Riverside Brentford – Saturday twenty sixth March 2016
As a toddler I grew up in Middlesex, by then a slightly truncated county on the north and west of London, although as soon as it had included the cities of London and Westminster and lots of of London’s Metropolitan boroughs north of the Thames and west of the River Lea. Brentford, a few miles from the place I used to be born, was the closest factor the county needed to a county city, although it had few if any of the conventional attributes of 1, with no town-hall or different public constructing.
Usually on Financial institution Holidays our father would take us on a 237 bus from Hounslow to Kew Bridge Station, the route going by way of Brentford Excessive Avenue the place it was usually held up as we gazed by way of the highest deck home windows on the websites. Underneath the railway bridge resulting in Brentford Docks the place we’d see a steam hauled items prepare, over the canal bridge the place the locks and dock space had been usually busy with barges,previous the Beehive on the nook of Half Acre with its tower topped by a large beehive and on by way of the noisy, smelly fuel works to Kew Bridge.
We walked throughout Kew Bridge after which turned down the facet of Kew Inexperienced to the gate of Kew Gardens, the place a penny – an previous penny, 240 to the pound led us into the intensive gardens the place we may wander all day. This was earlier than the times of backyard centres and my father would all the time have a small pair of scissors in his pocket to take the odd slicing or decide up a seed or two on our walks.
Later, within the early and mid 1950’s I might journey my bicycle round a lot of Middlesex and Surrey – and that included Brentford, however I feel it was solely a lot later once I turned a photographer that I actually explored the realm and discovered what an essential communication hyperlink it had been. Brentford is the place the inland waterways system with the busy Grand Union Canal joined the River Thames, just some miles upriver from the nice Port of London.
In 1978 three of my pictures from Brentford had been revealed in Artistic Digital camera Assortment: No. 5, a prestigious assortment of latest pictures revealed by Coo Press, the publishers of the month-to-month journal Artistic Digital camera and edited by Colin Osman and Peter Turner. It wasn’t the primary time my work had been revealed however was nice to be on the pages with some very well-known photographers, together with one who a lot later turned a buddy, John Benton-Harris.
Brentford has modified significantly since then, with a lot of the riverside now lined with costly flats slightly than commerce and business. The gasworks website turned a riverside park and an arts centre, the place I took half in and helped organise various exhibitions. However there’s nonetheless sufficient of the previous Brentford untouched, although much less every time I am going there.
I first returned within the Nineties, once I was instructing a couple of miles down the street, bringing college students to see reveals there and to wander across the space taking photos. Later I got here again for walks alone or with mates, corresponding to this one on Saturday twenty sixth March 2016 with my elder son. Brentford hadn’t been my first selection by railway engineering works that week finish made travelling out additional to the east of London unattainable.
In addition to making ‘regular’ photos with lenses giving a horizontal angle of view of between 10 and 84 levels (focal lengths 20 to 200mm) there have been some photos the place I felt a fair wider view was wanted and I made some panoramss with a roughly 145 diploma angle of view. The photographs above and beneath illustrate the distinction.
We didn’t finish our stroll in Brentford, however continued on previous Syon Home to Isleworth the place we ate our sandwiches in a comparatively sheltered sq. earlier than following the Duke of Northumberland’s River by way of Mogden Sewage Works to Kneller Park after which Whitton Station for the prepare house. You may see a a lot wider vary of images on-line on My London Diary at these three hyperlinks:
Syon, Isleworth & Mogden
Riverside Brentford Panoramas
Riverside Brentford
Flickr – Fb – My London Diary – Hull Images – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Images
All pictures on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Tags: boats, boatyards, Brentford, canal, Duke of Northumberland’s RIver, Grand Union Canal, Isleworth, London, London Images, Mogden Sewage Works, moorings, mural, panoramas, peter Marshall, River Brent, River Thames, Syon Home
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