Southwark - Discovering London

Tag Archive: Southwark

London Pubs in the 1930s – How Many Can You Name?

Written on March 16, 2012 by Peter Berthoud in Architecture, Food & Drink, Photography

These beautiful photos of London pubs all date from around 1938. These are London pubs as our grandparents and great-grandparents enjoyed them.

Many still look remarkably similar today, over 70 years since these images were captured. How many of them can you identify and locate? The answers can all be found on my new Facebook page. Just follow the link.

Recently I have publishing many other vintage photos of London on Facebook. Along with several more vintage shots of London pubs, there are also albums of London children, dogs, transport, Soho, street scenes, and markets. Most of the images date from the 1930s and I am adding to these incredible albums daily.

You don’t have to be on Facebook to see all the images, or even need to “like” the page for that matter. But of course any “likes” and “shares” would be very much appreciated!

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

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The Next Station to Arrive at London Bridge will be the 2018

Written on September 15, 2011 by Peter Berthoud in Architecture, Exhibitions

After noticing a short feature at the excellent SE1 website this morning, I popped along to have a look at an exhibition on the major redevelopment of London Bridge station. The exhibition is tiny and all of the information displayed can already be accessed from Network Rail but there are staff on hand to answer questions and collect feedback and there is a great new model of the proposed development.

The model is by Pipers, who are the most extraordinary architectural model makers. My photographic skills don’t do it justice and the shiny perspex case didn’t help!

For me a model by Pipers is so much more persuasive than an artist’s impression, such as this one, featured in a leaflet accompanying the exhibition.

On seeing the model I want to see the Shard and the whole new station complex complete, even if work there won’t commence in earnest until 2013 and won’t be complete until 2018. Whilst the artist’s impression puts the development into a wider context and allows the juxtaposition of the planned, and the existing (especially the truly vile grain silo/office block to the left of The Shard) to remain in view. The model being much more selective, makes it all seem so clean and tidy.

This model and the exhibition are only on show for three days

Thursday, 15 September 2011 – 8am-7pm

Friday, 16 September 2011 – 8am-7pm

Saturday, 17 September 2011 – 8am-10am

But if you want to see a real masterpiece of Piper Modelling and on a far grander scale, you can do so this weekend during London Open House. Their model of the whole of the City of London, with all planned developments, was a personal highlight of last year’s Open House Weekend. It can be viewed for free at:

Pipers’ City of London Model, The City Marketing Suite, Guildhall Complex (entrance at 80 Basinghall Street, leading from Gresham Street) EC2V 5AR Sat 10am-4pm/Sun 10am-4pm.

Or there is their even larger, and necessarily less detailed, model of the whole of Central London, again it is free to view, but this one is open all year-round at New London Architecture (NLA) The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, WC1E 7BT Open Mon to Fri: 9.30 am – 6 pm & Sat: 10 am – 5pm.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours in London, see tabs for details.

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More Unseen Images of Tower Bridge Under Construction

Written on July 11, 2011 by Peter Berthoud in Architecture

Here are six more images of Tower Bridge under construction.In these pictures the high-level walkways are joined.

These photos are part of a set of 20 that were saved from a skip in central London many years ago. At the offices of one of the original contractors, management had decided to have a “clear-out” and a great many boxes of old paperwork from throughout the firm’s history were simply dumped.

The only person who thought these photos were worth saving is a friend and neighbour of mine. He rescued them, scanned them and this weekend he gave me copies to share here on the blog. We will never know just how much other material was lost in the company’s “clear-out”, journals, letters and many other photos probably went straight to landfill.

An act of corporate vandalism that could so easily have been averted. I am sure that many public archives and private collectors would have helped the company gain space by taking this material “off their hands”, they would probably even paid them handsomely to do so, at the very the least the company could have saved themselves the cost of skip hire.

The original post contains eight more photos of the bridge in an earlier phase of construction. I will publish the final six photos in the set here soon.

In the meantime if you would like to know a little more about the history of Tower Bridge, there is an excellent quick guide at Caroline’s Miscellany, this guide also has many useful links to other sites.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

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Unseen Images of Tower Bridge Under Construction

Written on July 9, 2011 by Peter Berthoud in Architecture

These images show Tower Bridge under construction in the 1880′s. They were saved from a skip many years ago by a neighbour of mine. The skip was outside the former offices of one of the original contractors. He has kindly scanned them and agreed that I can share them here.

There are a total of 20 images in the set, I will publish the rest here over the coming week. Some details about the bridge, which celebrates the 125th anniversary of its foundation this year, from the Tower Bridge website here.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.