Jump to content

Recommended Posts

along rye lane in peckham opposite bournmouth road there is a strange archway in the buildings, leading to the car park behind. there is a glass window with some poetry written on it and inside you can see a large metal structure. i lived next door to this for a year and could find no reason for it, no access to it or any informtion on it.. what is it?? this has been bugging me for years!


a picture from the car park side can be seen here: (hopefully)


http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j174/tomproper/Image204.jpg


thanks,


tom

Link to comment
https://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/topic/10153-a-rye-lane-thing/
Share on other sites

This was the entrance to The Tower Cinema, named as the Tower that stood high towering over the nearby shops, from Rye Lane up a flight of marble stairs to a large area, there the tickets were purchased, and the entrance to the lower Auditorium, there the organ would be played before the film show, there were several columns that if you were seated behind them blocked your view, the circle was up more stairs, leading from the area where the shop selling cigarettes and confactionery. This was the larger of the Peckham Cinemas.

The cellars were used as Air Raid Shelters in the second world war including my family, the entrance was from the rear car park. if an Air Raid warning had been sounded there was a slide that showed over the film saying that a Raid had started you are invited to use the Air Raid Shelters below.

There was another cinema Between Choumert Road and Sternhall Lane called The Tower Annex. Later a Royal Arsenal

Co-operative clothing store.

Thank you so much..


Do you know what would the metal cylinder that is exposed was? I take it that this is a kind of memorial to the cinema as apposed to a functioning thing?


Was the cinema bombed in WW2 or just re developed (into a car park) later on? Did Rye Lane suffer much in the Blitz?


Sorry for the barrage of questions and thanks in advance,


Tom

May I make a suggestion that you join The Peckham Society and also read some of Mr John Beasley's books about Peckham?

You'll learn that the wood structure building behind 'Crackerjacks' on Peckham High Street has finally been granted Grade II listing! Having said that, the website is not often updated, but the quarterly magazine edited by Mr Beasley himself has come second in some national award for the best local group magazine. How fab is that!

From the descriptions it sounds like in the early 1900's Peckham was quite a prosperous area which might explain why Austin's survived so long??


It is very interesting when all this history comes to light nearly a 100 years later, really fasinacting. I remember the days of Jones and Higgins and have been told that on a Saturday morning the Lane would see the pavements four abreast with shoppers.

There was a saying "if you can't get it in Peckham you won't get it anywhere" Rye Lane was once apperantly a great shopping area in '91 there still was M&S,BHS,Sainsburys, Austins was at the top with each floor accomadating to different budgets. Friends still talk about the great department store that was Higgins & Jones. Sad Woolworths has been replaced by a pound shop!

The Tower Cinema site has part of the Tower encased in a cage this has two reasons one is to protect any person passing underneath it from falling masonary, and still preserving part of the original Tower.

The side walls are shared part of the cinema, and to remove them might weaken the adjoining premises, having these remain, ensures that the site has not been cleared of all buildings, this is a planning issue.

There are many webs relating to Peckham, but the same thing happens there should a member try to give memories of that area He/She are rebuked as having copied and pasted material from other places, and so the person who tries to help just does not bother to continue doing it. As many of these webs charge a Membership fee they are not popular, and tend to lose activity.

This is a shame as there must be so many who would love to reminis those past times.

The Peckham area is not part of EDF.

A Thread could be made for those who want it, but that is up to Admin if asked might allow it.

Has anybody any view on this?

Hi Tom P


The structure houses a Zoetrope, a cylinder that has images on the inside and slits on the outside.


It was installed by The Peckham Partnership (which became the Peckham Programme which has now thankfully vanished) and was supposed to rotate and show a moving image.


Sadly, like a lot of things planned by the Project Managers of the Peckham Partnership / Programme, they failed to establish a maintenance policy for it, and even more bizarely they failed to gain access rights to the tower.


