Research report. The HCPC and Kennington

Transcription

1 Research report The HCPC and Kennington

2 Contents Foreword 1 Acknowledgements 2 1 Former premises 3 2 A history of Kennington Kennington Cross Kennington Row and Kennington Place 5 3 Kennington Park Road buildings Kennington Park Road Kennington Park Road 7 4 Stannary Street buildings Background Number Number Numbers Numbers

3 Foreword This report provides a brief history of the Health and Care Professions Council s (HCPC) premises and their place in the changing geography of Kennington. In addition to the HCPC s main office in Park House on Kennington Park Road, the organisation also occupies several buildings in Stannary Street to the rear of Park House. At the time of writing, we are in the process of purchasing 186 Kennington Park Road, the building next door to Park House. We are also currently renting office space at 33 Stannary Street. Although none of the buildings occupied by the HCPC are of historical or architectural note, the sites of 184 and 186 Kennington Park Road, and the Stannary Street premises, have had buildings on them for over two hundred years. They were already developed by 1800, although the two roads were then called Kennington Row and Kennington Place respectively. The addresses 184 and 186 Kennington Park Road, but not the existing buildings, go back to the late 1860s. They both formed part of the redevelopment of Kennington, then in the County of Surrey. Our Stannary Street sites, like the road itself, have had a far more varied history. This reflects the changing history and land use of our area, and of Kennington itself. The HCPC and Kennington 1

4 Acknowledgements We have produced this account of the history of our buildings from research carried out by Tom Berrie, Information Services Manager at the HCPC. This work included consulting the relevant electoral rolls, Ordnance Survey and other maps, as well as Post Office and other trade directories at the Lambeth Borough Archive. It also derives from Tom s personal knowledge of working for both the HCPC and its predecessors, the Health Professions Council (HPC) and the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (CPSM), since We would like to thank Purbrooks Ltd for their information concerning the previous occupants of numbers Stannary Street. The three black and white photographs are copyright of the London Borough of Lambeth and we are grateful for the Borough Council for permission to use them. 2 The HCPC and Kennington

5 1 Former premises The HCPC s predecessor, the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (CPSM), had its first offices in Lambeth before moving to Kennington. The photograph below is a recent image of York House, the building where the CPSM offices were first based. It was then a much smaller organisation than it would later become, had relatively few employees and only occupied the ninth floor of this building. The CPSM moved to Park House on Kennington Park Road in the mid-1970s, which it took over as a new-build. This building remains the main address for the HCPC today. York House, 2013 The HCPC and Kennington 3

6 2 A history of Kennington 2.1 Kennington Cross Kennington was originally a village in Surrey and the area where the HCPC is now based was generally known as Kennington Cross. By the late eighteenth century, with the expansion of London, the area was becoming semi-urban and built up. The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens were a major attraction and were just down the road. People would travel through Kennington Cross to Brixton, Clapham, Vauxhall, Streatham, and down to Kent and Portsmouth. The 1785 map of Kennington Manor shows that the sites of 184 and 186 Kennington Park Road already had buildings on them. There was also a large inn called the Horns Tavern on the corner opposite Kennington Common (later to become Kennington Park) and what is now the Post Office. The Tavern was a major feature of the area for a long time, and was not pulled down until the 1960s. A typical midtwentieth century office block replaced it, and is still there today. Kennington Park Road with Kennington Road and the Horns Tavern to the left and Kennington Park to the right, approximately 1922 View north-east along Kennington Park Road with the Horns Tavern Centre and Kennington Park on the right, 1 September The HCPC and Kennington

