Bruce Webb: 'It is a very creative place'

Bruce Webb manages his film company, Whatever Pictures, from Iliffe Yard, which runs through the middle of The Pullens, an historic area of tenement housing in the heart of Walworth.

Iliffe Yard and its sister yards, Clements and Peacock, have their original doors, windows and cobbled pavements. They are among the best-preserved mews in the capital and were the prototype for today's live/work properties.

According to Webb, they are home to up to 70 different craftspeople and small businesses. "There are potters, architects, jewellery designers, a schools' Shakespeare theatre company and a wood turner," he says. "The Pullens was built in the 1850s and the units were originally linked to the flats. We think of live/work as an invention of the 1990s, but the Victorians were doing it nearly 150 years earlier."

Squatters took over The Pullens in the 1960s, while in the mid-1980s the residents fought a battle to prevent their demolition. Half the blocks were saved and are owned by Southwark council. Some residents, who bought their flats under "right to buy", have linked them again with the yard's work units. "It is a very creative place," says Webb. "We hold an openhouse event twice a year, once during The Pullens festival in August, and just before Christmas."

However, Webb claims the residents way of life is under threat. "Southwark wants to put up the rent, in some cases up to 90 per cent more, which is going to drive away many of the long-standing tenants."