an old dairy building in north London, erected in 1891, which is decorated with some fine sgraffito panels. The main proponent of the method at the time was a Heywood Sumner who, in a lecture on sgraffito to the Royal Society of 1891, thanked 'Messrs. Trollope for the fine display of cartoons and speciments of (sgraffito) work executed under the learned direction of Mr G T Robinson, which they had courteously lent for exhibition'. Mr Robinson at the time, and had for many years, occupied the position of adviser on decoration to Messrs Trollope the builders.
In his book of 1897 'Plastering Plain and Decorative', William Millar refers to a particular sample. 'At Messrs Trollope's Establishment in London there is a specimen (of sgraffito) which for two years was fixed up outside their heating apparatus chimney, exposed to all weathers, under adverse circumstances of rapid changes of temperature, and it was naturally encrusted with soot. It has simply been washed, and presents a very fair illustration of how enduring this mode of decoration is and how well fitted for external decoration of town buildings.'
Does anyone know anything of this chimney or the firm of Trollope and Son? John Hinshelwood
A small hydraulic accumulator tower in the car park of New Billingsgate Market (TQ 381806) has recently been renovated. The tower is one of a surviving pair built in 1877 to serve the North London Railway's Poplar Dock. Both are listed Grade II. The second is in Prestons Road. The New Billingsgate tower is about 25 ft high and contained a weight-loaded accumulator, supplied by Sir William Armstrong & Co with a ram 17 inches in diameter with a 17 foot stroke. To accommodate this a pit some 17 feet deep was dug below the tower. The remains of the accumulator survive in the pit, which had been back-filled with rubbish. This has been dug out to reveal the lower sections of the cylinder, ram and weightcase. The tower itself has been re-roofed and put in good order. It can be seen from Trafalgar Way.
Meanwhile, at the former Wapping pumping station of the London Hydraulic Power Company, work has started on the conversion of the Turbine House into a small cafe and restaurant. This has involved the removal of all plant, including two electrically driven three-throw ram pumps installed in the 1950s. Efforts to find new homes for these pumps were unsuccessful. Five pumps of similar age are to be retained in the Engine House. During the summer, GLIAS recorded both the Turbine House and the Engine House, together with their basements. The pumping station is owned by the Women's Playhouse Trust who have already used the boiler house for exhibitions. Tim Smith
In the Mechanics Magazine, 19th January 1835, a writer describing himself as 'DC of Marylebone', suggested that 'moderate sized tunnels, with steps to descend into them' should be built under busy London streets to allow pedestrians to cross them with ease. He mentioned Cheapside, Newgate Street, Ludgate Hill, Regent Street, Oxford Street and Fleet Street. Pointing out the dangers of crossing streets crowded with omnibuses, cabs and all sorts of carriages he noted that many accidents were reported daily in the newspapers. He suggested that "To prevent nuisances a policeman should be always on duty in each tunnel and they might all be closed by doors at night'.
Can you imagine what the reaction of the Metropolitan Police would be if that were suggested today? The first pedestrian subways across London's roads were probably those associated with the Metropolitan Railway. Does any member know where and when was the first pedestrian subway not associated with an underground railway built?
The long subway to the Science Museum comes to mind, but it has South Kensington station at one end. Tim Smith
Some years ago, I recall reading in one of the architectural magazines an article on building conservation in which the author reproduced a photograph of a vintage Bentley to show an ideal example of preservation in action (unfortunately I have been unable to track down the exact reference). We may be much more cynical now, when there is a greater concern for emission controls and we know that veteran cars are somewhat profligate in their consumption of fossil fuels. In addition, the abolition of leaded petrol will render them far more difficult to run in the future.
However, the point still may be made that here is something worthwhile from the past that remains practical in the present. Vintage and veteran car enthusiasts have long been prepared to invest huge amounts of time and money in restoring or completely rebuilding vehicles which are practical to use and not only to be shown off at rallies. It is a small step from cars to light vans, etc. but there seems to be an increasing interest in heavy commercial vehicles. It is more difficult to perceive a practical use for these other than a genuine desire to preserve something illustrative of a past way of life or a love of machinery - 'big boys' toys'. An interesting side light on this aspect is the booming trade in 'scale models for the adult collector'. These concentrate almost exclusively on vehicles from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s - presumably aimed at those of us brought up in that period and who pine after our lost Dinky toys!
However, the costs of acquiring, restoring and running a full-size double-decker bus or articulated lorry must be astronomical and we should be enormously grateful to these enthusiasts for their dedication.
