Old 1970s Negatives - Part 5 (1st INSTALLMENT)

[alan_fincher]

SEEMS I CAN ONLY POST SO MANY IMAGES IN ONE THREAD, SO SPLITTING IT.

 

Going through my old book of 1970s black & white negatives have turned up quite a few all shot on the Regents Canal at locations between Camden Lock and the Hertford Union Canal.

 

Although shot on three different occasions, all seem to have been dull or misty days, meaning that the PanF film that many are on was not an appropriate type. That coupled with no light meter would explain negatives that have poor exposure, camera shake, (or both!).

 

None-the-less, I have had several requests to publish further archive pictures, so I make no excuse for the quality, but hope they make up for it in atmosphere. Despite commercial traffic being dead by then, they still show a view of the Regents that has long since gone. Undoubtedly it is nicer to cruise now it is largely sanitised, but I’m glad I have these old memories too.

 

I’ll endeavour to put into order, and identify locations where known. However I’ll doubtless get some wrong, so would really appreciate corrections or additions. (One for example has a factory with ‘Tizer’ across it, but I can’t find anything with a Google search.

 

We’ll start at the top of Hampstead Road locks, and work down to Ducketts, (I hope!)

 

Hampstead Road Locks

 

EDIT: I am indebted for a later explanation from Steve King about naming of locks in this area, the first three being Hampstead Road, Hawley & Kentish Town. I now understand that although the area around the top locks (Hampstead Road) is described as "Camden Lock", that is not actually the name of any canal lock. - Phew!

 

 

 

The “Mangle” presumably an exhibit at Hampstead Road.

 

It appears to be a restored non functioning display, but what was it originally ?

 

 

Hawley Locks (I hope!)

 

 

Kentish Town Locks

 

 

These paddles allowed one lock to act as side pond for the other, thus saving water. A similar arrangement is at Hillmorton, though I'm not sure if still connected.

 

 

St Pancras Locks

 

 

 

 

Islington Tunnel (Western End)

 

Edited March 11, 2009 by alan_fincher

[LEO]

Alan,

 

More great pictures, and no graffiti!. Presumably around the same date as the other sets you have published.

 

Leo.

[alan_fincher]

Alan,

 

More great pictures, and no graffiti!. Presumably around the same date as the other sets you have published.

 

Leo.

Yes,

 

I need to try and work out more precisely when any of these photos were.

 

But I didn't own any 35mm camera before 1971, and doubt many of the pictures are before 1972. I'd guess the London ones are all 1972 to 1974 (maximum), although some I will publish may be a fraction later, (but not much).

 

The London ones were definitely from 3 different occasions, well separated, but all autumn or winter, I think.

 

Alan

[LEO]

Yes,

 

I need to try and work out more precisely when any of these photos were.

 

But I didn't own any 35mm camera before 1971, and doubt many of the pictures are before 1972. I'd guess the London ones are all 1972 to 1974 (maximum), although some I will publish may be a fraction later, (but not much).

 

The London ones were definitely from 3 different occasions, well separated, but all autumn or winter, I think.

 

Alan

 

Hi,

 

I would have thought that someone form St Pancras Cruising Club may be able to help date them. One of the pics is close to their HQ.

 

Leo

[Derek R.]

Hampstead Road Locks (Camden Lock ? – I never really know what to call the top lock, rather than the flight – anybody ?)

 

The "Mangle" presumably an exhibit at Hampstead Road.

It appears to be a restored non functioning display, but what was it originally ?

 

Hawley Locks (I hope!)

 

Kentish Town Locks

 

The three are collectively known as Hampstead Road locks, or the 'Hampstead three'. The little dock above the top lock is Dingwall's wharf - but that's in the Nicholsons. The top is Camden Lock, middle is Hawley, and the bottom Kentish Town - plural as they are (were) doubled. Not sure why they called them 'Hampstead Road', as Hampstead Road is at the southern end of Camden High Street and extends down to Euston Road. The road Leading up to Hampstead from the canal is Chalk Farm Rd. leading on to Haverstock hill and Rosslyn Hill, though when the canal was built, it may well have been called Hampstead Road, Camden High Street and the others being of later date. Old Map website has it as Chalk Farm Road in 1875.

 

I would hazard a guess at the 'Mangle' being a winch, was possibly from a crane, or maybe to pull a drawbridge across the end of the dock, of which there were three facing Dingwall's across the cut above Camden.

 

Very nice pictures Alan, compare with TODAY.

