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General Brixton history - photos, stories etc

Alan Russell (@soxgnasher) on Twitter is tweeting old london pub photos at the moment

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George The Fourth Hotel 144-156 Brixton Hill 1905

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Tulse Hill Hotel - no date, but looks like pre 1914
 
came up on tweeter today -

new 'Histories in Focus' talks, first is afternoon of Sat 22 February at the South London Gallery (between Camberwell and Peckham) on "key moments of local resistance to top-down planning and ill-conceived public infrastructure projects." including the Ringway road project (that would have gone through the middle of Brixton) and the initial plans for the channel tunnel rail link that would have gone through south london

More here (it's £ 5 a go, needs pre-booking)
 
Puddy_Tat said:
came up on tweeter today -

new 'Histories in Focus' talks, first is afternoon of Sat 22 February at the South London Gallery (between Camberwell and Peckham) on "key moments of local resistance to top-down planning and ill-conceived public infrastructure projects." including the Ringway road project (that would have gone through the middle of Brixton) and the initial plans for the channel tunnel rail link that would have gone through south london

More here (it's £ 5 a go, needs pre-booking)
Click to expand...
This looks fascinating - if anyone is going could you do a report for Brixton Buzz?
 
editor said:
wonderful
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:)

is there a date for it?

can pin it after mid 1934, London Transport was formed in 1933, but didn't start using the name as such on the sides of buses and trams straight off.

and before the 1939 war from minor details.

number 2 bus heading from Crystal Palace to Golders Green, 33 tram to Manor House via the Kingsway Subway, and former Thomas Tilling bus heading in the general direction of Croydon - probably on the 59 / 159
 
Just seen this thread on reddit about George Berry. Says he was the first black pub owner and licensee in London with his pub The Coach & Horses which is now the Market House and the pub was set alight in a racist attack in the 60s. A quick search and I could only find one brief reference to it on this site and not much else online in general so thought some people might be interested or be able to shed more light on the story.

bcbvw024p8i41.jpg
 
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salem said:
Just seen this thread on reddit about George Berry. Says he was the first black pub owner and licensee in London with his pub The Coach & Horses which is now the Market House and the pub was burnt down in a racist attack in the 60s. A quick search and I could only find one brief reference to it on this site and not much else online in general so thought some people might be interested or be able to shed more light on the story.

View attachment 199318
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Here he is in happier times:

1582287188135.png

www.shutterstock.com

George Berry Who Has Just Become Editorial Stock Photo - Stock Image | Shutterstock Editorial

Find the editorial stock photo of George Berry Who Has Just Become, and more photos in the Shutterstock collection of editorial photography. 1000s of new photos added daily.
www.shutterstock.com www.shutterstock.com

www.theguardian.com

‘We’re not just a black pub. Everyone is welcome’: meet Britain’s BAME landlords

Black and Asian landlords are reinventing the British pub – from a Desi bar in Smethwick to a Caribbean boozer in Sheffield. Jimi Famurewa reports
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com



From here - jazz – Black London Histories - cracking pics of the Atlantic/Dogstar

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Puddy_Tat said:
this came up on twitter today -

Updated presentation on Railton Road for the Liminal London at Birkbeck on 21st Feb -still work in progress

linkage (MS Sway)
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Apologies for not responding earlier. This Birkbeck document you link to is quite slick and comprehensive, containing as it does salient images from the Towson archive and other images of gay squatting and riot damage on Railton Road/Mayall Road.

Where I part company is with description of Pearls shebeen - which is taken from a Booker Prize Winning novel by Bernardine Evaristo.
Obviously it's always difficult to verify information - but when it comes from a novel with no other witnesses?

I attended Pearl's many times in 1979 - and the clientele was primarily Jamaican/other Caribbean gay men.
IDevon Thomas, who many on these boards may know, assured me that from his limited experience in Pearls most of her patrons seemed to be London Transport employees - either in uniform , or badged up.

Some people associated with the Brixton Umbrella Circle and the Black Heritage Museum in Nottingham have toyed with the idea of recreating an evening at Pearl's. But you can't imagine how difficult it is to source suitable black gay bus conductors these days.

I would have been interested in hearing what Birkbeck make of all this - but having heard Jon Newman present the Lambeth Archives spin yesterday at the Town Hall, and as I am going to a special viewing and showing of Total Eclipse - account of Verlaine and Rimbaud's poetic rough trade and aesthetic obsession in Royal College Street, King's Cross I shall have to await reports of the Birkbeck event - should they be forthcoming.

I
 
editor said:
A bit about Sir Henry Tate

henry-tate-2.jpg


www.brixtonbuzz.com

Brixton History: the bronze bust to Sir Henry Tate in Windrush Square, Brixton

It was a very different world when the bronze bust to Sir Henry Tate was unveiled in 1905, outside what was then known as Tate Gardens (now Windrush Square) in Brixton.
www.brixtonbuzz.com www.brixtonbuzz.com
Click to expand...
It always frustrates me when this is written up - because I clearly remember the bust in its original position in the centre of the space outside the library: surrounded by four bronze lions. Finally I have tracked down a reference to this on the internet
londongardensonline.org.uk

WellnessZap.com

londongardensonline.org.uk londongardensonline.org.uk

This is the paragraph:
In 1937 a small area of the garden was taken for road widening and in 1965-66 the garden was redesigned at a cost of £3,000. The railings were removed and the bust re-sited on a circular brick base with 4 lions from the old gate-piers, the garden paved over and seats and flower pots provided, with a plane tree preserved as a central feature. Also sited in the garden was an old milestone formerly on the site of the Town Hall and a stone laid by Henry Irving in 1894 for Brixton Theatre, and a memorial fountain was erected.

The lions were apparently an early victim of a common problem nowadays - the theft of public sculpture. They disappeared around 1984/85,

The theft was reported in the South London Press - as was the fact that one of the lions subsequently turned up in a railway siding in Wilsden Junction,
This was the same era as when the remnants of the Electric Avenue glass canopy was taken down for refurbishment - and then nobody knew where it was, leave alone when it was being reinstated.

I would love it if someone found a picture of Sir Henry Tate's bust on its pedestal, surrounded by the lions.
 
CH1 said:
Obviously it's always difficult to verify information - but when it comes from a novel with no other witnesses?
Click to expand...

there's always something of a difficulty with sources with 'history from below' but :facepalm: if they are using a novel as a source

CH1 said:
But you can't imagine how difficult it is to source suitable black gay bus conductors these days.
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:)
 
editor said:
Never knew Brixton had a reservoir and waterworks
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It’s very much still there. Mostly used as backup storage during dry spells these days. There’s a sister facility on Daysbrook Rd in Streatham Hill. More importantly, Brixton was one of the main shafts for the construction of the London Ring Main. My neighbour used to work there and could talk (admittedly interestingly) for hours about it...
 
Nevill's Bakery (Nevill's Bread) was at:

Nevill H. W. Lim. wholesale bakers, 115 Milkwood Road, Herne Hill SE24 - T N 205 Brixton

nevill.png

Kelly's Post Office London Directory 1919 - County Suburbs

There's no mention of Avenue Hygienic Dairies, but I'm guessing that this photo is slightly later in the 1920s.
 
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