Woolwich regeneration - Powis & Hare Street Triangle
In the 2012
Woolwich Town Centre Masterplan a lot of attention is given to the so-called Triangle, the area between Powis Street, Hare Street and Woolwich High Street. Powis Street was once described as the Oxford Street of Woolwich. It had 4 department stores, was home to the first UK branch of MacDonald's and the birthplace of the co-op movement as well as chain stores like Dolcis (shoes). Parking meters were introduced here first in any suburban London area. It was also the first street in the UK to adopt Christmas lights, after Regent Street (I didn't make this up; it's all in the 516 pages of the Survey of London's volume on Woolwich). Anyway, the street has been in decline since the late 1960s - the last department store, M&S, closed down last year - but is still described as "something increasingly rare, a crowded high street, with all the noise and mess that the middle-class tourist always takes for 'vibrancy', but which could just as easily be desperation" (
Survey of London, Vol. 48, p. 189).
Powis Street, then (ca 1900) and now (2015)
Co-op buildings
The west end of Powis Street was always the commercially weaker end of the street, even though two large Co-op stores were built here in the early 20th century. The late-Victorian Central Stores of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society (RACS) was renovated in 2012 and is now a Travelodge Hotel with retail spaces at street level. Across the street, the conversion of the former RACS department store into 74 apartments is nearly completed. I wonder how well these apartments have sold. Three slightly setback storeys - not visible from the street - have been added above the art deco facade. A whole new building was added to the rear.
The two Co-op buildings: RACS Central Stores (from the rear) and RACS department store
Unlet shops at the Travelodge Hotel
Art deco department store as seen from Powis Street
Same building from a distance
Mortgramit Square
A megalomaniac scheme for a hotel on this site that involved large-scale demolition has been abandoned (too many plans for hotels in my opinion - Spray Street and DLR over-station developments include hotels, whilst the construction of a hotel along Beresford Street is being halted). For the time being Mortgramit Square, a network of winding alleys that connect Powis Street, Hare Street and Woolwich High Street, is saved. The art deco RACS building and some new apartments behind Hare Street are looking out onto this street.
Access to Mortgramit Square via RACS department store
Rear of former department store
New apartments in old building backing onto Mortgramit Square
Hare Street
Hare Street, like Powis Street, has been hard hit by the general decline of Woolwich since the 1960s. Once a busy shopping street leading directly to the Woolwich Foot Tunnel, it is now largely derelict and cut off from the river by the ghastly 1980s Waterfront Leisure Centre. Greenwich Council intends to re-open the view of the Thames from Hare Street by re-locating the Leisure Centre to General Gordon Square/Wilmount Street.
Current view from Hare Street
Renovation of locally listed buildings, Hare Street 27-35
Granada Cinema
The former
Granada Cinema on the corner of Powis Street and Woolwich High Street is a listed building with a spectacular Gothic interior. It is mentioned in the Woolwich Town Centre Masterplan as a building that, along with the adjacent Mortgramit Square, could be developed as an entertainment hub. That is not going to happen because shortly after the masterplan was published the cinema, then a bingo hall, was bought by a Pentecostal church with lots of money. It may not be the kind of regeneration that some would envisage but the church has undoubtedly taken care of the building, as could be witnessed last September during Open House London.
