The final episode in in the series of posts on my walk in south London on Sunday 6th May 1989. The walk began with Hanover, Belgrave, Chapel, Shops, Taxis. The previous post was Railton Road, Herne Hill.
I turned into Dulwich Road and walked up it towards Brixton, stopping to make very few pictures, perhaps keen to get to the end of the walk. Just before reaching Water Lane on the side of what was then Ellis Newsagents at 1a Dulwich Road I couldn’t resist the finely painted sign ‘
S Cooltan
ERRINGTON
DEALER IN
ANTIQUE
&
MODERN
FURNITURE
FURNITURE
BOUGHT
SOLD OR
in drop capitals, decorated with some fine curly bits. Clearly something at the bottom following the ‘OR’ had been painted over, but I couldn’t decide what it might have been. Perhaps ‘EXCHANGED’ or ‘HIRED’?
The property now looks to be residential, but on Google Maps it still appears as:
S Errington Dealer In Antique & Modern Furniture
Home Furniture Shop
Temporarily closed
and that sign is still there, rather more faded and with the lettering now looking very much plainer. Unfortunately although I will have had a camera body with colour film in my bag I did’t photograph this in colour. Some days I only thought in black and white.
I walked along Brixton Water Lane, taking a couple of pictures (not digitised) on my way to Effra Road. The the names suggest I was following the route of the River Effra, underground since the early nineteenth century, but in fact I had been doing so all the way down from Herne Hill and was now walking away from it. Effra Road got its name from Effra Farm which was on the bank of the river.
The former Suntan lotion factory was squatted and in June 1991 became the CoolTan Arts Centre. They were evicted in February 1992, and the centre moved first to offices above Brixton Cycles before squatting the former Unemployment Benefit Offices in Coldharbour Lane. There it became a thriving art space, with a cafe, live music and offices for various campaign groups including Reclaim the Streets, Earth First! and the Green Party until 1995, when the building was taken over by The Voice newspaper – who boarded it up and left it empty and rotting. The Effra Road factory was demolished shortly after their eviction and remained as empty unused ground for over ten years.
But Cooltan Arts continued. From 1993-2016 Michelle Baharier was, as she writes in her statement on the South London Women Artists site, “Founder, Artistic Director and CEO of CoolTan Arts, London. In twenty-five years, I grew CoolTan Arts from an old suntan lotion factory squatted social centre in Brixton to a user-led disabled people’s arts and mental health charity. CoolTan Arts worked with over three thousand people face-to-face per year with its participatory art programme. The charity improved the lives of individuals with mental distress through creativity, self-advocacy, and volunteer opportunities within the arts. During my tenure at CoolTan I developed psycho-geography walks and other collaborative events with different communities.”
Clearly I was intrigued by this empty 1930s moderne factory and by its gates and their shadows. Unfortunately the gates were locked and although the fence was fairly low the location seemed a little public for me to climb over and explore the site further though it was more decorative than a real barrier. Eventually I managed to tear myself away and continue my walk, taking a few pictures not online as I walked past St Matthews Church and on to Brixton Hill.
The Tarpaulin & Ten Mfg Co, T&T was for many years in the former cinema, which was converted from shops and opened on 10th March 1911 as Brixton Hill Cinematograph Theatre, and was 13th of Montagu A. Pyke’s chain of Cinematograph Theatres. Pyke went out of business when he was jailed after his projectionist in his cinema died in a fire in 1914, and the cinema was taken over by others. It changed its name then and several other times over the years, operating under names including ‘New Royalty’, ‘New Royalty Kinema’ and finally the Clifton.
It showed its last film in 1957 and deteriorated badly before becoming the T&T shop. I think this kept going into this century and the building was up for sale in 2004 and became the Dalxiis Somalian restaurant. By 2008 the auditorium had been demolished and the front of the cinema had become the South Beach Bar, which lost its licence in 2012. In 2015-6 it was ‘Believers Home Chapel’ , in 2018 the S.G.H Events Hall and in 2019 the TAMI Gospel Centre of The Anointed Ministry International, though still with the South Beach Bar sign on that metal structure, empty in my picture at roof level that had once carried the The New Royalty Kinema and Camping Centre signs.
I went down Blenheim Gardens, photographing this building, dating from 1891 and still in use by the Royal Mail as Brixton Delivery Office, and the windmill, before walking through the back streets between Brixton Hill and Tulse Hill on a roundabout way to Brixton Water Lane to catch a bus on my way home at the end of my long walk.