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CH1 said:
Apologies if posters have seen this multiple times before, but I stumbled on this episode of Grand Designs whilst looking for something else.

St Jude's Vicarge was a bland 1950s council house style building behind the old St Jude's Church on Dulwich Road. It was very conspicuous - sticking out into Brockwell Park behind a rather low budget wooden fence. I remember the house personally having been entertained there by vicar the Rev Dennis Peterson and his wife around 1987. They had old fashioned values - and liked the old place so much they harboured the wish to use right-to-buy so they could stay there in Dennis's retirement. I suspect Mrs Thatcher's right to buy did not apply to church property though.

Two vicars later St Judes parish was merged into St Matthews (as opposite the Fridge/Electric). The now surplus vicarage was sold off.

Not sure at what point Grand Designs got involved, but round 2012/3 the new upwardly mobile owners of the humble-looking 1950s vicarage decided to buy the site for £800,000 and spend a further £400,000 reconstructing the house and gardens.

Local Brixton modernist architect Zac Monro facilitated the design and the story is here Grand Designs - On Demand - All 4
Before photos (from Brockwell Park side and from service - Dulwich Road - side). Window grills not present in the 1980s AFAIR.
View attachment 190915 View attachment 190917 View attachment 190916
Finished product from Brockwell Park.
Click to expand...

I remember watching it and not liking the people. From what I remember, they were delighted to be ‘putting something good into the park’ by making their house behind a wall nicer than it was before. How selfless of them to do that for us.

If I had my way, I’d knock down their house, move the wall back to the church and let us park users benefit from the extra land.
 
Smick said:
I remember watching it and not liking the people. From what I remember, they were delighted to be ‘putting something good into the park’ by making their house behind a wall nicer than it was before. How selfless of them to do that for us.

If I had my way, I’d knock down their house, move the wall back to the church and let us park users benefit from the extra land.
Click to expand...
They did seem smug I agree. And their "design" gives them even more visual enjoyment of Brockwell Park than Cressingham residents, who are end-on so to speak.

In a way the church is as much a travesty as the grand design. The Rev Peterson was out of line with the C of E (Southwark Diocese) in several respects -
1. he married a divorced woman - not only that she was or had been a member of the Christian Brethren.
2. he took on the parish as a stole-wearing Anglo-Catholic and then became "saved", so he ultimately described himself as "Christian" rather than C of E and took measures to make his lack of Catholicism clear - e.g. used a pottery chalice, only had communion once a month and moved the sermon to the end of the service, as per Presbyterian tradition.
3. he was essentially a Calvinist "When you are born God puts a mark on your soul to indicate whether you are saved" he once told me.

It would be easy to say that when the old St Jude's building needed repairs the church administrators chose instead to close it. I suspect actually Dennis would have been delighted to move the congregation into the gymnasium of St Judes School in Regent Road - and that is what happened. I'm sure he and many of the fervent pentecostal type congregation he had built up would have found a school gymnasium more "authentic" than a crumbling Victorian Church.

I guess the current owners of the church have "saved" the building - but at the cost of making it difficult to view inside
a- because it is offices for a business
b-because there is apparently a mezanine floor in there so it can hardly seem like it was originally intended to.
 
CH1 said:
Apologies if posters have seen this multiple times before, but I stumbled on this episode of Grand Designs whilst looking for something else.

St Jude's Vicarge was a bland 1950s council house style building behind the old St Jude's Church on Dulwich Road. It was very conspicuous - sticking out into Brockwell Park behind a rather low budget wooden fence. I remember the house personally having been entertained there by vicar the Rev Dennis Peterson and his wife around 1987. They had old fashioned values - and liked the old place so much they harboured the wish to use right-to-buy so they could stay there in Dennis's retirement. I suspect Mrs Thatcher's right to buy did not apply to church property though.

Two vicars later St Judes parish was merged into St Matthews (as opposite the Fridge/Electric). The now surplus vicarage was sold off.

Not sure at what point Grand Designs got involved, but round 2012/3 the new upwardly mobile owners of the humble-looking 1950s vicarage decided to buy the site for £800,000 and spend a further £400,000 reconstructing the house and gardens.

Local Brixton modernist architect Zac Monro facilitated the design and the story is here Grand Designs - On Demand - All 4
Before photos (from Brockwell Park side and from service - Dulwich Road - side). Window grills not present in the 1980s AFAIR.
View attachment 190915 View attachment 190917 View attachment 190916
Finished product from Brockwell Park.
Click to expand...

Truly an eyesore. Should never have been allowed!
 
CH1 said:
They did seem smug I agree. And their "design" gives them even more visual enjoyment of Brockwell Park than Cressingham residents, who are end-on so to speak.

In a way the church is as much a travesty as the grand design. The Rev Peterson was out of line with the C of E (Southwark Diocese) in several respects -
1. he married a divorced woman - not only that she was or had been a member of the Christian Brethren.
2. he took on the parish as a stole-wearing Anglo-Catholic and then became "saved", so he ultimately described himself as "Christian" rather than C of E and took measures to make his lack of Catholicism clear - e.g. used a pottery chalice, only had communion once a month and moved the sermon to the end of the service, as per Presbyterian tradition.
3. he was essentially a Calvinist "When you are born God puts a mark on your soul to indicate whether you are saved" he once told me.

It would be easy to say that when the old St Jude's building needed repairs the church administrators chose instead to close it. I suspect actually Dennis would have been delighted to move the congregation into the gymnasium of St Judes School in Regent Road - and that is what happened. I'm sure he and many of the fervent pentecostal type congregation he had built up would have found a school gymnasium more "authentic" than a crumbling Victorian Church.

