Brixton footbridge

[zenazena]

paulie, i wish you hadn't brought this up now ... i've become obsessed trying to find a picture of it - it wasn't there in 1960 judging by pictures and wasn't there again in 1981 so it didn't last long ... waste of money but i liked it maybe there are no pictures of it cos it looked really shit and ugly.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Have just spoken to another person and he reckons it was there later than the early 70s and maybe even the early 80s and that it was taken away and a zebra crossing (the current crossing) replaced it

So now I'm totally confused

 

[poster342002]

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I once saw an old picture of another footbridge over Brixton Road further up by the junction where KFC is now. Afraid I can't recall where I saw this picture as it was so long ago (we're talking over 10 years that I saw this).

 

[Paulie]

Have just spoken to another person and he reckons it was there later than the early 70s and maybe even the early 80s and that it was taken away and a zebra crossing (the current crossing) replaced it

So now I'm totally confused

The crossing was there concurrently with the bridge - most people opted to cross at street level. It was mainly the nippers like myself - wanting the thrill of seeing buses appear to skim 2 inches below you - who went up and over...

I also reckon Minnie is right about it being built with the tube station - I remember it from that period and it certainly wasn't any older judging by the lack of civic pride in its design.

I couldn't find a pic nor can anyone here - is it London's most enigmatic lost thingy?

 

[editor]

Have just spoken to another person and he reckons it was there later than the early 70s and maybe even the early 80s and that it was taken away and a zebra crossing (the current crossing) replaced it

So now I'm totally confused

It doesn't look like it was there in this 1963 view:

http://www.urban75.org/brixton/history/dorrell.html

 

[lang rabbie]

I couldn't find a pic nor can anyone here - is it London's most enigmatic lost thingy?

Pictures of The Telegraph on Brixton Hill in its bizarre 1970s polystyrene cladding looking like a Dr Who set appear to be equally elusive. (One sign on the back in mock OCR lettering survived into the 1990s IIRC)

 

[ThorHawkDru]

You mean it connected Morleys to the tube station? When did this bridge exist because I've never seen any pictures of it.

It existed until the early 80s. It didn't connect Morleys, it was outside of Morleys. It had this kind of wooden feel to it and it was heavily used as the traffic lights outside of Brixton tube you see today, was only put there to replace the bridge.

I can remember the bridge well, but I'm banging my head against my desk in annoyance because I can't remember much about the stairs!

I can understand how the opening poster would have been shitting themselves as a child on the thing. Because not only was it wooden, it was fucking busy. Imagine all those people that use the traffic lights between the tube and Morleys, using a wooden bridge instead! Very intimidating for a small child being dragged along by their mother on a busy Saturday. It was easy to get split up from the person you was crossing with!

Edit to add - it would have been a muggers paradise at night...

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Because not only was it wooden, it was fucking busy.

That's what my friend said, and thinks (from what he can remember) that the idea was scrapped and a crossing was installed

 

[ThorHawkDru]

Well it wasn't there in 1981 during the riots

If it wasn't it must have been taken down earlier that year, but I think it was there a bit later. I reckon it was taken down in about 1982 / 1983.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Enid is right. There was a furniture shop where McDs is now. I bought a bunk bed there for my eldest daughter so she could have friends stay over...she was probably about 9 or 10 then iirc and she's 34 now, so it was a while ago.

 

[editor]

Enid is right. There was a furniture shop where McDs is now. I bought a bunk bed there for my eldest daughter so she could have friends stay over...she was probably about 9 or 10 then iirc and she's 34 now, so it was a while ago.

It was "Isaac Walton & Co, a 'hosier, hatter and boys' outfitters" back in the 30s!

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Enid is right. There was a furniture shop where McDs is now. I bought a bunk bed there for my eldest daughter so she could have friends stay over...she was probably about 9 or 10 then iirc and she's 34 now, so it was a while ago.

but there was another furniture shop the other side, where was that? Where Robills was?

I bought my wardrobe from there in 1982

 

[poster342002]

I can remember the bridge well, but I'm banging my head against my desk in annoyance because I can't remember much about the stairs!

I think they were sort of black-creosoted wooden steps. You could see the road between each step. I think ...

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

If it wasn't it must have been taken down earlier that year, but I think it was there a bit later. I reckon it was taken down in about 1982 / 1983.

 

[sleepyjohn]

I started secondary school in 1979 and I'm sure the bridge was gone then.

 

[ats]

It was "Isaac Walton & Co, a 'hosier, hatter and boys' outfitters" back in the 30s!

I never knew that before.

Isaac Walton used to be a big shop in Newcastle on Tyne. I used to go there with my Mum to buy my school uniforms. They had one of those compressed air systems for dealing with the cash.

