Here’s your chance to check out the SE1 Stories exhibition ‘Blackfriars SE1 in the 1970s‘ without leaving home.
See the main Exhibition page for details of any upcoming ‘real life’ showings. As well as high quality versions of the panels featured here, depending on the venue there will be some mixture of reproductions of old issues of SE1 Community Newspaper, relevant artefacts and additional large format images. Worth visiting ‘in the flesh’ if you can! You can get a feel for how past installations looked here.
Please give your reactions, suggestions and anything else of interest via our virtual Comments book. You can also contact the SE1 Stories group direct with any feedback, or perhaps you might identify one of the unnamed photographers for us.
The Panels
Click on the thumbnail to view/download a pdf – file size is generally under 2MB.
Introduction: Community action in a London neighbourhood.
Campaigning
Blackfriars Road: The struggle for decent housing.
SE1 Map
Community Action Team: Empowering residents, building community action through tenants associations.
Blackfriars Settlement: A multi-purpose centre meeting the changing needs of local people.
SE1: Creating the community newspaper.
Colombo Centre: Hard-won sports and community resource.
Golden Oldies: A regular SE1 feature, recalling vivid memories of a large and thriving community.
Photography Project: Pioneering use of photography for social change.
North Southwark Community Development Group.
Bankside: The battle to improve social conditions, taking in The Globe, Bankside power station and other sites.
Additions: SE1 Today
Two extra panels added in 2024 looking at similar issues being experienced in the area now.
Elephant & Castle
Blackfriars and South Bank
See the main Exhibition web page for credits and more about how it was put together. And don’t forget that we’d welcome hearing your thoughts around the content and issues raised.
Other material
Accompanying booklet (2MB pdf). Fills out the context to community action in the period and relevance today, plus some further reading.
Issues of SE1 Community Newspaper are available to view on the Internet Archive.
Copyright
All exhibition text copyright SE1 Stories, exhibition design copyright Jack Carter Architects/SE1 Stories, images copyright as individually stated.
Disclaimer: SE1 Stories have made reasonable efforts to identify the authors and copyright owners of the photographs presented in this exhibition and allied publications. If you think that your rights have been infringed we will remove the images from public view where possible while the matter is investigated.