Youngs Brewery, Wandsworth

Wandsworth, London

Olympus OM2
Ilford HP5
Rodinal 1+25

Wandsworth is my London Borough. It has been Conservative led for the last thirty years, it has the lowest Council tax rate and some of the highest house prices outside the Circle Line. But it is also resolutely inner city in many places and the “town centre” is quite frankly a dump with cheap and unsympathetic sixties development being allowed run down and sliced up by the fast (by London standards) one way system. The lovely old Youngs brewery closed and is crumbling, the factory pub where you could get best Youngs beer straight from the barrel bricked up and closed.

It is changing though. There are cranes everywhere, I took a picture of the “P*ecision Tyres” shop two weeks ago and when I passed it again a week ago it was covered in scaffolding and the roof was off.

But I worry about what will come in its place. The hoarding outside the new commercial development promises another Clonetown with all the usual chains and no variety. The fabric of the remaining London vernacular brick buildings will no doubt remain. The brewery is to be converted into luxury appartments. And the risk is that it will be sanitised and gentrified. Prices will rise, social and cultural diversity will fall