Findlater’s Corner At London Bridge – 11th February 2023
This restoration was shown on the BBC London news in a story, which was entitled London Bridge: Derelict Railway Arches Restored To Past Glory, and I thought it was worth a visit.
Note.
- It is a fine restoration.
- I shall be interested to see, the tenants it attracts.
- The railway bridge needs an appropriate repainting, to eliminate the graffiti.
I think, that with the right tenants, the tea room could be a gem.
The BBC article says this about the tea room.
The project team also made a surprise discovery when removing a section of plaster from a wall to another of the arches; a glass mosaic for an Express Dairy Tea Room dating back to the early 1900s.
Railway stations were a popular location for tea rooms because at the time they had access to the freshest milk, often transported from farms on trains before being sent to urban milk dairies.
“The tea rooms were one of the first places that ladies, who couldn’t necessarily go and eat in bars or eat in chop houses, could come, get together as single women and meet their friends, so this is perhaps an important part of the emancipation of urban woman in London”, said Mr O’Looney.
Mr. O’Looney is the architect of this project, who is the gloriously named; Benedict O’Looney.
He featured in this blog before in It’s Not April The First, where I wrote about his restoration of the waiting room at Pekham Rye station.
The Anonymous Widower 
One of those arches was the LaSpezia, Italian restaurant, where in the mid/late seventies our family would descend for birthday meals. Being just a quick train ride away for us.
I remember one birthday evening a city type came in and plonked a mobile phone on the table opposite us; about the size of a shoebox. My father didn’t believe it was a phone when I pointed it out, until the guy had the whole restaurant looking, when he took a call!
Comment by Dave | February 13, 2023 |
I caught this restoration on the BBC news. I know this area of London fairly well as I used to work in London Bridge as a student in the 1990s.
The restoration is exquisite & has been really sensitively executed . The stand out features are the colourful mosaics which are both visually powerful & evoke the history of this area. Beautiful work & so lovely to see.
Comment by Katherine Kallee | February 17, 2023 |
I have a book about the architecture of Liverpool, published by Liverpool University. The writer reckons that doing things well discourages vandals.
Certainly it seems to work with Liverpool’s forty year old trains, which are kept in immaculate condition and you never see with graffiti.
Comment by AnonW | February 17, 2023 |