Temperance Billiard Hall

Ravensbourne, Quaggy & More -Lewisham – 1990

Ravensbourne, Quaggy & More -Lewisham: The real end of my walks on April 1st 1990 was a short walk around Lewisham. The previous post from these walks was Monkey Business, Wrecked Cars & Roupell – 1990.

*River Ravensbourne, River Quaggy, Lewisham, 1990, 90-4b-11*

Arriving at Lewisham Station I crossed to the opposite platform and walked along it away from the exit to photograph this view looking south along the River Ravensbourne which curves away to the west – towards the right of the frame. Just after the river runs down a small slope it is joined by Lewisham’s other river, the smaller flow of the River Quaggy. There is now a small park, Confluence Park, where the two rivers meet, opened in 2021.

The scrap yard and the car sales and Allied Carpets are gone replace and the whole area redeveloped with tall blocks since around 2020. There is now another tall apartment block – around 15 storeys tall – to the left of the river,

Maggie's Cafe, Silk Mills Path, Lewisham, 1990, 90-4b-14 — Maggie’s Cafe, Silk Mills Path, Lewisham, 1990, 90-4b-14

Silk Mills Path runs alongside the north platform of the station and Maggie’s is still there now offering Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner. It gets excellent customer reviews for its reasonably priced meals and friendly staff. At right one of the arches leads under the railway to Station Road.

Lewisham did have a number of mills using power from the flow of the Ravensbourne, and the silk mills were a short distance downstream on its east bank at the end of Conington Road, close to Elverson Road DLR station. The site is now occupied by flats, built around 20 years ago. The mill had a large mill pond, part of which is now Tesco’s car park.

Although there are still some mulberry trees in the area, the essential feed for the silk worms, the Lewisham mill apparently relied on imported silk.

*Houses, Lewisham High St, Lewisham, 1990, 90-4b-15*

The River Quaggy runs in a an open channel in front of this long terrace at 15-31 Lewisham High Street, some way below street level, emerging into this from a tunnel under the central streets of Lewisham. It can next be seen from a bridge on Clarendon Rise just south of Lee High Road – see below.

*River Ravensbourne, Riverdale House, Molesworth St, Lewisham, 1990, 90-4c-64*

The Ravensbourne runs under recent flats on Molesworth Street and can be seen from the west side of the street where it runs under the railway line there. There is a small park, River Mill Park, with a bridge across the river.

This section of the river was channelled between tall concrete banks I think in the 1960s to alleviate the flood risk. The rather fortress-like Riverdale House was designed by Frederick Gibberd in 1981 as offices. In 2013 planning permission was granted for its conversion into luxury flats.

The site had a mill at the time of the Domesday Book and Riverdale Mill was restored as flats when this new building was erected on the rest of the site. It was built on the site of earlier mills as a leather mill in 1828, later becoming a flour mill and in 1901 was bought and turned into the John Wallis bakery, closing around 1970. It is the only remaining mill building in Lewisham.

*Houses, St Stephens Grove, Lewisham, 1990, 90-4c-66*

The River Quaggy emerges from a tunnel under the end of St Stephen’s Grove where it meets Lewisham High Street at the south side of Saint Stephen With Saint Mark, Lewisham, a Grade II listed Parish Church by Sir George Gilbert Scott built in 1863. This and St Stephen’s Terrace also date from the mid-1860s.

90-4c-52-Edit — *River Quaggy, Clarendon Rise, Lewsiham, 1990, 90-4c-52*

The Quaggy apparently got its name for being very muddy – a real quagmire. Here it runs along the backs of the buildings on Lee High Road.

Following pressure from and plans developed by the Quaggy Waters Action Group under the name Operation Kingfisher in 1995, parts of the river have been restored to a more natural state and brought back above ground. Much of the work already completed has been driven by the need to control flooding by the river.

*Mecca Leisure, Lewisham High St, Lewisham, 1990, 90-4c-54*

Taken from the pavement in front of the building at 233-241 Lewisham High St, this shows some detail of the building, built as a Temperance Billiards Hall in 1910, architect Norman Evans, the company architect for Temperance Billiard Halls Ltd. This Grade II listed building was derelict when bought as new premises for The Tabernacle Church around 2010 and is slowly and carefully being restored – details on their web site.

Later on the walk I photographed the building again from across the road which gives a far better impression of the building when it was in use as a Mecca Bingo Hall – I’ll post this picture in the final post on this walk shortly.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Coldharbour, Atlantic & Brixton Rd – 1989

Coldharbour, Atlantic & Brixton Rd: My walk which began in Clapham on Sunday 4th June 1989 continues in Brixton. It began with Light & Life, Pinter and Stockwell Breweries and the previous post was Bon Marche, Police, Acre Lane and Tate.

