0:00:02 > 0:00:03London in 1886,
0:00:03 > 0:00:07then the largest city in human history
0:00:07 > 0:00:10and the centre of the known world.
0:00:10 > 0:00:15With its self-importance, its dirt, its wealth and awful poverty,
0:00:15 > 0:00:18it seems a mystery to us now.
0:00:18 > 0:00:21It was a different world, an entirely different world.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24But there is a guide to this human jungle -
0:00:24 > 0:00:28Charles Booth, Victorian London's social explorer.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Booth produced a series of pioneering maps
0:00:31 > 0:00:34that colour-coded the streets of his London
0:00:34 > 0:00:38according to the ever-shifting class of its residents.
0:00:38 > 0:00:43Booth's maps are like scans, X-rays that reveal to us the secret past
0:00:43 > 0:00:46beneath the skin of the present.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50If people knew how many cattle was killed there, I don't think they'd live there.
0:00:52 > 0:00:57He wanted his maps to chart stories of momentous social change...
0:00:58 > 0:01:00Those houses were the lowest of the low.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05..the ebb and flow between enormous wealth and terrible poverty,
0:01:05 > 0:01:09how easily desirable or well-to-do neighbourhoods could descend
0:01:09 > 0:01:13into the haunts of the vicious and semi-criminal and back again.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19Now the maps can help us reveal the changes that have shaped all our lives
0:01:19 > 0:01:25and made the story of the streets the story of us all.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28Oh, my goodness! The old toilet's gone.
0:01:30 > 0:01:36So we're going back to one of the tens of thousands of streets Booth mapped...
0:01:38 > 0:01:42..to tell the story of how, sacrificed to new ideas of urban planning,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46a 200-year-old community was bulldozed.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50For some unknown reason,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53they wanted to condemn Deptford.
0:02:03 > 0:02:09Deptford High Street in the heart of London just four miles from the financial capital of the world.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16A Victorian relic marooned amid 1970s sprawl.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20When Charles Booth arrived in 1899,
0:02:20 > 0:02:24it was booming, the Oxford Street of South London.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26More than a hundred years on,
0:02:26 > 0:02:30it's now one of the poorest high streets in the capital.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33This used to be fantastic. It's gone, finished.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39The story of Deptford High Street is of how it lost both its wealth
0:02:39 > 0:02:42and the community which had given it life.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48August 1899.
0:02:48 > 0:02:5213 years into his epic survey of London,
0:02:52 > 0:02:55Charles Booth visits Deptford High Street,
0:02:55 > 0:02:59incorporating it into his vast social map of the city.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01Booth's map is a breakthrough,
0:03:01 > 0:03:05a new way to anatomise the complex lives of Londoners.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10And in a district rarely visited by respectable people,
0:03:10 > 0:03:13it throws up surprising results.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18Booth marks Deptford High Street as red for "well-to-do",
0:03:18 > 0:03:24the second highest social ranking in the middle of one of London's poorest districts.
0:03:28 > 0:03:34It's a busy, thriving high street where traders live above their shops and prosper.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40Despite their working-class origins,
0:03:40 > 0:03:44one in three shopkeeping families keeps at least one domestic servant.
0:03:45 > 0:03:51One family trading on the High Street when Booth arrived is still here today.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55John Price owns the Bent Can discount shop
0:03:55 > 0:04:01yards from where he was born and from where his people have always had market stalls.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04I don't know what we'll do about the food prices, John.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08Robert keeps telling me I'm too dear and I keep telling him he gets service.
0:04:08 > 0:04:12- Service with a smile, John.- When he goes in Sainsbury's, they go "dip".
0:04:12 > 0:04:15When he comes in here, I go, "Hello, Robert!"
0:04:15 > 0:04:21- Who's the cheapest out there?- You don't go for the cheapest. You go for the best.- Are Sainsbury's cheaper?
0:04:21 > 0:04:23At least you'll come to my funeral.
0:04:23 > 0:04:29You're always going to Sainsbury's spending your money. I won't go to your funeral!
0:04:30 > 0:04:35- Did your family used to live in nearby streets round here? - This one here.
0:04:35 > 0:04:37Oi, Ange, I'm just going out a second.
0:04:38 > 0:04:44My grandfather was a Price. My grandmother was really an Ovenell and they married together.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48So the Prices have probably been here about 250 years.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51The Ovenells, I think, have been here longer.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53We're going down Hales Street.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59Down here is where we used to have our house, just on this corner here.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02This was my nan's house.
0:05:04 > 0:05:09It's hard to imagine now, but this used to be a gate.
0:05:10 > 0:05:12And that used to be our back yard.
0:05:12 > 0:05:17- That's where all the stalls used to be.- Where's it gone?- It's gone. They made it a road.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23They made it a road. The arch used to come here.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28Down like that. A big arch coming through and you pulled the barrows all the way through.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30This used to take a hundred barrows.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36Me nan's family, their house used to be here right next to the pub.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40There's the pub and the Ovenells' house used to be here.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45You see how easy it was. You'd fall out of bed and go to work on the stall at the top of the High Street.
0:05:47 > 0:05:53Round about here at Christmas time, my father would be sharpening, looking through the window.
0:05:53 > 0:05:58We'd all be sitting round the table, waiting for Dad cos he's half-drunk cos he's been at the pub all day.
0:05:58 > 0:06:04It's about four o'clock on Christmas Day and we're all waiting for him to come in to carve the turkey,
0:06:04 > 0:06:09so we can all get in and eat some food, and there he is going like this with the knife.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12We're all saying, "Is he going to fall over?"
0:06:12 > 0:06:14LAUGHS LOUDLY
0:06:14 > 0:06:17And you had all these beetroots - beautiful.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21Fresh, cooked beetroots which then you took up on the stall and sold.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25Then you'd light the gas. They'd be ready for Friday and Saturday.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28And they'd be cooking all the winkles.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31You could see all their faces round the table, going...
0:06:32 > 0:06:36And they'd be hard at it, trying to nick a tater or somethin'.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44You'd hear all the winkles screaming on a Saturday night. "Eeeh!"
0:06:44 > 0:06:49When we cooked the crabs, there used to be crabs like that. Now you get crabs like this.
