Monthly Archives: May 2026

The 120th Anniversary of Vauxhall Bridge

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Two places have just become available on my walk on Saturday the 13th of June – Wapping – A Seething Mass of Misery. Click here for details.

Last Tuesday, the 26th of May, was the 120th anniversary of the opening of Vauxhall Bridge. If you had attended the official ceremony in 1906, you may have received a copy of the London County Council booklet recording the event:

Inside was an overview of the Order of Proceedings, which included members of the London County Council travelling in carriages from County Hall to the new bridge:

Along with a Programme of Music, which the Battersea Borough Prize Band played from an enclosure on the eastern side of the Westminster end of the bridge:

The bridge that was being opened in 1906 was not the first Vauxhall Bridge, the original had opened in 1816 as part of an explosion of bridge building, starting with Putney Bridge in 1729 through to Tower Bridge in 1894, a period when 21 bridges were built or rebuilt to support the equally explosive increase in population, homes and industry on both sides of the river, and to provide an easy method of crossing the Thames.

On March the 6th, 1806, a petition was presented to Parliament by the parishes on the Surrey and Middlesex sides of the river, in favour of a bridge over the Thames, at or near the Vauxhall turnpike, along with the construction of new connecting roads.

The petition stated that the need for a bridge was because of the “great increase in buildings, population and commerce in the said districts, and their lack of communication with the western parts of the Metropolis, other than by the circuitous route over Westminster or Battersea Bridges; and the advantages anticipated are a great accommodation to the persons residing in the neighbourhood of the places above mentioned, likewise an additional convenience to the commercial part of the community by opening a more extensive connection with the counties of Middlesex and Surrey”.

The 1806 petition did not make any progress. A second petition was made in 1807, and on the 13th of March 1807, the House of Commons gave permission for a Bill to be brought before Parliament, however petitions against a new bridge at Vauxhall were raised by the proprietors of Battersea Bridge and the inhabitants and landed proprietors of Chelsea and Battersea.

This was in the days when many bridges were privately owned and charged a toll, which is why the owners of Battersea Bridge were objecting as another bridge could have resulted in a reduction in their income.

In 1808, the Bill for a bridge at Vauxhall passed its Second Reading, but was not returned by the House of Lords.

Finally in 1809, an Act was passed allowing for building “a bridge across the Thames from the bank or shore thereof at or near a certain place on the south side of the said river called Cumberland Gardens, neare Vauxhall Turnpike, to the opposite shore called Millbank”.

John Rennie was appointed as the engineer to the bridge, and the first stone was laid on the 9th of May 1811. The stone laying ceremony included the deposit with the foundation stone of different British coins of the year and a silver plate. Apparently these were recovered when the first bridge was demolished in 1899 and were stored with the London County Council’s records. I have had a brief search but cannot find out what happened to these objects.

After construction began, the original Rennie design was found to be too expensive to complete. He offered a second, cheaper design, but this was also viewed as too expensive, so a deign from Samuel Bentham was commissioned. On review, Bentham’s solution was considered to have design issues, so the engineer James Walker was asked to complete a fourth design, which was the design used for the first Vauxhall bridge.

The land surrounding the first Vauxhall Bridge was very different to when the second bridge was completed.

The following map from the LCC booklet shows the stretch of river and surrounding land of Vauxhall and Millbank:

On the Lambeth side of the bridge, the approach was marked by Marble Hall, the smallest of the three pleasure gardens in the immediate vicinity of the Vauxhall Turnpike (red arrow). Cumberland Gardens (green arrow) occupied a site a little to the south of the bridge, while the largest and most celebrated of the three pleasure gardens was Vauxhall Gardsens, originally called Spring Gardens (blue arrow).

The Westminster side of the river was described as “quite open and as rural as could be found anywhere”.

By the time the second bridge opened in 1906, the area was very different (the large, empty space with the word Westminster was the site of the Millbank Penitentiary):

 (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“)

The intention was to name the bridge Regent’s Bridge, in honour Prince Regent, who had shown a considerable interest in the bridge, however by the time the bridge was completed, it had taken on the name Vauxhall Bridge.

The original Vauxhall Bridge was the first iron bridge to be built over the Thames. It was 809 feet long and 36 feet wide, and was formed of nine arches, each with a span of 78 feet and 6 inches. The total cost, including construction of the approach roads, compensation to land owners etc, was £296,998.

The first Vauxhall Bridge was completed at private expense for private profit, so a toll was charged for use of the bridge.

In the first full year of operation, the bridge generated £4,977 in tolls, and despite later reduction of tolls and the construction of additional bridges, by 1877, tolls generated by Vauxhall Bridge amounted to £62,392.

Tolls were a common means to finance bridge construction and maintenance, and during the time of the first Vauxhall Bridge, the only bridge above Blackfriars Bridge in what was the County of London (prior to the 1960s expansion) that did not collect tolls was Westminster Bridge.

It was the 1877 Metropolis Toll Bridges Act that provided for the Metropolitan Board of Works to purchase the interests of the private companies, and of H.M. Office of Works in the following bridges: Waterloo, Lambeth, Vauxhall, Chelsea, Albert, Battersea, Wandsworth, Putney, Hammersmith and the bridge over Deptford Creek.

After the purchase of the bridges by the Metropolitan Board of Works, the tolls were removed and the bridges were free to use.

The LCC booklet includes a list of the bridges over the Thames up to 1906, including the date of opening, rebuilds, and the engineer responsible:

Image from the LCC booklet showing the Thames below Vauxhall Bridge around 1820, with the new bridge in the background:

And a print from a very rural Millbank in 1829, showing Vauxhall Bridge:

(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)

A photo from the LCC booklet showing the original Vauxhall Bridge:

Changes along the river, and the design and construction of the bridge, along with increases in traffic during the 19th century, all combined to justify the build of a new bridge.

The LCC booklet explains:

“The scour of the river due to the high velocity of the current had, however, tended to expose the foundations of the bridge, and this had been met by depositing material from time to time around the foundations. The velocity of the current had probably been increased by the removal of old London Bridge in 1831, and of old Westminster bridge about thirty years later, but it was in the first place due to the obstruction caused by the numerous and thick piers of the bridge.