*Shops, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-45*

After taking a near-identical image of Electric Avenue to that I posted earlier I moved on to Coldharbour Lane. Rather to my surprise this row of shops is still there, close to the corner with Electric Lane on the south side of the road.

*Clifton Mansions, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-46*

Clifton Mansions, 22 flats at 429 Coldharbour Lane were built set back from the road in 1896 to house workers at the nearby Brixton Theatre, now the Ritzy Cinema and are still reached by a archway between shops at 427 and 431.

They attracted a wide range of squatters in the 1990s, including the Pogues and Jeremy Dellar. The flats were refurbished in 2012. Flats there can now be rented for around £2,500 a month.

*Matlock House, Rushcroft Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-32*

Matlock House looks in rather better condition now and the blocked doorway covered with fly-posting has now been restored. I think the date on the tile above that doorway is 1892. These properties were refurbished in 2015-6 after some 75 squatters living in Rushcroft Road were forcefully evicted in July 2013. You can read about the eviction and see photographs on Brixton Buzz.

Lambeth Council had owned the flats since around 1975 when they had bought them for the constuction of the Innner London Motorway Box, plans for which fortunately were abandoned, as it would have been disastrous for Brixton. Like Clifton Mansions these flats had been built to house artists and technicians from Brixton’s theatre and music halls. The council abandoned the flats and left them to rot, with squatters moving in.

One resident was able to claim “ownership in the House of Lords under the so-called ‘twelve year rule.’ Five Law Lords threw up their hands in exasperation, took a flat away from Lambeth Council and gave it to him, gratis, after more than a decade of Council mismanagement, incompetence, irresponsibility and neglect.”

The squatters formed a neighbourhood association to defend the flats against sale by the council to property developers in 2002. But slowly, despite great public support for the residents the council pressed ahead, destroying a successful community and hugely accelerating the gentrification of Brixton. Flats here are now for sale at around £750,000.

Continental Foods, Coldharbout Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-33 — *Continental Foods, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-33*

Home in 1989 by Continental Foods, this Grade II listed building at 411-417 Coldharbour Lane, was built around 1914 to the designs of of T R Somerford as one of the chain of Temperance Billiard Halls. The company targeted south London in particular because many new pubs were built here around the end of the 19th century.

Since I made the photograph, there have been some changes with the ground floor now divided into a number of shops, including a community police station. Lambeth Council granted planning permission for it to be turned into a hotel in the 1990s, and the rest of the building around 2005 became a hostel with the name London Hotel, but has since been refurbished as flats named Billiard Lodge.

*Shops, Atlantic Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-34*

This row of shops with housing above is between Kellett Road and Saltoun Road on Atlantic Road and includes the Frontline Off Licence. The area around the north end of Railton Road which continues Atlantic Road south of here gained that name after the 1981 clashes with police which became known as the Brixton Uprising or Brixton Riots started here.

*Vote Rudy Naryan, Shop Window, Brixton Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-36*

Rudra (Rudy) Narayan (1938 – 28 1998) was a barrister and civil rights activist who migrated to Britain in the 1953 from Guyana, spending seven years in the British Army before studying at Lincoln’s Inn to become a barrister.

A blue plaque now marks the building at 413 Brixton Road where he had a law practice from 1987-94. Erected by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and the Society of Black Lawyers it remembers him as ‘BARRISTER, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTION, COMMUNITY CHAMPION AND “VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS’. A heavy drinker who was thrown out of chambers for assaulting his head of chambers, he died of cirrhosis of the liver in Kings College Hospital in 1998 following a lengthy battle with alcoholism.

In 1989 Narayan who had been a Labour councillor and once been selected as Labour candidate for Birmingham Handsworth, but then deselected for allegedly anti-Semitic remarks in his books stood as a candidate in the Vauxhall by-election arguing that a largely black area should have a black MP. His campaign failed to attract much support and Labour’s Kate Hoey was elected.

The plaque is above the San Marino coffee shop on the corner with Brixton Station Road. From there I returned to the area around Ferndale Road where a further post will continue this walk.

Voltaire, Billiards & Methodists

Voltaire, Billiards & Methodists continues the account of my walk on Sunday 28th May 1989. The previous post was Postmen, The Majestic and More and the walk began with Lavender Hill & Wandsworth Rd – 1989.

Voltaire Motors, 4 Voltaire Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-62 — *Voltaire Motors, Voltaire Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-62*

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.

*Temperance Billiard Hall, Cato Rd, Clapham High St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-66*

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.