0:06:49 > 0:06:55What happened to all the crabs like that? They've ripped the seas. They've ripped all the food out.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57Everything's ripped out.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00One stall used to keep three families.
0:07:00 > 0:07:05It used to keep my father's family, my Uncle John and my Uncle Jack's family.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14The other half of John's family had come from the Low Countries,
0:07:14 > 0:07:16as Huguenot refugees.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22But by the beginning of the 19th century, they had set down roots in Deptford.
0:07:22 > 0:07:27Both sides of the family had made their money in fish and greengrocery.
0:07:28 > 0:07:35They set up home in Reginald Road which Booth's map marks as pink for "comfortable".
0:07:35 > 0:07:40It was the most respectable of the side turnings running off the High Street.
0:07:40 > 0:07:45There was quite a few wealthy people in the turning, including my father and my aunt.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49If you try and find somebody who was poor down Reginald Road,
0:07:49 > 0:07:52no, there was no-one poor down Reginald Road.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56A goods yard connects Reginald Road to Hales Street
0:07:56 > 0:07:59where more of the Price and Ovenell families lived.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01But just a few yards from Reginald,
0:08:01 > 0:08:05Hales Street dropped way down the social scale.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10Booth mapped it as a mix of the very poor and the vicious and semi-criminal.
0:08:11 > 0:08:17It's a reputation that stayed with the street long into the next century.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21If you go back in time, Hales Street was very much uncontrollable.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25But Hales Street was a complete, utter slum
0:08:25 > 0:08:30with every crook you could possibly imagine who used to live in Hales Street.
0:08:30 > 0:08:36But the council really wanted Hales Street pulled down because it was a den of thieves.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41When Charles Booth arrives on Hales Street and Reginald Road,
0:08:41 > 0:08:44he finds people occupying the houses in tenement conditions,
0:08:44 > 0:08:49renting from a landlord, entire families in a single room.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53People eat, sleep and wash in the same room.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56The nicest place anyone has to escape to is the pub.
0:08:58 > 0:09:02Aware of the rapid spread of the drink culture amongst the working class,
0:09:02 > 0:09:06Booth produces a map of London's several thousand pubs.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10It shows Deptford High Street with 12.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12It's a disconcerting discovery for Booth
0:09:12 > 0:09:17who is convinced that drink dependency is wrecking Deptford's neighbourhoods.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23# That I love London town
0:09:24 > 0:09:28# Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner... #
0:09:28 > 0:09:30That used to be The 45.
0:09:30 > 0:09:36It was The Red Lion & Wheatsheaf, but because it was number 45, we always called it The 45.
0:09:36 > 0:09:40- Lively pub, was it?- Yeah, one long bar, that was all. One long bar.
0:09:40 > 0:09:44He'd drink Guinness all day long with my Uncle John.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48Never, ever got drunk. As soon as the off-licence was open,
0:09:48 > 0:09:50my job was to go and get six bottles of Guinness.
0:09:50 > 0:09:56Then as I come out of school, I used to go up there and get another six bottles of Guinness.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59By night-time, it was another six bottles of Guinness.
0:09:59 > 0:10:05As soon as he was down here, washed and shaved, he'd go in The Deptford Arms for another load of Guinness.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08He was never, ever drunk.
0:10:08 > 0:10:11In the aftermath of the Second World War,
0:10:11 > 0:10:15the London County Council sets out to assess the devastation
0:10:15 > 0:10:18by drafting a series of bomb damage maps.
0:10:18 > 0:10:24Again black marks the most devastated streets, the ones that have been totally destroyed.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28But by sheer chance, the High Street escapes unscathed.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32Post-war prosperity rejuvenates Deptford.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38Deptford has never had it so good.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42Money is being made and people are spending it on the High Street.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45This stall, there'd be 100 people round it.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49All screaming and hollering and fighting
0:10:49 > 0:10:51and "I'm next" and "this is mine!"
0:10:53 > 0:10:58In its heyday, there were very, very good shops in Deptford High Street.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02It was very, very easy to earn a living.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05If you was a fit person able to work,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09then you had money because there was plenty of work in Deptford.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12You just walked out of your house and went into work.
0:11:12 > 0:11:18You went home, got changed and went out to the pub. That's why there are so many pubs. People had money.
0:11:19 > 0:11:21The side streets are changing too.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25Deptford people have started to buy the houses they once rented
0:11:25 > 0:11:28and families have a whole house to themselves.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32The tenement dwellers are becoming owner-occupiers.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34You had a house years ago.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36Your grandmother lived in it
0:11:36 > 0:11:43and normally, the eldest daughter or the eldest son, he stayed in the house with the mother.
0:11:43 > 0:11:50But the eldest daughter or whoever it was then took over and looked after Mummy and Daddy.
0:11:50 > 0:11:55It all stayed in the family and the place just got handed down all the way through.
0:11:55 > 0:12:00We never had a toilet in the house. There was no toilets in the house. They was all in the yard.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04"A toilet in the house? Oh, terrible! You've got to have it in the yard."
0:12:04 > 0:12:10What they did then is downstairs, they done away with the old wash-house
0:12:10 > 0:12:13and put a bathroom and a toilet in there.
0:12:13 > 0:12:18- So people were improving their houses for themselves?- Oh, yeah.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20The places were spotless.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22The streets were spotless.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26Outside the houses, all the knockers and letter-boxes used to be cleaned.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29They couldn't help it. They'd do it every morning.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32They couldn't help it. It was a ritual.
0:12:32 > 0:12:37"Oh, I've got to do my step. I don't want her to see my step next door."
0:12:37 > 0:12:39They was like that, proud.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45Yeah. "I don't want her to talk about me." You know? That's how they was.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49But the planners fail to notice how people are improving their homes.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52They make a propaganda film,
0:12:52 > 0:12:56arguing for the destruction of 19th century London.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59And they come to Deptford to shoot it.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02'Pubs, schools and churches
0:13:02 > 0:13:06'are all jumbled up together in a hopeless confusion.
0:13:08 > 0:13:14'And you will see mean, hideous slums of which any city ought to be ashamed,
0:13:14 > 0:13:20'row upon row of dirty, dismal houses that should have been pulled down and done away with long ago.
