General Brixton history - photos, stories etc

[Puddy_Tat]

on Flickr today - Brixton Autos, Brixton Hill - photo dated 1937



From the Wandsworth Borough (the pre 1965 borough that is) road sign, must be south of the Upper Tulse Hill junction - I'd say it's where the southern end Rush Common is now (old mapping here)

And wonder just how much demand there might have been for the shagged out bus...

 

[Puddy_Tat]

today - Barrington Road, 1957

 

[Puddy_Tat]

and



(the Orange Coaches depot on Effra Road / now Windrush Square - looks like they tried turned it in to an amusement park in winter when there wasn't the demand for coaches)

 

[Puddy_Tat]

and



1969, and a view of Gordon Grove leading up to Flaxman Road.

 

[billythefish]

and



(the Orange Coaches depot on Effra Road / now Windrush Square - looks like they tried turned it in to an amusement park in winter when there wasn't the demand for coaches)

You can just make out the Bovril ad on the building behind

 

[T & P]

Elephant and Castle looked much nicer in the 1940s & 50s.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

today's - a 1961 street scene

 

[bimble]

and



1969, and a view of Gordon Grove leading up to Flaxman Road.

Brilliant - I can see my very windows, there they are, before i was even born.

Interesting that there's an open space there where the adventure playground on gordon grove currently still stands, on council land (waiting for offers from developers).
Does anyone know what that building on the right might have been - this one?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Does anyone know what that building on the right might have been - this one?

if i've got the location right, then this (late 40s mapping) suggests part of a territorial army base

eta - the 1920s map shows it as HQ of 6th London Brigade, RFA (Royal Field Artillery) territorials - more about them here (they became 236 brigade in 1916)

 

[bimble]

thank you.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

A public lavatory (or at least a cast iron gents' urinal) outside the entrance to Brixton Station in Pope's Road, 1924

from a Historic England article about cottaging and so on (although not specifically mentioning this 'facility') - here

(cross piss posted from the thread about public bogs in brixton)

from what i can gather, this station building was flattened by WW2 bombing

note also the overhead electric wires on the railway line, at that time recently passed in to Southern Railway ownership from the London, Brighton & South Coast (the SR decided to standardise on the London & South Western's third rail system and the LBSCR suburban lines were later converted)

post-war map showing location (with station building marked as 'ruin') here - the bog not shown on earlier maps

 

[CH1]

A public lavatory (or at least a cast iron gents' urinal) outside the entrance to Brixton Station in Pope's Road, 1924

from a Historic England article about cottaging and so on (although not specifically mentioning this 'facility') - here

(cross piss posted from the thread about public bogs in brixton)

from what i can gather, this station building was flattened by WW2 bombing

note also the overhead electric wires on the railway line, at that time recently passed in to Southern Railway ownership from the London, Brighton & South Coast (the SR decided to standardise on the London & South Western's third rail system and the LBSCR suburban lines were later converted)

post-war map showing location (with station building marked as 'ruin') here - the bog not shown on earlier maps

Thank you for this in depth research. I remember the Gents at Waterloo station with the gentlemen's barber by the way. I expect the barbers were there as a pre-electronic version of CCTV!

 

[editor]

A public lavatory (or at least a cast iron gents' urinal) outside the entrance to Brixton Station in Pope's Road, 1924

from a Historic England article about cottaging and so on (although not specifically mentioning this 'facility') - here

(cross piss posted from the thread about public bogs in brixton)

from what i can gather, this station building was flattened by WW2 bombing

note also the overhead electric wires on the railway line, at that time recently passed in to Southern Railway ownership from the London, Brighton & South Coast (the SR decided to standardise on the London & South Western's third rail system and the LBSCR suburban lines were later converted)

post-war map showing location (with station building marked as 'ruin') here - the bog not shown on earlier maps

I'm expanding this out to a hefty piece on Buzz where I've gone on to research the cast iron loos and the advertising in the background, so this bit of extra research will come in handy. I've been working at on for hours already!

 

[Puddy_Tat]

 

[editor]

Here's the finished article, with loads of obscure facts. I'd love to source other views of the old station building.

