General Brixton history - photos, stories etc

[lang rabbie]

OK, so this is only history dating back ten years, but I'm curious what happened to this window. Is is still there (and you can see through it from inside) or has it really been bricked up?

I'm guessing it's the former, but the brickwork does look very convincing...

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It is a lot easier to meet the sound-proofing conditions now standard for a music venue licence if you have a brick wall facing the street rather than a single glazed window. (And brickwork is a *lot* cheaper than triple-glazed sealed window units that would be needed to achieve similar noise limiting on that scale.)

 

[editor]

Lovely snowy scenes from 15 years ago in Brixton

Brixton 15 Years Ago: Heavy snow, igloo in Brockwell park, snowman and street scenes, January 2003

 

[editor]

Some more Brixton history

Brixton Ten Years Ago: The old car park, Marquis of Lorne, street scenes, lost pubs and a shocking murder, Jan 2008

 

[Angellic]

Some more Brixton history

Brixton Ten Years Ago: The old car park, Marquis of Lorne, street scenes, lost pubs and a shocking murder, Jan 2008

Love the photograph of the cart/'covered wagon'.

 

[RoyReed]

I had a quick look through the whole thread and I don't think these have been on before. Mainly Edwardian postcards.

This first lot are all of Acre Lane.

 

[RoyReed]

Greigs on Atlantic Road

 

[RoyReed]

 

[editor]

I'm currently working on 'then and now' articles for some of those images (a few have already featured too)...

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I'm currently working on 'then and now' articles for some of those images (a few have already featured too)...

i'll take a closer look at them tomorrow and try and put dates to the ones with trams in - from a quick look, the one with T1620 on the caption is the most recent, maybe around 1910. The first two in post 1027 look like cable trams, the second two the early days of electric trams.

 

[editor]

i'll take a closer look at them tomorrow and try and put dates to the ones with trams in - from a quick look, the one with T1620 on the caption is the most recent, maybe around 1910. The first two in post 1027 look like cable trams, the second two the early days of electric trams.

The majority will be from around 1905-14 when it seems such cards were all the rage.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

The majority will be from around 1905-14 when it seems such cards were all the rage.

Indeed - just trying to narrow it down a bit (and of course postcards can be published /posted some time after the photo was taken)

Having done a bit of research -

Brixton Road T1620 - after 1905 but no later than 1911 (one of the second or third batch of 4 wheel electric tram, delivered in open top form but soon given a covered top - the 'reversed staircase' was eliminated by 1911)

Brixton Road - tram 911 and ?77 - these are cable trams, photos taken after 1899 (when a 'gripper' mechanism was fitted directly to the trams - prior to that they had been hauled by separate 'gripper cars' between Kennington and Streatham - horses taking over at the central London end) but no later than April 1904 when cable operation ended.

White Horse Corner and the one below it show electric trams in their original condition, so mid 1904 onward (the first stage of conversion from cable to electric conduit required a closure from 5 April to 30 May 1904) - probably not many years after that, as top covers started being fitted in 1905.

This has a copy of the White Horse photo and says it's 1905 - although lists Mr Budd as licensee of the pub in 1905 PO directory - picture shows name of Chapman above the door - presume it changed hands that year.

 

[editor]

White Horse Corner and the one below it show electric trams in their original condition, so mid 1904 onward (the first stage of conversion from cable to electric conduit required a closure from 5 April to 30 May 1904) - probably not many years after that, as top covers started being fitted in 1905.

This has a copy of the White Horse photo and says it's 1905 - although lists Mr Budd as licensee of the pub in 1905 PO directory - picture shows name of Chapman above the door - presume it changed hands that year.

I did a fair bit of research in the White Horse here - and took my own pic of their old clock!

In photos: Brixton Jamm (formerly the White Horse) as seen in Edwardian postcards

 

[sealion]

editor Do you know the history of the two staues on either platform at brixton overhead ? They are quite moving in an odd sort of way. Sadly some twat has Sprayed some pink paint on them

 

[editor]

editor Do you know the history of the two staues on either platform at brixton overhead ? They are quite moving in an odd sort of way. Sadly some twat has Sprayed some pink paint on them

There's three of them in total:

The sculptures by Kevin Atherton (b.1959) were made of three volunteers who regularly used the station (Peter Lloyd, Joy Battick and Karin Heistermann), and were unveiled on 30th June 1986 by Sir Hugh Casson as part of a £1m renovation of the overground station

Waiting passenger sculptures, Brixton railway station
The bronze passengers on Brixton Station

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Stretching to what the estate agents might call 'Brixton borders', this view of Southville / Priory Grove c. 1952 appeared on Flickr today



site is now Larkhall Park - created in the 1950s as part of the County of London Plan to add parks in "areas deficient of open space" (and it was supposed to be quite a big bigger) - more here.