0:13:22 > 0:13:28'All these bad things must go and the sooner, the better.'
0:13:28 > 0:13:32You see, the trouble is that London grew up without any plan or order.
0:13:32 > 0:13:37That's why there are all those bad and ugly things that we hope to do away with
0:13:37 > 0:13:39if this plan of ours is carried out.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42The driving forces behind this film
0:13:42 > 0:13:46are the town planning guru Sir Patrick Abercrombie
0:13:46 > 0:13:51and John Forshaw, chief architect for the London County Council.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56Abercrombie and Forshaw have been influenced by the European Modernists
0:13:56 > 0:13:58with their theory of the city as a machine.
0:13:58 > 0:14:03Working for the London County Council, they publish The County Of London Plan,
0:14:03 > 0:14:07a plan for a futuristic, re-imagined London.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11That brings us to another aspect of London, London as a machine,
0:14:11 > 0:14:13a vast machine.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Booth's chaotic, random city is to be removed,
0:14:16 > 0:14:20replaced by a rationalised, machine-like metropolis.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23The plan is for London to be destroyed
0:14:23 > 0:14:28and re-engineered, each neighbourhood given a single, defined purpose
0:14:28 > 0:14:30within the vast mechanism.
0:14:32 > 0:14:37Deptford, along with most of East and South London,
0:14:37 > 0:14:42is identified as a community with a high proportion of obsolescent property.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45It's earmarked for widespread demolition
0:14:45 > 0:14:48and the creation of efficient, new tower blocks.
0:14:50 > 0:14:56Chelsea and Kensington, along with the rest of West and North London, are to be left untouched.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59No need for wholesale demolition in these areas.
0:15:00 > 0:15:07A vast, modernist social experiment is to be carried out in the working-class east and south.
0:15:09 > 0:15:15It's a pretty gigantic scheme, affecting the future of the whole of London.
0:15:16 > 0:15:22Behind it all was the rhetoric of modern architecture.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27There was this huge rhetoric which architects had absorbed
0:15:27 > 0:15:31in their training at schools of architecture.
0:15:31 > 0:15:37The people who lectured, who were not practising architects, but were sort of rhetorical gurus...
0:15:39 > 0:15:43And these rhetorical gurus preached...
0:15:43 > 0:15:48You can imagine an 18-year-old student getting very excited by all this.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51People did get very excited. This was the future.
0:15:51 > 0:15:53They didn't talk to anybody in Deptford about it.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56Well, let's deal with the worst places first.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00Some of the areas in most urgent need of attention
0:16:00 > 0:16:04are the industrial boroughs in the east and south of London.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Let's look at the roads as they are now.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10The streets are narrow and winding.
0:16:10 > 0:16:17Our chief aim must be to separate fast, long-distance traffic from local traffic.
0:16:17 > 0:16:22Prompted by the planners who want to open up more of London's roads to the motor car,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26Deptford Council comes up with a plan to close down its market.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32- How long have you been here? - 65 year.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37What will you do if the market closes?
0:16:40 > 0:16:42What will you do if it is closed?
0:16:47 > 0:16:52We've lived here all our life and these stalls have been here as long as I've known.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54- Does it block traffic? - I don't think so.
0:16:54 > 0:16:59- It's got nothing to do with traffic. - We'll fight our case against Deptford Borough Council.
0:16:59 > 0:17:03Whoever this person is has set himself up as a dictator of Deptford
0:17:03 > 0:17:05and we're definitely not going to stand for it!
0:17:07 > 0:17:12The council's plans are defeated and the market is saved.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16It's a little victory for the High Street and its people.
0:17:16 > 0:17:23But even as this battle is won, plans for a reordered Deptford are taking shape behind closed doors.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28A series of maps of the High Street and its turnings are drawn up
0:17:28 > 0:17:31by both Deptford and the London County Council.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37Lost to the archives for 60 years, they've just been rediscovered.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43The maps show the side streets designated for slum clearance,
0:17:43 > 0:17:47marking in black and red the houses to be demolished.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51The residents weren't shown these maps
0:17:51 > 0:17:56and they were never consulted about the plans to pull down their streets.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02The clearance maps expose a plan to erase Charles Booth's Deptford.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08It's the single most revolutionary change in Deptford's history,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12the near total destruction of its past.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21I got involved as an architectural historian. I was elected to the council.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25I was the architectural and planning correspondent of The Sunday Times.
0:18:25 > 0:18:33My friends saw me disappearing into some obscure byway of squalid municipal socialism.
0:18:33 > 0:18:35I had them saying to me,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39"How do you find it getting on with working-class people?"
0:18:39 > 0:18:43I have a letter from the Architects' Department about a possible housing site in Forest Hill.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48It's the site of an existing church. The question is whether adjoining houses will be pulled down.
0:18:48 > 0:18:53There was an overwhelming desire in the 1960s to sweep everything away.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56People kept on saying, "This is the 20th century.
0:18:56 > 0:19:03"Instead of grotty old buildings, what you must have is stainless steel kitchens with Formica tops
0:19:03 > 0:19:08"and those are the things which show you're being modern, up-to-date and progressive."
0:19:26 > 0:19:30# There must be some kind of way out of here
0:19:31 > 0:19:34# Said the joker to the thief
0:19:35 > 0:19:38# There's too much confusion
0:19:39 > 0:19:42# I can't get no relief
0:19:42 > 0:19:47# Businessmen, they drink my wine
0:19:48 > 0:19:51# Ploughmen dig my earth
0:19:52 > 0:19:56# None will level on the line
0:19:56 > 0:20:01# Nobody offered his word, hey! #
0:20:06 > 0:20:09Although they knew they would want to pull everything down,
0:20:09 > 0:20:14nevertheless, they knew that they could only do it in bitesize chunks,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17even though it was rather a big bite.
0:20:20 > 0:20:221960.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25Many of the side streets running into the High Street
0:20:25 > 0:20:29are much the same as when they were built 100 years earlier.
0:20:30 > 0:20:35John Price's family still live right next to their yard on Reginald Road.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39The Price-Ovenells have continued to prosper.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43By now, they own most of the houses in the street.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48And 70 years on from Charles Booth's original survey,
0:20:48 > 0:20:50Reginald has moved up his social scale
0:20:50 > 0:20:54from purple for "mixed" to pink for "comfortable",
0:20:54 > 0:20:56respectable working-class homes.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00Let's go down. Let's go. Let's go down.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02So this was Reginald...
