Santas, Education, Nativity – London was getting into the Christmas spirit on Saturday 6th December 2014, with boozy hordes of Santas on the streets and a Fossil Free Nativity Play in Westminster. But a national day of education activism against tuition fees had also been called and I photographed a march in south London.
South London March for Free Education – Clapham
There was a disappointing turnout for the march against tuition fees which gathered outside Lambeth College facing Clapham Common.
It perhaps wasn’t a good day to have called for a protest, as many students will already have left London to go home for the Christmas break, and others will have been busy with other things including Christmas shopping. And I’m sure there will have been rather more running around the capital in Santa costumes for Santacon.
The marchers included people from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, Lambeth Left Unity and South London Defend Education. This was one of a number of events taking place that day across the country including others around London.
I walked a short distance with the march taking a few photographs before leaving them to take the tube to Westminster. They were marching to a rally in Brixton where they expected rather more to attend.
Christian Climate Action and Occupy organised an entertaining performance of a Fossil Free Nativity Play between Westminster Abbey and Methodist Central Hall, part of a continuing campaign to get churches to disinvest from fossil fuel companies.
Among the members of the cast were Wesley Ingram who wrote the play and performed as the Angel Gabriel, and George Barda of Occupy who played Joseph with his child as the baby Jesus.
Few of the actors had seen the script before the performance and the costumes and props were interesting rather than authentic – perhaps the best being the headgear for the Roman soldiers.
Their was some lively music from violin and trumpet and at the end of the performance everyone posed behind the banners calling for the churches to divest from fossil fuels. But there was no sign of the clergy from either Westminster Abbey and Methodist Central Hall,
Around a thousand young people in Santa suits, along with the odd elf, reindeer and other Christmas-themed costumes were milling around the edge of Clapham Common for the start of day-long alcohol-fuelled crawl through London (with a little help from public transport.)
Similar groups were starting from meeting points in East and North London and they hoped to meet up later in the day at Marble Arch or Hyde Park, though I think for many the festivities would end in Trafalgar Square.
Later in the day I met up with rather more of the Santas coming from North London close to Great Portland Street station, by which time they were rather merrier. I also met a couple of photographer friends who had also come to take pictures. Most of the Santas were keen to be photographed and quite a few also got me to take pictures on their phones, though I found that rather beyond me. I hope a few worked.
I went with them along to Baker Street taking pictures and later in the day wrote:
Thousands in Santa suits and other Xmas deviations, police trying hard to keep smiling, cans of beer, doubtfully soft drinks, just a few Brussel sprouts in the air, crowded bars, sprawling mass of mainly young people having fun on the streets of London. Santacon.
It was getting dark and although I could still work it meant using flash and I didn’t feel the results were as good. I left them there to make my way to join my two friends who by then were sitting in one of the nicest pubs in the area and was delighted to find a pint waiting for me on the table.
Girls, Houses and St John: The second and final set of missing pictures from my walk on June 4th June 1989 – continuing from Stockwell- Chapel, Church, Jazz & Housing
Two girls, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-23
These two feisty young girls demanded to know what I was doing taking pictures in their manor, outside Cassell House close to the corner of Stockwell Rd and insisted that I take their picture. I think that probably they were sisters although they are dressed rather differently. The older of the two is wearing earrings. They are now 34 years older and if they see their picture I hope they like it.
Across the road you can make out Joseph Yates Timber Merchants at 17-19 Stockwell Road, whose shop was still there though boarded up in 2008. Together with the house behind it was replace by a new block shortly after, the shop becoming EZ Homeware and around 2018 a vape shop, Ez Cloudz.
I turned left around the corner into Clapham Road, walking down towards Clapham, crossing Mayflower Road to a group of impressive Queen Anne style red-brick houses – I think this was number 349.
As you can see these houses have quite long front gardens which were then rather overgrown. I think the house had long been divided into flats. There is a broken window on the ground floor which looks as if it is boarded up. These buildings are locally listed
House, 357, Clapham Rd, Clapham, 1989 89-6b-11
This is a bay extension on 355 Clapham Road, which I found more interesting than the Grade II listed house at the left of the picture, the listing text of which begins “Substantial early C19 house, one of a pair of which the other is so much altered as not to be of special interest.” According to the Survey of London the house was first occupied in 1792.
Another view of 357 makes it clear that the two storey bay above a basement garage in the previous picture is indeed a part of this house.