Besides having a dangerous effect on the safety of the bridge, the strength of the tide was a considerable impediment to traffic, which was also hindered by the narrowness of the arches. Powers were obtained to remove two of the central piers, thus converting three arches into one. The estimated cost of this was £40,9099. These powers were allowed to lapse.

In the meantime the effects caused by the scour of the river continued, and in November 1887, it was thought advisable to have the foundations of three of the central piers examined by a diver. The result of the examination showed that the bottoms of the timber cradles upon which the piers were founded were in several places 4 or 5 inches above the level of the clay bed of the river adjoining them, and in the case of the third pier from the Middlesex side of the bridge the clay was found to have been scoured away from beneath the cradle 5 or 6 inches inwards from its outer edge. This was arrested by laying bags filled with cement along the outer edges of the cradle, and by depositing 6500 tons of slag around the piers.

In 1887 it was found that these protective measures were in turn washed away.

Moreover, the small width of the bridge and the heavy gradients of its approaches combined to render the structure inadequate to cope with the growing demands of road traffic. This traffic had recently much increased, being assisted by the enlargement and alterations at Vauxhall Station, and the weak condition of Lambeth bridge. During the week ended 11th July 1891, 34,915 vehicles had crossed the bridge, as compared with 22,232 vehicles in the week ended 12th June, 1879.”

The Bridges Committee of the LCC decided that there was a strong case for a new bridge. At the same time, there was an issue with Lambeth Bridge, but the committee decided that Vauxhall should be the first bridge to be rebuilt.

The cost was estimated at £484,000, and Parliament authorised the London County Council (Vauxhall Bridge) Act of 1895.

Before demolition of the existing bridge, a temporary wooden bridge was built between the western end of the Albert Embankment and Millbank.

The first phase of work consisted of demolition of the old bridge followed by construction of the new piers. This work was completed in November 1903.

Whilst the first phase was underway, plans for the superstructure were prepared, and the work on this phase of the bridge commenced on the 1st of January 1904.

The new bridge was designed and construction supervised by Maurice Fitzmaurice, the London County Council’s chief engineer, assisted by the council’s architect, W.E. Riley.

The following photo from the booklet shows the new Vauxhall Bridge. Comparing with the above photo of the first bridge shows much larger piers and wider arches:

The reduction in the number of piers and increased distance between the piers was key for traffic on the river.

With the original bridge, the narrowness of the arches, and the eight piers reduced the space for the river to flow under the bridge and resulted in the tide running up to a velocity of 7 miles an hour, which caused problems with the handling of vessels as they passed under the bridge.

There had also been a considerable increase in the number of vessels passing under the bridge due to the increase in the number of riverside factories and workshops along the upper reaches of the river, and in 1894, an average of 391 vessels were passing under the bridge every twenty four hours.

The roadway over the new bridge was also wider, and the approach to the bridge had a smoother gradient, making it easier for traffic and pedestrians to cross the bridge.

The key features of the new Vauxhall Bridge were;

  • Total length across the river between abutments is 759 feet 4 inches
  • Total waterway of 699 feet 4 inches
  • The central span is 149 feet 7 inches wide, with a head of 20 feet above high water
  • The width of the bridge between parapets is 80 feet, divided into a carriageway 50 feet wide and two footways of 15 feet in width each
  • The abutments are formed of concrete faced with granite
  • The upper portion of the masonry is treated differently on the two abutments, the Westminster one having, above the roadway level, two massive blocks of granite masonry on either side, destined probably to server as the bases of lofty piers or groups of statuary. These measure 20 feet in length by 10 feet 8 inches in width
  • The Lambeth abutment has similar piers, but behind the downstream one is an open balustrade and a flight of steps giving access to the foreshore.
  • The upstream side is a plain granite parapet wall, which is continued for some distance along the approach to the bridge. Construction of this abutment involved division of the two large storm relief sewers known as the Clapham and Effra sewers

As mentioned in the above list, the original intention for the large blocks of granite masonry on the abutments of the bridge was for either some pylons of statues. The following newspaper report explains why the pylons were not part of the finished bridge:

“An attempt has been made to introduce a Parisian feature in the ‘pylons’ which have never formed a part of a London bridge. These oblong pylons are carried high above the stone balustrades at the entrance of the bridge, and they are introduced not only to give dignity to the appearance, but also to lend additional strength to the structure. The design resembles in many ways the Alexander III Bridge across the Seine, where, however, the pylons are treated more ornamentally. But the bridges committee while accepting the design and being favourably impressed by the pylons have decided not to adopt them as they would entail the additional cost of £10,000, thus the design will go to the L.C.C. this week shorn of the pylons.”

So the approach to the bridge was built without any pylons or statues, and the large granite blocks on which these would have been placed can be seen to left and right of the following photo of the roadway of the new bridge when completed. They are still there today, and still without any decoration or structure on top:

This is the Alexander III Bridge across the Seine referred to in the above description. It had been built a couple of years before the new Vauxhall Bridge, so if the money had been available, Vauxhall Bridge could have had similar impressive structures towering on the abutments, above either side of the approach to the bridge:

Image source and attribution: Jebulon, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

So whilst the roadway over the bridge was devoid of any decoration, there is decoration along the outer sides of the bridge.

The London County Council’s architect, Mr. W.E. Riley advised on the decoratuion of each support by placing steel panels over the masonry, and the application of bronze figures of heroic size on both elevations.

These figures were then created by Mr. A. Drury and Mr. F.W. Pomeroy.

This is a view of the side of Vauxhall Bridge from a few years ago. Statues can be seen above each of the piers:

On the western, upstream side of the bridge are Pomeroy’s statues representing Agriculture, Architecture, Engineering and Pottery:

And on the eastern, downstream side of the bridge are Drury’s statues representing Science, Fine Arts, Local Government and Education:

As well as the statues along the side of the bridge, there was another unique feature to the new Vauxhall Bridge, as explained in the LCC booklet:

“In consequence of the narrowness of the old bridge, no line of tramway had been constructed over it, and thus a gap had been left between the lines running from Victoria down the Vauxhall Bridge Road and the tramway at Vauxhall Cross.