0:21:03 > 0:21:07The road used to go down either side, houses running down.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11And my house used to be down there, but it's never been built on since.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13It's just left empty.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16It's been empty all them years, yes.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20But my aunt had a little shop over here, a little corner shop.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23That's all gone now.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26That's my mum.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29It's a shop in the front
0:21:29 > 0:21:32and it's a back door that I'm coming out of now.
0:21:32 > 0:21:38From the side of the shop, you could see an archway. That archway was where one of my uncles lived.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41That was my mum's brothers and sisters.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47My dad came from Gosterwood Street in Deptford.
0:21:47 > 0:21:53My mum came from Hales Street and they met and they married and they moved to Reginald Road.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55And that's Reginald Road.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58- This is going down the High Street now, isn't it?- Yeah.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01Three o'clock, Harris's clock up there.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04But just because the houses were, say, I don't know,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07maybe coming up for 100 years old, some of them,
0:22:07 > 0:22:11it doesn't mean to say the people inside them were dirty.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16- They had nice, clean curtains. - Lovely.- Nice, clean front doors.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20Nothing could ever happen to you, me and my cousin Pauline and all that,
0:22:20 > 0:22:23because your family all lived round you.
0:22:23 > 0:22:27And because your family lived round you, if there was any trouble,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30they all ganged up together as a family.
0:22:30 > 0:22:35So if Dad had trouble, Uncle John would come across, Uncle Jack would come across.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39And of course, they'd risk their lives because you were in trouble.
0:22:40 > 0:22:45The power lay in the hands of the environmental health officers
0:22:45 > 0:22:50because the environmental health officers went round determining whether things were slums.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54It was very difficult to challenge them. They were the word of God.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59If the environmental health officer was saying they were slums, they were slums.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03That's what everyone went along with. That was being modern and 20th century.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07Will this mean that some of us have got to move then?
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Yes, I'm afraid some of you will have to move.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15'And the point of the inspectors' look round is to see how clean they are.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18'It all goes down on the form.'
0:23:18 > 0:23:20They had a form they filled in
0:23:20 > 0:23:25in which they made what you might call social and moral remarks about the family.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27They talked about the family's lifestyle.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31They made an appointment to say somebody would come round.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34A lot of people said, "Well, I won't be in for a start."
0:23:34 > 0:23:38"If they think they're getting me out..." That's how it would be.
0:23:38 > 0:23:44But eventually, the council did come round to see what property you had, looking all over it.
0:23:44 > 0:23:49I remember the man coming to my mum's and saying, "What were you thinking of doing here?"
0:23:49 > 0:23:52She said, "I'm going to try and put a bathroom in.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56"If you think we can stay longer because we've got a bathroom, we'll do it."
0:23:56 > 0:24:00These houses never had bathrooms in. That's all they never had.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04There was three bedrooms, four bedrooms, two living rooms downstairs.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08There was plenty of room for a bathroom, but they never had bathrooms.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11As they never had bathrooms, they called them slums.
0:24:11 > 0:24:18I have to be clear with you that a lot of the houses that were cleared really had to be cleared.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21They were too far gone. They had terrible rising damp.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25There were problems in the structure of the houses.
0:24:26 > 0:24:32Deep, damp basements of which we had a whole lot in Deptford, including on the north side of Reginald Road.
0:24:32 > 0:24:37I mean, whichever way you looked at them, they were little damp houses.
0:24:37 > 0:24:43They had some really, really nice people living in some of them, but they were little damp houses.
0:24:43 > 0:24:48Well, if he was on the council at the time... I know how old I am now and how old I was then.
0:24:48 > 0:24:54He was either very young to be on the council or he's very old now and perhaps his memory's going a bit.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57I can't remember the conditions that he's talking about.
0:24:57 > 0:25:03He must have been talking about an entirely different area to where I lived. They wasn't slums.
0:25:03 > 0:25:08There's places over at Fulham, similar type of houses and just as old.
0:25:08 > 0:25:10They didn't pull them down.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14In Battersea and some parts of Chelsea, the houses are older,
0:25:14 > 0:25:18but because of where it is and they had got an indoor toilet now,
0:25:18 > 0:25:23although some of them, it was only a third or fourth bedroom being converted.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26They just wanted doing up. They're old houses.
0:25:26 > 0:25:32It wasn't a problem. The ones they left are making half a million pounds, a million pounds now.
0:25:32 > 0:25:37You know? It's ridiculous. They're going to be there for another 100 years.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39They just won't fall down, will they?
0:25:39 > 0:25:43The environmental health officers were not surveyors or architects.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47They were looking at the conditions in which people were living
0:25:47 > 0:25:51and they very often made sweeping judgments about the buildings
0:25:51 > 0:25:53when they didn't know a lot about buildings.
0:25:53 > 0:25:58They knew much more about the conditions in which people were living.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06'And seen from the social heights of professional people
0:26:06 > 0:26:13'who plan slum clearance and design new buildings, one working-class street looks much like another.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18'In fact, the style of life lived in them varies from extremes of respectability
0:26:18 > 0:26:21'to shiftlessness and downright criminality.'
0:26:27 > 0:26:29November 1964.
0:26:30 > 0:26:36Environmental health officers condemn Reginald Road as "unfit for human habitation".
0:26:38 > 0:26:43The Price and Ovenell families are issued with compulsory purchase orders
0:26:43 > 0:26:46and offered around £1,600 for their homes.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50Along with many others, they refuse to leave.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00It happened to Aunt Violet first.
0:27:00 > 0:27:05She lived down Hales Street and they pulled all down round her.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08She lived in this house in Hales Street on her own.
0:27:08 > 0:27:11Just rubble all around, wasteland,
0:27:11 > 0:27:13and the house was sitting in the middle.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16And of course, you know, you had...
0:27:16 > 0:27:20Where they had pulled down, you've suddenly got vermin everywhere.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24Nobody wants to go down there at night cos all the lights are out.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27Next week, we're pulling down next door.
