View of Borough High Street
View of Borough High Street
Record No
115926
Title
View of Borough High Street
Description
View of Borough High Street, Southwark. Borough High Street is one of the oldest streets in London being the main thoroughfare from London Bridge to Kent since antiquity. To the left, number 56is a narrow four-storey building with a Dutch-style gable, a flagpole and plaster decoration above the first-floor window. In 1910 it was the offices of the Royal Insurance Company and by 1921, was occupied by the Tokyo Trading Company, export merchants.. Number 54 an early-eighteenth century three-storey building with a mansard roof and dormer window. On the dormer window and above the shop window a sign: FIELD & Son , Estate Agents and Surveyors. On the second floor is 'Sun Fire Mark'. Starting after the Great Fire of London in 1666, these marks indicated the company with which the building was insured: each company having its own fire brigade. In this case, the upper floors of the building were the offices of the Sun Fire and Life Company. A sign hanging from the first floor has sun faces looking in both directions along the road. The building stands on a medieval burgage plot, once occupied by an inn known as the Hen and Chickens. During the nineteenth century the building was used as a drapers shop, and in the early 1870s as a hardware shop. In September 1875 it played a role in a murder. Henry Wainwright was apprehended at the building, then rented by his brother, attempting to hide the remains of Harriet Lane whom he had murdered the previous year. He was hanged outside Newgate Prison in December 1875. The building remained empty for the rest of that decade. The building has been in use by the same Estate Agents since 1880 and is Grade II listed, number 1428936. Number 50 is an early-eighteenth century three-storey building with a mansard roof and dormer window. Above the shop window the sign for PIKE SON CO. AND TABRUM and SON, both Hop Factors. Hop factors represented growers, selling hops to dealers who would in turn sell them on to brewers. Above an arched entrance to a passageway is a sign Calvert's Buildings. Reputed to be built in 1542, a timber-framed two-storey building, originally The Goat Inn public house, later called The Brew House, Calvert's Buildings takes its name from Felix Calvert, brewer, who occupied the site from 1786 to 1794. The building is Grade II listed, number 1378350. In front of the archway stands a 'Mod' in a duffle coat with his Vespa Scooter. Numbers 44-48 are early-eighteenth century narrow four-storey buildings, combined as one, with a sign ROYAL INSURANCE GROUP, DELTA HOUSE. To the right, the St Saviours War Memorial, unveiled in 1922. Costing £4000 it was paid for by public subscription following a competition organised by the local war memorial committee. The winning design was by the sculptor Philip Lindsey Clark who served on the Western Front in World War I. The bronze figure, according to the sculptor, was intended to “express the same dogged determination and unconquerable spirit displayed by all branches of our forces on land, on the seas, and in the air”. It is Grade II* listed, number 1378368.
Date of execution
1967
Section
The London Archives
Collection
LCC Photograph Library
Medium
photograph
Catalogue No
SC_PHL_01_365_67_2075
London picture map location
Exact
Subjects
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