I think its doorway with the two front doors is probably also a later addition, though again I found it of interest, though its listed neighbour retains its original and perhaps more common if still fine entrance. I think my taste in buildings allows rather more for eccentricity while those who make the listings are more concerned with age and consistency of style.
Listed as The Garden House with location ‘Union Mews, Lambeth, London SW9’ in 1981, this is an unusual house at 369 Clapham Road with no front door, though it does have a fairly plain Doric entrance around the side on the left. It was first occupied in 1815, and was built on land acquired by the Duke of Bedford in the early 18th century and let by him to Robert Robson. There is a fairly lengthy description of the house in the Survey of London volume orginally published by the LCC in 1956 which ends with “The premises are now occupied by Messrs. Ashton Brothers and a garden with seats extends from the pavement edge back to the house.”
My picture shows Ashton Funerals at the site in 1989 with ‘PRIVATE CHAPELS FUNERALS CREMATIONS’ and their name in large signage on rails on the frontage, and a well-kept garden, though I couldn’t resist including the Ad Hoc Wine Warehouse signs as well. The house is now flats and the Ashton signage has gone, and the wine warehouse having become car hire has now been demolished as a part of a new block of flats including and existing property at 363.
St John the Evangelist, Clapham Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-14
Built 1840-42, architect Thomas Marsh Nelson the church is Grade II listed. A confined site led to an unusual orientation. It was truncated in 1986 and the Diocese of Southwark website comments “In short, this building has suffered due to a lack of clarity from its earliest day. First of all when the east-west axis was reversed and latterly the internal alterations described above. These changes plus the ravages of dry rot have left the interior merely as a jumble of ill-defined spaces without any overall cohesion.”
However the simple classical exterior is impressive, and rather unusual for the date of construction.
Various events and visits took me out of London for the next few weekends and it was July before I could return for my next walk around part of the city.
All I can tell you about SERIUS GALLERY is written on the door of 44 Bellefields Rd, which continues with ‘QUEEN MARTIN’ and gives its opening hours as Mon-Fri 2-6pm and Sat, Sun 12-3. These houses are still there, looking in rather better condition but no longer as a gallery.
Nor can I tell you anything about Queen Martin, though these was a rather nice looking Victorian pub at 45 Bellefields Road opposite this house named The Queen, which was demolished in 2006 and replaced by an rather ugly block with flats above ground floor commercial spaces also named THE QUEEN.
MOT Centre, Ferndale Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-24
The M.O.T. Centre for Cars & Motor Cycles offering Free Steering & Brake Safety Check would not inspire my confidence with its heap of car scrap at the left of the picture. This site is now a little tidier as Zaks Tyres and the Ferndale Road Car Wash, on the corner of Ferndale Road and Pulross Road.
The fence just visible above its notices is along the railway line.
Tintern St, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-12
I made another picture of the M.O.T centre (not on line) which continues on the other side of the railway bridge and a couple more and continued along Ferndale Road, wandering down some of the side streets. I’ve also not yet digitised a picture of the Brixton Seventh Day Adventist Church on the corner of Ducie St and Santley St, and my next picture on-line is this one from Tintern Street. The building at right of the picture is on the corner with Ferndale Road, with two shops there not visible in my picture.
The shopfronts have changed but the upper floors and general appearance are still much as they were in 1989, and the whole remains a rather nice reminder of the Victorian era. The main loss is in the shopfronts at the left of my picture. Of course it is no longer the ‘TWO BEES LADIES AND GENTS HAIRDRESSERS’ but still in the same trade as a Unisex Hair Salon.
I’m not sure I entirely understood the amendments made to this billboard which advertised Billy Graham’s 1989 Evangelical Mission when I made this picture. It helps too look up Luke 12:19, which in the King James Version reads “And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” And to put the comment into more standard English, “Dollar bill still has to be my bowl of cherries.”
While it’s clear that the L is now a pound sign, and is followed by a dollar symbol. I think the ‘E’ at right is added to make this now read £$ FEE.
I think it was probably a different hand that posted a line of five anti-poll tax posters posters at bottom right.
The Chequers Café, a greengrocers and a pub on the corner of Bedford Road with Landor Road. The pub is still there. In 1989 it was the Bedford Arms, there since around 1874, but I think later was the Hog’s Head and simply the Bedford. In 2003 it became The Clapham North, the first of several pubs in the area opened by the pub group Livelyhood who made it one of Clapham’s most popular pubs. But they were simply tenants and the pub was bought by Young’s in 2013 and ten years later they decided to take over the lease. So now just another Young’s pub.