0:27:27 > 0:27:31And now they've pulled down next door and someone cuts the pipe.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33Now what happens?
0:27:33 > 0:27:35Now you've got no water.
0:27:37 > 0:27:39Now she becomes slums.
0:27:40 > 0:27:42They then create the slums.
0:27:44 > 0:27:49Now they've knocked down next door, half of your roof is open to the elements.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52Now the rain comes in and your ceiling falls down.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55Now the bloke comes round to value your house
0:27:55 > 0:28:00and he says, "The ceiling's fallen down and the walls are all damp and we ain't gonna give you no money."
0:28:00 > 0:28:02Now how do you feel?
0:28:02 > 0:28:08How do you feel with that man who's told you your house is now falling to bits
0:28:08 > 0:28:11because of what they've done either side of you?
0:28:11 > 0:28:16We was in our house for about two years with everything knocked down round us
0:28:16 > 0:28:18because we didn't want to move.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21Any idea of staying by then was absolutely hopeless.
0:28:21 > 0:28:26It was a sort of long, drawn-out war of attrition, the clearance of these areas.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30It didn't happen overnight. It took years and years and years.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34- Because some people refused to leave?- Yes, and the bureaucratic processes took so long.
0:28:34 > 0:28:39But I do have to say that most people wanted to get out.
0:28:39 > 0:28:45- By that stage, if your street's being boarded up and covered with corrugated iron...- It's dreadful.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50- Of course you don't want to stay in the street.- That's right, of course. That's what I'm saying to you.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55I understood all these things and my heart was bleeding daily.
0:28:55 > 0:29:00I can't think of anybody that really wanted to move, that was really pleased about it.
0:29:00 > 0:29:05I can't remember anybody saying, "Isn't it good? We're moving."
0:29:05 > 0:29:07It's upsetting for a lot of people.
0:29:07 > 0:29:13Like Nellie Pearson, she's kept it all nice and once she's moved out, you see her window gets broken
0:29:13 > 0:29:16or the curtains flapping out the window.
0:29:16 > 0:29:20Straight away, the turning does start to go down very quickly.
0:29:20 > 0:29:26Then a lot of people start moving quickly because they don't want to be the last half a dozen or so.
0:29:27 > 0:29:33Once they started pulling down, they got hold of street by street by street.
0:29:33 > 0:29:37And then by around about nineteen-sixty...
0:29:37 > 0:29:42sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, the whole area was flat.
0:29:42 > 0:29:48And our stall, from taking good money, was taking no money!
0:29:48 > 0:29:52We'd stand up there all day and take a pound or something.
0:29:52 > 0:29:59Over the next 20 years, 1,000 people a week will have to load up the moving vans and head for new towns,
0:29:59 > 0:30:02clean, neat and antiseptic.
0:30:02 > 0:30:08What they have real grounds to complain about is the feeling that they've given up something,
0:30:08 > 0:30:11something important, something that meant home.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15I'm not the type to be on my own all the time, you know?
0:30:15 > 0:30:19I mean I've got no friends come up here or anything like that,
0:30:19 > 0:30:23you know, to see me or call in for a cup of tea.
0:30:24 > 0:30:29I'm just on my own all day. I used to cry every day
0:30:29 > 0:30:33until my husband sent me over the doctor's
0:30:33 > 0:30:35and he gave me pills and all that.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38Me mum just lived across the road.
0:30:39 > 0:30:44And even my old gran lives in the same house where I was born.
0:30:45 > 0:30:49- Your mother lived very near? - Oh, I seen my mother every day.
0:30:49 > 0:30:56There wasn't a day went past when I didn't see my mother. She came to me or I went to her.
0:30:56 > 0:31:00- I very often get bored.- Why's that? - I go and smash things in temper.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03When I have rows with my husband,
0:31:03 > 0:31:06which I have done in the past.
0:31:06 > 0:31:11Has it made it difficult between you and your husband because you've been upset?
0:31:11 > 0:31:15I try not to for his sake. He has to work long hours
0:31:15 > 0:31:20and I try to be happy, but very often he's come home and found me crying.
0:31:20 > 0:31:26And I can't explain why. It's just a fit of depression you get into.
0:31:27 > 0:31:29We ended up in Charlton.
0:31:29 > 0:31:33And Aunt Harriet ended up at Brockley.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36And Aunt Violet ended up at Greenwich.
0:31:36 > 0:31:38And Aunt Grace ended up at Woolwich.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41And Uncle John ended up at Brockley.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44So from everybody living here
0:31:45 > 0:31:51we had to move out. That's it. You had to go. There was nowhere to live round here, was there?
0:31:51 > 0:31:53There was nowhere to live.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56The family still stayed very, very strong together,
0:31:56 > 0:32:03but eventually it just breaks up and breaks up, doesn't it? More and more and more.
0:32:16 > 0:32:21There was a misty-eyed view of the past. There was a golden age, do you know?
0:32:21 > 0:32:23There wasn't.
0:32:23 > 0:32:28I've never... I've certainly never been in any golden age.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35Although people actually settle down remarkably quickly somewhere new,
0:32:35 > 0:32:40sometimes people feel guilty simply because they have settled down so happily
0:32:40 > 0:32:46in Brockley or Grove Park or Bexleyheath. They've settled down so happily and feel a sense of guilt,
0:32:46 > 0:32:50they feel that they really should be with the folks back home,
0:32:50 > 0:32:55regardless of the fact that the folks back home are also living in Bexleyheath and so on!
0:32:57 > 0:33:00'They started pulling opposite us down
0:33:00 > 0:33:04'and my mum stayed as long as she could.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09'She loved Deptford and wanted to just be left alone.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12'We was the last to come down and I hated moving from there.
0:33:12 > 0:33:16'I've been here years and I'm just adjusting.'
0:33:32 > 0:33:38The council replaces Reginald's Victorian terraces with a low-rise block.
0:33:38 > 0:33:44Deptford's streets of rubble start to disappear as the GLC and Lewisham Council build estates
0:33:44 > 0:33:49to replace the terraced houses they've torn down.
0:33:54 > 0:34:00Those who have refused to move out to the suburbs are being rehoused here.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06In Deptford, even the new homes that have been built are under attack.