 

[CH1]

I had a quick look through the whole thread and I don't think these have been on before. Mainly Edwardian postcards.
This first lot are all of Acre Lane.
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I find it impossible to place these. Acre Lane has changed more than most roads in Brixton have.

There is a connection with Mervyn Peake, the gothic novelist. His wife Maeve was brought up in "a large house on Acre Lane, Brixton"
Maeve Gilmore
1918 – 1983
The youngest of six, Maeve, like Mervyn, had a medical doctor for a father and was brought up at a large house in Acre Lane , Brixton, South London , where her father had his practice. So-called, as at the time all the houses were surrounded by an acre of land, the family later moved across the river to Chelsea Square from where after convent boarding school at St Leonards on Sea, Sussex, she attended a finishing school in Switzerland . Here she learnt to speak fluent German and French and became a good pianist; her favourite music being that of Johann Sebastian Bach whose piano pieces would resound around the many houses she lived in after marrying Mervyn Peake. A fine painter and sculptor in her own right she also wrote several short stories, and had numerous one-woman exhibitions in London before dedicating her life to the well-being and support of her husband, following the onset of his illnesses. She would paint every day in her studio where the cat would sit watching as the canvases developed into works of art which, following her husband’s death in 1968, often emitted a powerful sense of injustice. Her memoir, A World Away, is often cited as one of the most poignant insights into marriage, life, and the joie de vivre of early life with a genius ever written, and remains in print decades after first being published.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

site is now Larkhall Park - created in the 1950s as part of the County of London Plan to add parks in "areas deficient of open space" (and it was supposed to be quite a big bigger) - more here.

and seems to have been a plan for a continuous park from Southwark Park to Larkhall Park

i'm now contemplating whether I need copy of the original whole thing...

 

[CH1]

and seems to have been a plan for a continuous park from Southwark Park to Larkhall Park

i'm now contemplating whether I need copy of the original whole thing...

Looks like that was compensation for the Southern Cross Route of Ringway 1.
I admit having a vested interest, but I'm glad Ringway 1 bit the dust though naturally I'm also disappointed that the parks never got linked.

 

[technical]

There's three of them in total:

Waiting passenger sculptures, Brixton railway station
The bronze passengers on Brixton Station

All three statues are now Grade II listed

 

[editor]

All three statues are now Grade II listed

That's another project of mine that has stalled:

Listed buildings of Brixton: Grand houses at 213-225, Brixton Road, SW9

If anyone fancies doing a piece on a listed structure they like, get in touch!

 

[editor]

Two centuries of Coldharbour Lane history:

Brixton history: Halnaker Lodge at 372 Coldharbour Lane – From Georgian splendour to dole office to community squat to luxury flats

 

[Puddy_Tat]

today's from Chris Stanley on flickr



a soggy Effra Road, possibly 1952.

the assorted ironmongery in the roadway is a selection of tram 'ploughs' - this was the 'change pit' for the Norwood route where trams changed from operating on the conduit system to the overhead wire. The conductor has already put the pole on the wire ready for the last stage of the journey to Norwood, and as the tram moves forward, the plough will slide out to join the stack in the middle of the road, and will be fed under a northbound tram.

 

[happyshopper]

The conductor has already put the pole on the wire ready for the last stage of the journey to Norwood, and as the tram moves forward, the plough will slide out to join the stack in the middle of the road, and will be fed under a northbound tram.

But this tram is going to Streatham.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

But this tram is going to Streatham.

the picture i can see the tram is showing 33 West Norwood (and there's an Esso sign to the right of the tram)

are you getting a different picture?

 

[editor]

The 33 used to travel through the Kingsway subway and emerge at the Embankment.
The Kingsway Tram Tunnel and station, Holborn, London, England, October 2009

 

[editor]

Another history feature:

Brixton History: Bloaters, kippers and live eels at Reveley Ice Merchants, 148 Acre Lane

 

[CH1]

the picture i can see the tram is showing 33 West Norwood (and there's an Esso sign to the right of the tram)
are you getting a different picture?

Thinking about it the Esso sign must be for the garage which used to be on Rushcroft Road (back of the Orange Coach station - don't go there!) all now subsumed into Windrush Sq.

 

[happyshopper]

the picture i can see the tram is showing 33 West Norwood (and there's an Esso sign to the right of the tram)

are you getting a different picture?

You're right. Apologies.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

from robnitm on tweeter today - 1971

think the bus was in the process of being transferred from Brixton garage to somewhere else, hence the absence of any destination blinds

 

[ricbake]

What is the sign on that mini van about?