Southwark Bandstand - Did You Know?

Southwark Bandstand

Did you know? 

1. Heavy & bulky sliding box cameras were the standard design of the 1840s & early 1850s. 

2. Captain Francis Fowke patented the 1st British camera to use concertina-pattern pleated bellows in 1856. 

3. Invented for & used by the Royal Engineers, these cameras were advertised as the most portable & lightest in use.

4. Fowke was one of the most important British architects of the 19th century (The Royal Albert Hall, The Natural History Museum and the V&A), but his other inventions include a military fire engine, an improved umbrella & a portable bath. 

5. The original bandstand in Southwark Park was one of a pair designed by Fowke in 1861, commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society for gardens in South Kensington.

6. Bandstands provided a focal point in parks & the Victorians thought 'good music would free the mind of urban griminess & humanise the industrial landscape'.

7. In their heyday in the 1800s, bandstands drew crowds of up to 10,000, but their popularity waned by the 1950s, though there was a revival in the late 60s when Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac & David Bowie played free bandstand concerts.

8. The bandstand in Southwark Park survived until it was removed in the 1940s, with the ironwork & railings reused as armaments in WW2. 

9. From 1979, more than half of the bandstands in historic parks across the UK were demolished, vandalised or fell into disuse. 

10. In 1999 the Southwark bandstand was reconstructed using the original detailed drawings.