page_title: Powis Street
section_title: East end - South side
hierarchical_section_title: Powis Street / Architecture / East end - South side
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of the former Marks &amp; Spencer store, Powis Street nos 55-69, Woolwich, South East London, UK.
context_page_description: Powis Street is a partly pedestrianised shopping street in Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, south east London, England. It was laid out in the late 18th century and was named after the Powis brothers, who developed most of the land in this part of the town. The street has been rebuilt several times but has retained some notable examples of late-Victorian and Art Deco architecture.
context_section_description: The section between Green's End/Beresford Square and Barnard Close/Hare Street has always been the most dynamic part of the street. It went through various rebuilding campaigns. About half of the shops here have Victorian or Edwardian façades, although storefronts are almost exclusively modern. The corner of Green's End with the south side of Powis Street (nrs 1-7) was redeveloped in 1958-60, after a design by British-American architect Hector Hamilton. It features glass curtain walls with artificial-stone mullions, a pavement canopy and a set-back corner with diamond-patterned ornament. The next two buildings on the south side (nrs 9-21) are of the same proportions and from the same period but were both refronted in the first decade of the 21st century. This is followed by what was originally a uniform row of seven shops by H.H. Church, built in 1899-1900, of which three have survived (nrs 23-27). Further west are a three-bay shop from 1925 (nrs 33-35), some unassuming brick buildings of 1956-58 (nrs 37-45), another brick building of 2013-14 that replaced a shop by H.H. Church destroyed in the 2011 London riots (nrs 47-49), and two shops by local builder W. Harris of 1866-68 (nrs 51-53). The Marks & Spencer building on the corner of Calderwood Street (nrs 55-69) was started in the 1930s and extended in a similar style in the 1960s. Its façade is clad with artificial-stone tiles, which was the company's uniform style at the time.
  The building on the opposite corner of Calderwood Street (nrs 71-77) was part of an ambitious plan of 1958 for a shopping mall and an office tower block on the south side of Powis Street, extending over the railway. The original plan was redesigned in 1966, but only partly realised in the early 1970s. To the west of this development are pairs of shops of 1867 (nrs 79-81) and the late 1890s (nrs 83-95). The last pair is the sole survivor of a larger block that was demolished to create the entrance for the intended shopping mall. In 2016 plans were submitted to build apartments above the one-storey shop units on this site (nrs 97-101). Further west are two more pairs of shops from the 1890s (nrs 103-109). The last block (nrs 111-113, on the corner of Barnard Close) was the head office of the Woolwich Equitable Building Society from 1896 until 1935, when they moved to Equitable House in General Gordon Square.
caption: Detail former Marks & Spencer store with tiled façade and Art Nouveau wrought iron balconies
exif: {"Image Make": "LEICA", "Image Model": "V-LUX 2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACDSee Pro 7", "Image DateTime": "2017:03:28 00:02:11", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "197", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:03:21 13:56:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:03:21 13:56:18", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "66/5", "EXIF SubSecTime": "256", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2010", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2200", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "73", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}