This was the last picture on my walk on 4th June 1989. These unusually ornate early Edwardian houses caught my attention. They are terraced houses, but built to look grander than they are with substantial doorways over paired front doors. The houses at left are part of a short terrace of four, and then a longer terrace goes around a corner in the street.
Light & Life, Pinter and Stockwell Breweries: A week after my previous walk I returned to South London to take more pictures on Sunday 4th June 1989. I began my walk from Clapham High Street.
Landor Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-61
Landor Road, originally named ‘Stockwell Private Road’ but changed at some date before 1912, possibly after the well-known English writer Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) runs from close to Clapham North Station to Stockwell Green. I made my first picture roughly halfway between the two at the corner with Hubert Grove. A group of five men standing around a car on the opposite side of the road had probably attracted my attention but I clearly did not want to attract theirs.
Many of the shops here have since been converted to residential use.
Light & Life Full Gospel Fellowship, 105-11 Landor Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-62
A row of four terrace houses here had been converted into the General HQ of the Light & Life Full Gospel Fellowship, and notices gave a full list of activities including Sunday Schools, Divine Worship, Gospel Meeting, Bible Study and Prayer but also Sewing, Cooking, Baking, Musical Rehearsals, Table Tennis , Darts and Snooker. The centre also housed a play group on Monday to Fridays and a Youth Club on Thursday evenings.
A message says ‘COME AND ENJOY YOURSELF – THIS IS NOT A BLACK CHURCH. WE DO NOT PREACH A BLACK GOSPEL – JESUS IS LORD’.
The Fellowship is still continuing its mission there, though with new noticeboards, blinds replacing curtains and a new coat of paint.
I can’t read the notices in the shop window of 127 Landor Road, but I think they might have indicated that the shop had closed. It was perhaps about to be converted to its current residential use.
Looking down Kimberley Road there are two tall blocks of flats, but from my camera position only one is visible, I think Pinter House on Rhodesia Road, one of three blocks in the Grantham Road Estate. 1890s terraced houses there were destroyed by wartime bombing and the site was used for prefabs. Planning for these towers began in the early 1960s under the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth, but by the time they were completed in 1968-9 they were a part of the London Borough of Lambeth Council.
The three blocks were all named after modern play writers – in this case Harold Pinter. The block was designed by the deputy borough architect George Finch and system built; this 62m high block contains around 92 flats and maisonettes. The flats were refurbished in 2000-2001 after they became managed by Hyde Southbank Homes and now look rather different.
St Andrew’s, Church, CofE, Landor Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-64
St Andrew’s Stockwell Green in Landor Rd was built as a chapel in 1767 but there were later additions and the exterior was rebuilt by H E Roe in this Romanesque style in 1867. Vestries and the Lady Chapel were then added in the 1890s.
The building beyond the church was a large post-war bottle store which was replaced in 2010 by the perhaps deliberately rather bland Oak Square development. This had been a brewery site since 1730 and had been taken over as Hammertons Stockwell Brewery in 1868. It was sold to Watneys in 1951 and they used it as bottling stores.
Two Boys, Landor Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-65
I find it hard to positively identify this street corner though I think it must be than of Dalyell Road, where Landor Road meets Stockwell Green. The building at left is the now-demolished bottle store, and on it you can read the name THE QUADRANT. The corner is occupied by a giant billboard, and shop appears to have fruit in its window, a sack of potting compost on the ground outside and to sell ice cream.
This is a rather unusual detached house on Combermere Road and I think from my picture that it may have been built or later used as a shop. This is a very mixed street and there was nothing like this anywhere along its length.
It is still there, though the windows have been replaced with something looking rather sturdier and the door has a wrought iron grille.
Rhodes’ Brewery – Stockwell’s other brewery – took water from an artesian well on this site and was bought by Edward Waltham in 1851. His British Brewery or Half Guinea Ale Brewery in Stockwell Green produced Half Guinea Ale and London Brown Stout at 2/6d per dozen bottles; you paid an extra 6d for the mysteriously named ‘S N’ Stout. It many have stood for ‘Nourishing Stout’, something they also sold as Butler Brand Nourishing Stout.
Back in the 1940s or 50s, my mother, then languishing in hospital, was prescribed a daily bottle of Guinness. As a lifelong total abstainer she refused to drink the demon alcohol, but her Irish nurse had no such qualms.
