St Luke's Primary School - Isle of Dogs 1971 © Peter Wright 2011

Unique footage of the original St Luke's C of E Primary School, next to the River Thames, on the Isle of Dogs, London, England, during its demolition around 1971. A new school with the same name was then rebuilt about two miles away. This footage is reproduced by kind permission of Mr Peter Wright, who created the film and owns the rights to it.
Mr Wright is a former pupil of the school and adds these notes to his film 'Cant be sure of the exact date... I place it around 1971 or 1972. I suppose there is a record somewhere on the actual date it was demolished. The film shows a foundation stone missing from the wall in the playground.... now it's turned up after all these years and set in the wall of the newly built Clifton Restaurant near where the school stood. On the left in the film is the tin roofed playground shelter. I had a look inside the school, walked up the old stone staircase round the side and went into the 1st Floor Hall. A square hall with a long row of coat hangers. Two doors together in the far corner each led to a classroom. Lot of rubble laying about, met a demolition worker in there, i was about to leave as i thought i shouldn't be in there but he said it was ok to look around. I didn't go any further, the camera wouldn't have coped with low light in there anyway. For the aerial view i went up the top of Topmast Point flats. There wasn't access to a balcony so I stood on a ledge and filmed through a slit in a louvre panel. I panned to the left taking a shot of Express Wharf Office block, the edge of the old bombed warehouse butted on to the playground whose wall was covered in white tiles of which i remember seeing as you looked out the classroom window. Further to the left is Hutchings Wharf and the offices of General Construction & Eng Co. This terrace of offices had a name plaque cemented on the upper wall.... Canterbury Place 1855. That's about all I remember of that day, when i heard it was coming I realised after a couple of weeks that I had to get round there and film it, so I'm glad I did. I did feel sad standing there, yet only say 12 years earlier I came out of school on that last day yelling with delight, all the way down that big old external staircase.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• isle of dogs
• primary school
• local history
• london
• england
• 1970's

[ninaashik]

Thanks, this is a beautiful piece, much love Nina

[craywands]

@ninaashik - thanks very very much, Nina, glad you enjoyed it, from Con.