In view of the importance of such a line, it was decided to apply to Parliament for authority to construct it. In 1896 the London County Council (Vauxhall Bridge Tramways) Act was passed, and steps were taken to carry out the work concurrently with the formation of the carriageway of the bridge.

Vauxhall Bridge is thus the first bridge over the Thames in London to accommodate a tramway. It will be seen, on looking at the map, that with the completion of the tramway over Vauxhall Bridge, there is a tramway in a straight line from Victoria Station to Camberwell-green. The latter point is a centre where a number of tramways meet on the south side of the Thames. The new line will therefore be of great importance in connecting large areas of South London with the stations of the London and Brighton, South Eastern, and Metropolitan District Railways at Victoria and with the large omnibus traffic starting from that point.”

The last paragraphs highlights how building one bit of infrastructure can have a much wider benefit, and although the original tram network has disappeared from London’s streets, the interconnectivity of different transport methods, whether train, underground or bus, has long been key to London’s success as a city.

The story of the two Vauxhall bridges also shows that bridges, as with any infrastructure needs maintenance and eventual replacement.

To highlight the benefits of the new bridge, and how London is subject to continual change, I will end the post with the following from the Westminster Mail on the 12th of May, 1906:

“VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD TRAMS – Considerable interest was evinced on Wednesday evening in the experimental trips of an electric tram car over the recently completed Vauxhall Bridge-road track. The sight of a tram-car on the bridge was a decided novelty, and attracted crowds of spectators. A car usually running on the Waterloo and Clapham route was requisitioned for the purpose, and it is understood that everything worked smoothly and satisfactorily.

Residents and those having business in the neighbourhood are agreed as to the rapidity with which the work of the electrification of the track was carried out. And but for the fact that the large sewer at the junction of the road in Tachbrook-street required extensive alterations, the task would have been accomplished even more speedily.

The past 15 years have witnessed remarkable alterations in Vauxhall-bridge road. In the early nineties the tinkling bells of the old one-horse cars were a dreadful nuisance, not in the least mitigated by the fact that there were no conductors. When the LCC acquired the system they substituted the more up to date pair-horse cars, and, better still, abolished those tinkling bells.

Now we are on the eve of having electric cars, a still greater improvement. In other directions too, the thoroughfare has been improved, and several blocks of handsome flats have taken the place of small house property. Of good width, and well paved with wood, Vauxhall Bridge-road should speedily become a much more important locality than has been the case hitherto.”

From Putney to Hammersmith – Slipways, Craven Cottage and Industry

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Walks

My Wapping walk has now sold out. There are spaces left on:

Limehouse – A Sink of Iniquity and Degradation on Saturday the 6th of June. – 2 Tickets Available

I have also added a new date for my Bankside walk, which is the first time in two years:

Bankside to Pickle Herring Street – History between the Bridges on Saturday the 20th of June – Sold Out

Last Sunday’s Post on A. Tattam

There were a number of comments to last Sunday’s post on A. Tattam who ran a shoe repair business in Hackney. These comments provided much more information about Albert.

Unfortunately, I created the post so it was ready for Sunday, and then initiated the transfer of the site to the new hosting provider. This took a while to complete, test and fix a number of minor problems, and I switched the Internet address over to the new site last Tuesday, which meant all the comments were on the old copy of the site with my previous hosting provider.

I do have copies of all these, but cannot add as comments, so will add within the post, as they really added some fascinating detail to his life.

The move means that I am happy to report that A London Inheritance is now hosted with SiteGround.

Now to today’s post:

A few week’s ago, my post was about Putney and Fulham – Bridges, Church and Thames Stairs, and was the first part of a walk from Putney Bridge to Hammersmith Bridge, not just because it is an interesting walk, but also to find the Thames stairs and landing places listed in the Port of London Authority’s directory for this stretch of the river.

My last post finished at Bishops Park Upper Stairs, and this post continues onward, all the way to Hammersmith Bridge.

Exploring this area shows just how rapid London was expanding to the west in the beginning of the 20th century, and that there was still a considerable amount of industry this far to the west along the river.

The following Ordnance Survey map dates from the end of the 19th / early 20th century. I have marked Putney and Hammersmith Bridges, and also put a circle around Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham football club, which I will come to later in the post.

I will be walking along the right hand side of the river as it is orientated in the following map, and around 120 years ago, the land along the river and a distance in land was still open space, although to the right, dense streets of housing can be seen approaching  (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

Around 45 years later, a range of different industries were lining the river, Craven Cottage had stands, and housing had reached up to the river  (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

As well as the two sets of stairs by Bishops Park, the Port of London Authority listing has another access point to the river close to Hammersmith Bridge. That is three places to access the river along this side of the river between Putney and Hammersmith Bridges. The listing does not include any stairs or slipways on the other side of the river, although some do exist, such as the stairs shown in the following photo:

I wonder if this is because the stairs on the eastern side of the river were up against industrial developments and businesses that used the river, and were therefore classified as working stairs, whilst the opposite side of the river had no similar development, and whilst there may have been stairs providing access to the river, these were not classed as working stairs.

The western side of the river is home to a couple of rowing centres, such as the Barn Elms Boathouse:

A short distance along from Bishops Park is the home of Fulham football club – Craven Cottage:

And walking along the river, the most obvious part of Fulham’s ground is the new Riverside Stand, which extends out and over the new walkway along the river:

Inside the ground floor of the new stand are a range of food and rink outlets, with seating alongside the river walkway. These are open during the day, not just on match days, when it is ticketed only, so if you are walking the river between Putney and Hammersmith, this is a good place to stop for a drink.

Inside, there are views through to the ground:

Fulham claim that Craven Cottage is the oldest football ground in London. They played their first match at Craven Cottage on the 10th of October 1896.

The club was formed in 1879, and before the move to their current site, had played at a number of locations around Fulham and Barn Elms. The club had purchased the land in 1894, and it had taken two years for the land to be cleared, a derelict house removed and the ground prepared.

