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Brixton history: Bookmongers, Coldharbour Lane

Pip found him in the old school roll when she should have been standing outside the headmistress's office.
 
Pip said:
I'm going to write to John Major and make him confirm it :mad: this is all I have :(
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Please do this! And post the response.

He's probably not too busy these days, in between after-dinner speeches.




Contacting Sir John Major

If you wish to contact Sir John Major, you should write to:

The Rt Hon Sir John Major CH
PO Box 38506
London
SW1P 1ZW

Unfortunately we are unable to pass on communications we receive by e-mail, so please write to the above address only to contact Sir John Major. This is the only contact information we have available.
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http://www.johnmajor.co.uk/about.html
 
Mrs Magpie said:
Remember that Minet Road used to be called Holland Road....dunno when that happened though.....
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TIIIME ago, surely? When the Minet family ran tings?

I'll make sure I'll include that in my letter.


Dear John Major,
You went to mighty mighty Loughborough didn't you? Do you remember when Minet mandem ran tings, or is that before your time?
Love,
Pip
xoxox
PS what used to be where Bookmongers is?
 
How bloody old do you think John Major is? He's a young man! There's no way road names have changed that much in his glorious lifetime.
 
Pip said:
TIIIME ago, surely? When the Minet family ran tings?

I'll make sure I'll include that in my letter.


Dear John Major,
You went to mighty mighty Loughborough didn't you? Do you remember when Minet mandem ran tings, or is that before your time?
Love,
Pip
xoxox
PS what used to be where Bookmongers is?
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According to Bob

Minet Library on Knatchbull Road. Minet Road used to be called Holland Road but a philanthropic family called the Minets built a lot of housing in the area so it was renamed. They were refugees originally and you can tell which housing they built as there is a cat somewhere on each one.
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"The Minets, originally a French Huguenot family, had owned the surrounding land for a long time and in the 19th century they began to carefully lay out a residential estate.

At the end of Burton Road is the Minet Library (on right). This library building replaced the one given in 1890 by William Minet which was bombed in the second world war. William Minet also gave to the public his personal collection of Surrey archives which became the core of the present Lambeth archives housed in this library. At the back of the library you can see an older red-brick house, part of the original complex which escaped destruction. Another building which William Minet provided for the community was the rounded Longfield Hall on the corner of Burton Road opposite the library. The original library building had a similar look."
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Mrs Magpie said:
Are you sure? I have read an early reference to Cool Arbour Lane.
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tenpennys-farm-00230-350.jpg


Coldharbour Lane features in Rocque's map of 1745 as Camberwell Lane, a winding country lane connecting Camberwell and Brixton.
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lang rabbie said:
But is Cool Arbour Lane - where the Camberwell Beauty butterfly was first identified on willow trees in 1748 - the same street as Coldharbour Lane:confused:
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I'm guessing yes, but I may be guessing wrong of course

It has been recorded in Britain about 1,500 times, the first occasion in 1748 when two were seen floating around willow trees along Cool Arbour Lane in Camberwell. The "village" was then a favoured haunt of early lepidopterists, and not yet (as one of their number so indelicately put it) "engulfed by the catastrophic growth of London".
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Given that there seems to be no other primary source apart from that one book on the butterflies of England, I'm now wondering whether it is more likely that Cool Arbour is an early 19th century printer's misreading of a manuscript, rather than a "genteelism" as I pondered in the ancient thread that Minnie found,

BTW I stumbled across this...

Edward Walford said:
The rural character of Camberwell at the latter part of the eighteenth century may be gathered from the fact that the trees and hedges of the village are alluded to in the vestry minutes; and in 1782 caterpillars so abounded in the parish, that the overseers spent £10 in "apprehending them," at the rate of sixpence per bushel. The caterpillars were described as being dangerous to the public in general. "The Camberwell Beauty," the delight of entomologists, is still one of the finest butterflies of the season; but it is now rarely seen. It was most abundant when Camberwell was a straggling suburban parish of about 4,000 inhabitants. But Camberwell is now a congeries of streets, and forms part of the great metropolis itself.
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Source
 
