El Partido – A 1960s Lewisham Music Venue

A while ago Running Past covered one of the more significant music venues in Lee, the still closed (mid 2022) Dirty South, the last incarnation of the Rose of Lee. A bit further down Lee High Road was El Partido, a short-lived club from early 1964 until some point towards the end of 1967.  For a small venue above some shops away from central London it was able to attract a number of bands and artists who went onto have very successful careers including Elton John, Status Quo, influential prog rock band Gentle Giant., along with Jimmy Cliff early in his career and Bo Diddley a little past his peak.

El Partido was above numbers 8-12 Lee High Road, on the other side of the entrance to Clarendon Yard to the Sultan – a drinking haunt of Siouxsie Sioux amongst others.  The buildings for both have gone, 8-12 is pictured on the right of the photograph below – mid-way between signs for Bonds Hats and the Coal Office from around 6 decades before.

When it opened it was probably above Jay’s Furnishing, hire purchase furnishers, whose ghost sign remains around the corner in Clarendon Rise, they had been there since the 1930s although they seem to have gone by 1965 and shop fronts below were empty. Whether their departure is linked to El Partido’s arrival isn’t clear.

El Partido was described as ‘a hangout for Mods  and Jamaicans ….2 floors of live R&B, blues, ska and reggae, open all night and very noisy.’ In playing this mixture of music, particularly the reggae, it was unusual in the Lewisham of the mid 1960s. The club was described in a post on Transpontine blog as having 

‘…. a small stage and very low ceilings just the place for live acts. Usually with two sound systems, one on each floor…..The smell of hash in the air people dancing everywhere.’ 

It appears to have gone through at least two phases of ownership, one when it was managed by Peter Rollins, with ownership by his brother John. The other owner was Bryan Mason, who also managed The Loose Ends who in turn frequently played at El Partido. The dates of either period of ownership aren’t particularly clear though.

The Loose Ends cut a couple of singles with Decca, including Tax Man from 1966 (Decca had a distribution centre further up Lee High Road, but that was a decade later).

Another regular was  Duke Lee who either performed and/or was DJ on numerous occasions.

In the early period at the beginning of 1964, one of the bands to play was The Spectres, who were an early incarnation of Status Quo – the band had its roots at Sedgehill School where Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster had met and by this stage included drummer John Coghlan.

One of the best known (when he played) names to appear at El Partido was Bo Diddley in October 1965, although he was past his peak in terms of success.  Nonetheless a set from Bo Diddley would have been something of a coup for the club. He had played numerous styles and influenced artists from Buddy Holly to the Beatles and the Clash. A couple of years before he had toured the UK with Little Richard, the Rolling Stones and the Everly Brothers. 

Elton John (pictured a few years later), at that stage known as Reg Dwight, played with his then band, Bluesology, a couple of times in late 1965 and early 1966.  Dwight’s alter ego, Elton John, wasn’t to emerge for another year or so.  Bluesology also acted as the backing band for  Major Lance a significant R&B and later Northern Soul artist who also appeared at El Partido in late 1965. Similarly Bluesology also provided the backing for the influential R&B singer Doris Troy in early 1966.  She was later well known for being one of the backing singers on Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’

Simon Dupree and the Big Sound played there in early 1966, a psychedelic band, they neither included anyone called ‘Simon’, ‘Dupree’ and despite a hit with ‘Kite’, didn’t become ‘Big’; they nearly recruited the aforementioned keyboard player Reg Dwight who toured with them for a while in 1967.  However, the Shulman brothers who made up most of the band, had some success and much more influence with the slightly odd prog rock band Gentle Giant in the 1970s.

The Drifters appeared there in early 1966; whether it was THE Drifters or a British group using the same name isn’t clear, if it was THE Drifters it isn’t clear which of the numerous variants it was.

In April 1966 Jimmy Cliff played, it would have been one of his earlier UK gigs soon after he signed to Island Records.  On the same bill was Duke Reid who ‘dominated the Jamaican music scene of the 1960s, specialising in ska and rocksteady’ probably doing a DJ set at El Partido. A few weeks earlier Wilson Pickett was meant to have played but there seems to have been a double booking.  Cliff was to return to El Partido in August 1966. (The album cover is from a couple of years later)

Carl Douglas was to appear a couple of times in the summer of 1966, eight years before his big hit – Kung Fu Fighting

The ‘Unbreakable’ Tea Set alas seem not to have been an early incarnation of Pink Floyd; the July date was in the summer of 1966 – they’d been known as Pink Floyd since late 1965, although the name change may have been prompted by, appearing on the same bill as the ‘unbreakable’ version.

El Partido seems to have closed down in 1967, the reasons aren’t completely clear but there seem to have been a number of drug raids from the constabulary.

The building was redeveloped into a fairly nondescript shop and office mix, probably in the mid 1990s, certainly it predates StreetView and the current Lewisham Planning Portal – a dental practice now occupies the cavity that Elton John performed in four times.