This first, simple ground, was the one shown in the first map in the post. There were banks surrounding the pitch made from earth excavated during the construction of Shepherd’s Bush underground station.

A wooden stand was constructed but this only lasted a few years before being replaced by a new steel stand in 1905, and at the same time, the earth banks were terraced.

It is this configuration of Craven Cottage which can be seen in the following 1928 photo from Britain from Above:

In the above photo, the earthen bank along the river, to the left has now been replaced by the Riverside Stand, the northern edge of which can be seen in the following photo, where the stand and seating can be seen in the gap, and the photo shows just how close the stand is to the river on the immediate right:

Next to the stadium, alongside the river walkway is a statue of George Cohen MBE, a player who spent his entire professional life at Fulham, as well as playing for England, including the World Cup in 1966, where he played in the final against Germany.

The statue was unveiled in 2016 to mark the 50th anniversary of England winning the 1966 competition:

Leaving Craven Cottage, and the view along the walkway towards Hammersmith:

There is plenty of rowing along the river:

Not sure what these strange features are along the wall of the walkway:

It is hard to image that this entire walkway from Craven Cottage up to Hammersmith Bridge was once lined by industry, but a look at the second of the OS maps at the top of the post shows just how much there was.

A surprisingly high number of oil storage and distribution depots along with an oil refinery, a coal depot, a plaster manufacturer, sugar refinery, preserved food factory, joinery works, a distillery, wharves and warehouses.

Their proximity to the river allowing raw materials to be delivered, and finished products transported.

Nearly all evidence of these industrial sites has gone, replaced mainly by housing, but some traces can still be found.

Along the walkway, there is a small, green open space called Rowberry Mead. This was originally Roseberry Meade, where in 1638 there was a house with a cherry orchard which was recorded as being the finest in England. In 1661, a lease granted by the Bishop of London estimated the size of Rowberry Meade as being six acres.

In the late 19th century, it was a place where osiers (a type of willow tree), and reeds were grown for the basket making industry:

However by the 1940s, the cherry orchards, osiers and reeds had all gone, and the site was an oil distribution depot, with five circular oil storage tanks lining the river.

Whilst the tanks have disappeared, the outline of a couple of the tanks have been preserved in the layout of the park:

In the above photo, the curved fencing and concrete wall below is the riverside edge of the tank arrowed in the following map:

And the outline of the tank above the one with the red arrow is also part reserved, and this includes a mechanism which is placed in the centre of where the tank was located:

From a curve in the walkway, we can look across at the building which is still signed as Palace Wharf, which in the second OS map was the northern edge of the building complex that formed the Rathbone Works, where fibrous plaster and joinery was manufactured.

Also, in the following photo, it is interesting that whilst today there are no osiers / willows at Rowberry Mead, willows can still be seen growing on the river foreshore:

All the industry along the river required infrastructure to support the boats that brought goods to and from the storage depots and factories, most of this infrastructure has gone, but there still the remains of some wooden piers along the river:

In the following photo, the large brick building is the Crabtree pub:

There has been a pub on the site since at least the 1830s, with the large building we see today being a reconstruction of the pub in 1898 by Sich’s Lamb brewery of Chiswick.

The name of the pub, the Crabtree comes from the Crab Tree, or wild apple tree, of which there were once many in this part of Fulham.

In the following extract from the late 19th century OS map, the red arrow points to the first Crabtree pub, the green arrow points to Crabtree Lane, and the blue arrow points to Crabtree House. There are tree symbols covering many of the fields, presumably these were the crab trees which gave their name to the house, lane and pub:

Continuing along the walkway which heads under part of the original Palace Wharf buildings:

To show how industries changed along the river, in the late 19th century OS map, the area occupied by Palace Wharf was a malthouse, around 45 years later the site was manufacturing fibrous plaster.

Another reminder of just how connected with the river this stretch of the shore once was, along the walk there are features such as in the following photo, where mooring lines would be tied from the boats transporting goods to and from the industrial premises:

On the opposite bank of the river is the Harrods Furniture Depository:

The Harrods Furniture Depository was built between 1894 and 1913, having been designed by the architect W.G. Hunt.

As the name suggests, it was built to store furniture over and above what could be on display at the Knightsbridge store, and was also used to distribute furniture ordered by customers. The river was a key means of transport, and there was a pier on the river where boats could moor to deliver or take on furniture. Furniture was also repaired and restored in the building.

Harrods made use of the site in other ways to serve their customers, as the following from The Lady on the 30th of March 1895 shows:

“Many of our readers, and especially many ladies, will be glad to learn that there is a possibility this year of viewing the Boat Race from particularly comfortable quarters without the crushing inconvenience usually inseparable from such occasions. The directors of Harrods Stores have decided to fit up their wharf in front of the old Soap Works (now Harrods Furniture Depository), for the accommodation of a limited number of sightseers, and the race may be seen for at least a mile from this point for the very moderate charge of 2s 6d, light refreshments included.”

The Depository became redundant in the 1980s as delivery models moved from the retailers storing large volumes of goods, to a more just in time approach to minimise the need for costly stock holding and storage facilities.

The site was then converted into residential, with the large and impressive façade facing the river, being retained.

Getting closer to Hammersmith Bridge:

There has been a considerable amount of residential development along the land facing the river as we get towards Hammersmith Bridge.

These apartment buildings all follow the standard style of such developments of recent years, and they have the obligatory balcony:

The London Housing Design Guide published by the Mayor of London in 2010 defined in Section 4.10 Private Open Space that dwellings should have adequate private open space, in the form of either a garden, terrace, or balcony, and that 5 square metres should be provided for a two person dwelling.

This has probably led to a building design that in future decades will probably be recognised as an early to mid 21st century apartment design, much as today we recognise a Georgian or Victorian terrace.

Figurehead by the artist Rick Kirby between the riverside walkway and the new residential development:

The final approach to Hammersmith Bridge:

And as I approached Hammersmith Bridge, I found the last of the three places listed in the Port of London Authority’s guide to access points on this stretch of the river.