Camberwell Lane is also mentioned in this family history

James and Hannah disappear from our story, except for a mention of James, a labourer, on his son’s marriage certificate, but William Cornwell, their son, first appears in Lambeth records in the 1851 census when he lived at 22 Camberwell Lane. He was then aged 21 and described as a labourer. 22 Camberwell Lane was a lodging-house run by a widow, Sarah Woodhouse, who had 4 children and a nurse-child living with her as well as 8 lodgers. William (so-called), was one of the lodgers; other lodgers were described as grooms and coachmen and a 12-year-old errand boy was also recorded as a lodger; it is not specified how many rooms were available for the 14 people who lived in that house. Camberwell Lane seems to have been around the same, broadly East Brixton area, as other roads in this family history, but it disappears from directories around 1875.
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In the days of rural parishes, I suspect Camberwell Lane would have been used as the name of the stretch within the parish of Lambeth - i.e. the lane leading to Camberwell, and Cold Harbour Lane would have been used for the stretch in Camberwell that led to the hamlet of Coldharbour, just inside Lambeth, on the way to Stockwell and the Bristowe Causeway - remember that there was no settlement in central Brixton.

Camberwell Lane was probably renamed by the Post Office in late Victorian days to avoid confusion with the plethora of roads/streets called Camberwell elsewhere.
 
lang rabbie said:
In the days of rural parishes, I suspect Camberwell Lane would have been used as the name of the stretch within the parish of Lambeth - i.e. the lane leading to Camberwell, and Cold Harbour Lane would have been used for the stretch in Camberwell that led to the hamlet of Coldharbour, just inside Lambeth, on the way to Stockwell and the Bristowe Causeway - remember that there was no settlement in central Brixton.

Camberwell Lane was probably renamed by the Post Office in late Victorian days to avoid confusion with the plethora of roads/streets called Camberwell elsewhere.
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Found this:

From the "Morning Post and Daily Advertiser"
London, Thursday, November 6, 1777

[Same intro]
Lot I. TH BEAUTIFUL and MUCH ADMIRES PARK and PLEASURE GROUNDS, laid out with peculiar Taste, refreshed by a Serpentine Canal, and bounded by a terrace-walk of great extent; also a small meadow and a farm yard, containing in the whole upwards of 37 acres, in the possession of: John THORNTON, Esq.
II. One rich meadow field, known by the Seven Acres, adjoining Lot I.
III. Two rich meadow fields, containing about twelve acres, bounded eastward by Mr. THORNTON's Park.
IV. Two rich meadow fields, of about eleven acres, adjoining lot III.
V. A genteel dwelling-house, with suitable offices, pleasure grounds and gardens, in the possession of John YERBURY, Esq.
VI. Five fields of rich land, containing thirty-seven acres, adjoining to Camberwell-lane, in the possession of Mr. TILBURY.
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editor said:
I hope it stays. I think it's important for Brixton to retain a variety of long-serving independent stores, especially as it's the last bookstore left in Brixton (religious outlets excluded).
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I hesitate to ask this, but is that Jack Russell still alive? He was old when I used to live in Brixton, and I left in 2002.

*prepares for worst* :(
 
editor said:
And another one! Can anyone remember what the store was before Bookmongers?

July 2009 Although T.W.Brown & Sons have long gone, the premises remain in independent hands, with the excellent Bookmongers secondhand bookshop trading from here since 1993.

We're not sure if the original bike shop moved here first but the larger premises next door were taken up by the Brixton Cycles co-operative from 1983 to 2001, before they moved to Stockwell Road.

Page: http://www.urban75.org/brixton/history/439-coldharbour-lane.html
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As Kitty Kitty said Bookmongers used to be a plumbers merchants/builders merchants for a while. I cant remember what it was before then.

I remember when Bookmongers first came to CHL it was across the road next to the cab office where the music shop is now. It was smaller with thick wooden shelves you walked around.

The original home of Brixton cycles was not the Bookmongers shop but one of the shop underneath Clifton mansions. I cant remember which one.
 
kitty_kitty said:
heh ;)
i can only cope with harrassing one shop owner a day :oops:

on a related note - i know someone whose brother used to own the building honest foods is in - i'll try remember to ask him what he knows about its history. i'm fairly sure i've seen some pics of it on the lambeth archive site..... i've also been told that some of the buildings on that bit of coldharbour lane used to be theatres/actor's residential space :hmm:
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If I remember correctly it was for many years a clothes shop. The shop front was quite different. Slanting window leading to door.

In fact there were a lot of useful shops in that part of CHL. There was a TV repair shop. Where the "Hotel" is there was a very good tool shop. There used to be a cobblers in Vining st. (There was a perfectly sound Victorian block in Vining st with shops that was knocked down).

There was also another Mediterrean Deli where the Thia place is now. You can still see the painted name of original shop above door. (Its on CHL butting up to newer MHT flats.)

Also we use to have printers gone more recently.

In fact there are not the variety of shops on CHL that there used to be.
 
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