General Brixton history - photos, stories etc

[editor]

Twenty years ago

Brixton 20 Years Ago: Lambeth Country Show, street scenes and Alfie the Town Crier, July 2003 (updated and expanded)

Here’s some more photos from our Brixton archives, with over 70 photographs from July 2003 highlighting how the area has changed over the past 20 years.

www.brixtonbuzz.com

 

[Puddy_Tat]

on flickr today - must have been taken from up the tower of the town hall, probably late 40s.

 

[CH1]

on flickr today - must have been taken from up the tower of the town hall

The vehicles seem to have a sort of war time flavour - also the sign "For your own and your country's sake - buy NATIONAL SAVINGS"

 

[Puddy_Tat]

The vehicles seem to have a sort of war time flavour - also the sign "For your own and your country's sake - buy NATIONAL SAVINGS"

yes - would say it's probably not all that long after the end of the war (I added a 'late 40s' which crossed with your post) - there's no obvious signs of it being during the war, no obvious headlamp masks on vehicles (except the tram, and london trams kept them until they were withdrawn) but a few of the kerbs still have black / white markings, which was a blackout thing, .

both the buses are pre-war STLs, although absence of later buses doesn't prove a lot - most were out of regular service by about 1950-1.

 

[editor]

Anyone know more about this?

 

[RoyReed]

Anyone know more about this?

View attachment 382964

Brixton Festival Exhibition – Brixton Art Gallery

brixton50.co.uk

 

[Puddy_Tat]

where Windrush Square is now

 

[editor]

Loads going on here!

 

[madolesance]

View attachment 383195

Loads going on here!

Love the sign pointing to 'Kings'.

 

[lang rabbie]

View attachment 383195

Loads going on here!

One of the original lights of Electric Avenue on the left?

 

[northeast]

View attachment 383195

Loads going on here!

Oh wow... guessing this was pre tube? So much space and the car is not yet king!

 

[felonius monk]

What's the date on that photo? Before the Morley's fire of 1910 I assume.

 

[editor]

What's the date on that photo? Before the Morley's fire of 1910 I assume.

I'd guess around 1905.

 

[editor]

Here's something I'm not sure about. Electric Avenue is known as the first shopping street lit by electricity - but where were the lights? Under the canopies?

 

[RoyReed]

It's the white globes you can just see under the canopy on the right. You can see them more easily in some of the photos in your article on Buzz.

The rise and fall of Electric Avenue, Brixton

It may now look like a bit of a ramshackle shopping street with its best days long behind it, but Electric Avenue was once a noted shopping destination, famous across London. With its nearby large …

www.brixtonbuzz.com

 

[BusLanes]

When did all the canopies go? Saw loads in NZ when there recently but very few in London or UK

 

[felonius monk]

When did all the canopies go? Saw loads in NZ when there recently but very few in London or UK

"Some parts of the structure were damaged by World War 2 bombing, with the whole lot coming down in the 1980s"

 

[editor]

When did all the canopies go? Saw loads in NZ when there recently but very few in London or UK

A local myth was that they were put into storage to be returned one day. Like a canopy version of Brigadoon.

 

[jezg]

Interesting article:

Eclectic Avenues — How London’s First Black Pub Landlords Changed the City’s Drinking Culture​

 

[sealion]

Twenty years ago

Brixton 20 Years Ago: Lambeth Country Show, street scenes and Alfie the Town Crier, July 2003 (updated and expanded)

Here’s some more photos from our Brixton archives, with over 70 photographs from July 2003 highlighting how the area has changed over the past 20 years.

www.brixtonbuzz.com

Had some very good times at the Telegraph when it was a dance venue. Prior to that i used to go in there as a 14 year old with my dad on saturday lunch before we went to football. It was a busy pub with predominately irish punters. The govener back in the eighties was a huge stern Irish man named Mick White, he also supplied labour to building sites. You could always get site work if you went in there looking.

Outside from Monday to Friday was the pick up point for many sub contracters and there men. Like the old George Canning ( Hootananny for those that didn't know) there could be anything up to 30 blokes waiting for there pick up between 6 and 6.30 am. The George fourth on Brixton hill was the same early in the morning, van loads would head off to work from outside the three pubs.

There was a lot of irish and scots living in Brixton and it surrounds back then. I went to Corpus Christi primary which had loads and loads of kids whose parents were from Scotland, Ireland and the west Indies. Most pubs were owned by Irish families and did very well because even then no dogs, no blacks, no irish still existed in certain pubs although the signs in the windows had disappeared.