The buildings probably dated from before 1851. The Lion Brewery bought the company in 1906 and for many years this site was a council depot. It has now been replaced by housing.
The Alexandra, Sanitary Ware & Ace continues the account of my walk on Sunday 28th May 1989. The previous post was http://re-photo.co.uk/?p=15138 Shops, Flats, Trade Unions, Monks… and the walk began with http://re-photo.co.uk/?p=15080 Lavender Hill & Wandsworth Rd – 1989
Shops, The Alexandra, pub, Clapham Common Southside, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-25
The Alex is one of the best known pubs in the area and upstairs is the Clapham Darts Club, open to non-members where you can book an oche, though at £20 an hour you might think it a bit steep. I’ve never played darts in a pub where you had to pay, but then its probably 50 years since I’ve played pub darts. Then you paid by buying beer.
Its a pub too that is best avoided on match nights and at weekends unless you want to watch sport. The pub dates from 1866, though has sadly lost a much of its Victorian interior features.
6 Haselrigge Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-15
I can’t remember what route I took from Clapham Park Road to Bedford Rd, probably cutting through some of the estates but not stopping to take photographs. But this house is visible from Bedford Road and drew me down to make this pictures. It was certainly the slender spire which attracted my attention. Built in 1871 it also has an observatory and apparently a matching coach house behind. Long converted into flats, this locally listed house I feel must have more of a story to tell than I’ve been able to unearth.
Haselrigge Road gets its name from one of the oldest well-connected families in England, which dates back before the Norman invasion and are said to have been the lords of the manor on the now lost West Yorkshire village of Hesselgreave. Bartholomew Clerke lord of the manor of Clapham who died in 1589 and his wife, Eleanor Haselrigge, and their son are commemorated in figures on a monument in St Paul’s Church Clapham.
63, Bedford Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-16
53-63 Bedford Road were Grade II listed in 1981, the listing reads in part “Circa 1870, in stock brick with creamy terra-cotta dressings, built by J G Jennings as part of a larger scheme of houses of varying size and quality, to the designs of T Collcutt.” Josiah George Jennings was a noted sanitary engineer.”
Thomas Edward Collcutt (1840-1924) was an important English architect, better known for designing the Wigmore Hall, Savoy Hotel, Palace Theatre and more. This house at 63 is on the corner with Ferndale Road which now has its very own Conservation Area which provided me with much of the information below.
Rathcoole house, Grade II listed in 1981, was the main and final house of a scheme designed by T E Colcutt and built by Josiah George Jennings. Remarkably this house was derelict and had been scheduled for demolition in 1966 but was rented from the GLC as a hostel for vagrant alcoholics and decorated and fully furnished mainly by the efforts of voluntary organisations. A decorated sign on the side has the initials JG, the street name and date 1882.
The house is on the corner with Ferndale Road which has its on Conservation Area. Lambeth Council’s document on this gives more detail of George Jenning (1810-1882) who set up a company in Paris Street Lambeth making sanitary ware, “patenting revolutionary improvements to toilets.”
His ‘Monkey Closets’ installed at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851 were the world’s first public toilets – and for a penny clients “received a clean seat, a towel, a comb and shoe shine“. Ever since we have been going to spend a penny even if that now costs 50p and comes without most of the original accompaniments.
Jennings set up the South Western Pottery in Parkstone, near Poole in Dorset to produce sanitary products from the local clays, later expanding to “bricks, chimney post and architectural terracotta” all in a pale creamy colour. He developed other areas of south London including around Nightingale Lane in Clapham.
Jennings began building Ferndale Road in 1870 and only completed the scheme the year he died in a traffic accident. The completion is commemorated on the side of Rathcoole House which had been one of the earlier houses to be built.
Not all houses in the area were built to the same standards as those by Jennings. I think this small building was probably at the front of some works behind whose corrugated iron roof is visible at left. I’m no longer sure exactly where on Bedford Road it was, but somewhere on the west side quite close to the railway bridge.
Another rather basic building a little to the north of the railway bridge at 16 Bedford Road and surprisingly still there, now a minicab office. Ace had a rather wider scope, offering driving lessons and also selling and exchanging books – some of which you can see on the shelves through the window.
I took a second picture without the woman walking past who is reflected in the window, but I think this is better.
I turned around and walked back down Bedford Road to Acre Lane where my account of this walk will continue in a later post.