This access point goes by the simple name of “Hammersmith Landing”, and is a simple concrete slipway into the river surrounded by concrete walls:

The slipway was marked on the 1893 to 1896 revision of the Ordnance Survey map, where is was located directly at the end of Queen Street (now Queen Caroline Street). Rocque’s map of 1746 shows an unnamed street following the alignment of Queen Street and running through agricultural fields, with a number of buildings along the road, The street ran directly into the river, so as a point of access to the river, the site is probably at least 300 years old:

The building in the following photo is the Riverside Studios:

The Riverside Studios are another example of the transformation from industrial. The site was originally the 19th century and early 20th century Hammersmith Iron Works.

In 1933 the iron works was converted into a film studios with two sound stages, and films made here included “The Seventh Veil” with James Mason from 1945, and in 1950 “The Happiest Days of Your Life” with Margaret Rutherford.

In 1954 the studios were taken over by the BBC, who purchased the studios from the Alliance Film Company. BBC productions including Doctor Who and Quatermass and the Pit were then made here, along with Hancock’s Half Hour and Blue Peter, which are recorded on a plaque on the building:

And in June 1956, the American Singer and Actress, Eartha Kitt appeared in a BBC production at the studios, an event which is also recorded by a plaque on the building:

The BBC moved out of the Riverside Studios in 1975 as additional studios had been added to Television Centre in White City, and the Hammersmith buildings were then taken over by a charitable trust formed by Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

The current building dates from a major redevlopment of the site between 2014 and 2019.

Not long after the new site opened, the studios went into administration, and in 2025 were brought out of administration and brought under the control of a new charitable trust, the Anil Agarwal Riverside Studios Trust.

It was then up to the approach to Hammersmith Bridge, which continues to be closed to any form of traffic apart from pedestrians and cyclists.

Not only has Hammersmith Bridge been closed for some years, but Albert Bridge also recently closed, again apart from pedestrians and cyclists, as a crack in a cast iron component had been discovered in the north eastern abutment.

Work is now underway to restore Hammersmith Bridge, but this will probably take a number of years, and a 12 month plan is underway to repair Albert Bridge.

Two examples of the problems that can happen due to the age of much of London’s infrastructure:

If you are looking for a really interesting walk along the Thames, then the path between Putney and Hammersmith is well worth an exploration, and from Hammersmith there is an equally interesting walk to continue all the way to Chiswick, a route that has the added benefit of a number of good pubs. I wrote about the Chiswick to Hammersmith section in this post.

A. Tattam, Shoe Repairs and Layers of London

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I have two new walk dates now available, if you would like to explore Limehouse and Wapping. These are, with links:

Limehouse – A Sink of Iniquity and Degradation on the 6th of June

Wapping – A Seething Mass of Misery on the 13th of June – Sold Out

This week’s post is rather short as I had to finish it quickly ready for the site to be migrated to the new hosting provider. In the post, I first trace the location of one of my father’s 1980s photos, and then look at another of the resources available if you are interested in researching the history of London.

A. Tattam – Shoe Repairs

Whilst many remain, there were once far more small, independent businesses to be found across the streets of London, and in the mid 1980s you could have had your shoes repaired at A. Tattam in Brodia Road, Stoke Newington:

The same location, forty years later:

I was initially not sure when the business closed, but it had been operating out of this small building for many years.

The Hackney Museum have an online image of a shoe mangle, made between 1900 and 1935. The object history states that it was “Mangle used for leather at Albert Morris Tattam Shoe Repairs which was based at 2A Brodia Road, Stoke Newington.”.

Whilst it was made between 1900 and 1935, it does not mean that A. Tattam purchased it when new, they may have bought it second-hand at a later date. The object number is 1991.1006, and can be viewed by clicking here.

I have emailed Hackney Museum to find out whether the first four digits of the object number – 1991, is the year when the object became part of the museum’s collection. If so, then this would confirm roughly when the business closed.

There is also an early 20th century sewing machine from A. Tattam, with object number 1991.1005, which can be viewed here.

Apart from these two objects, I can find no other references to the business.

A. Tattam was Albert Morris Tattam, and there is a reference to a marriage of an Albert Tattam of Hackney in 1936.

There is also a record of the death of an Albert Morris Tattam in Gravesend in 1990.

In the 1939 register, there is a record of an Albert Morris Tattam living at 59 Windus Road, Stamford Hill, Hackney. His profession is given as Boot Repairer Master, and he is living with his wife Rose.

The 1939 register gives a date of birth of 3rd of January 1914, which is the same date as in the record of death, and in the record of marriage, Rose is listed, so this is the same person.

In the 1921 census there is an Albert Tattam, aged 7 years and 6 months living at St Charles House, Brentwood, Little Warley, Essex. This would be the age of Albert who was born in 1914. He was living there with his older brother George Tattam who was aged 10.

Against both boys is the note of “Father Dead”, and they are classed as an “Inmate”. I suspect that given the year, their father must have died in the First World War, and they are living in a children’s home.

St Charles House was also known as St Charles School and was an orphanage for Roman Catholic boys, established around the year 1884.

The following extract from the OS map shows the town of Brentwood early in the 20th century. St. Charles School can be seen in the fields to upper left:

So, he was born in 1914 in Hackney. By the time he was aged 7, he was living with his brother George in a children’s home in Brentwood. His father may have died during the First World War. I can find no record of his mother. He married Rose Whiteland in 1936, and in 1939, he is living at 59 Windus Road and listed as a Boot Repairer Master. The house at this address is a short 15 minute walk from his shoe repair business in Brodia Road.

He was still working in his Brodia Road business in 1985, as there is an entry for him Kelly’s Post Office Business Directory, where he is listed as a Shoe Repairer.

He died in Gravesend in 1990. Whether he retired to the town, or whether he was visiting, there is no record. The probate record has a residence of Stamford Hill listed, so I suspect he was visiting, and still lived at Windus Road.

He would have been of the age to have served in the Second World War, but I cannot find any records of military service, which is more to do with information freely available online rather than the lack of any service.