They're still going, just, as a bespoke tailors providing gamekeepers clothing, regimental ties and barristers' collars (see http://www.isaacwaltontailoring.co.uk/gamekeeper/index.php) , but in in the early sixties they were a big, rather stuffy, department store. But I never knew they had a branch in London.

(Unless, of course, there was another Isaac Walton in the same business. But it seems unlikely.)

 

[jayeola]

I don't remember any f/b

 

[lang rabbie]

...in in the early sixties they were a big, rather stuffy, department store. But I never knew they had a branch in London.

(Unless, of course, there was another Isaac Walton in the same business. But it seems unlikely.)

They had their headquarters at the Elephant & Castle, occupying the former Tarn's Department store from sometime after 1910 until it was bombed out in 1940.

Winter fashions by Isaac Walton & Co. for gentlemen's, boys' and juvenile tailoring and outfitting. Isaac Walton & Co. manufacturers of. superior clothing. London 97, 99, 101 Newington Causeway, 442 & 444 Holloway Road London, N. North of England Branch : - 27, 29 & 31, Grainger Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

 

[zenazena]

It doesn't look like it was there in this 1963 view:

http://www.urban75.org/brixton/history/dorrell.html

this picture is further up brixton road though (looking at superdrug / m&s) - the bridge was outside morley's / tube.

 

[Xeno]

.

 

[haushoch]

I think I might have found a picture of the footbridge (well, at least a section of it).

It was first published in 1980 in this book:

It does say 'In Brixton' above the photo. Could it be the footbridge?

 

[editor]

I think I might have found a picture of the footbridge (well, at least a section of it).

It does say 'In Brixton' above the photo. Could it be the footbridge?

It's Brixton all right and it does look like there's steps up to the footbridge (although there's a woman and a kid crossing the road).

Nice work! And love the comb over!

If it's OK with you, I'll post the pic on the Brixton section and link back to this thread to try and get more info.

 

[quimcunx]

Oooh, interesting.

 

[zenazena]

I think I might have found a picture of the footbridge (well, at least a section of it).

It does say 'In Brixton' above the photo. Could it be the footbridge?

well done you!!! that is definitely it. i looked for hours on the internet trying to find a picture with any glimpse of it in.
you can make out on the bus stop the no. 172 bus which stopped running some time in the 80s i think.

 

[haushoch]

It's Brixton all right and it does look like there's steps up to the footbridge (although there's a woman and a kid crossing the road).

Nice work! And love the comb over!

If it's OK with you, I'll post the pic on the Brixton section and link back to this thread to try and get more info.

Sure, no worries. I scanned the picture in from the book. If you want to I can scan it in in better quality still and email it to you or something? The photo is credited to a photographer called Michael Kadereit. There are two other nice pics on the same page from the same period, though sadly one is spread across the fold. And there's one from the Brixton riots taken in Railton Road in front of the Railton Free Off Licence. I could scan all of them in if anyone's interested?

 

[editor]

Sure, no worries. I scanned the picture in from the book. If you want to I can scan it in in better quality still and email it to you or something? The photo is credited to a photographer called Michael Kadereit. There are two other nice pics on the same page from the same period, though sadly one is spread across the fold. And there's one from the Brixton riots taken in Railton Road in front of the Railton Free Off Licence. I could scan all of them in if anyone's interested?

That would be grand.

Please mail the pics to: mike ---- at --- urban75.com.

Cheers!

 

[haushoch]

That would be grand.

Please mail the pics to: mike ---- at --- urban75.com.

Cheers!

They're on the way.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Excellent work. I knew (but thought I'd imagined it) that it existed, so because I only thought I imagined it, I thought that's exactly what it was IFSWIM

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

well done you!!! that is definitely it. i looked for hours on the internet trying to find a picture with any glimpse of it in.
you can make out on the bus stop the no. 172 bus which stopped running some time in the 80s i think.

same as. I was infuriated that I couldn't find anything.

how did OP come across this book?

 

[haushoch]

same as. I was infuriated that I couldn't find anything.

how did OP come across this book?

I bought the book in 1987 before I came over to London for my very first holiday on my own (i.e. without my parents). It's great. Anders Reisen means alternative travelling. Lots of suggestions in there that take you off the beaten track and away from the typical tourist spots, which is exactly what I wanted to do.

The Brixton photos appear in a chapter where the authors suggest you take a journey on the 159 bus.

The book's been sitting on my book shelf for ages, but I had friends over from Germany at the weekend, so we dug it out, even though it's wildly out of date now, and as I was flicking through it I saw that pic with the bridge in it and remembered this thread...