-
Ayers Street
'Ayres'. In this case, that's actually important, as the street was named after tragic local heroine Alice Ayres:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Ayres
Some more information, including on the artwork by Anna Karin:
https://lookup.london/red-cross-garden/
The hall's name confused me a bit. The Conservation Area Appraisal is probably authoritative, though:
No. 8 Bishop’s Hall and No. 8a George Bell House, Ayres Street
Formerly Redcross hall, this Arts and Crafts community building was also designed by Elijah Hoole and built between 1887 and 1890. It is now used as a studio with an office and flat to the Ayres Street frontage.
https://www.southwark.gov.uk/assets/attach/2132/100629_Union_Street_Appraisal_compressed.pdf
I think the hall itself must be the older meeting house that long pre-existed Octavia Hall (?), and the bits added by Elijah Hoole include only the cottages and number 8a while maintaining access to the hall from Ayres Street (then still Whitecross Street) through the number 8 entrance. Or perhaps the old hall was knocked down and a new one built.
It's a nice touch that the number(s) is/are 8 (and 8a). It/they stand(s) next to the cottages numbered 1-6, so it/they should really have been 7 and 8, but I'd guess they took 8 because of the play on Octavia Hall's name.
Intriguingly, it's for sale:
https://www.realla.co.uk/details/18957371
The plaque in Ayres Street calls it 'Bishops Hall'.
It seems that this planning application for a three-storey building next door wasn't successful, but not sure when the Open Spaces Trust building was built instead--it certainly looks enough like a spacecraft to have been designed by spacecraft architects:
You are reading a single comment by @Oliver Schick and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
Oliver Schick
The first two pictures are front and rear of the old tag - the first from Ayers Street; the second actually showing Octavia Hill's cottages and hall from Red Cross Garden. The third picture with the grass in it is the new tag.