[Steve King]

Marvellous old photos of the Regent's Canal Alan, takes me back to the first time I saw it in 1974 when a friend and I walked from Little Venice to Limehouse Basin as the Boat Afloat Show wasn't to our taste.

 

A few comments if I may:

 

Great to see so many gas holders at St Pancras, I think some must have been removed quite a long time ago while others are currently in storage awaiting a new home following displacement by the CTRL. Wasn't there a 'triple' there, beng three all siamesed together?

 

You are correct in identifying Sturt's Lock, and in the photo it still retains the original (1820 and the opening of the canal) cast iron balance beams on both locks. What a shame none of these survived (at least, I don't think any can be seen in place nowadays?).

 

Beyond Kentish Town Lock is the immense Aerated Bread Company works on both sides of the canal. It survived until the 1980s and I remember thinking it would be nice to keep just a section of the street railing which had ABC cast into it (never did of course).

 

The Big Woolwich motor boat would indeed be Aber. I remember the back cabin being re-skinned by the BWB carpenters at City Road when we went down to Limehouse one day in Jenny Wren, that would be 1976/7.

 

The winch mechanism was used to wind open the lock gates at Limehouse, but on which lock I'm not sure. There is a cast plaque on the side of the roving bridge giving details. You have caught the Jason winding in the background too.

 

I have to disagree with Derek about the naming of the first three locks. The top locks are Hampstead Road Locks and I have never heard the flight referred to as the Hampstead three. Camden Lock is not a canal lock, but the name of the adjacent market site. It has never been the name of the locks, despite many people believing this to be so. I worked for Northside Developments (they own London Waterbus Co) and they told me they picked the name for their site (formerly Dingwalls Wharf, indeed 'Purfleet Wharf' if you refer back to an original Regent's Canal Co promotional booklet) simply because it was in Camden, and next to a lock. The site has since become better known than the locks. The second pair of locks are Hawley, the third Kentish Town.

 

There is a little rubbish in the canal, but nothing like the rafts of wood and other debris that would foul it later in the 1970s and 80s, it could be really terrible then. When the duplicate locks had been weired (by 1975), water control was effected simply by raising the paddles at Hampstead Road lock and running water down the canal until all the pounds were full again. This swept the debris over the weirs so huge amounts could gather at certain locks whereas before it must have been hauled out at each lock. And by now the pounds had to be kept full as the water was used for cooling the electricity supply cables under the towing path.

 

 

Steve

[alan_fincher]

Steve,

 

Thanks for a great explanation.

 

You obviously know your London canals far better than I, so the extra info is fascinating.

 

I had not really realised the significance of those cast balance beams as being original - as you say, a shame if none now in use. I may be wrong, but the distant image of the bottom gates at City Road Locks would also seem to show them all of that type.

 

I've always been confused about the lock namings at Camden, and I agree that the decision to name an area "Camden Lock" has muddled the canal side of things.

 

I also think that the fact that modern guides like Nicholson's refer to Kentish Town Lock, Hawley Lock but Hampstead Road Locks has confused the issue further. I now realise the plural on the "Locks" at Hampstead Road is because it is the one place where twinned locks have survived. In my elderly Nicholson's then they are all shown as "Locks", because when it was current, each and every one was twinned.

 

Finally....

 

I'm not sure if it's in this part, or not, but I was indeed having a "senior moment" when I suggested the London Canal Museum was in City Road Basin. I do know it isn't, honest I do!

 

Maybe one day I'll walk it all again, and try and take modern day pictures from the same locations.

[Derek R.]

I have to disagree with Derek about the naming of the first three locks. The top locks are Hampstead Road Locks and I have never heard the flight referred to as the Hampstead three. Camden Lock is not a canal lock, but the name of the adjacent market site. It has never been the name of the locks, despite many people believing this to be so. I worked for Northside Developments (they own London Waterbus Co) and they told me they picked the name for their site (formerly Dingwalls Wharf, indeed 'Purfleet Wharf' if you refer back to an original Regent's Canal Co promotional booklet) simply because it was in Camden, and next to a lock. The site has since become better known than the locks. The second pair of locks are Hawley, the third Kentish Town.

 

Steve

 

Yes, in hindsight I was taking the name from a Nicholson's without detailed local knowledge so I defer to Steve's. I 'wrote' in "Hampstead three" in my Nicholson's, and I recall it was after I read Kit Gayford's 'names' for locks that I did so. It's in the first page of the appendix in 'Amateur Boatwomen', though written "Hampstead Rd. 3". Surely the trendy new market would have taken its name from the juxtaposition of the lock by Camden High Street, than the lock taking the name from the market? However, Hampstead Road Locks sounds a more likely term to have been used in everyday parliance when the area was warehousing and goods yards. Steve's point is more valid.