0:34:06 > 0:34:12- Now that's where you live, right at the top there?- Yes. - What do you think of it?
0:34:12 > 0:34:16Since I've lived up there, my husband's had a nervous breakdown
0:34:16 > 0:34:22and my children have got nowhere to play. If I want to come down, I can't leave them with my husband.
0:34:22 > 0:34:28A lot of my older council colleagues couldn't understand why people were so ungrateful.
0:34:28 > 0:34:34I remember one of them saying to me, "But they've got wonderful kitchens, lovely bathrooms.
0:34:34 > 0:34:36"What are they complaining about?
0:34:36 > 0:34:43"Why are these people so ungrateful when we've given them these wonderful places to live in?"
0:34:43 > 0:34:47Even though he was living in a great big Victorian house up the hill.
0:34:47 > 0:34:53The first big high-rise estate in Deptford, the Evelyn Estate, everybody moved into quite happily
0:34:53 > 0:34:58and that was finished in 1970, the year before I was elected,
0:34:58 > 0:35:04but people were unhappy and so the other big high-rise estate, the Milton Court Estate,
0:35:04 > 0:35:07when that was finished... in 1973,
0:35:07 > 0:35:13a lot of people didn't want to move there, particularly the high-rise blocks.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17The flats became hard to let. It was extraordinary.
0:35:17 > 0:35:22Here were brand-new flats in brand-new blocks that people didn't want to have.
0:35:22 > 0:35:28We had to go way, way, way down the housing list in order to find people who'd take them.
0:35:28 > 0:35:34The council can't find enough Deptford-born people who want to live in the new estates
0:35:34 > 0:35:39so they start to look further afield for tenants willing to settle in the new blocks.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43And so a new wave of Deptford people begins to fill the side turnings.
0:35:49 > 0:35:511976, did you?
0:36:19 > 0:36:21All right, Archie? Now listen...
0:36:23 > 0:36:28What do you mean you lost your money? You can't have.
0:36:28 > 0:36:33Last week, he came in he had no money, so I lent him the money. He promised to pay me back Monday.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38He kept borrowing 30 quid and 20 quid. "I've got the money coming."
0:36:42 > 0:36:45He's been doing it for years.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48It's funny that it's got to big money
0:36:48 > 0:36:53and suddenly he goes and gets mugged. This man Archie got mugged.
0:36:53 > 0:36:57How can he go and get mugged? Everybody in London knows Archie!
0:37:09 > 0:37:14He's got a steel plate in his head where he got bombed in the war.
0:37:17 > 0:37:21I've got to move the plate to get the money out of him!
0:37:26 > 0:37:30Were you in the Army?
0:38:00 > 0:38:05- So you was here in 1960 when I was growing up.- Yes!- That's right.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09- That's right. When I had a Jag.- Yes!
0:38:13 > 0:38:16No, not that pub over there.
0:38:21 > 0:38:23Three years for shooting the pub up.
0:38:23 > 0:38:28It used to be called the Duke of Cambridge. I used to use it when I was a boy.
0:39:01 > 0:39:05- All right, mum?- Yeah. - Have a look round, darling.
0:39:05 > 0:39:09- How long have you been working on the High Street here?- All my life.
0:39:09 > 0:39:11How long's that?
0:39:11 > 0:39:12Oh...
0:39:15 > 0:39:1760 years, I suppose.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21The original people who lived here, there's none of them here any more.
0:39:21 > 0:39:28You don't see any of them now. About 5%. Like the old timers, the old people, old British people.
0:39:28 > 0:39:33The fish we used to sell like cod fillet and all that, we don't sell hardly any now.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36We used to sell...
0:39:36 > 0:39:40I don't know. 200 or 300 stone of cod fillet a week.
0:39:40 > 0:39:42We sell about four now.
0:39:42 > 0:39:48- And why is that? - Because it's different people. They don't eat it.
0:39:48 > 0:39:54The ethnics, they love fish, and they love fish whole, with the heads on.
0:39:54 > 0:40:00I mean, years ago we wouldn't dream of having fish with the heads on. It was cut off and thrown away.
0:40:00 > 0:40:02But they love eating the heads.
0:40:02 > 0:40:08- But where have they all gone, all the original south Londoners? - Moved out.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12Oh, that hurts, don't it? It's got her. Dave, it's got her.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16She won't do it again. Take a photo of that, mate. Look.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20Take a photo of that. Zoom in on that.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22OK, OK...
0:40:23 > 0:40:25Ow!
0:40:25 > 0:40:29It won't let go, Dave. It just won't let go.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34You shouldn't pick them up!
0:40:34 > 0:40:37- Lobsters?- The crab got her!
0:40:37 > 0:40:40It did get her, didn't it, eh?
0:40:40 > 0:40:46- I tell you, he wouldn't let go. - No, they won't. The little ones are just really fierce.
0:40:46 > 0:40:51- She's crying now. - Are you all right?- She's crying.
0:40:51 > 0:40:55Broken, yeah? You want bandage? Want a bandage?
0:40:57 > 0:41:02It crushes them to bits. It won't let go. You all right, boss?
0:41:02 > 0:41:04Oh, here it goes.
0:41:04 > 0:41:09He won't have that. He won't have that. He won't have that.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11He won't have it, will he?
0:41:11 > 0:41:13Oh, here we go. It's off.
0:41:13 > 0:41:15It's an angry High Street, mate.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18No one likes anyone down here.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25As the spread of the housing blocks ushers in a new Deptford,
0:41:25 > 0:41:30those who can afford it join the exodus to the suburbs.
0:41:30 > 0:41:32Old iron.
0:41:32 > 0:41:37The High Street is left marooned amongst low-quality council blocks
0:41:37 > 0:41:40lived in by people on low incomes.
0:41:44 > 0:41:50These flats can't be gentrified, so those who do well tend to move away
0:41:50 > 0:41:55leaving behind the people that Booth would have ranked at the bottom of the social scale.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03With its once-prosperous community displaced,
0:42:03 > 0:42:06the High Street has slid back
0:42:06 > 0:42:10from well-to-do red to poor and very poor.
0:42:18 > 0:42:24Just across the Thames from the high-rise new money of Docklands lies Deptford.
