Wednesday, 8 March 2017

Julian Wall lived here

Markets seem to be everywhere we visit. Today, we took a couple of buses to Brixton to learn a little about the area, but there was a market on, of course, which tended to occupy a chunk of our day. Though, not all.

We sat on a giant snakelike stone seat stretching out over the big square in the centre of Brixton, Windrush Square, to look back in time a little, as we got talking to local folk about their place. Here, as in our 'burb at Fulham, the land was once part of the expansive manor lands held by the church: in this instance, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was all rural until the early eighteen hundreds, with just a few private dwellings dotting field after endless field, these filled with grazing sheep.

Impossible to believe that today, given this dense urban landscape. How much it has grown. And not always for the better. As time went on, and as the population in central London was bursting at the seams, acts of parliament in the early 19th century enabled developers to move in on church lands and open them for subdivision. And being just 4 miles cross country from the heart of heaving London made development here a sure thing.

The sheep were pushed out. Fields were acquired and levelled. Hoards of builders moved in with their Portland stone and red brick stock and residential estates popped up overnight. City dwellers sought to move to the 'country' away from the smells and the sludge of the dirty inner city; and as the railway followed, the area became a thriving middle class hub. Alive, well and thrumming. And, in those post-Napoleanic days, with the air seething with whiffs of radical atheism and revolutionary fervour Parliament thought to encourage continued allegiance to the morals and the values embodied in the Church of England, and to that end funded the building of a new church in this new suburb, St Matthews, just down the road from the town hall. Close.

And so Brixton evolved. Right through to the second world war. Then, as massive rebuilding projects demanded more and more labour to repair the war damage, Britain encouraged workers from its empire to migrate, to help in the war recovery effort. The first group arrived in 1948 aboard the SS Empire Windrush. From Jamaica. 493 workers. Who, in time, would change the very face of war-torn London. Brixton's main square is today named Windrush Square.

After disembarking at the Tilbury docks the new workers were given living space in a disused air-raid shelter opened for them underneath the common in Clapham.* How dark and dismal it must have seemed after the sunny climes of Jamaica. Their closest employment office was here in Brixton. In Coalharbour Lane. Not far from where John Major, a later Prime Minister, lived as a boy.

Over the decades, more and more workers migrated from parts of the Empire, and understandably, chose housing close to what they were familiar with: Brixton and its surrounds. Streets of architecturally-decorative homes, many with pretty curlicued porticoes, were replaced with massive spare brick block of ugly housing estate buildings. 

Some of which were constructed to operate, literally, as sound barriers between potential motorways yet to be designed and built, and the city scape. Some are so ugly and so brutal in appearance that is not surprising that they have become notorious for violent eruptions and disruption. More than one spokesperson for the community has expressed the heartfelt wish that some of these habitation blocks be burnt to a cinder, so that their like can never be a part of the community again. One of the most notorious, Southwyck House, on Coalharbour Lane, was once described by John Major as "grey, sullen wastelands, robbing people of self-respect". Unfortunately, Majors had been on the committee that had actually approved this buildings construction, so that, too, caused uproar.

Brixton, the suburb, now has an Afro-Caribean population more than double that of the London suburban average and it shows in its colourful market, along with squatters, as shown in a wall plaque we came across on Carlton Mansion, also on Coalharbour Lane. This building was used as a housing cooperative for over thirty years, many were artists, politically activated, who moved in and made it a home: some of them quite noted, exhibiting alongside Damien Hirst. 

One of the squatters, Julian Wall, was so beloved by other residents that when he was very poorly and had to spend time in hospital other locals banded together to repaint and recarpet his squat rooms so that he would be more comfortable when he came home. It is that sort of community. Julian died in 1989. He was much loved. His story lives on.

Though not all artists have been favourably received here. Above a market building at the corner of Electric Avenue a graduate of a nearby art school recycled materials into a sculpture of foxes and cherries set high above Brixton in 2010.   Some people loved it.  Some did not.   Many thought Brixton deserved public art that reflected the flavour of its community.  Yet, this, too, still stands.  

*Note: We learned last night that this air raid shelter has now become an underground urban hydroponic vegetable farm, producing massive amounts of baby spinach, sprouts and micro-leaves for the London market. Amazing the evolution of things.









Colour pink, colour yellow



Southwyck House 





Julian Wall lived here







Bright and cheerful fabrics are everywhere








Breadfruit, yams, cassava, sugar-cane and plantain







Offal meats, including tripe from goat and cow











Pastel de yuca, cassava cake stuffed with beef and rice 












Historic arcades with shops and cafes from the trendy to the down-at-heel






World class street art

Street art everywhere







Lovely old historic buildings we hope survive the wrecker's ball.




Have you seen the old girl 
who walks the streets of London 
cap on her hair and her clothes in bags? 
She's no time for talking, 
she keeps right on walking 
carrying her home in her carrier bags.









Fox and cherries sculpture














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