Shops, Clapham High St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-42
The rather charming three stroy building occupied on the ground flow at least by Julia Two has gone and together with the low utilitarian shops to the right has been replaced by one of the ugliest buildings on Clapham High Street. But the buildings to the left remain, although with altered shop fronts, as do those on the other side of Venn St.
The Barclays Bank on the corner of Venn St dates from 1895 and closed a few years ago.
I walked on further along Clapham High Street and on along Clapham Common Southside before turning down Crescent Lane to wander around some of the streets to the south. Worsopp Drive is one of the roads in Lambeth’s Notre Dame Estate off Cresecnt Lane in an enviable location just a short walk south of Clapham Common. The estate was built in 1947-1952 when this was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth on the site of the former Notre Dame Convent. It is a mixture of different low and medium rise brick properties and these 8 storey blocks are the tallest.
I don’t know why I didn’t photograph the Clapham Orangery which was retained at the centre of the estate, but I imagine there was some good reason.
UCW House, Union of Communication Workers, Crescent Lane, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-32
From the estate I returned to Crescent Lane where I photographed UCW House, then the home of the Union of Communication Workers. According to the Clapham Society, around 1920 a house on this site was sold to the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers for use as their headquarters, and renamed ‘The Builders. In the 1930s, the Union of Post Office Workers bought the building and the site was divided between the two unions, with both commissioning new buildings with architect L AS Culliford. This building was opened in spetember 1937, with a extra storey being added in 1976.
The union, by then the Union of Communication Workers , sold the building as offices to he Metropolitan Huusing Trust in 1998. They moved out in 2012 and it was converted to residential use as Metropolitan Crescent.
At the south end of Crescent Lane I turned into Abbeville Road, walking along it to the junction with Park Hill where I made my next picture.
Govette, Park Hill, Abbeville Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-33
I first photographed this sign in 1980 and posted this about that picture when I put it on Flickr:
Govette is originally a French name, and a couple of them came over with William the Conqueror back in 1066 and were given land in Somerset. The name was often spelt without the final ‘e’.
Govette Metal & Glass Works, a family firm and was established in 1956 in Clapham, and in the 1970s split up into several divisions, with Govette’s remaining in Clapham. They closed the factory there in the mid-nineties and specialised in the supply, installation and glazing of steel windows and doors, establishing Govette Windows Ltd in 1996, and are now based in Whyteleafe. They also now have a factory in South Godstone.
I walked back along Abbeville Road and then up St Alphonsus Rd to where it bends at a right angle to the east.
St Mary’s Redemptorist Monastery, St Alphonsus Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-35
St Mary’s Roman Catholic church in Clapham Park Road whose spire appears in the background of this picture was built in 1849-51. The Redemptorists are a Catholic missionary congregation and came from Belium to set set up houses in the UK, including this Grade II* listed monastery in Clapham designed by J F Bentley in Art and Craft Gothic style and built in 1892-3.
I continued to the end of the road and turned left into Clapham Park Road going back to Clapham High Street as I wanted to take another picture of the Post Office on Venn St – which I posted in a previous post. I came back down Venn St to Bromell’s Road.
You can still see this alley on Bromwells Road but the view down in is much less interesting, with none of the bridges linking 20 with 22 across the street remaining. The buildings on Bromwells Road have been refurbished and those visible down the alley rebuilt or replaced, althhough I think that at the end of the alley is still there. But what looked like a street with various small workshops is now much tidier.
The account of my walk will continue in a later post.
This street apparently only got the name Voltaire Road in the early 20th century, before which this part of it was called Station Road. The French writer Voltaire came to stay with his friend Everard Fawkener in Wandsworth when he was exiled from France in 1726, and is thought to have moved around the area, but there seems to be no record of him having lived anywhere around this road in Clapham.
The most likely suggestions as to where he lived in Wandsworth is that it was close to the River Wandle in Wandsworth Town or Earlsfield. There is a development on Garratt Lane called Voltaire Buildings, but that only got its name from Barratts in 2004 when they redeveloped the site of the former Wandle School.
Voltaire Motors was in a railway arch at Voltaire Rd, just before the entrance to Clapham High St Station. I think this is now ARCH Clapham or The Bridge, gay bars.
The Temperance Billiard Hall Co Ltd, founded in 1906 built halls like this, built in 1910 by their in-house architect Norman Evans, in many towns and cities across England. It had just become architects offices when I made this and the next picture.