Brixton history: Brixton’s old railway station, a cast iron loo and Branston Pickle

 

[editor]

I just popped out to take a photo from a similar viewpoint today.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Here's the finished article, with loads of obscure facts. I'd love to source other views of the old station building.

Brixton history: Brixton’s old railway station, a cast iron loo and Branston Pickle

I've drawn a bit of a blank on this station building and what happened to it.



bombsight and www.flyingbombsandrockets.com have not come up with anything - although Bombsight says it is a record of the main 1940-41 blitz (think there was some bombing although less intense at other times before the V1 / V2 campaign started).

Kent Rail has a page on Brixton station and mentions the Southern Railway removing the 'Catford loop' platforms and part of the canopy in the 20s - and makes it fairly clear that some of the remaining structure is London, Chatham & Dover Railway (i.e. pre 1898 when it formed a joint management committee with its great rival the South Eastern Railway), but is a bit vague about anything else.

The trend towards demolishing huge station buildings and replacing them with something smaller and crap tended to be a bit later than the immediate pre-war years.

The principal history of the LCDR (Adrian Gray) also doesn't really come up with anything, although it only gives a fairly brief summary of events of the 20th century. A few other books I've consulted also don't say anything on the subject.

The LCC bomb damage maps may be worth a look - some bits of this have been put online digitally (I suspect in some cases without the London Met Archives' permission) but couldn't find one of Brixton. I haven't quite decided I need a copy at north of £ 30 yet...

(Incidentally, this has reminded me that I did promise a couple of articles for the historical bit of U75 a while back. I haven't forgotten, just haven't really had the time this last year or two...)

 

[RoyReed]

bombsite.org only records bombs larger than a certain size and doesn't record incendiaries at all. If it was hit with incendiaries I don't think there will be a record of it.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

on a related note, this came up on tweeter today - blog about 1916 zeppelin raids on streatham and brixton

more here

 

[Raymond Howard]

This is intriguing stuff, Is it defiantly not Moorland and Coldharbour lane junction ?

 

[CH1]

SarfLondon is spot on, if his comment means all those Victorian streets leading north onto Coldharbour Lane then became the Moorlands Estate (and Southwyck House)

picture originally posted up by calno4

 

[Puddy_Tat]

SarfLondon is spot on, if his comment means all those Victorian streets leading north onto Coldharbour Lane then became the Moorlands Estate (and Southwyck House)

picture originally posted up by calno4

this (post-war large scale OS map, courtesy of National Library of Scotland) may help - bottom left is 'change transparency of overlay' which means you can blend in / out of current day mapping.

 

[editor]

SarfLondon is spot on, if his comment means all those Victorian streets leading north onto Coldharbour Lane then became the Moorlands Estate (and Southwyck House)

picture originally posted up by calno4

The middle one is Geneva Road - I researched it a while ago and the article attracted a lot of replies: Lost streets of Brixton: Geneva Road, SW9

 

[Puddy_Tat]

another one of the Orange Luxury Coaches depot / coach station where Windrush Square is now

 

[Leafster]

This came up on my twitter feed today

 

[RoyReed]

.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

today's



opposite the tram depot (demolished c. 1951) where Arriva's bus garage on Streatham Hill is now, with Pullman Court in the background.

The single deck tram is a snow-broom car - an old tram adapted with a thumping big revolving broom under each end to sweep snow off the tracks.

This particular one survived and was restored back to its passenger carrying form - it now lives at the tramway museum in Crich, Derbyshire -

 

[editor]

Great set of 1980s Brixton pics here

The squats and anarchists of Brixton in the 1980s – in photos

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

bombsite.org only records bombs larger than a certain size and doesn't record incendiaries at all. If it was hit with incendiaries I don't think there will be a record of it.

Never knew that. I have a claim form of my grandad's for WWII damage, and despite searching V1/V2 site, could find no record of a bomb having dropped there

 

[RoyReed]

Never knew that. I have a claim form of my grandad's for WWII damage, and despite searching V1/V2 site, could find no record of a bomb having dropped there

The incendiary bombs were quite small - just over a foot long and weighing about 1kg. A typical bomb load for Heinkel 111 might be 1,000 incendiaries and 20 x 50kg high explosive bombs. The incendiaries burnt hot enough to melt steel and when lodged in roof timbers burnt down at least as many buildings as those blown down by HE bombs.