56 Sydenham Road/House of Linens...

[Ulysses]

Right, it might need moving this thread...

The old TSB/House of Linens/now Sydenham Road exhibition site on the corner of Queensthorpe Road and Sydenham Road:

I see it has been done up above the shop recently? The scaffold went up, the works were done and the new residents moved in...

Now...

What happened to the finials? I am not sure what the correct word is but the 'dome' is the best way to describe it!

I am starting to wonder if the 'conservation order' isn't just some sort of pseudo rhetoric to make us blind to the fact of what is happening to a once great parade of shops/buildings...

Stand opposite the NatWest and look.

Surely as Sydenham Road is part of a conservation area the builders would not have been able to shorten the 'dome' by 10 foot?!

I do wonder if the dodgy shops/builders/tenants/landlords just do what the hell they please.

I know we have issues with signage/crap windows/satellite dishes on Sydenham Road but Lewisham Council has rented space underneath a building that flouts these enforcement orders?

Yes/No?

It looks lop-sided, it looks rubbish...surely something is being done about it!?

I await the silence.

[leenewham]

This is what it looked like in about 1905:
[/quote]

(thanks to steve Grindley for this)

Beautiful isn't it?

I'd love to know when the original shop fronts were ripped out. Many old signs still exist below the box signs which partly makes the shop font's such a mess.

Anyone got a picture of the building now?

[Trawlerman]

Yes, it looked terrific.
You can see that shops in the past looked 'class'.
The architecture 'above' was matched by the shop front 'below'.

Today this is rare. So many shops at street level look rubbish or just 'cheap' or flashy. Aesthetics are invariably sacrificed on the altar of 'new' and 'modern'...[ and too often 'crap'!!]

[bladerunner]

....I do wonder if the dodgy shops/builders/tenants/landlords just do what the hell they please.

Unfortunately many of the Sydenham shops (and flats above) are owned by roque landlords. Having the misfortune to work in a significant number of these I see a truly appalling standard of work...much of it illegal and non compliant.

Just driving past this particular parade of shops today I noticed the scaffold was non compliant...no hand restraints or toe boards despite workers 3 storeys up. Of course many of these workers originate from abroard where safety standards are minimal.