Temperance Billiard Hall, Clapham High St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-51
According to Wikipedia there were about 20 Temperance Billiard Halls spread around London in July 1958, though it doesn’t state how many of these now remain. At least two of them, including the Grade II listed Temperance Billiard Hall in Fulham later became pubs. The Clapham building is unlisted but is inside the Clapham High Street Conservation Area.
National Provincial Bank Ltd, Tremadoc Rd, Clapham High St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-53
The National Provincial Bank merged with the National Westminster Bank in 1970, possibly when this late 19th century bank building became solicitors offices. It is still home to solicitors but a different firm. The buildings behind the bank are probably a little older.
Clapham Methodist Church Hall, Nelsons Row, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-54
Clapham Methodist Church Hall and School on Nelson Row was built in 1873, and used for worship until the main church was completed in 1874. The impressive church was badly damaged and made unsafe by wartime bombing and was eventually replaced by a large glass fronted building on Clapham High St which opened in 1961 – and has since been refurbished.
This building remains on Nelsons Row, though the doorway is now bricked up and Studio Voltaire now occupy the site further down the street. I think this may now be a part of their complex.
Nelson Works, Nelsons Row, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-55
These were also part of the Methodist Hall and Sunday School buildings.
Back in 1989 the plates beside the door of Nelson Works were for Universal Metal Fabrications, though there was another name on the Nelson Works sign above the doorway, not quite legible, though some letters can be made out.
Nelson Works, Nelsons Row, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-56
Studio Voltaire, founded in 1994 by a collective of artists and creatives in a disused tram shed on Voltaire Road in 1984 moved to this site in 1999, and in 2019-2021 completed a transformation, refurbishing much of the building.
Postmen and Postwomen are still using the Postmen’s Office, a rather grand building from AD1902 where Venn Street takes a 90 degree turn to the east with Sedley Place going west. It seems now to be officially known as the Royal Mail Clapham Delivery Office.
I liked this picture partly because it gave some indication of the work which goes on inside the office, but came back for another picture when the rented truck had moved.
When Lambeth Council set up their ‘Local List’ of historic buildings and artifacts which are not included in the statutory listing in 2010 it was one of the first to be listed, along with four others in the Clapham area, recognised by the council itself as being of architectural interest.
The Clapham Society two years later submitted there ow n list of over 70 properties in the area to recommend to the council of which only around ten were added, some excluded because they were inside already designated conservation areas. Clapham really does have a lot of interesting properties
Local listing provides little actual protection to properties but does mean the council will be aware of them in coming to planning decisions and take them into consideration in setting up local development plans. But unlike buildings in conservation areas or listed buildings they can be demolished without consent – which is seldom granted for listed buildings.
Former Majestic, cinema, Clapham High St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-41
The Majestic Cinema at 146 Clapham High St was designed by John Stanley Beard and opened in 1914. The narrow front entrance – another shopfront between shops – leads to a large auditorium behind behind the shops. It seems that one of the names on the title deeds was Charles Chaplin. The cinema was taken over in 1928 and became part of Gaumont British Cinemas in 1929. Bomb damage closed it for a few months in 1940-1 and in 1950 it was re-named Gaumont Theatre, closing ten years later in 1960.
The side of the cinema gives a better idea of its scale. After it closed as a cinema, the balcony was converted into a recording studio, Majestic Studios, continuing in use even after the main space became a bingo club in 1969, though probably not operating during the same hours. Among those who recorded there were Brian Eno. Adam Faith, David Bowie and the Sex Pistols.
In 1985 it became Cinatra’s nightclub and is now Infernos night club and disco. There are now new blocks on each side of the cinema building.
Langley Electrical, the first of this row of buildings on the opposite side of the street just past the cinema has been removed but the rest from 156 survives and has been tidied up and the ground floor shops mainly converted to residential use.
I walked along Clapham High Street, wandering a little down the side streets off the north side, and turning down Clapham Manor Road to Voltaire Road, where I amused myself a little with this image, hiding the foreground with the van and the ball on the top of a gate post. I think that gate has since been demolished but the houses are still there.
Shops, Clapham High St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-61
This picture was taken across the road from the corner with Voltaire Road. There are still shops though looking rather less run down and housing different businesses and the houses behind are still there but no longer advertise the CASH SUPPLY STORES selling VEGETABLES CAULIFLOWERS and something illegible or THE MUSIC ROLL EXCHANGE offering Gramophone Records and claiming to have the LARGEST STOCK OF SECONDHAND MUSIC ROLLS IN ALL LONDON.