Just as I was completing this post, I received an email back from Hackney Museum with the following:

“1991 is when the item was added to our collection. I’ve had a quick look at our paperwork and we actually received the shoe mangle and sewing machine in late July 1990. Albert Morris Tattam (1914-1990) and his wife Rose Elisabeth both died in 1990, Rose on 28 March and Albert on 12 June, so we received the items about 6 weeks later. As they married in 1936, I can’t quickly and easily find any records of them having children so I cannot say for certain if the Tattam who donated the items to us was a child or a relation.

However for your purposes, 12 June would be the final day of Albert trading. As the items were donated to Hackney Museum so quickly afterwards, I can only assume that there wasn’t somebody to take over the business.”

I wonder how many pairs of shoes he repaired for Hackney residents during his working life, and how many times he walked between his home in Windus Road and workplace at Brodia Road:

The small premises of A. Tattam today appears to be a single residence as it has a house number and an entrance.

It is fascinating to be able to trace a small part of the story of those who have lived and worked in London, and put some context to photos of a very different city.

There is much to discover in the local area, but this has to be a short post, so a short distance away from Tattam’s business, I found a cat enjoying the warmth of an early spring day:

And whilst walking along Stamford Hill towards Stoke Newington Station, I found a shop with a wonderful typeface used for the shop’s name:

In the 75th anniversary year of the Festival of Britain, the typeface does remind me of the type of lettering, use of colour, and layout used during the festival, and the Egg Stores does appear to date from 1951 (although I have also read that it dates from 1948), so perhaps the festival was the inspiration.

The Egg Stores was an egg dealing business, selling white shelled eggs to the Jewish community.

The shop is now a Kosher Supermarket, and the shop sign is an example of what can be done when some design effort is put into a such a common feature of a busy street.

Resources – Layers of London

Back in December of last year, in one of my posts where I cover some of the resources I use to help discover and explore London’s history, I featured the publication London Archaeologist.

In the Spring issue of their publication, they included a review of my blog. This was not expected, and for clarity, as it is important to me, anything I feature on the blog is because it is of interest to me. I do not feature anything for financial gain, an offer to publicise the blog etc. Having said that, it was really good to receive a review in such a publication.

In the same post I featured the Archaeology Data Service, and the review in London Archaeologist mentioned:

“As well as London Archaeologist, the blogger recommended delving into the ADS for more information on particular sites, However, it’s a shame that there was no mention of the Layers of London website where articles can perhaps be found more easily if one is curious about certain areas.”

I have long found Layers of London really useful, so to correct my omission from my Resources series, this is the Layers of London website, found at the following link: https://www.layersoflondon.org/

Layers of London has been developed by the Institute of Historical Research, and uses a comprehensive collection of maps as the basis on which an equally comprehensive collection of information has been added.

The above image is of the home page, and at top right you will see “Explore the map” which is perhaps the quickest way to start looking at what is available. This will bring up the following page, which has the base map shown, overlaid with circles containing numbers. You can zoom into the map for greater detail, and the numbers in the circle refer to the number of records available for that locality.

Just exploring these records reveals the wealth of information available.

In the above image, I have added a red arrow on the left pointing to an icon in the tool bar to the left of the screen. Clicking on this icon brings up the Overlays page:

Where a long list of the maps available are listed, including, for example, the Agas map, Inland Revenue Valuation Surveys, Bomb Damage maps, Geology and US Spy Satellite images from 1973, as well as maps such as J. Ogilby and W. Morgan map of 1676, Horwood’s map of 1799, and Greenwood’s map of 1828.

It is also possible to explore by theme, as shown in the following window:

It is also possible to make your own contributions to the resources on the site. This page has more information, including a link to a helpful User Guide as well as some YouTube videos: https://www.layersoflondon.org/get-involved

There is a wealth of information on the Layers of London website, and it is very easy to spend quite a few hours exploring the history of the city, and if you have not found the site before, I hope you will find it to be a fascinating resource.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, or by next Sunday’s post, the blog will be on a new, far more stable home.

The Royal Festival Hall at 75

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I have recently released two new walk dates. These are, along with links for details and booking:

Two tickets have just become available for my walk exploring the Lost Streets of the Barbican, this Saturday, the 16th of May

Limehouse – A Sink of Iniquity and Degradation on the 6th of June

Wapping – A Seething Mass of Misery on the 13th of June

This is the post that should have appeared last Sunday, the 3rd of May, which was the 75th anniversary of the official opening of the Royal Festival Hall on the 3rd of May 1951.

Unfortunately, on Friday 1st of May, my web site went down again, coming back online on Sunday afternoon. I wont go into the issues with my current hosting provider (to keep my blood pressure down), but in the next couple of weeks I plan to move to an alternative, and hopefully better performing hosting platform.

So on the 75th (and one week) anniversary of the opening ceremony of the Royal Festival Hall, this post looks at the construction and opening of this South Bank icon.

If you attended the opening ceremony, then you may have purchased this souvenir programme of the event:

The foundation stone of the Royal Festival Hall had been laid on the 12th of October 1949 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and less than two years later the building would host the King and Queen and other members of the Royal family, with the King unveiling a commemorative tablet in the foyer.

There was then a service of dedication led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, followed by the first of a short series of inaugural concerts.

The works performed on the 3rd of May 1951 are shown in the following page from the souvenir programme:

The London County Council had arranged the week of inaugural concerts, and for the coming months there was “a full programme of Festival concerts, ballet, song recitals and light orchestras throughout the summer season and autumn. A season of ballet from July 26 to September 1 will be presented by International Ballet, who are planning imaginative productions of both new and familiar ballets in settings devised specially for the hall”.

The souvenir programme was a comprehensive booklet on the inaugural concerts, with biographies of the conductors along with comprehensive programme notes, which included extracts from the musical score, taking the audience through some of the intricacies of the work, and how some of the instruments in the orchestra had key parts.

It was a programme written for an audience with a serious interest in classical music.

At the back of the souvenir programme were a number of pages of adverts, from companies who had some part in the design, construction and fitting out of the Royal Festival Hall.

