Thamesmead
August 18th, 2011
Train to Abbey Wood and bus to Thamesmead Centre, which is not incidentally in the centre at all but close to the river, on the NW of the site. After leaving Abbey Wood station the bus (B11) wove through the oldest béton brut part of the site passing all those concrete blocks, walkways and towers for which the estate is infamous.
On reaching the river near the shopping centre you see a long rather bleak stretch of water with the tall buildings of the City of London at one end, and a giant wind turbine at the other. On the opposite bank are containers and rubble. (That’s Creekmouth and Barking Reach). Still if you like bleak and windswept then you’ll be happy here.
If you think you know Thamesmead from the film Clockwork Orange then think again. Only one small corner of the entire estate looks like that, the rest is pretty conventional houses with gardens and low rise blocks. The béton brut (raw concrete) occupies a relatively small corner of the estate, marked Thamesmead South on my 2007 copy of a streetmap courtesy of Gallion Housing Association.
Bordered by Southmere to the North, the railway line to the south, and Harrow Manor Way to the West, Alsike Road would appear to form the Eastern boundary of Thamesmead South.
On a grey overcast day with low cloud the four tower blocks of Southmere and the lake did not look particularly inviting, perhaps appropriate for raw concrete but I can imagine that on a summers day with bright sunshine it would present an attractive vista.
There are low blocks to the West on Binsey Walk that I imagine are easily let, with the sun rising over the lake. Adjoining Yarnton Way are a line of 15 (ok let me know I’ve miscounted) concrete tower blocks which make an impressive sight in a brutal Modernist way. South of them are rows of concrete low rise flats joined by overhead walkways and between which run miles of unremitting pavement in a landscape that Alice Coleman forgot.
I had imagined before arriving at TM that it would all be likewise. How wrong I was, and how pleased to be wrong. The majority of TM is perfectly attractive with winding roads, frequent patches of water, or brooks, plenty of trees and parks scattered about, and a very good bus service connecting it to Abbey Wood and Woolwich. Any idea that TM is cut off from the outside world and served only by a poor bus service is simply untrue.
That Crossrail to Abbey Wood would help is undeniable but I didn’t get any sense of isolation there other than the earlier comment about bleak and windswept, which it is, but that’s inevitable owing to its geographical position lying as it does on a broad sweep of the river as it broadens and heads for the sea.
There is wildlife in abundance. I saw two herons from the bus in my brief time there, without even trying. Perhaps they are plastic models put there to fool the unthinking visitor, I hope not. In any case the blurb on the back of the map says they are frequent visitors to the estate.
A film about the development from 1970 Thamesmead and Plumstead Marshes on film
Alice Coleman links:-
Utopia on Trial and The Psychology of Housing and Design Disadvantagement