I guess the current owners of the church have "saved" the building - but at the cost of making it difficult to view inside
a- because it is offices for a business
b-because there is apparently a mezanine floor in there so it can hardly seem like it was originally intended to.
Click to expand...
I remember walking past when the original programme was airing. They had a giant TV on the wall with all their chums watching and sipping bubbly. Aesthetics aside, I think the idea behind the design was excellent - to wrap the brickwork in a kind of overcoat so that the original bricks act like a storage heater. The carbon footprint of that house now is virtually zero. Just think of the huge stock of brick-built housing that could benefit from that around the country.
 
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billythefish said:
I think the idea behind the design was excellent - to wrap the brickwork in a kind of overcoat so that the original bricks act like a storage heater. The carbon footprint of that house now is virtually zero. Just think of the huge stock of brick-built housing that could benefit from that around the country.
Click to expand...

It's a dead conventional concept - external wall insulation.

The thing is that most of the country's brick-built housing has quite attractive facades that most people don't want buried behind insulation. It sometimes works on the backs of houses but rarely on the street facade.
 
teuchter said:
It's a dead conventional concept - external wall insulation.

The thing is that most of the country's brick-built housing has quite attractive facades that most people don't want buried behind insulation. It sometimes works on the backs of houses but rarely on the street facade.
Click to expand...
It's not conventional on brickwork. It is very common with cladding systems on timber or steel frames and there are insulated rendering systems that are slowly gaining popularity, but to use those ceramic blocks (mortar free) was truly pioneering. Agreed about brick detailing on some buildings, but there are still hundreds of thousands of humdrum brick built terraces and semis around the country that would suffer no aesthetic harm with this treatment.
 
billythefish said:
It's not conventional on brickwork. It is very common with cladding systems on timber or steel frames and there are insulated rendering systems that are slowly gaining popularity, but to use those ceramic blocks (mortar free) was truly pioneering. Agreed about brick detailing on some buildings, but there are still hundreds of thousands of humdrum brick built terraces and semis around the country that would suffer no aesthetic harm with this treatment.
Click to expand...
It's really not uncommon to use those insulated render systems onto brickwork now. It's also not uncommon to apply insulation to a brick facade and then overclad it with something else. All that's different here is that the outermost layer (those imitation-tile bricks) is self-supporting instead of hung off the existing wall. In fact it basically turns it into a kind of cavity wall as we have been building in this country for decades. The tile bricks will contribute little to the thermal insulation. From a thermal insulation point of view, there was nothing pioneering about that project, unless I am missing something.
 
Art/fashion thingy at the Railway

fero-arts-december-2019-01.jpg


fero-arts-december-2019-15.jpg


fero-arts-december-2019-09.jpg


fero-arts-december-2019-33.jpg



In photos: Fero Arts Collective fashion event at the Railway, Tulse Hill, Thurs 12th Dec 2019
 
twistedAM said:
I only watched the episode on the music industry and she wasn't in the team of idiots.

Would still never frequent a business with artisan in the name though. Pet bug of mine is that word.
Click to expand...

It's a fine little bakery and coffee shop though. Not too expensive, friendly staff.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on it to see what happens with the Sugar investment. I suspect that it will be fuck all. If she expects UK domination, £250k won't go very far.
 
twistedAM said:
I only watched the episode on the music industry and she wasn't in the team of idiots.

Would still never frequent a business with artisan in the name though. Pet bug of mine is that word.
Click to expand...
It was Ye Olde Bakery when on Railton Road. They relocated to Milkwood Road (other side of the rail track) due to the arches refurbishment and became "Artisan" in the process (Artisan something d'Or, I think). I used it a handful of times before and after it relocated but I'm afraid that I was not a fan of their bread (and I'm not particularly fussy). I've not been in since it burned out and reinvented itself as a coffee shop so may have improved.
 
Johnlj123 said:
They produce a fine small multi-seeded loaf for £2.50 which to my taste is absolutely fine.
Click to expand...

their multi-seed loaf is lovely.

I used to go there all the time when they were on the other side of the tracks - tons cheaper than Blackbird - but now, somehow I never go anymore.
 
Rushy said:
It was Ye Olde Bakery when on Railton Road. They relocated to Milkwood Road (other side of the rail track) due to the arches refurbishment and became "Artisan" in the process (Artisan something d'Or, I think). I used it a handful of times before and after it relocated but I'm afraid that I was not a fan of their bread (and I'm not particularly fussy). I've not been in since it burned out and reinvented itself as a coffee shop so may have improved.
Click to expand...
I went right off them after a friend saw mice all over the baskets in the window one night. They displayed bread put directly in those baskets, yuk. No idea what its like now
 
I went there a few times back when they were on Railton, very old fashioned style bakery. Blackbird was tonnes nicer, although much more expensive.

there was a definite upgrade when they moved, quite like the greengrocers who changed their offer quite a lot.

I tried to go into the new bakery once but was roundly ignored by chatting staff and left.
 
I avoid using that Sainsburys. I read once that it makes the most profit per square foot of all the Sainburys, so it beats me why the staff can't be better trained/ more helpful. The 'Local' bit of the name means they trade on Sainburys branding/reputation but are much more expensive.

The little shop on Halfmoon Lane (next to Fourways pharmacy) - is tiny with not much space to move, but it is so much better stocked on many products and is sometimes cheaper, and they stock loads of fairtrade and organic stuff. The staff are very nice and helpful in there (but don't know how they are with guide dogs)
 
All of the newly refurbished shops in the Arches seem to be subject to a possession order. I will ask Elaine what is going on and report back.
 
Squatters were in the red one for a while, sadly gone now. There’s still no power in them and no real idea where the substation is going to go.
 
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