General Brixton history - photos, stories etc
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editor
hiraethified
Finally posted!
Brixton History: Avenue Dairies in Elliot Road, SW9
Brixton History: Avenue Dairies in Elliot Road, SW9
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
via a few re-tweets, saw this today
teuchter
je suis teuchter
The now long disused northern pair of platforms at Brixton station, in the 1920s. NB in the background the overhead electrification still present on the high level line.
mikemorant.smugmug.com
SECR tender engines - MikeMorant
Wainwright/Stirling F1 class 4-4-0 no. A203 negotiates the tight curve through Brixton station on 28/3/1929. A203 had been built as an SER 'F' class to Stirling's design in 1885 and was substantially rebuilt to Wainwright's F1 speciification in 1916. Although some of this class continued working...
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
Is anybody in a position to explain exactly where this is? To me the disused northern platforms suggests the line running along Brixton Station Road. I'm wondering if this picture is some sort of mirror image. Generally trains run on the left hand side like cars - and the view shows the electrified upper level line to the right hand side.The now long disused northern pair of platforms at Brixton station, in the 1920s. NB in the background the overhead electrification still present on the high level line.
View attachment 260666
SECR tender engines - MikeMorant
Wainwright/Stirling F1 class 4-4-0 no. A203 negotiates the tight curve through Brixton station on 28/3/1929. A203 had been built as an SER 'F' class to Stirling's design in 1885 and was substantially rebuilt to Wainwright's F1 speciification in 1916. Although some of this class continued working...
So the train seems to be going the wrong direction I would say - going west?
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
I was shocked yesterday to hear than Kim and Aggie the Channel 4 cleaners and de-clutterers had a bust up in 2009 and haven't spoken since. I wonder what they would have made of this old Brixton Society newsletter from 1987. "This paper has been behind this sofa for THIRTY THREE YEARS!!"
A am posting this to bring up a couple of points:
1. Market canopy plan in doubt (obviously some people believed the Electric Avenue canopy was being renovated in 1987)
2. Page two (available on request) had an article plugging a meeting of the Camberwell Society and the South London Line users group. They were advocating for a service between Clapham Junction/Victoria and Abbey Wood - featuring an new high-level interchange for Brixton. Not quite what we got - maybe by 2087?
A am posting this to bring up a couple of points:
1. Market canopy plan in doubt (obviously some people believed the Electric Avenue canopy was being renovated in 1987)
2. Page two (available on request) had an article plugging a meeting of the Camberwell Society and the South London Line users group. They were advocating for a service between Clapham Junction/Victoria and Abbey Wood - featuring an new high-level interchange for Brixton. Not quite what we got - maybe by 2087?
Definitely Brixton Station Road. Part of the old footbridge/steps to the street on the extreme left, then the ends of the houses on Popes Road and Valentia Road, withe the roofscape of the grand villas on Canterbury Road behind them. You can also see the curved wooden roofs of the coal depot on the RHS.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
This seems to imply two-way working on the line. Is the tall building on the left in the distance the Fire Station?
teuchter
je suis teuchter
The train is on the west-bound line and running on the "left hand side". You can see the east-bound line just beyond it (it's partly hidden by the bridge girder that is sticking up between the two running lines closer to the camera).
Circled in red below is that same bridge girder in a today-ish view
Circled in red below is that same bridge girder in a today-ish view
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
or in map form, i make it that loco is about here and is heading west / up / towards victoria
from 1895 OS map
I'd need to go and look it up (and I'm on a shortish break from work) but those platforms closed to passenger traffic some time round the 1914 war - the SECR withdrew a few of its inner suburban services and closed stations, partly as a wartime economy measure, but also because the inner suburban traffic had been hammered by cheap and frequent electric trams (which the management had seen as a short term fad - oops) and demographic changes (middle class commuters gradually moving to what were then the outer suburbs)
from 1895 OS map
I'd need to go and look it up (and I'm on a shortish break from work) but those platforms closed to passenger traffic some time round the 1914 war - the SECR withdrew a few of its inner suburban services and closed stations, partly as a wartime economy measure, but also because the inner suburban traffic had been hammered by cheap and frequent electric trams (which the management had seen as a short term fad - oops) and demographic changes (middle class commuters gradually moving to what were then the outer suburbs)
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
photographer is looking north, standing at the junction of Gresham Road.
About here, before the current shops were built on the west side of the road - they look 1920s or maybe even 30s.
1895 OS map here showing a single track tram line running east - west from Gresham Road to Stockwell Road, from the photo looks like this hadn't been electrified yet (that happened in 1908).
What's now Our Lady of Rosary Church was then Brixton Independent Church, and was heavily rebuilt after damage in 1939-45. Pictures of the original structure here.
Tram 149 was a London County Council B class car (similar to 106 which lives at Crich) in original form with 'reversed' staircase and then only fitted for conduit operation, and would have been running from the 'Telford Avenue' depot at Streatham Hill (rebuilt for buses c. 1950 and now Arriva's Brixton garage.)
Photo probably not that long after the former cable tram route was electrified in 1904 - the 'route branding' (as in painting points along the line of route) round the front panel didn't last long as more routes opened - it's a pain in the tail keeping 'route branded' vehicles on the correct route...