0:42:24 > 0:42:30It's one of London's most deprived areas with nearly as many closed or derelict shops as there are
0:42:30 > 0:42:33places open for business.
0:42:33 > 0:42:39The sons and the daughters moved out. The old ones all stayed here and died. All dead now, ain't they?
0:42:39 > 0:42:43I think there's... about a handful left.
0:42:43 > 0:42:45If that.
0:42:45 > 0:42:50Once they started pulling everything down, it went down.
0:42:50 > 0:42:56As we're sitting here, the clock is ticking and nothing's going in the till.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59Nothing at all is going in the till.
0:42:59 > 0:43:01This is very scary.
0:43:29 > 0:43:35Since Charles Booth's visit here, the High Street's other great business has declined dramatically.
0:43:35 > 0:43:40Today the number of pubs is down from 12 to 2.
0:43:40 > 0:43:48The Deptford Arms, once the meeting place of a revolutionary group run by the man who wrote The Red Flag,
0:43:48 > 0:43:50is now a bookies.
0:43:50 > 0:43:55The Mechanic's Arms and the Royal Oak are African restaurants.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57The Pilot is a nail shop.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01The Windsor Castle is a centre for teenagers with problems
0:44:01 > 0:44:07and the Red Cow, which once doubled as the coroner's court, is now a Costcutter.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11But despite the draining away of traditional pub culture,
0:44:11 > 0:44:15the people of Deptford are still coming to the High Street to drink,
0:44:15 > 0:44:21only now it's mostly on the street, keeping up an ancient tradition of hard drinking
0:44:21 > 0:44:24that reaches deep into Deptford's past.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18PREACHES IN THE STREET
0:45:25 > 0:45:27SPEAKING IN TONGUES
0:45:37 > 0:45:41In the name of Jesus, we speak peace in this place.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45In the name of Jesus, ever altar here, every altar that is not of God...
0:45:45 > 0:45:49In the name of Jesus, Holy Spirit of God,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52let there be change in Jesus' name!
0:45:52 > 0:45:57The kingdom of Jesus has come into this place. Let the kingdom rule.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15Cover these buildings right now. Have your way over these buildings.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18SPEAKS IN AFRICAN DIALECT
0:46:31 > 0:46:36We'll break every power, the ruling power.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53This is Reginald Road
0:46:53 > 0:46:59and the Victorian terrace on the other side had already gone by the time I became a councillor.
0:46:59 > 0:47:05There was a terrace of houses here, you're quite right, which were in an advanced state of decay.
0:47:05 > 0:47:11- We've spoken to people who lived on this street.- Yes.- They don't agree they were in a state of disrepair.
0:47:13 > 0:47:20Well... Even the picture you showed me of them showed what a state of disrepair they were in.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22They were, well...
0:47:22 > 0:47:28That's all... That all went through a process of public inquiry and all the rest of it.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31It was, um, agreed
0:47:31 > 0:47:33that they should come down.
0:47:33 > 0:47:38- No, but the houses were not in a state of disrepair.- In your opinion.
0:47:38 > 0:47:44- No, actually in the opinion of... - Yes.- ..the council officers that came and inspected the street here.
0:47:48 > 0:47:532012. The documents lost in the council archives are discovered.
0:47:53 > 0:47:58Notes written by council officers as they inspect Reginald Road,
0:47:58 > 0:48:02anxious to please their bosses by declaring it a slum.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07But the council officers can't find a genuine reason
0:48:07 > 0:48:11to declare Reginald Road as unfit for human habitation.
0:48:12 > 0:48:19At number 42, home of the Price family, the officer says, "Damp: there is no damp.
0:48:19 > 0:48:21"Repair: there is no disrepair.
0:48:21 > 0:48:26"All defects remediable at not too great a cost.
0:48:27 > 0:48:32"There is no doubt in my mind that this whole street can be dealt with by means other than slum clearance
0:48:32 > 0:48:38"if the council want to." The Health Inspector's verdicts are kept private.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42Three years on, Reginald is declared a slum
0:48:42 > 0:48:46and residents are instructed to leave.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50Gracious.
0:48:54 > 0:49:01Dear, dear, dear. I just feel amazed, really... that it's come to light now
0:49:01 > 0:49:03after all these years.
0:49:03 > 0:49:07And you wonder who are these people when they've been told structurally
0:49:07 > 0:49:10that the house is OK to live in.
0:49:10 > 0:49:16And then, all of a sudden, they go against what they've said, but nobody knows what they've said
0:49:16 > 0:49:20- because it doesn't come out.- Just the letters.- Just a letter saying...
0:49:20 > 0:49:23- "Your house is a slum."- Mm.
0:49:24 > 0:49:26My mum had lovely curtains.
0:49:28 > 0:49:34As I'm growing up, I wanted to fight the council, but you couldn't fight them. Understand?
0:49:35 > 0:49:38My uncle John, he didn't want to move.
0:49:38 > 0:49:44Big, strong man. Some little creep comes along and tells him he's got to get out?
0:49:44 > 0:49:49And then the creep hides behind the bloody door and sends bloody bulldozers in?
0:49:49 > 0:49:55We had it. Bulldozers knocking the top off and then saying, "Oh, that was an accident."
0:49:56 > 0:50:02Then you try and fight them. Who are you going to fight? You can't fight no one.
0:50:02 > 0:50:08Go up the Town Hall, you get some bird on the office desk banging your head? She don't take any notice.
0:50:08 > 0:50:13You can't even get to them. If you go to Greenwich now,
0:50:13 > 0:50:17all them houses are exactly the same as the ones that stood in Deptford.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20For some unknown reason
0:50:20 > 0:50:25that no one will probably ever get the truth to, they wanted to condemn Deptford.
0:50:33 > 0:50:37Councillor Taylor isn't responsible for pulling down Reginald Road.
0:50:37 > 0:50:43He joined the council some time after the compulsory purchase orders had already been issued.
0:50:43 > 0:50:47But he is convinced that the houses on Reginald had to come down
0:50:47 > 0:50:51and that the council made the right decision.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56Cos we found some documents
0:50:56 > 0:51:01and these are the council's own medical officers going up and down,
0:51:01 > 0:51:06- looking for reasons to declare them unfit for human habitation. - That's right. Slums.