Adverts were a common part of the guide books for each of the Festival of Britain locations, and today, looking through these adverts is a rather depressing experience, as they are a list of all the British industries and manufacturing companies that have either closed or been taken over during the last 75 years, however there is one company associated with the Royal Festival Hall that is still in operation:

Harrison and Harrison were Thomas Hugh Harrison, who was born in 1839, presumably in St. Pancras as he was the son of Thomas William Harrison of St. Pancras who had a company manufacturing parts for organ buildings.

The firm of Harrison and Harrison dates from 1872 when Thomas Hugh Harrison set up a manufacturing business in Durham, where the firm was based in 1951, and where it is still repairing and building organs today.

Regarding the Royal Festival Hall, on the website of the company, there is the following: “A hugely influential event was the building of the organ in The Royal Festival Hall in 1954. This landmark instrument, which was restored by H&H in time for its sixtieth anniversary, introduced the British organ world to the classical influence of the continental Organ Reform Movement”.

Their website can be found here, and it is brilliant to see that the company appears to be thriving.

The Festival of Britain on the South Bank opened on the day after the inaugural concert, and the site was already generating some excitement. The South Bank was lit up, and it must have been quite a sight after wartime blackouts and post war austerity, as this article from the May 2nd issue of the London Daily News indicates:

“London’s famous skyline shines bright for the Festival; London’s river picks up the gleam. On the South Bank floodlights and search lights on the exhibition buildings make a blaze of reds, blues and yellows. Against the shadowy Shot Tower is the brilliance of the Royal Festival Hall. Then the Skylon points its finger to the night sky. Above Hungerford Bridge are the illuminated flag-masts of the Bailey footbridge.”

The Skylon was already attracting unwanted interest, as at the start of May:

“Students using grappling irons and nylon ropes, scaled the 295 feet high Skylon on the London south bank exhibition site at midnight and tied to a pole 50 feet from the top, a University of London Air Squadron scarf.

One of them said that five students entered the site late last night and two climbed the Skylon with the nylon ropes 120 feet and 220 feet long and climbing equipment which they had specially made. It was intended to fix the scarf to the lightning conductor but the frailty of the structure at the top made this too hazardous.

The scarf was taken down by workmen.”

Getting within 50 feet of the top was an achievement, not sure I would have wanted to try such a climb:

As well as the souvenir programme, the London County Council had also been involved with the publication of the Official Record of the Royal Festival Hall:

Having the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank was part of the London County Council’s, 1943 County of London Plan, which proposed that the South Bank should become a cultural centre, with a river walkway, public space, offices and homes.

The state of the South Bank was described in the plan as follows:

“It is one of the great anomalies of the capital that while the river, from Westminster eastwards, is lined on the north side with magnificent buildings and possesses a spacious and attractive embankment road, the corresponding south bank, excepting St. Thomas Hospital and the County Hall, should present a depressing, semi-derelict appearance, lacking any sense of dignity and order appropriate to its location at the centre of London, and fronting on to the great waterway. This gloomy aspect is intensified to-day by war damage.”

So it was in need of serious improvement.

Across the Festival of Britain site, the London County Council were responsible for the Royal Festival Hall as well as the new river wall and walkway, and their funding, design and construction, was why they survived, whilst the rest of the festival site was demolished soon after the closure of the festival.

A paragraph in the Forward to the Official Record provides a view of the challenge and intentions:

“The Royal Festival Hall is the only building of such magnitude and importance to have been completed in London since war began in 1939; and it is the first new concert hall the capital has had for much longer than that. This building is of great size and complexity – for it is much more than a concert hall – built on difficult terrain and conditioned in its design by the need for utmost economy in the use of steel and other scarce materials, has had to be planned and produced to an inexorable time-schedule and with a vital and uncomfortably close completion date always in mind. Yet the Council has been at pains to provide a building which is everything that careful planning and anxious forethought could make it, and which has been designed to be worthy of the unique occasion of its inception as well as the longer term use for which it is mainly intended.”

There are a small number of photos in the book, and a large number of drawings, including the following view of the external and internal parts of the building:

The numbers refer to: 1 – Roof Garden, 2 – Choir, 3 – Boxes, 4 – Orchestra, 5 – Stalls, 6 – Grand Tier, 7 – Entrance Staircase, 8 – Side Promenade, 9 – Main Foyer, 10 – Restaurant, 11 – Terrace Restaurant, 12 – Escape Stairs, 13 – Terrace.

The paragraph from the forward hinted at the challenges of building on the South Bank. A major challenge was water, as the ground where the Royal Festival Hall was to be built was saturated, and ground water height varied with the tide in the Thames.

The options were either pumping or freezing the ground, and the solution taken was:

“To sink a sort of subterranean fence round the whole building site, some 350 steel pipes a yard apart , driven 20 feet down with their tops connected up to suction pumps. When the pumping began, water was thrown out at a rate of 150,000 gallons an hour, but when the general water level was reduced to that of the pipe ends, half that ejection rate served to keep all the excavations comfortable de-watered and workable down to 20 feet below the surface”.

A diagram from the book showing the layers of strata, with the excavation for the building on the right and the River Thames on the left:

The Official Record looked at the Auditorium:

“Heart and kernel of the whole concert hall building is of course the great auditorium itself, the vivifying principle that alone gives validity to the outer parts and members of its body that encircle it in protective, ordered complexity. So it is the auditorium that will here be more critically judged than anything else, more keenly discussed and therefore longest remembered.

All else is but accessory and ancillary to this one essential element; the elegant restaurants and terraces, the foyers and bars and all the rest – mere handmaidens in helpful, agreeable attendance.

Spatially the auditorium is immediately satisfying, probably partly because one unconsciously realises that it is so exactly shaped for its particular job. Nothing has been done in the way of embellishment to detract from this obvious functional fitness, and indeed one guesses – and again correctly – that such decoration as there is is all calculated to promote the prime purpose of the Hall: the hearing of good music.”

One of the features of the seats in the auditorium was the use of sound absorbing glass fibre in the pads of the seats, to eliminate the sound of a seat tipping as well as to create the effect where an empty seat had the same acoustic properties as an occupied seat.