7 Kennington Common had been marshy and a place of public execution until the late eighteenth century. The gallows was on the site of St Mark s Church. In 1854 the Common was transformed into Kennington Park in the Victorian drive to create town and city parks. In 1867 the whole of Lambeth was still administratively in the County of Surrey. This is why the nearby Oval is known as Surrey Cricket Ground. In the late nineteenth century however it became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth, within the newly formed London County Council. Then in 1965 it became part of the London Borough of Lambeth. The redevelopment of the area in the mid-1860s partly reversed this situation, with some high status Victorian houses being built at the front on the newly developed Kennington Park Road. Artisans and small businesses also then moved into Kennington Place which was renamed Stannary Street. This remained the pattern of occupation and use for the two roads for a long time, and to some extent is still the case today. The Victorian terraced buildings which predated Park House and Whitefield House on the sites of 184 and 186 Kennington Park Road respectively were built in the late-1860s. 2.2 Kennington Row and Kennington Place A map from the beginning of the nineteenth century indicates two roads: Kennington Row and Kennington Place. Kennington Row, which is now part of Kennington Park Road and the A3, formed part of the Roman Road to the south coast. In this period, it consisted of relatively small buildings packed together in one long terrace, for shopkeepers and traders. The Post Office trade directories for London of the 1840s and 1850s have Kennington Row listed as the residences and places of work of traders, shopkeepers and small businesses. In comparison, Kennington Place contained two surgeons and several individuals with esquire at the end of their name, indicating a middle class status. It also had two public houses, one of which remained until very recently, and the Phoenix Gas Station. The HCPC and Kennington 5

8 3 Kennington Park Road buildings Kennington Park Road Evidence from the trade directories and the electoral roles indicate that 184 Kennington Park Road was purely residential until around In 1935 and 1945, the building had electors living there, but the directories also listed it as being the premises of Freezall Food Preservation Company. This could be an example of someone living over the shop or the business vote being given to owners of premises. From 1955 onwards, the electoral role states that nobody lived in the building. The building had a varied, but always commercial, occupancy from 1955 onwards. In 1965 it was occupied by a travel agent. Then in 1969 and 1971 Autex Offset Printing Plate Making Machinery was its occupant. In 1975 and 1978 there was no listing in the directories or electoral rolls. The current building, Park House, was built in the late-1970s. This suggests that it was also around this time that the old building was pulled down 1. In 1980 it was listed as being occupied by the CPSM, which took it over as a new-build in autumn Park House, Earlier maps show steps up to the building as today and it is possible that these are the original steps and the only remains of the original Victorian building; this would account for the fact that in the early 2000s they were in such a poor condition that they had to be extensively repaired. 6 The HCPC and Kennington

9 Kennington Park Road, January Kennington Park Road The 1867 trade directory states that 186 Kennington Park Road was occupied by a gas meter maker. This would fit the time, as the use of town gas was greatly expanding from the early nineteenth century onwards. It remained in the same hands, William Smith, then George Brown Smith, then Smith Meters, until During the late 1950s occupancy becomes more complicated. In 1959 Smith Meters still occupied number 186, but with Alder and Makay who were also gas meter makers. 186A 2 was listed very briefly as a Ministry of Power gas meter testing office, in 1957 and A spread to Stannary Street at the back of the building, because four or five individuals at this testing station are briefly listed in the 1950s as being electors in Stannary Street. Presumably 186A was therefore somewhere at the back, but then quickly became part of 186 again. During this period, there were only two listings for an 2 This is the only time 186A appears. elector for 186 on the electoral rolls, in 1895 and 1905, and the directories continue to list the property as the premises of a gas-meter making company in 1891 and After that there is no reference to an elector in the property. Smith Meters was a significant company and continues to operate elsewhere in London. At some point in the late-1950s / early-1960s the present building replaced the former Victorian one. In 1965, number 186 was the premises of a motor component manufacturers. Then in 1969 there was no listing for the site. In 1971 it was the premises of Alpha Architectural and Ironmongery Ltd has no listing but in 1978 and 1980 the premises was occupied by a freight forwarding agents. The Evangelical Alliance, an evangelical Christian organisation, took over soon after. The title Whitefield House, began with the Evangelical Alliance, who named it after George Whitefield, the eighteenth century evangelical and evangelist, one of the founders of the Methodist movement. The HCPC and Kennington 7

