Ram Brewery

The Society were very disappointed that the Council granted planning approval for the proposals by Minerva to develop the Ram Brewery site.
An inquiry into the granting of this planning permission began on Tuesday 3 November at the former Capital Studios, on Wandsworth Plain.

The inquiry is anticipated to last some five weeks. It is to examine and report to the Secretary of State on the decision by Wandsworth to grant planning approval to the application by Minerva to develop the Ram Brewery site. The Secretary of State considered that the Council's decision may have conflicted with national policies on important matters. The scheme is contentious for a number of reasons, principally the height of the buildings, there are two towers, one 42-storeys the other 32-storeys tall, and the low provision of affordable housing, which is linked to a contribution by the developer to improvements to the road system.

The Society has prepared a detailed response to the the inquiry inspector, and is represented as an interested third party. The Society's statement on the proposals can be found here.

Wandsworth Museum – a new beginning
(the latest update from the Chair of Friends of Wandsworth Museum)

It is entirely appropriate for the Friends of Wandsworth Museum to feel optimistic about our New Museum judging by the interest and high expectations expressed to me both personally and by the warm participation at our extremely well-supported meeting in February, The Way Forward. Enthusiasm and interest are there in abundance and indeed you are looking forward to a successful future and a worthy successor to our Court House Museum.

The prospect is only temporarily cloudy. We have an office in the De Morgan Centre, a most generous donation, and the Court House collection has been transferred to the West Hill Library. The Museum staff are now re-deployed or retired but sustained their commitment to ensure that everything was carefully packed and positioned, a remarkable feat by a team who could so easily not have cared less. We owe them our thanks.

However it will be some time before a permanent home is found as the physical constraints of West Hill will impose a small scale on exhibitions. But it is essential that public access is available to maintain interest and in the interim we have decided that The Friends will present its own Artefacts Evening at our next meeting on 21st May, not yet in West Hill but in the Brewer Building, Putney. Full details are on the notice and we invite you to bring artefacts of local relevance to display in the first exhibition of The New Wandsworth Museum.

The encouraging news is that an appointment has been made for the position of Museum Director. We welcome the newly appointed Director of Wandsworth Museum, Andrew Leitch.

Our status as a charitable trust is all but confirmed. We have one amendment to make and, with your approval, we can adopt the change and finalise the situation. This will be presented to you again at our May meeting which is a multi-faceted evening part business, part social – wine bar and tombola – and part exhibition. I look forward to seeing you there.

Sheila Allen

What’s Happened to Wandsworth Museum’s Oral History Collection?

When the museum closed its oral history archive included well over a hundred recordings on various aspects of the borough’s history. These form part of the main museum collection and have been transferred with the rest of the items to West Hill.

The first recordings were made during the early 1990s for a volunteer project about the Second World War. Later the education and outreach officers used oral history to mount an exhibition called Wandsworth Lives drawing on the varied experiences of older residents. Gradually more and more recordings were added, gathered by a small band of volunteer interviewers who had received training from the museum staff.

Since then oral history recordings have been used to support a whole range of the museum exhibitions. For example, the Queen’s jubilee was marked with a small exhibition based on people’s memories of the coronation which ran alongside a larger exhibition about the 1950s. Several projects have worked with some of the many ethnic minority groups in the borough, – for example “West African Ties” and “Asian Role Models”.

Volunteers carried on gathering material until the museum closed. Last year Deirdre Gooderson and I interviewed some of the remaining brewery staff to put together “Last Orders” – an exhibition to mark the closure of the Ram Brewery and the death of John Young.

“Wartime Memories”, an exhibition about the experiences of air raids in the borough, was compiled to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and drew on the by now extensive collection of memories of that time. It toured the borough’s libraries last year and remains on the council’s website (follow the links to leisure and culture and then to heritage and local history).

There is a wide range of existing material ready and waiting to support future exhibitions and even more memories waiting to be gathered as soon as the museum collection finds its new home.

Cerys Williams
Oral History Volunteer

For further information please contact Sheila Allen
Email: wandsworthmuseumgroup@hotmail.co.uk
Tel: 8874 2341

Other Concerns

River Wandle
The Wandle, our under-appreciated second river, already has stretches of enhanced bank and the Spit open space at the river’s mouth. However there is still much to do to create what is potentially a linear park. We support the linking of the Wandle Trail through to Carshalton for walkers and cyclists.

Heathrow Expansion
T5 is under construction but we continue to support HACAN, Putney Society and Wandsworth Council in seeking to stop further night flights and additional capacity at Heathrow which will impact on Wandsworth and other communities. We believe additional airport capacity should be located where it impacts on the minimum number of people.

Other local planning issues
We monitor all major planning applications and transport initiatives for their impact on Wandsworth, making representations as felt appropriate by our specialist committees.