Three lights can be seen just above the 'Streatham' destination display - these would show a combination of colours by night to identify which route the tram was taking - the LCC abandoned this and introduced service numbers instead.
ETA - and the tram driver is probably saying (or at least thinking) something rude about the bus driver who has stopped on a tram stop - buses came to having fixed stopping places later than trams...
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lang rabbie
Je ne regrette les gazebos
Location is as Puddy_Tat said.
A lot of "coloured" postcards of that era have buildings wrongly coloured to look as though they are red brick, when they are actually stucco that came out grey on the original photograph like the two tall terraces in this picture.
This was probably to improve the contrast/attractiveness of the card.
Ol Nick
beer in Brixton
Saint Petersburg, 1915?
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
It's a shame abut the demise of that terrace replaced by the Gas Board and Ram Jam club.
What happened there? Was it a case of inter-war slum clearance? Seems likely the new parade of shops and flats would be roughly contemporary with the Astoria?
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
I tend to treat colourised b+w photos with a bit of caution.
not been able to come up with much for that.
1916 OS map shows what looks like the terrace of houses, the 1919 map that the WW2 bomb damage map is based on seems to show current buildings.
390 - 394 was a Burton's in the 1959 phone book (for some reason, they don't seem to be listed pre 1945) and the shop has the usual burton's foundation stone thing - this apparently says 1927 (although it's possible that the art deco style frontage was grafted on to a slightly older block - some of woolworths '1930s' buildings are like that.)
1919 london suburbs directory shows this block in commercial use, but not clear if this was the old or new buildings (mostly seems to be office type trades, which can be carried out from converted houses, rather than shops as such)
1934 shows it's clearly shops (including Burton's, complete with the billiard hall that was often upstairs) by then
from the 1904-ish photo, the terrace doesn't look particularly slummy, although there would have been places around that looked ok from a distance but not closer to.
may simply have been that whoever owned it realised there was more money in shops than in offices in old houses by then, with the market for middle class houses in brixton diminishing from possibly before the 1914 war, as the outer suburbs grew...
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felonius monk
Well-Known Member
The billiard rooms at 390 (presumably upstairs) became the Ram Jam Club and then the Fridge.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
This is very good work. Fascinating about the Burton's stone.
Re the 1919 South Suburbs directory - are you sure these descriptions are not simply descriptions of the householders?
I remember looking at records of my own house in Coldharbour Lane down at the Minet archives. I was surprised to find in an 1890s director (or was it a census?) that the top floor of my house was occupied by a pewterer and his wife, whereas the lower levels were occupied by a "dealer in fine art".
I often worried over the years whether this dealer (who I imagine was not working from home) sold pictures of exposed piano legs - or something worse. You never know with Victorians!
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
Generally speaking, where it was just a private householder, the directory just listed a name (as in Thompson at 380, Weston at 386, who I didn't spot at first glance yesterday) - they didn't record what a householder's occupation was like the census did.
People like the dentist, chiropodist, teacher of singing may well have lived in the house and carried out their business from one or two rooms. The LCC at 402 look like they used the whole place as offices. The fact there were still some private householders suggests that the earlier houses were still there in 1919.
yes, It was fairly standard for Burtons shops to have a billiards / snooker hall upstairs - there's an article about it on a snooker website here - sounds like it was intentional - a steady flow of men past the door of the shop was good for business, and something else to fill the first floor meant they could have a bigger and more noticeable building.
the burtons' shop in lewisham still has a snooker club upstairs, even though burtons moved in to the shopping centre some time ago.
Ol Nick
beer in Brixton
I love it. Here’s the Wikipedia article for the boxer and recruiter Pat O’Keefe mentioned on the poster.
Pat O'Keeffe - Wikipedia
lang rabbie
Je ne regrette les gazebos
Apologies Angell Terrace on the east side is of course still brick with stucco dressings, but even back in the days of soot, the white brick did not look anything like red brick would.
Hi, Finney from Somerset a Meat Trade Historian (hobby), Richard Christmas Hammett born in Winkleigh Devon & came to London & opened shops, By the 1930,s he had 35 branches & sold out to Vestey/Dewhurst,, They ran with his name & by the 1970,s they had a 100 Hammetts in the London area, Sadly by 1995 Dewhurst dissolved,
editor
hiraethified
Twenty years ago
www.brixtonbuzz.com
Brixton archive photos: wet streets, Granville Arcade and the lost J-Bar, April 2001
We’ll be the first to admit that some of these photos are a bit ropey, but they still might be of some interest as they feature scenes taken around Brixton twenty years ago, back in April 200…
www.brixtonbuzz.com
Barkshire1970
New Member
William Robert Barkshire is my Great Grandad!Do you want to write the piece?
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
oh heck, was it really that long ago?
the picture has come up somewhere else and someone is asking for info, and mum-tat has asked me.
i guess if we're quick, i could do the bit for Brixton Buzz and refer to that...
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
(colourised b+w photo)
Gresham Road change pit - Google Maps
not quite sure just what's going on - putting the trolley pole up did not usually involve climbing on the back fender, the conductor doesn't look impressed and the plough-shifter clearly isn't having anything to do with it...
