BermondseyBoy

Landrail Place

Now part of St Johns Estate and Druid Street, Landrail Place, pictured from 1937, has had many name changes over the years. Firstly known as Susannah Place, then Landrail Place, it then became known as Coxsons Place and remained so until the time of the demolition of the area.
The second picture shows Charles Booth visited the area and recorded the conditions at the time.

The map shows Coxsons Place with its maze of alleyways from Tower Bridge Road to Fair Street. Landrail Place is not shown but I suspect it was one of the small alleyways off of Coxsons Place and retained its name.
Todays picture in Druid Street looking west, the Youth Club on the corner of Coxsons Way, a name that still exists.

Posted by deegs


Great stuff as usual Fosney. I'd assumed the picture of Sards Place by the railway viaduct was looking towards Dockhead. Amazing to think that's the spot's where the Fisher/Downside club is now.

Thanks, Fosney, that's saved me some research. Of course should have just asked here in the first place. My great great great great grandfather, Robert Dean, was living at No 2 Susannah Place in 1841 with his six children, and one of the girls married James Bezzant from No 16. (There is a different phonetic spelling of 'Bezzant' on each document because they were illiterate. The Deans probably were too but 'Dean' is more difficult for the church clerics to get wrong!). I'd found Susannah Place in Booth's notebooks but not on any map.

I reckon your photo of Landrail Place is taken from the POV I've marked with a green arrow on the map. The camera is looking west towards the arches and there are three houses on the right before a dead end, as on the map. Booth's survey only refers to these houses as Susannah Place. There had been eight houses on each side before the arches were extended on the north side of the railway for four more tracks, in about 1900 I think, and Booth refers to the other twelve houses as having already been demolished in preparation for this. Depending on which order the houses were numbered I reckon the one nearest the camera would either have been GGGGGrandad's No 2 (if odds on left, evens on right) or GGGGUncle James' No 16 (if consecutively down the south side side and back up the north). Both families had moved out by 1851, so I never expected to see a photo of either house!

Prior to Booth's survey there had also been a courtyard off Coxson Place to the photographer's left with about seven houses.

The names changed even more than you mentioned. Booth says that the part of Coxon's [sic] Place nearest what is now Tower Bridge Road had previously been called Church Grove (and is shown as such on his map). And that the stretch of Coxson Place that had a junction with Fair Street had previously been called Butler's Grove (also on his map).

The industrial building on the left of the second photo had been shortened by more than half when TBR (on the other side of which the photographer appears to have been standing) was driven through.

The blue box marks the approximate location of Downside-Fisher.

Well that's a load of stuff I never knew - thanks again, Fosney.

Thanks to deegs and fogbrain for the comments on Landrail Place, I have discovered many more old pictures of Bermondsey but trying to find out where they were is a problem and as with Landrail Place there is a story to go with them and yes the Fisher Downside would have been in the position on the left in Sards Place looking towards Dockhead if it had been there

My Nan Johanna Hayes was living at 22 Coxson's Place in the 1911 census. She never said! Yet as kids we were always in the Park and on the road itself, in which we played cricket if the Hop Warehouse was not working. My bedroom was over the Arch in Devon Mansions and we went to the Park by sqeezing through the railings in the Square into Fair Street. At that time there was a boarded-up bomb site opposite alongside the Fisher Club.

Same photo posted above by fosney, just a bit larger and clearer.

We didn't have access to such good maps all those years ago when fosney posted the photo.
The c1900 map shows the three cottages in Landrail Place after the other thirteen had been demolished for the widening of the viaduct and before the three new tracks have been laid thereupon.
The 1872 map shows the three cottages and the other thirteen in what was then called Susannah Place, with the even smaller Railway Cottages immediately to the south.