Structures

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June 15, 2010

Grubb Street

Posted by Adrian under Structures
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Unfortunately life has crashed in on things of late which has led to the dearth in updates, and further posts over the next couple of weeks will be sporadic.  I had planned to continue waffling on about the companies from south of the Thames working the EWL, but due to time constraints, that’s temporarily on the backburner.  So, to maintain some kind of momentum…

Although it might be argued that much of the East End was home to the poorest of the poor, it may be surprising to find that wretched housing existed even in areas such as Westminster, and I’m quite at ease with transplanting some of these buildings into Basilica Fields. Great to model – just look at all that fabulous detail – but I wouldn’t like to have lived there!

Grubb Street, seen here in 1906, was just off Horseferry Road, and sat in the shadow of the pomp and wealth of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Charles Booth, in his survey published in 1889, suggested the immediate area was ‘poor’, with a moderate family earning as little as 18 – 21 shillings per week.

Today, Horseferry Road has changed somewhat:

 

May 5, 2010

Public Houses 1: The Spencer Arms

Posted by Adrian under Structures
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One facet of the East End life not yet touched upon was the ubiquitous public house; like a church, a pub was always no more than a stone’s throw away, and more often than not, could be found on street corners.

The Spencer Arms was located on the corner of Dean Street and Spencer Street, next door to Abraham Nerhard’s grocery shop (seen far left). In the early 1900s, Silas Hill was landlord of the establishment, and lived on the premises with his family.

This photo dated c1910 is packed with detail, from the sign written boards, the peeling block walls, the net curtains in the upper story windows, and the wooden panelling on the ground floor. Etched glass was perfected in the 19th Century, and the Spencer Arms doesn’t disappoint with a fantastic display on the large window panes as well as the doors. As with many East End pubs, this one had a fabulous lamp over the door, no doubt to attract the punters out of the cold or another greasy pea-souper.

 

April 30, 2010

The Carmen’s Caterer (or Service with a Smile).

Posted by Adrian under Artillery Lane, Structures
[2] Comments 

In 1906, at 102 Whitechapel Road, Bill Rogers’ Dining Rooms for Carmen could be found. This establishment is ideal for transposition to Artillery Lane with all the goods depots nearby. Carmen were delivery drivers – the White Van Man of the period, and London’s roads were jammed packed with their horse-drawn, carts, wagons and vans. Nothing changes.

Rogers’ rooms appear to have aimed a little above the usual (eel) pie & mash shop, instead proudly serving plates of cold meat, chops, steak or steak and kidney pud with two veg, and not forgetting the essential large tea…and I’ll bet there weren’t any slugs in the lettuce either.

I was intrigued by the R Whites Lemonade board – Google surprised me by revealing the drink was first produced in 1845.

We’re firmly in Basilica Fields territory here; St. Mary’s station was opened by the East London Railway, and was also used by District Line trains, and is next door but one to the right. The station received a direct hit from a bomb in 1940, destroying it completely, and severely damaging the Rivoli cinema next door, and number 102 can be seen at the far right of the image.

Remarkably 102 still stands, now an Islamic book & media shop sandwiched between the Citroen garage and Alvin Lee.

 

April 20, 2010

Midland goods on the EWL Pt.1.

Posted by Adrian under Extended Widened Lines, Goods Traffic, Midland Railway, Period I (c1890 - c1898), Period II (c1899 - c1907), Structures
[2] Comments 

The well-documented and fierce competition between the Great Northern and the Midland Railways began in the late 1860s, and London’s goods traffic was not exempt, especially not the Widened Lines or Extended Widened Lines. In a seemingly endless, and very expensive game of tit-for-tat, wherever the Great Northern went, the Midland was sure to follow. Therefore, the Midland’s Whitecross Street depot was built as a direct response to the Great Northern’s Farringdon Street depot, but constructional and financial difficulties ensured that the GN depot had already been open for four years before Whitecross Street was finally opened in 1878. The Midland depot had four stories above ground and one basement level, and was located in the heart of the lucrative textile district. In a rather cheeky pawn-takes-queen move, the GNR then opened a non-rail served depot in Whitecross Street almost opposite the Midland, offering a goods and parcels collection service, and warehouse space to rent.

With the coming of the Extended Widened Lines, the Midland Railway found itself in a position to finally get the jump on its arch rival, and a large depot with rail access to the huge six-storey warehouses that surrounded St. Katherine’s Docks was opened in 1889. St. Katherine’s Docks had an infamous reputation in the 19th century; the construction of Telford’s masterpiece left over eleven thousand people homeless and caused the demolition of historical ecclesiastical buildings. Opened to great fanfare, it soon became a white elephant as the twin wet-docks soon became too small for the new and larger ships being built, and by the mid-1860s had merged with London Docks. After this, much of the traffic was brought in by barge and lighter from the lower docks, and the warehouses were used mainly for storing and distributing imported luxury goods such as ivory, shells, sugar, marble, rubber, carpets, spices and perfumes.

Midland goods traffic through Artillery Lane will reflect these imported goods, and the majority of wagons will be opens of various sizes and covered vans, with some perishable goods.

The photo is of the Midland’s depot at Poplar, and is an early photo as at least one of the sheeted wagons is unbraked.

 

April 18, 2010

Great Northern Goods Pt.1.

Posted by Adrian under Goods Traffic, Great Northern Railway, Period I (c1890 - c1898), Period II (c1899 - c1907), Structures
[4] Comments 

The Great Northern was quick to gain a foothold in goods services on the Metropolitan, and, as well as facilitating through passenger traffic into the City, it was the sharp rise in cross-London goods traffic taken on by both the Midland and Great Northern that led to the opening of the City Widened Lines in 1868, and the Great Northern’s large goods depôt at Farringdon Street in 1874. The depôt was strategically placed for Smithfields Market – or at least, as well as it could be, considering the Great Western’s 1869 depôt was directly beneath – but an extension to the Farringdon goods depôt in 1894 was located beneath parts of Smithfield, including the newly-completed Fish, Fruit and Vegetable market, thereby giving direct access.

By 1877 the GNR had a daily service of 18 goods trains each way into and out of Farringdon Steet via Kings Cross, and a further 27 trains each way on cross- London services to destinations in south London via Ludgate Hill, a figure which had increased to 46 daily workings by 1897 although just under half of these were noted as “when necessary”. With the coming of the Extended Circle and Extended Widened Lines, the Great Northern was keen to gain access to the London Docks via this route, and a two-story depôt measuring 180′ x 125′ was eventually built in 1890 (the upper story being a storage floor) which relieved pressure of that company’s similar sized depôt at Poplar. As at Poplar, the GNR at London Docks primarily concerned itself with exports, and acted as a storage and redistribution depôt to shipping in the port, and as such, dealt with traffic coming from all over the country, as well as goods for export from the nearby London markets. An inventory of goods held on the storage level at London Docks in 1893 showed similar results to one taken in 1877 at Poplar, and found amongst other goods, bottles, scrap iron, biscuits, linseed oil, grain and meal, rope, earthenware and oil cake. The dock was also used by short sea traders who brought in tobacco, dried fruit, canned goods, ivory, wool and spices. GNR goods traffic through Artillery Lane will therefore reflect these commodities, and trains will be limited to primarily opens wagons and covered vans, with a degree of perishable traffic.

The photograph is of the GW depôt at Poplar, with the GNR lines in the foreground, showing typical ‘mundane’ GN goods stock in the first years of the 1900s – the ubiquitous 4-plank and, by this time, increasingly diminishing bow-ended opens. The goods brake is one of the horizontally planked 18′ 6″ brakes, probably still only 10T at this time, with verandahs at both ends, but doors to these diagonally opposite at the right hand end of each side. The livery is noticeable by its absence – grime, perhaps? The loco is one of Stirling’s ‘500’ series of 0-6-0STs which later became J15 under Ivatt’s reclassification, and J54-55 at Grouping. 603 never made it that far; rebuilt in 1914, she was scrapped in 1919.

 

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