The railings have also gone, replaces around 2012 with some stands for locking bikes.
My walk on Sunday 28th May 1989 will continue in another post.
Car, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-52
Although cars in my pictures now often attract attention when I post the on Flickr, I seldom deliberately photographed them, but this is one exception. I think even I might have identified this as a Citroen, but it was only after I posted it that one of my regular commenters identified it as dating from 1938. So it was 51 years old when I took its picture, and apparently is still around and still taxed for road use.
The house it is parked in front of is 12 Rectory Grove, at the end of a short Grade II listed terrace at 12-18, which dates it only as “Early-mid C19”.
Rectory Grove, Rectory Gardens, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-56
I walked back south down Rectory Grove, again passing the entrance to Rectory Gardens which I wrote about in my previous post on this walk. As you can see there are shops on Rectory Grove, one still open in 1989 and I think selling pottery. These buildings were rather grander than those in Rectory Gardens, with three storeys. Between the two shops was I think the entrance to flats above. There was another shop beyond this corner building and may once have been a couple more, although these were I think residential in 1989.
Shops, Rose & Crown, Old Town, The Polygon, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-46
Continuing south I came to Old Town and The Polygon with this Grade II listed corner shop with its row of seven large oilmen’s jars above its mid-19th century shop fronts. The building itself is perhaps a little over a hundred years earlier.
Oilmen sold oil to the public, mainly for use in lighting before the introduction of gas and electric lighting, and often used ancient pots and their pictures in advertising. Large jars of this shape were used for the transport of oil by ship, often containing around 20 gallons, and when full these thick earthenware vessels must have weighed 70 kilograms or more. They were protected in transit with rope cases, but moving them must have been heavy work.
But I think these may well have been ‘single-use’ rather than being returned to source for refilling. Jars were often sawn in half as in Clapham as shop signs in the 19th century and were always then painted red, and often fixed like these above the shop windows. Many came from the Mediterranean filled with olive oil, though whale oil was more commonly used for lighting until the supply fell off and it was replaced by mineral oils.
The People’s Church, Grafton Square, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-35
Designed by William Nevin as a Baptist Church in 1889, the building was renovated and opened as the People’s Church in 1959. Sold after the roof collapsed, it is now the Grafton Square Surgery and The Grafton apartment building, where a loft flat sold recently for around £2m.
Pyramid, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-36
I’d photographed this decoration above the shop Pyramid only a few weeks earlier, but the lighting was right and I couldn’t resist making another picture – and I was also keen to get a better image of the crest. Here’s what I wrote about it earlier:
Walking down the street took me the Old Town, where the light was showing the device on the house at No 12 here with its proverb ‘CONTENTEMENT PASSE RICHESSE‘, the motto of the Atkins-Bowyer family. Richard Bowyer (d1820) had taken on the name when he inherited the Manor of Clapham from Sir Richard Atkins of Clapham. I’ve never quite worked out what the relief which is thought to have come from the old Manor House is meant to depict.
Pyramid, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-21
Back in 1989 I didn’t own a decent long telephoto lens – the longest I owned were a 90mm for the Leica and a 105mm for the Olympus. I think this was probably taken with the 105mm and the device on the wall is certainly clearer, but no easier for me to interpret. At the top there appear to be three animals with a bird, perhaps an ostrich standing on top of what could be a crocodile or dragon or hound with perhaps a snake on the bird’s back, its head going down to the croc.
Below that with the motto spread over it is what could be cloth hanging from spars or perhaps flames or who knows what, and at the bottom a shield with stripes and what looks like two chickens with their wings up above and one below a row of stars. Perhaps others will know more and comment.
The old manor house was only finally demolished in 1837, though its octagonal tower had been taken down around 1810, perhaps because it was unsafe. It was probably this tower that led to the street laid out on the site, near St Paul’s Clapham being named Turret Grove.
Trinity Close, Flats, The Pavement, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-22
Continuing south along The Pavement took me to this large 1936 development of flats on five storeys with some little interesting At Deco features of which this gate post and porch are perhaps the best. I think that the post (and its partner on the other side of the entrance) may have been built to support an entrance light, but there was no sign of it. The building, which extends back some distance in a roughly H-shape replaced three existing buildings on The Pavement.