0:51:06 > 0:51:12- They can't find any reasons.- No. - It says here, "Number 42..." The Price family lived at number 42.
0:51:12 > 0:51:17- "Repair: there is no disrepair." - Yeah.- "Dampness: no dampness."- Yes.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20"Any defects: remediable at not too great a cost."
0:51:20 > 0:51:27- You're talking about one row of houses.- The council's own officer says maintenance is good...
0:51:27 > 0:51:33- I'm not denying that. - "Some are very well kept and may be difficult to declare a slum."
0:51:33 > 0:51:38I'm not denying that. I'm not defending that. Maybe those ones should have been kept.
0:51:38 > 0:51:43I, of course, set out... It was very difficult to stop the bulldozer.
0:51:43 > 0:51:50When I was elected, I couldn't stop the bulldozer. Most of my colleagues wanted to continue bulldozing.
0:51:50 > 0:51:56In order to persuade them to stop bulldozing, you had to select where you were going to make your stand.
0:51:56 > 0:52:01It was a very difficult area to redevelop, this. Very, very difficult to redevelop.
0:52:08 > 0:52:14But there is one side street visited by Charles Booth that had a different fate.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20Albury Street, running off the High Street to the north of Reginald,
0:52:20 > 0:52:26and classed by Booth as mixed, with ordinary working people and some artisans.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30Albury was originally built in 1700
0:52:30 > 0:52:33for sea captains and the well-to-do.
0:52:35 > 0:52:41But by the time of Booth's survey, it was no longer what it had once been
0:52:41 > 0:52:47and over the next 70 years, it continued to drop down the social scale.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51By 1960, Albury was a genuine slum,
0:52:51 > 0:52:54in a worse state than Reginald.
0:52:54 > 0:53:00Its residents were evicted and Albury, too, was scheduled for slum clearance.
0:53:01 > 0:53:09But a quirk of the planning process left Albury escaping the bulldozer and it didn't get pulled down.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15It's still here today, running off the High Street,
0:53:15 > 0:53:18the last vestige of old Deptford.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21Ha! There we go.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26It's a bit like a sort of country house in miniature here.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30You've got this lovely hall going right through the house
0:53:30 > 0:53:34and then this is the main downstairs reception room.
0:53:34 > 0:53:40- What do you think?- Nicely done. And I know which picture I'd ask my dad for to put above the fireplace.
0:53:40 > 0:53:42Yes.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46- It's quite stylish, isn't it? - Mm, very.
0:53:46 > 0:53:53- A lot of the staircase is original. You've got these lovely barley-twist banisters here.- I love that turning.
0:53:53 > 0:54:00- Isn't it lovely? And this, to me... - Awesome.- I think this is the loveliest room in the house.
0:54:00 > 0:54:05- It really feels like a piano nobile. - Piano nobile, exactly.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08It could even be another big reception room up here.
0:54:08 > 0:54:14- And that could make the downstairs living room more of a casual dining/living room.- Exactly that.
0:54:14 > 0:54:18- This could be more of a state dining room.- Mm.- For important occasions.
0:54:18 > 0:54:25- When I grew up, we did have the family dining room and the formal dining room.- Quite rightly.
0:54:25 > 0:54:31- London evolves, doesn't it? - Absolutely.- And somehow this little street is still here.
0:54:31 > 0:54:35A precious little survival amongst it all.
0:54:35 > 0:54:41Well, the price for this house at the moment, I think it's on the market for about £750,000.
0:54:44 > 0:54:49- It's great value for what it is. - Do you think so?- I do, for the quality of the restoration.
0:54:49 > 0:54:55And the neighbourhood isn't likely to change dramatically in the next few years...
0:55:23 > 0:55:26Is this Pauline's wedding?
0:55:26 > 0:55:29I think it was Pauline's wedding, isn't it?
0:55:29 > 0:55:31Eh?
0:55:31 > 0:55:33Yeah, there's Uncle Jack there.
0:55:33 > 0:55:35Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
0:55:35 > 0:55:36God...
0:55:41 > 0:55:44Oh, there's Aunt Harriet, look.
0:55:44 > 0:55:48I was loading up the lorry there.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51Yeah. Hey, that was me.
0:55:51 > 0:55:53It is me! Yeah.
0:55:53 > 0:55:58In the baskets would have been Jersey potatoes.
0:56:03 > 0:56:05Ah... Dear, oh, dear.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12It's another time, innit? It's another era.
0:56:12 > 0:56:18You can't turn back the clock no more, can you? Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.
0:56:24 > 0:56:27I think I'd like to finish now, son.
0:56:27 > 0:56:29Yeah? Can we finish now?
0:56:38 > 0:56:42# Will the circle
0:56:42 > 0:56:46# Be unbroken
0:56:46 > 0:56:49# By and by, Lord
0:56:49 > 0:56:54# By and by
0:56:54 > 0:56:57# There's a better
0:56:57 > 0:57:01# Home awaiting
0:57:01 > 0:57:04# In the sky, Lord
0:57:04 > 0:57:09# In the sky
0:57:09 > 0:57:13# Will the circle
0:57:13 > 0:57:17# Be unbroken
0:57:17 > 0:57:20# By and by, Lord
0:57:20 > 0:57:24# By and by
0:57:24 > 0:57:29# There's a better
0:57:29 > 0:57:33# Home awaiting
0:57:33 > 0:57:36# In the sky, Lord
0:57:36 > 0:57:40# In the sky... #
0:57:42 > 0:57:46Next week, we tell the story of Camberwell Grove,
0:57:46 > 0:57:51how the street was built for the middle classes in Georgian times.
0:57:51 > 0:57:57When it was built, it was like an object landed from space in the farmland itself.
0:57:57 > 0:58:01How it was engulfed by the Victorian city of London.
0:58:01 > 0:58:05And how, as period houses were being demolished all over the city,
0:58:05 > 0:58:09the fight began to protect the Grove.
0:58:09 > 0:58:15To discover more about Britain's Secret Streets, the Open University has produced a free guide book.
0:58:15 > 0:58:20Go to bbc.co.uk/ourstreets and follow the links to the Open University
0:58:20 > 0:58:23or call:
0:58:46 > 0:58:48Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd