Ghost signs in Rochester Row

A friend asked me if I'd noticed a ghost sign at the western end of Rochester Row, high up on the side of Foxtons. Here are two snaps from Google's streetview: 

Hard to make t out today, so here's a pic I took of it back in November 2008 when the letters were less faded:

The sign advertises oil colours, soap warehouse, paraffin oil & lamps. The name at the top appears to begin with W, possibly followed by IN. 

Having just had a quick peek into a couple of the old directories, this appears to be a directional sign for a shop round the corner at 172 Vauxhall Bridge Road which, in the late 1890s, is shown as George Langabeer, oilman. Then, by 1910 through to at least 1915, William Price is the listed owner, also as oilman, and I think it's his painted sign that we still see today. By the 1930s the shop had been demolished and replaced by a Westminster Bank faced in Portland stone, still evident today but converted into The Jugged Hare public house.

Seeing as we are Rochester Row for this post, I might as well assess another faded sign here, one that has been scratched away but is still discernible in the right kind of light... 

A the junction of Vane Street there is a hotel (again, I'm using Google snaps because I cannot now find the pics I took earlier this year!):

At the corner there is a short of shield containing hints of letterform and, with a bit of patience, the following can be seen: Empire Hospital For Paying Patients. Ooh how jolly intriguing. 

Vane Street leads to Vincent Square. Here's the view from there clearly showing juliet balconies that would have afforded those paying patients a lovely view and lots of fresh air:

The hospital's address was 69 Vincent Square, yet today The Wellington/Rochester Hotel (eh? go Google) is given as 69 Vane Street which is also strange being as it's such a short street. Perhaps they've done that to make that side door easier to find. 

I have found some info about the hospital here showing it was a nursing home rather than a hospital. It was a place where rich WW1 officers could pay for their rehabilitation and recuperation at the rate of £10 per week which equates to about £1,000/pw today! 

The facility was short-lived and by 1919 had closed its doors to paying patients, but was soon to reopen for paying customers of a different kind. 

Remember the Poor's Box – Charity and the kindness of stangers

Next time you are in the West Smithfield area please do take a little detour though the Henry VIII gate that leads to St Bartholomew's Hospital.
Within the gate you'll find this delightful, albeit sad, artefact.

No chugging, no coloured bibs, no sponsoring – just a little red box atop a pillar.
Please give generously.
More info here. 

Misinformation at Camden Lock Stables Market

Whilst wandering around Camden a few weeks back I stopped to read an informative hoarding along the site that is being developed immediately south of Hawley Road in Chalk Farm Road. It was all about Camden's history and contained some interesting little snippets with web addresses for further info.
I crossed the road and entered the market building, wandering around assessing how things have changed so much in the past 30 years since I used to go there on a regular basis in the 1990s. I stopped for a while near the steps that lead down to the underground old stables markets and I watched people posing with that dreadful statue of Amy Winehouse. It was then I noticed the words above the tunnel: "STABLES MARKET SINCE1854"
Whaaaaat?!  No no no!!!

Pics from this year, left (above tunnels, near Amy) and right (above northern exit to Roundhouse), plus an older pic in the centre

Dear reader, there have been stables for the railways' horses, and a hospital for them since 1854 but the market didn't arrive for another 120 years. Yes, 120 years later.
Back at home I started searching for further ref thinking I must have mis-read or mis-understood something.
It gets worse...

I found that not only are the current signs misleading, they are replacements of old signs (see above, top left and centre and compare them with the first three pics) and so a chance to clarify the meaning of the date as referring only to the site and not the market had been missed.
Further to that, in many cases the date has obviously been squeezed in as an add-on/afterthought as if the marketing team decided that a bit of Victorian would somehow boost sales (more about this at the end).

So let's get this straight... Pay attention please...
Pre-1972 the area that is now called "Camden Lock" was a ramshackle collection of old warehouses with a timber wharf. Some of those buildings were renovated to create workshops and. In 1973 the tenants opened their doors to the public and these included five Hornsey College of Art students who made jewellery. In 1974 they started a small crafts market on the bare ground next to the road immediately to the north of the canal bridge. The success of that venture attracted more designer-makers to the area turning Camden into a haven for artisans and artists.

The hoarding in Chalk Farm Road gives the correct date ...  and another mistake – notice that the figure 8 is the wrong way round – we are seeing its underside!  

With its rapid success, what started out as a small Saturday market quickly expanded to cover a wider area spreading into other adjacent spaces, such as empty railway arches and offices. The old horse hospital alongside Chalk Farm Road became the home of the antique and bric-a-brac trade. However, the labyrinth of subterranean tunnels and stables remained mostly unused until the turn of the century.
In fact you can get most of this info from Camden Market's official website. Though there are a few tenuous things in there including calling a AmyW a 'Camdonite'. Er? Where is Camdon?
for reference I have been checking through my two editions of "The Markets Of London", first printed 1983. The 1989 revised version reads of Camden Lock: "... making things and selling them is back in fashion; 'small is beautiful' seems to be here to stay... it is all very relaxed and pleasantly informal..." Not much of that is relevant now. Sad.
Camden Market is one big street food dispensary now. And Chalk Farm road is one big shoe shop). Most of the independent designer-maker, vintage or specialised stalls have moved on or given up.
Camden is now a market for the tourists now who, once they have taken that Amy Wine house pic and a couple of selfies to tick off the London experience from 'to do' list as they truffle down their stir fry at one of the picnic tables that have replaced the stalls.
The oldest market in Camden is in Inverness Street which probably started in 1860 when it was moved from the main road into the side street.

Breast screening day – a cancerous coincidence

Friday 13th May.

This morning I will be at Whittington Hospital having a breast screening.
Today is my mother's birthday. She was born on Friday 13th May 1938 and died of cancer-related illnesses aged 57 which began with a little malignant lump above her left breast and then 16 years of treatments following different cancers around her body.
It seems so strange to me that this lovely, vibrant, intelligent, active, creative woman, pictured right at age 49, would have today reached the age of 78.
Happy birthday mum. I miss you xx

Whittington, St Mary's, Archway and Highgate Hospitals

On either side of Highgate Hill, just north of Archway Station you will find a lot of hospital buildings, some pleasing, some ugly, some neglected, and some over 150 years old.
There have been a lot of hospitals and a lot of name changes on these sites over the years. In the following paragraphs I have done my best to get the information correct. However, if you spot any errors, please do let me know.  Here goes...

The impressive Edwardian buildings viewed from Highgate Hill.
The original main entrance for Archway Hospital can be found on the Archway Road side.

Originally built in 1848 on the nine-acre site of an old leper colony as the Highgate Smallpox and Vaccination Hospital; one of only two isolation hospitals in London dealing with the smallpox epidemic of that era (the other one being the London Fever Hospital in Liverpool Road, approx 2.5 miles further south). The HSVH was supported by voluntary contributions and in 1867 had 108 beds. It closed in 1896. 

In 1900, the site was officially reopened by the Duke and Duchess of York as the Highgate Hill [workhouse] Infirmary with 800 beds.
Then, in 1914 it became the Islington Infirmary (II). Five large linked blocks (shown above) had been added by 1920 and some of the original buildings were converted into a nurses' home which was accessed via a tunnel.
During the same period the Holborn Union Infirmary opened in 1879 in the southwest corner of the site with its main entrance on Archway Road (still intact and visible today). It had separate blocks for male and female patients in 625 beds. In 1921 the name was changed to the Holborn and Finsbury Hospital (HFH).
In 1930 the London County Council (LCC) took over the whole site – HFH was renamed St Mary's Hospital, and II became Archway Hospital. By 1948 both had merged with Highgate Hospital across the road to become part of The Whittington Hospital.

The modern hospital

The latest buildings of the Whittington Hospital on the opposite side of Highgate Hill are a stark contrast in architectural design.

Accident and Emergency, out Patients, Pathology and Imaging (X-ray) departments opened on the western side of Highgate Hill in 1977, and in 1980 a six-storey psychiatric wing was built. Further extensions and new buildings were opened in 1992. The entrance in Magdala Avenue was completed in 2008.

Top: the modern blocks of Whittington Hospital (1992?).
Bottom left: the Whittington & Cat pub hangs on for dear life whilst all around is demolished.
Bottom right; Whittington Hospital entrance in Magdala Avenue.

Top: left, the entrance canopy, and right, the second floor waiting area
Bottom: Cats – Whittington's metal feline and Dick's companion on Highgate Hill

The Highgate Wing

On the Dartmouth Park Hill side of the Whittington Hospital estate there are some nice old brick buildings dating from 1869 from when this was The St Pancras Union Infirmary (later to become the Central London Sick Asylum District, then the St Pancras Union and subsequently the North Infirmary). Florence Nightingale has been quoted as saying that in its day the infirmary was "the finest metropolitan hospital". Edith Cavell worked there as a Night Sister in 1901.

When the LCC took over this site in 1930 they renamed it Highgate Hospital. By 1945 it had been grouped in with its neighbours Archway Hospital and St Mary's Hospital to form The Whittington Hospital as part of the NHS. 

Why Whittington?

The grouping of all the three hospitals (Archway, St Mary's and Highgate) into one meant a new name was needed. "Trinity" was a front runner, but "Whittington" won. A well-known folktale tells us that Dick Whittington was walking on Highgate Hill when he heard the bells of Bow telling him to "turn again, turn again". The event is commemorated by a statue of his cat on The Whittington Stone on Highgate Hill (shown above, bottom right). He subsequently became Lord Mayor of London three times.

I collect old tins and gave this one to Jen as a birthday present earlier this year, thinking it would tie in well with her Archway guided walk.

See also The Temperance Hospital

Temperance. Temperance.

From a No29 bus last month I snapped a few pics of the abandoned Temperance Hospital in Hampstead Road, NW1:

May 2015

This group of once-proud and important buildings has been empty for deacdes. I am pretty sure the hospital was only partly being used when I worked around the corner in Stephenson Way back in 1996, so that's almost 30 years of neglect. What a sad waste of space.
I was half-heartedly thinking about making an effort to do some research and, lo and behold, I discover that Caroline has conveniently done some sleuthing about the hospital for me. Read it here.

These pics were taken in June 2008 – back then I was completely about the details and I didn't take wider archive shots – these four pics are all I have. 

The old St Pancras Female Orphanage, the southernmost of the hospital buildings has, in the last few years, been spruced up – and the ghosted lettering above the entrance has been repaired and replaced:

May 2015

The other buildings await the fate of HS2 – see here for more info about the proposals, specifically the section sub-headed Euston.

UPDATE from kentishtowner: http://www.kentishtowner.co.uk/2015/11/04/national-temperance-hospital-back-business-jan/

St Thomas Street – a wind tunnel of change

I recently met some friends for a drinks and nice food in a lovely pub in Bermondsey Street. Zig-zagging back towards London Bridge I entered St Thomas Street via Weston Street to find the junction completely blocked by construction works. Gone was the view of the road tunnel under the railway bridge, with hoardings and scaffolding erected half way along the road looking east. It's probably been like this for ages, but this not being an area I walk regularly, it was a bit of a shock for me. I stood and wondered and hoped if the lovely old brickwork that originally supported the bridge would remain once the work was completed.

Turning left into St Thomas Street I found that I was in a very forceful wind tunnel. It wasn't a particularly breezy evening so I can only assume that The Pointy Thing was causing this uncomfortable condition. I stood at the foot of the glass monstrosity and marvelled at its lack of architectural features. I still could find nothing to endear me to it; just rows and rows of angled plain glass windows separated by red lines and pale grey panels. Actually, it's all a bit mid-80s isn't it?!

On the western end of the St Thomas Street, stands the main tower of Guy's Hospital. This edifice has had a bit of a make-over recently – see the pics in the middle row of the top collection of images; the first were two taken in 2008. The tower dominates the lovely old main entrance to the hospital with its beautiful ironwork gates and gardens.
On the other side of the street, The Old Operating Theatre Museum & Garret and the adjacent georgian buildings make a ridiculous contrast with The Pointy Thing.
These days the powers that be are indeed saving certain buildings from 'progress' but it seems to be only those over 150 years old. Therefore, little three-storey, hand-made and brick-built gems get ring-fenced by enormous sheets of glass as architectural curiosities.

This area of London, from the south side of London Bridge down into Borough High Street, fanning left and right, is steeped in history yet much of it has been lost, mostly due to the swathe of land cleared when extending Guy's Hospital. Once an area for rowdy socialising, gaming, drinking and theatre, most of the drinking holes are long gone with only The George Inn remaining as an example of its kind. Hints of these old taverns can be glimpsed in the truncated narrow streets off the main road.

I have no concluding sentence.