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New Brixton 'Then and Now' pics

Good one Mike. Thanks for doing those. :)

Re this:

"May 2004 The row of trees on the left hand side of Barnwell Road have grown so much over the past century that they almost completely obliterate the view! Obscured behind the foliage is the modern housing which replaced the Victorian terrace and the shop/pub is now a private residence. The shop and row of houses on the right have been replaced by late GLC housing".

"GLC blocks of flats" would be more accurately descriptive than "GLC housing" I reckon. Also, not "modern housing" exactly. In fact an old people's home (late 80s/early 90s - perhaps better photographed when there are less leaves on those trees. In winter you can see it's the same trees and see the building behind). The shop/pub was only ever a shop. I remember it as a shop and remember the interior too. It wasn't a converted pub.

Maybe you could mention that one of the two turreted buildings in the distance remains on Railton road, and that relates to the pic of Railton by Effra Parade in which you can see the decorated, turreted corner buildings more clearly.

(Incidentally the other one blew up about 20 years ago in a gas explosion, leaving the turret flattened and unfolded in the road and bricks everywhere).
 
Oh yeah, just trying to help you make it accurate. :)

Not Chancer or Chauncer Rd, but "Chaucer Rd" . Also one of those pages has two identical links to "Chancer 2" - (whoever he is ?!) :rolleyes:
 
More great pics, Mike

IIRC the reinstatement of the missing "turret" was one of the townscape schemes promised by Brixton Challenge that never materialised. (It was decribed I think as reinstatement of Mansard roof - a little bit of the Louvre in Railton Road!) I think there was a plan for a housing association to convert the block above several shops in Railton Road.

I obviously haven't looked closely when I've been through recently - did the block get refurbished - sans Mansard - or is it still a wreck?
 
The gap is still there and the other shops have mostly been ruined with badly designed conversion into housing. The usual, you know.

:(
 
Chers for the feedback: I've amended the text and corrected the cock ups.

I haven't mentioned the turrets as I think they're just a bit too small in the picture, but if I can source a better photo, it would make a good 'then and now'.
 
Great work Mike. That description of Barnwell is better now. Still links to ChauNcer Road" all over the place. It's "Chaucer".

:)
 
hatboy said:
Great work Mike. That description of Barnwell is better now. Still links to ChauNcer Road" all over the place. It's "Chaucer".
Chancer, Chauncer, Chaucer, Schamncer.

I'm clearly having trouble with the name.

But I've fixed it.
 
Just amazing!

I love it when more of these fabulous photo's arrive on U75.

It just seems a shame that so many of these grand and majestic buildings are now home to KFC's and rubbish doscount clothes shops...

Where was the Ice Rink housed, that's such a great poster?!

Miss La x
 
I've just Googled to find the poem below again - I first found it on an unconnected search years ago. The dates don't tally :confused:

In 1876 this poem was published in the magazine Punch,

"Lines Picked up at the Brixton Rink"

Upon the Rink the Lady sat,
Beside her lay her dainty hat,
All crumpled;
She looked the picture of distress,
So dusty was her pretty dress,
And rumpled!

"I can’t get up, " in faltering tone,
She said. I thought that perhaps alone
She could not.
I picked her up. She was not hurt
‘Twas but the tightness of her skirt-
She could not!

Source
 
Just a small update - I've added a few more old Theatre posters here and added this picture to the Brady's/Railway Hotel feature:

bradys01.jpg


Any idea who Annie Allen was and why she was laying commemorative bricks?!
 
editor said:
Just a small update - I've added a few more old Theatre posters here and added this picture to the Brady's/Railway Hotel feature:

bradys01.jpg


Any idea who Annie Allen was and why she was laying commemorative bricks?!

I've often wondered that too!
 
A Google search of 1880+Annie Allen+Brixton brings up a reference for the Marxist historian CLR James. Are they linked? Curious.
 
"Anyone know where the rink was on on Effra Road?"

The Skating Rink was up by the carpet shop over the road from the Hobgoblin, I used to go there when it was a roller skating rink - about 40yrs ago.
By the way I have some old photos of Brixton/Clapham especially Clapham Common and the paddling pool - my mum used to take me there when I was a baby. I was born in Solon Road, off Acre Lane - my mum used to work in the Sunlight Laundry Place, I attended Santley Primary School and we used the (now mosque) church hall on Stockwell Green for P.E.
 
There's a couple of good ones of Coldharbour lane - somewhere around Loughborough junction from the house numbers...
 
lang rabbie said:
I don't think that I've posted up previously that almost all of the photo library of the GLC and its predecessor the London County Council is now online - with quite a few Brixton pics.
Woooargh! That's an excellent collection!

And that School of Building is fab!
L05211AR.jpg
 
editor said:
Woooargh! That's an excellent collection!

Can I send my apologies to Mike's nearest and dearest who won't see him for the next month while he pounds the streets of Brixton for a new portfolio of "then and now" photos. :oops:
 
editor said:
Woooargh! That's an excellent collection!

And that School of Building is fab!
L05211AR.jpg

Where was the School of Building building? I assume it doesn't exist still - it must have been by the railway line somewhere - some of the photos of it are shot across the railway line...
 
Bob said:
Where was the School of Building building? I assume it doesn't exist still - it must have been by the railway line somewhere - some of the photos of it are shot across the railway line...

north side of Ferndale Road - it had a complicated site, with a block on Ferndale Road rebuilt after bomb damage that is now converted into flats, and the site once occupied by the enormous hall next to the railway which IIRC is behind houses further along the road.

Apparently, part of the original buildings was converted from a former public baths.

The Brixton School of Building was opened by London County Council in 1904. The large number of building operatives in Camberwell and Lambeth and the need to provide space for large-scale practical work for them was sufficient to justify a specialist college. A site previously used by Lambeth Polytechnic in Ferndale Road was purchased for the school by London County Council in 1901. Old buildings were renovated and new ones erected, providing a central hall and large workshops for painting and decorating, carpentry and joinery and a drawing office. 643 students enrolled at the first session, with admission to practical classes restricted to those employed in the building trade. Classes were intended to supplement workshop practice rather than teach trades, and included stone carving, plasters' modelling, drawing for building trades' students, chemistry and physics of building materials, land surveying and levelling.

In 1906 a school of architecture was added. Some classes in building at other institutes were transferred to Brixton, and some classes such as wood and stone carving relocated to other colleges. Students in any professions allied to the building trades were later allowed to attend practical classes to receive general instruction, and admission to theoretical classes was extended to include those whose employment required knowledge of technical operations and processes. Demand for courses increased rapidly and a new extension was opened in 1909.
Source
 
lang rabbie said:
north side of Ferndale Road - it had a complicated site, with a block on Ferndale Road rebuilt after bomb damage that is now converted into flats, and the site once occupied by the enormous hall next to the railway which IIRC is behind houses further along the road.

Apparently, part of the original buildings was converted from a former public baths.


Source

I think I can picture the place now. There's still a building on Ferndale road (in fact I think it still says 'school of building') - and I assume the flats are the ones by the Hubert Grove footbridge?
 
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