This caused a problem when it was installed as their was a fault with the design which neeeded correcting (I think from memory that it was electrical) and it hever really got switched on as a result. I asked a Mr Strabens from the council a few years ago if it could be corrected and he appeared rather negative about it, told me that it would cost too much and by now the mechanism would more then likely not work due to age and lack of use.


Pity as it would have been a lovely thing to see in action.


Regarding the prosperity of Rye Lane, up until the early 70's Peckham was the place to be for shops, Rye Lane was called the golden Mile, it rivaled places like oxford Street and sadly, due to the council investing in (what we now call 'Social Housing') in the Peckham area and inviting Single parent families to come to Southwark (Again as I understand it, this was down to Government Grants at the time for Councils who did this) that the economic prosperity of the area was reduced by a lack of people in work, spending less in the vicinity and as a result the bigger stores moved out due to a reduction in income.


Sad really, but I hope my information helps

Hi computedshorty,


Fascinating, very grateful to read the information in your post. I grew up in the Peckham Camberwell area in the 60s and had no idea about the Tower apart from it originally being a cinema. Is it true that Rye Lane Bargain Centre, that had Rossi's the Ice Cream Parlour on one corner of the Rye Lane Entrance and I believe Sidney Fox the tailor on the other corner was also originally a cinema, The layout of the building certainly seems to lend itself to this. I also remember Jones & Higgins department store, great reminiscing.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • Where did I say he did a good job? Yup and Corbyn was very close to Len McCluskey and funded by Unite wasn't he...they're all as bad as each other... Labour have to purge their party of the far-left - they're a disaster. Allan Johnson summed it up so well on election night in 2019....  
    • Thank you for the detailed advise @trinidad It is definitely damage we are concerned about. I don’t think Evri would agree to pay the bill to fix our gate or letter box if they were to be damaged as a result of their delivery drivers helper. Our doorbell can be heard from outside when rung so we don’t quite believe the aggressive simultaneous door/letter box banging is necessary. It can be quite a shock it is done very aggressively.  I’ll definitely action the steps you’ve kindly provided along with a phone call tomorrow. I do sympathise with the role drivers have and how busy they are, which is why we tried communicating directly with her but sadly we haven’t succeeded 
    • What outcome would you like? Disciplinary action? Not to have the driver back? Retraining? I know there is alot of pressure on drivers to deliver within a set day. if he slams the gate, is it evidence he is causing damage, or is the noise a irritant to yourself? You could put a sign up or buy a signing asking to close the gate gentle???? can you hear the door bell from the door? he might be ringing, not hearing and therefore knocking. In trhe notes section of the be livery page, there is a note section, although there is not 100 per cent these notes would be read as these drivers are constantly rushing.  I did a google search for you, i found this and you can try the envri website Contact Us | Evri   To complain to Evri, you can follow these steps: Contact Customer Service: Call Evri's customer service at 0330 808 5456 for assistance with your complaint.    1 Write a Letter: Address your complaint to Capitol House, 1 Capitol Close, Morley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS27 0WH.    1 Use the Official Website: Visit the Evri complaints page on their official website for detailed instructions on how to submit a complaint.    2 Email or Call for Specific Issues: For issues like missing or damaged parcels, you can email or call 0800 988 8888, which is free to call.    1 These methods will help you effectively communicate your concerns to Evri.   My driver is called anthony, he is brilliant to be honest. I cant fault him.
    • When I have more time and energy, I will look up the actual number of votes cast for each party in that election, rather than the number of seats won. I'm interested to see that you apparently  think that  Boris Johnson did a good job of "leading the country through Covid." Is your memory really that short? I won't stoop to calling Johnson and his cronies names in the way that you seem to think is appropriate for left wing politicians. At least the left wing politicians have some semblance of morals and a concern for people who aren't in some over privileged inner circle and/or raking in money for themselves on the back of an epidemic. I'm not going to open a can of worms on here  by commenting on the disgraceful so called "purge". 
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...