It would be quite impossible for museums to preserve even a representative sample of the road vehicles of the past, yet the increasing rate of change means that some important technological developments could easily be lost if it were not for the 'amateur' preservationist. To illustrate this, I saw on television recently an item about two enthusiasts who had amassed a collection of some 300 lawnmowers, one dating back to the 1830s, very soon after the first patent was taken out by Edwin Beard Budding in 1830. They research and restore the mowers to working order and lovingly care for them. Such dedication is wholly admirable, as humble items, which we all take for granted, are the most lifely to disappear without trace.
The foremost organisation in the bus and lorry field is the Historic Commercial Vehicle Society, which has the laudable aims of seeking to preserve, restore and operate historic commercial vehicles and to promote the study of their historical, scientific, social and other roles. The origins of the Society date back to 1958 when the Historic Commercial Vehicle Club, as it was then, was founded by a small group of enthusiasts, who between them owned less than a dozen preserved vehicles. Today the Society has over 4,000 members with some 7,500 vehicles. As the society's promotional literature states: 'Between them these portray a living history of the commercial transport scene and show the developments which have taken place since the turn of the century'. Appropriately, their president is Lord Montague of Beaulieu, founder of the National Motor Museum.
Some historic vehicles are maintained and operated by firms that wish to use them as an advertisement, often stressing how long they have been in business. The familiar electric vans belonging to Harrods are a good example. Sixty of these were built between 1936 and 1939. They were designed by J H L Bridge of Harrods Garage and built in the company's workshops at Barnes. One is in the Science Museum and two have been retained by Harrods. Private owners may be able to offset some of their costs by hiring out their historic vehicles for period films and television dramas.
However, a cautionary tale appeared in 'Vintage Roadscene' (Vol.13 No.52 September- November 1997, pp164-5): the makers of the Yorkshire Television series 'Heartbeat' destroyed a 1951 Fordson coach with Bellhouse-Hartwell bodywork (apparently the only surviving example of its type). It had been restored not long before, but was purchased in order to be wrecked in a simulated road crash for one of the episodes - much to the dismay and disgust of the author of the article. Such a cavalier attitude is most surprising when one considers that the success of the series depends on its setting in the 1950s where period cars and lorries are one of the main attractions (see Vintage Roadscene Vol. 13 No.49 December 1996-February 1997 p.20).
Occasionally collectors take on more than they bargain for. With the end of the Cold War and the break up of the former Soviet Union, lots of eastern bloc hardware has become available on the open market. An Essex publican thought he would buy something for his children to play with, but when the item arrived on his doorstep all the way from the Czech Republic it was somewhat larger than anticipated. He had purchased a ZIL-157 transporter complete with Soviet SAM 2 surface-to-air missile (first seen at the Moscow May Day Parade of 1957) together some fifty feet long. It is now safely housed at Duxford airfield, the Imperial War Museum's out-station near Cambridge ('Despatches' (magazine of the Friends of the Imperial War Museum), March 1992 p.18). There is a strong interest in historic military vehicles, which may also earn their keep in films and on TV. They have their own thriving magazine - 'Wheels and Tracks' - and enthusiasts for these vehicles may also fall into the category of military historians. It is instructive to note how an interest in vehicles may overlap into a myriad of other spheres of research. Restoring a Centurion tank or Saladin armoured car may be of less practical use than a Bedford O-type or a Leyland Octopus and cost far more.
However even that may pale into insignificance compared with those with a penchant for historic aircraft; just think of the problems and difficulties of restoring and 'running' a Hawker Hunter jet fighter - but that is another story!
Alongside the burgeoning interest in historic commercial vehicles is the proliferation of magazines devoted to the needs of the specialist. Readers of this Newsletter may recall that both Bob Carr and I have referred to one of them - Vintage Roadscene' - in past issues. Often articles in this and other similar magazines are of interest and relevance to a much wider readership than just the dedicated vehicle enthusiast. GLIAS members perhaps more than most, as historic vehicles are no less than industrial archaeology on the move. In addition to the various magazines, we should remember the excellent series of booklets published by Shire Books. These usually cost as little as the average magazine and are well illustrated and written by authorities in their respective fields. There are many on the subject of road transport, including fire engines, ambulances, buses, trolleybuses, vans, electric vehicles, horse-drawn vehicles, etc. For anyone with a passing interest, each one provides an invaluable introduction.
I have prepared a list, including addresses, subscription rates, etc. of the various specialist magazines I consulted during the preparation of these notes and I would be happy to send a copy to anyone who is interested. Please send a stamped addressed envelope to me at 56 Belgrave Road, Hounslow, Middlesex, TW4 7BY. Stephen Croad