10 4 Stannary Street buildings 4.1 Background The road previously named Kennington Place became Stannary Street around The street came to reflect the common eighteenthand nineteenth-century urban pattern of grand, mostly residential, buildings on the main roads (Kennington Park Road and Kennington Road), with more complex, mixed commercial and artisan dwellings at the back. According to the electoral rolls, there was at first extensive residency in the street, but this gradually declined. The properties that we are interested in are those currently occupied by the HCPC: numbers 18A, 20, 22, 24 and 26 and 33 Stannary Street 3. These began as mixed business and residential buildings, but are almost certainly not the original buildings. On the 1951 map, part of the street is listed as an engineering works, apparently either side of the road. Then in 1955, according to the electoral role, it becomes a testing station, with a number of electors living as staff in residence. In 1960, only number 20 of this group of buildings had an elector. Then from 1965 onwards there are no electors listed in any of the buildings. The numbers began to run into each other because subsequent development in the early to middle years of the twentieth century resulted in smaller dwellings being knocked down or merged. Stannary Street about At the time of writing, we are renting office space in 33 Stannary Street. 8 The HCPC and Kennington

11 18A and 20 Stannary Street, January Number 18 The designation 18 appears to come into and go out of use on several occasions. There is now both an 18 and 18A, which is currently on the back door of Whitefield House. At some point the two must have been separated, but when is not clear, as 18A does not appear in any of the documents examined. 4.3 Number 20 In 1955 and 1965, according to the electoral role, number 20 has an elector living there. Apart from that it is not mentioned until the 1972 map, where it is called Remax House. According to the directories, it began to be called this in 1965, but the name disappears in the mid-1970s. It came from the name of the company that then owned the building, listed as Remax Electrical automobile ignition parts manufacturers. In 1978 it has builders occupying it, and in 1979 and 1980 a control panel manufacturer. Asbury and Chapman Landscape occupy it in 1990, then it becomes a sculptor s workshop, and our predecessor, the Council for Professions Supplementary (CPSM), purchased the building at the turn of the century. 4.4 Numbers The directories do not refer to these numbers until 1990, when a printing firm owned it, which continued until the then Health Professions Council purchased it from them in the mid-2000s. We understand from a representative of that company, Purbrooks Ltd, that Parker Horwell and Kirk Ltd, a die stamping company and engravers, bought the premises in Purbrook and Eyres Ltd relocated to share the premises in about The two businesses merged in 1990 and started trading as Purbrooks Ltd. The HCPC and Kennington 9

12 22 26 Stannary Street, January Numbers The numbering of is the most complicated and confusing of the premises occupied by the HCPC, as the designation of the numbers appears to vary dependent on the occupant. Currently it is simply called number 33. However, the directories of the mid-twentieth century have it is listed as LCC gas meter testing station 4, rather than number 33. The reason for the confusion could be linked to the fact that the current 1930s designed building will have displaced several much smaller buildings, each of which will have had their own street number. The bullets below highlight the various occupants of the premises from the mid- to late-twentieth century. 1955: Ministry of Fuel and Power Gas Meter Testing Station 1969: Ministry of Fuel and Power Gas Meter Testing Station / unnamed printer 1971: UGI Meter Testers / Gas Meter Office of the Ministry of Power 1975: Unnamed Polystyrene mouldings manufacturer 1978: Unnamed Polystyrene mouldings manufacturer / unnamed building consultant company 4 The LCC coat of arms is still on the front of the building. 10 The HCPC and Kennington

13 31 35 Stannary Street, January 2013 In 1979 the polystyrene company is interestingly listed as This is probably a misprint, as beyond number 31 is a school, and the building consultant that shares the premises is still listed as occupying The 1990 trade directory indicates that is still occupied by the polystyrene manufacturer. The building was then restored in the early 2000s with the current design of offices at the front and flats at the back. It is interesting to note that some of the studio offices at the top of the front of the building are also now flats. This continues the tradition of joint residential and business occupation by the self-employed which Stannary Street / Kennington Place had from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The HCPC and Kennington 11

14 Notes 12 The HCPC and Kennington

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16 Park House 184 Kennington Park Road London SE11 4BU tel +44 (0) fax +44 (0) This document is available in alternative formats and Welsh on request. Call +44 (0) or Health and Care Professions Council 2013 Publication code: BERRIE13 (printed March 2013) This publication is produced using trees from sustainable forests and recycled fibre.