It was designed by J J de Segrais and three of its top floor flats on this side have balconies with views over Clapham Common. At the centre just below roof level is a small sculptural decoration which I didn’t try to photograph. Trinity Close is is joined at its north side to another large 1930s block of flats, Windsor Court (which for some reason I didn’t photograph.) It has the date A. D, 1935 on its ‘moderne’ frontage and shops along its ground floor. A tunnel through a wide entrance at the right of this block leads to the rear of both blocks.
North St, Rectory Gardens & Rectory Grove: Continuing with my walk on Sunday 28th May 1989. The first and previous post about this was Lavender Hill & Wandsworth Rd – 1989 which ended with a picture of the Hibbert Almshouses still on Wandsworth Road in Clapham.
M S Automobiles, 97-9 North St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-24
From Wandsworth Road I turned down North Street and took this picture just a few yards down the street. This rather elegant group of three of houses at 97-1010 have been altered somewhat since my picture and the entrance to the rear yard of M S Automobiles Ltd now leads to North Street Mews workshops and studios, the the two properties on the street now residential.
The doorway for West One Carriers is now a bay window (and was probably originally built as one) and the flower pots and ventilators have disappeared. 99 now has a small plain painted brick wall joining to the post at the right of my picture.
Unfortunately I can’t make out the sign at the left of the door to 99, though it looks rather like a pigeon. Scooter geeks would doubtless be able to tell me more about that parked underneath.
Doorway, 28 North St, Rozel Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-11
A small terrace two storey houses with shopfronts on North Street has its north end on Rozel Road, and just behind the shop front – here with a metal shutter at right – is this doorway which is now to 28a North Street which has been considerably extended to the rear.
There were some similar decorations above the doors of most of the houses on Rozel Road, and some with similar brickwork which I imagine were all built around the same time in the late nineteenth century, probably in the 1880s. I’m not sure what the mirrored objects in the relief are meant to represent, possibly a coornucopia or horn of plenty. But for many the bubblegum machine at right of the door will have been of more interest.
NECO, Electric Motors, North St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-13
Normand Electrical Company were manufacturers and suppliers of ‘NECO’ electric motors and gearboxes here in Clapham from around 1938. The company was bought by P C Henderson in 1982, and later they sold it to FKI Electricals. The NECO brand is still used. The factory was demolished and replaced by gated housing, Floris Place, its entrance in Fitzwilliam Road.
Rectory Gardens, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-14
Rectory Gardens was built around 1870-80 as philanthropic housing for low paid workers. Many of the 28 houses were in very poor repair after war damage and had been squatted in the late 60s and 70s to form a unique community. In 1969 Lambeth Council planned to redevelop this area and acquired Rectory Gardens in 1970.
Rectory Gardens, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-16
The redevelopment was opposed by the Rectory Gardens Squatters’ Association (RAGS) and Clapham Action Rectory Grove (CARG) and at a public inquiry the council lost an appeal over the compulsory purchase of adjoining properties needed for the redevelopment. The council refused to formalise the occupation by residents who had formed a housing cooperative, but continued to try to evict the squatters who had turned the area into a flourishing artistic community.
Rectory Gardens, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-63
Eventually Lambeth Labour Council under Cabinet Member for Housing Matthew Bennett began evictions and put in ‘security guardians’ and in 2016-7 sold off the properties. The very active Clapham Society lobbied for the retention of these houses as a group run by a housing association but developer Lexadon is rebuilding them and marketing them as luxury properties, “a triangular mews-style development” as a private close in an expensive area.
49, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-65
49 Rectory Grove is Grade II listed as an early 19th century two storey house with attic and basement. When I made this picture there were new houses being built on both sides of it behind the tall corrugated iron fences topped with barbed wire.
The area behind the house had been the printing works of Clark & Fenn Ltd and was redevelped as the Charles Barry Estate, taking its name from Sir Charles Barry, the designer of the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square who lived not far away at 29-32 Clapham Common North Side.
20-28, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-66
This fine terrace on Rectory Grove, ending at Turret Grove has the name above it Cromwell Cottages is unlisted, unlike many other properties along the street. Rectory Grove leads to the churchyard of St Paul’s Church which was the original parish church of Clapham around which the village from the 12th century, although the current church dates from 1815.
The tiny village began to grow when people fled London during the plague and the Great Fire and it became a fashionable place to live in the l8th century. By then the area further south and around the common was becoming the centre of the village which expanded greatly in the early nineteenth century.
More from Rectory Grove and Clapham in the next instalment of pictures from this walk shortly.
