Morning Mist at Tower Bridge

Last week I woke up early to find that a thick mist had wrapped itself around the city.  I decided to swing by Tower Bridge on my way to work to take a few photos. Here is one of the shots.

Magnolia Trees

 

 

It is a beautiful spring day (at last!) and the magnolia tree a few doors down is in bloom, so I thought I'd share some spring sunshine....

WWII Bomb Sites Website

I am working on a project at work with a vacant site in south London and was trying to establish whether it was the result of bomb damage. While searching online I found this fascinating website made by the BBC which shows all of the WW II bomb sites across London, with photos where available. I did a little check for my area, then zoomed out... Check out the website here!

Final Roof Inspections

On the weekend I made my final inspection of the roof repairs and re-pointed brickwork so this week the scaffold can come down at last. While I was up there I took another skyline shot as you really can see everything! (From left) St Paul's Cathedral, The Shard, The Gherkin, and Canary Wharf

View from my roof top!

Here is the view from my roof top (looking north towards the city) which was taken this morning when I met the builders to go over the works required to stop the leak in my flat. Works start on the interior repairs on Tuesday so I'll be moving everything out of the room this weekend.

Museum Of London

After watching the BBC special on my street I was searching the net for more information about the Charles Booth Survey and found that the Museum of London has a whole wall to wall, floor to ceiling room covered in his maps. Something to add to my list of weekend London based excursions I think...

The Secret History Of Streets

If you are in the UK, tune in to BBC 2 at 9pm tonight to watch the Secret History of Streets - this week the episode features Camberwell Grove!

In 1886 Charles Booth started a 17 year long project to visit every one of London's streets to record the social conditions of residents, hand colouring the maps to indicate wealth, poverty and even criminals! The BBC series re-visits six archetypal London streets as they exist today, and looks at how they have changed in the past 100 years. Last week the series looked at nearby deptford high street. (See map above)

You may remember this exciting post from 2 years ago when I found put they were filming the programme:

More info here:

Refurbished Train Station

My local train station has been undergoing a big refurbishment and for the past year the main access stairs have been closed off. Last week they were re-opened at last and are looking fresh and new. Normally I'm not a fan of the brigh colours required for handrails in public places to provide adequate visual contrast - but these school bus yellow ones look great!

Dualit Toaster comes back home to Camberwell

This week my shiny new flatmate arrived - a Dualit New-Generation toaster! The toaster is a British design classic, with its origins, I just discovered, right here in Camberwell!

The first patent of 1946 is shown at top, followed by the re-design in 1952, which was also produced in Camberwell before Dualit expanded to a larger factory on Old Kent Road. The last image of course is my toaster in its new home.

An excerpt from the history is here:

Max Gort-Barten the founder of Dualit was born in Germany in 1914. Max's father was also an inventor and the family produced acetate wallets in a factory behind their house. Max found himself in England as WWII broke out. After 5 years in the army, he bought a factory in Camberwell with the intention of manufacturing one of his many inventions. His first successful product was the flip-sided toaster, patented in 1946

The rest of the story can be found here: http://www.dualit.com/timeline

After doing a bit of research I was able to find out that the original Dualit factory, which no longer stands, was on nearby Picton Street. Remarkably, the British Queen pub visible in the foreground of these old photos, with its sign panel, and projecting Rooster sign stating 'Courage' still exists. For fun I tried to find the same view on Google Maps and came up with the below.

Autumn Leaves

I saw these colourful leaves by the train station on my way to work this morning and thought Id snap a quick photo. Ok, so London dont have quite the same spectacular display of colour as in Canada in the Autumn, but there are still some pretty moments.

An Autumn Walk in my neighbourhood

Yesterday the weather was gorgeous, sunny and mild - in essence the perfect autumn day... So I went for a little stroll around my neighbourhood in the morning. Here are a few photos from the walk.

TV commercial being filmed on my street!

I received this flyer last night letting neighbours know that a film crew will be filming a television commercial in the house just a few doors down. Im not sure which one, but when I find out I'll be sure to post a link to the finished product! Cool.

A view to St Pauls

I leaned out of my bedroom window this afternoon to clean the ledge and realised for the first time since moving here that I could see St. Paul's Cathedral (speaking of viewing corridors recently!) At night I can see Canary Wharf in the distance to the East, but had never looked northwards.

Green Doors and Matching Shutters

This weekend we started work in the kitchen. We moved all our food and dishes into the bedroom, and the bed into the living room,(yes, its a bit like a game of Tetris!), removed the upper cabinet, and stripped the woodwork. We even managed to get a coat of paint on the ceiling and walls. But all that isnt particularly pretty to look at.

So here is the house I was telling you about earlier with the green door and matching green shutters.

Autumn Leaves Collecting

Here are some photos of the autumn leaves collecting in the corners of our street....

An Autumn view

This was the view from my window this morning... thought it would be a nice change from white goodss.

On my lunch break

Today on my lunch hour I got out of the office and took a nice walk along the Southbank as the weather was so gorgeous... The tide was the highest I'd seen it in a while.

Street view

As Flo was in Germany this weekend I took a much needed break from the flat renovations. Here is a photo I took on my way down Cambwerwell Grove to get a coffee from Johansson's on saturday morning.

Camberwell in the Evening Standard

On my train ride home on Wednesday evening I was excited to see a feature on Camberwell in the Evening Standard. Apparently our street is one of the 'most beautiful in the City'!

Our flat's 5 month anniversary

We have now been property owners for 5 months as of today, so I thought I'd post a new summer photo of the Blue Door to celebrate. We continue to enjoy the flowers which were planted by the previous owners, this month its pink foxgloves.