Boxes lining the walls of the auditorium:

There was a considerable amount of research into the acoustic properties of the auditorium:

One of the unique features of the Royal Festival Hall is that when you enter the building and stand in the foyer, it is not immediately obvious where the auditorium is located. The foyer presents a wide open space, with thin columns supporting the structure above, with only bars and reception desks in view.

The auditorium is suspended above the foyer, a design that needed a clever means of support with four stairwells at each corner constructed within a bastion to support the auditorium. The following image from the book shows how the auditorium is almost a capsule suspended within the overall building:

The main foyer, with one of the bars to the left. The sloping floor of the auditorium forms the ceiling:

One of the themes of the Festival of Britain was the use of new designs for even the most basic of functions, and in the restaurants of the Royal Festival Hall, this included newly designed chairs, with a rubber cushioned seat, and a dumb waiter made out of tubular metal, timber and aluminium:

The auditorium was by far the most important feature, but restaurants were also an important part of the overall visitor experience, and for those dining in the restaurant with a window seat: “At night a new prospect is revealed as the lights shine across the river”:

Design of the terraces and gardens around the hall were just as important as the interior, and long before the large terrace that we see today was built in front of the hall, there was a lower and smaller upper terrace “from which there is a magnificent view of the river and the northern embankment”:

As with the souvenir programmes, in the official record of the Royal Festival Hall, there were a number of adverts for companies involved in many aspects of the building, including Cox & Co of Watford, who were responsible for the auditorium seating:

One of the aims with the design of the Royal Festival Hall was to make use of the latest technologies available for building such a concert hall. As well as theatre and sound technologies, this also included air conditioning and heating systems, and the following photo from the book shows heating pipes which threaded through the building:

One of the challenges with designing and building so quickly, along with the use of new technologies was that the design had to change as construction progressed.

The installation of air conditioning, heating pipes and electrical cables required the drilling of unplanned holes in the buttresses of the hall that gave support to the auditorium as well as many of the walls.

As well as the design of the interior, the importance of the auditorium, and the use of the latest technologies, one of the other key features of the Royal Festival Hall was its location on the South Bank, directly overlooking the Thames, and the building was intended to present an impressive view:

As mentioned earlier in the post, the South Bank was in a dismal state, and the LCC plan proposed significant new buildings along the South Bank which would mirror the buildings along the North Bank, and the above image shows how the Royal Festival Hall was intended to be the first part of this.

This is an issue I have with the South Bank today. The walkway is lined with trees and especially when they are in leaf, they do obscure much of the view of the Royal Festival Hall from the north bank.

Trees are key in the built environment. Not only do they improve the visual aspect, they also provide shade, have a cooling effect etc. however, for the short space of the walkway in front of the hall, removing the trees would restore the view of the Royal Festival Hall as was intended by the designers and developers.

My father took a whole series of photos of the South Bank showing the area before it was cleared ready for the build of the festival, and then construction.

The first of his photos is from 1947 and shows the site prior to demolition. The Royal Festival Hall would be built on the site of the lion Brewery, which is to the right, with the Coade Stone Lion on the top:

A view on the South Bank. The large building is the Lion Brewery after the Lion had been removed:

Building the foundations of the Royal Festival Hall:

The Shot Tower is the tall tower in both photos:

Looking across the site, the tall houses in the background were in Howley Street, which has long gone, replaced by the slip road that runs between Belvedere Road and the roundabout at the southern end of Waterloo Bridge:

The above image gives an indication of the depth of the foundations.

One of the objections to the Festival of Britain was the impact it would have on both materials and workers, who were also desperately needed for post war reconstruction of the homes, offices and factories that has been destroyed by bombing, and general deterioration since the 1930s.

There was a wonderful book published specially for the Festival of Britain by the Association of Consulting Engineers. The book is a comprehensive exploration of many large infrastructure and construction projects in which the association’s members were involved. The book included a section on the Royal Festival Hall, with a detailed description of the design, construction and challenges.

The following image from the book shows the Royal Festival Hall in the foreground, with the build of the Dome of Discovery in the background, with the rest of the site being built around. The image provides an idea of the sheer scale of the construction of the Festival of Britain site on the South Bank:

Back to my father’s photos, and this one shows the build of the Royal Festival Hall well underway:

And finally it has been completed:

Photo showing detail of the terraces at the front of the building, much the same as the print from the official record shown earlier in the post:

The Royal Festival Hall on the 3rd of May 2026, on the 75th anniversary of the opening ceremony:

The large yellow object on the left is a work called Pin Drop by Carson McColl and Gareth Pugh, created as part of the 75th anniversary and is “reimagining the iconic Skylon for the digital age”.

The Royal Festival Hall is a result of a 1943 LCC plan, as well as using the South Bank for the 1951 Festival of Britain.

A wonderful building, but what I find really remarkable is the speed at which it was built. Just over three years from design to the opening ceremony.

The Festival of Britain, which opened to the public on the 4th of May 1951, was though much more than just the South Bank.

If you would like to explore the festival in more detail, you may be interested in the following posts:

An overview of the South Bank festival is here: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/the-festival-of-britain-south-bank-exhibition/

A walk around the upstream circuit of the site is here: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/walk-round-festival-britain-upstream-circuit/

And a walk around the downstream circuit is here: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/festival_of_britain_downstream_circuit/

The Festival Pleasure Gardens at Battersea are explored here: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/the-festival-of-britain-pleasure-gardens-battersea-park/

The Festival Of Britain – Maps, Football, Guidebooks. Science And Abram Games is a look at some of the publications that went with the festival as well as the Exhibition of Science at South Kensington: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/abram_games/

An Optimistic View Of The Future is a look at some of the adverts from the 1951 Festival Of Britain: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/an-optimistic-view-of-the-future-adverts-from-the-1951-festival-of-britain/

The Exhibition of Architecture at Poplar is explored here: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/lansbury-exhibition-of-architecture/

and here: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/exhibition-of-architecture/

The strange story of the Festival of Britain and the Atomic Bomb is here: https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/the-festival-of-britain-and-the-atomic-bomb/

Hopefully the site will be up and stable if you would like to read these, and all being well will be on a far more stable hosting platform in the next couple of weeks.