 

My sister and brother-in-law lived in Fitzroy Road for several years, and despite many visits by bus - passing the Aerated Bread Company always with the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread (ABC Bakers were well known in North London) - I never knew the existence of the canal so close by. If we went by bus the top deck was favoured, but we would have been getting off by the Mother Redcap, so would probably have been descending the stairs where Camden Road crosses the cut by the bakery. That would have been from '52 to '60 (I was 5yrs old in '52), imagine if I had taken rolls of pictures of the goods yards and interchange depot in full swing along with the canal - if only! But in ignorance . . . and without camera at that age . . .

 

Derek

[Derek R.]

I hope Alan won't mind me adding a couple of 'Oldies' to his collection. I have had these sitting on hold for several months now while I attempted to gain permission to copy. The scenes are from a 24 part fortnightly publication by the Amalgamated Press (1922) entitled "Wonderful London". It covered a wide variety of subjects, and in issue 12 there is a section "London's Lesser Waterways" by Ladbroke Black (a pseudonym no doubt). The Amalgamated Press became part of the East Midlands Allied Press, which in turn disappeared into the I.P.C. After several attempts to raise awareness at Kings Reach Tower of this publication over weeks of being passed from pillar to post while they denied any knowledge, I gave up. As the published pictures are in excess of eighty years old (I believe seventy is the limit on copyright), I'll put them up.

 

As the 'Wonderful London' publication came out in 1926, these pictures will date from shortly before that year.

 

This is a place I knew well in the mid sixties as I spent some time as a Zoo keeper on the Cotton Terraces that front the canal.

I suspect this is the bridge at the end of the Zoo grounds, and Macclesfield Bridge, otherwise known as 'Blow Up' bridge is just out of sight at the curve in the distance. This shot is different today, mainly because the bridge is divided down the middle with high railings as one crosses. Entrance paying public on the Zoo side, outside public crossing to Regents Park proper from Prince Albert Road on the other.

 

The articles on the right hand bank may well be the terraced seedling beds of the Zoological Societies Gardens department which were at one time established at that point. During my days there, the towpath was unavailable to the public, and I recall a locked gate beneath the bridge to deter Zoo entrance fee dodgers. The canal through the Zoo was a secretive place, where trees in full leaf almost touched across the water.

 

 

 

I have no idea where this one is, possibly Victoria Park. Looks like 'Sunday Best' is in view. Is this petrified spearfishing?

Edit: I do wonder if this was the beginning of Cumberland Basin we see here. The banks rise up, and it appears to curve gently to the right which would be about right. But unsure.

 

 

And this could be any dock - Brentford; Limehouse - boatmen or dockers, but a lovely study.

 

 

Derek

Edited March 11, 2009 by Derek R.

[Steve King]

Yet more interesting photos of the Regent's Canal, thanks Derek.

 

In the first photo I think the photographer is standing on the footbridge that links Prince Albert Road (at St Marks Square) to the Outer Circle road, and to the left would be the offices of the Zoological Society. The camera is looking west and the footbridge in the distance is within the zoo grounds and just behind the zoo offices. In a contemporary shot we would see in the far distance the aviary and perhaps Sir Hugh Casson's concrete bridge of the 1960s. So the barge / lighter has just rounded the corner at Cumberland Turn and is proceeding west.

 

The second photo may well show the entrance to the Cumberland Market Branch, in the centre of the scene, and as such is a very rare photo indeed. To the extreme left of the view would be the main line of the canal to Camden Town through the bridge under Prince Albert Road - 'Waters Meeting' bridge as it would have been known to the fishermen, at Jew's Harp Turn if I remember correctly.

 

The view today, looking in the opposite direction from the first photo, can be seen here:

http://www.londonwaterbus.co.uk/webphotos/100_0482.JPG

and the fishermen would have been standing on the bank behind 'Gardenia'. Many changes have taken place in the intervening years of course, including the infilling of most of the branch leaving a basin, and the rebuilding of the bridge and approach bank in concrete. The other waterbus is 'Milton', formerly 'Milton Princess' (built 1978 by M E Braine) and one of the Johnson Bros pottery-carrying fleet on the Caldon Canal.

 

 

Steve