I remember the George on Railton road that didn't take well to anyone that wasn't English, it came as no surprise when it burnt to the ground during the riots in 1981. Brixton back then was a good mix of mainlyworking class families both from here and overseas, people generally got on and mixed. It's a very different place now and feels a lot less diverse than it once was, certainly of a night time anyway.

THE GEORGE PUBLIC HOUSE, RAILTON ROAD, BRIXTON - Landmark

The George, a public house built in the 1930s on Railton Road, Brixton. The pub was destroyed during the 1981 Brixton riots. A South London Press report at the time stated: ‘The burning of the George pub in Railton Road was undoubtedly an act of revenge for years of racial discrimination. In the...

boroughphotos.org

 

[sealion]

Mid eighties i would say.

 

[happyshopper]

The reference to The Telegraph reminds me of when I started work in the sixties, in an office job. Although the office was in Banstead, some of the men came from this part of London and played football with a team they called Telegraph United, after the pub.

 

[CH1]

Interesting article:

Eclectic Avenues — How London’s First Black Pub Landlords Changed the City’s Drinking Culture​

I have a recollection that the Albert was a racist pub in the early 1980s. My friends would go to the Coach and Horses opposite - or the Effra Hall Tavern - run by a black family (from Dominica) at that time.
The author has not spotted "The Enterprise" - most recently called "The Junction". I was told this was the first pub in Lambeth to have black (female) strippers - before Linda Bellos's ban, obviously.
No idea if this is true, but in the 1970s it was managed by the same landlord as the Atlantic and was an Ind Coope pub. It was also an estate type pub with a much more down-market ambience compared to The Junction in recent times.
Another nearby Ind Coope estate pub was the Hero of Switzerland (now demolished).

Regarding The Angel pub in Coldharbour Lane in the 1980s/90s there seemed to be a landlord/manager called "Pede" or Peddy who people watched out for. Whether this was the 20 stone black man who seemed to be snoozing in a chair in the Saloon Bar most of the time I'm not sure. But I would say having a Saloon Bar and a public bar in those days gave the venue a certain flexibility. The Angel was Charringtons, whereas at Loughborough Junction the black-run pub there was The Green Man (Watneys), which also had a saloon bar and a public bar. They had lock ins, and in 1981 the landlord at the time took in the landlady from the Windsor Castle on Leeson Road which burnt down in the 1981 Brixton riot.

The author of this article has done a good job collating oral history - there is more, but obviously most is lost in the mists of time.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

on teh tweeter today



'the sandpiper' was released 1965

 

[RoyReed]

I've spotted what I think is a new #ghostsign on the back of the building on the corner of Ferndale Road and Nursery Road in Brixton. I can only make out one word: 'Steam', but there is more.

In 1919 this was a David Greigs and in 1939 was Inzani & Leccacorvi, dining rooms.

Can the Urban hive mind help with this?

 

[teuchter]

It's just visible in this 1939 photo but not clear enough to make out any lettering. Looks like it formed the side of a kind of recess then, with a couple of subsequently demolished buildings next door but set back.

I wonder if it might have been an advert intended for the eyes of passing train passengers.

There might, somewhere, be old footage taken from a train where it is visible.

 

[editor]

I've spotted what I think is a new #ghostsign on the back of the building on the corner of Ferndale Road and Nursery Road in Brixton. I can only make out one word: 'Steam', but there is more.

In 1919 this was a David Greigs and in 1939 was Inzani & Leccacorvi, dining rooms.

Can the Urban hive mind help with this?

View attachment 387179

Maybe the advert was for the Walton Lodge steam laundry on Coldharbour Lane?

 

[RoyReed]

I wonder if it might have been an advert intended for the eyes of passing train passengers.

Almost certainly. It looks like there are two lines of text at the top of the wall, possibly starting 'FRE...' and three lines lower down starting 'STEAM...' and '& B...' on the second line.

E2A - Although there's a building (now gone) which would partly obscure that view. You can see it in the aerial photo and on the 1890 map: Georeferenced Maps - Map images - National Library of Scotland

 

[RoyReed]

Maybe the advert was for the Walton Lodge steam laundry on Coldharbour Lane?

Possibly, but these type of signs are usually for businesses adjacent to the sign, unless they're for branded products such as Bovril.

E2A - there is however a laundry at 189 Ferndale Road both in 1919 and 1939. Neither mention 'Steam', but...


1919


1939

 

[RoyReed]

I looked further back to 1904. There was another laundry at 195a Ferndale, so this could be it.