And finally …..there is a rumour of an appearance (although not performance) of Jimi Hendrix at El Partido. There are a fair number of rumours like this in the area, including a stay at the Station Hotel at Hither Green. There isn’t any clear evidence for any of them, but it is part of the musical folklore of the area, which is depicted in a mural in Manor Park close by.

Credits

• The Kelly’s Directory information comes via Lewisham and Southwark Archives
• The photograph of the lower end of Lee High Road is via Lewisham Archives, it is used with their permission but remains their copyright
• The picture of Bo Diddley is on a Creative Commons via Wikipedia, as is the 1971 photo of Elton John
• The Jimmy Cliff album cover is also from By All Music Guide, Fair use license via Wikipedia
• The dates of when acts performed at El Partido come from Garage Hangover
• The advert for El Partido was a screen shot from Facebook a few years ago, it almost certainly originated in the music press, probably Melody Maker where the club regularly advertised. If its your image and you want me to take it down do let me know.

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A Faded Sydenham Ghost Sign of a Fine Sign Writer

Knighton Park Road in Sydenham is a street of small late Victorian three bedroom houses, typical of its era.  Apart from a few cars that use it as a cut through to try to avoid the traffic lights at the junction of Sydenham Road and Kent House Road, it’s very quiet once you get away from the internal combustion noise of the main road.

It isn’t an obvious location for looking for advertising ‘ghost signs’, like their modern billboard counterparts, they tended to be on main roads, in prominent locations, but this wasn’t an ordinary ghost sign – on the corner with Hillmore Grove there was a fading ochre painted advertising sign relating to ‘H Price.’

Henry Price lived and worked from 39 Knighton Park Road from before just World War Two to around his death in 1973; he painted signs and advertising boards as well as cars, vans and trucks.  His handiwork was on the corner of the house he used to live in.

The sign was striking, but much more impressive are the signs that he painted on the sides of vans, often those for a variety of stationery firms.  The stunning one below on a 20 cwt Morrison-Electricar has been shared by his grandson through Geograph  on a creative commons, but there are several others which have been scanned as part of a set on Flickr.

Sadly the sign is no more – I had waited for the perfect photograph opportunity on the north facing wall, hoping for the adjacent tree to be covered with spring blossom and combined with a lack of vans, trucks or cars before writing this post.  That perfect opportunity sadly never arose and, alas dear reader, the sign is gone – the house has been extended upwards and outwards and the outside render along with its ochre sign has been replaced.

This is no criticism of the owner or developer, signs like this are generally not protected, although their value is beginning to be recognised in some boroughs and local listing has given to a few signs in Hackney.

There are better examples in Lewisham that tell more of the history of trades and shopping such as those to the family of outfitters John Campion in Catford and the painters and grainers C Holdaway & Son at the bottom of Belmont Hill that perhaps are more worthy of protection.

 

 

As the locations are being recorded and photographed on websites such as Ghostsigns, vast numbers probably don’t need to be protected.  In any case those that have survived generally only remain by chance – their location has protected them as in the case of the Campion one, or they have been hidden behind more modern advertising hoardings such as the Holdaway sign.  In any case, the signs were not designed to last that long and left to the elements will rapidly fade – the Wittals sign on the corner of Bankwell Road and Lee High Road was clear when it first emerged from behind a hoarding around 2005 but is now barely visible.  In any case, it is often the story ‘behind’ the sign that is more interesting than the sign itself – helping tell stories of lost trades, 19^th century migration into the city and shopping patterns that have changed.

 

A Hither Green Ghost Sign of a Long ‘Lost’ Brewery

In the middle of a row of shops on Hither Green Lane is a single-storey building, which seems oddly out of place in the two/three storey late Victorian properties – it has created some advertising space which remains filled by a painted ‘ghost sign’ which, at its very latest was painted in 1909 – more on that later.  The single-storey building may have originally been the same size as the rest of the terrace, the building was destroyed in a fire in 1894 (1).

The sign has clearly gone through at least two incarnations, painted over the top of each other, and have unevenly weathered, it appears to read – ‘Fox & Sons’. Below that is ‘…nborough’, then ‘Ales Stout’ and finally ‘In bottle and cask’.  There looks to be ‘wine’ in the midst too.

It is quite common for ‘ghost signs’ to relate to the business on the side of the building that it was painted on – Running Past has covered several including John Campion & Sons in Catford, a bakers in Sandhurst Road, Catford, a now hidden one at Lee Green and perhaps my favourite Wallace Prings Chemists in Bromley.

Fox & Sons were brewers from Green Street Green in Farnborough, now on the edge of Bromley. In the period up until the end of World War 1, and probably much longer, 210 Hither Green Lane seems to have been one of a pair of butchers shops on Hither Green Lane run by Joseph Hurdidge.  Hurdidge was born in Old Ford in 1865 and seems to have taken over the (presumably) tenancy of the 132 Hither Green Lane around 1890 and probably expanded to 210 when the shops were developed a little later.  Hurdidge certainly remained in the trade and remained in the Lewisham area for the rest of his life – in the 1939 Register he was still working but widowed and living at 78 Eltham Road, Lee, where he died in 1952.

There were a couple of off licences on Hither Green Lane – one just to the north of Harvard Road, run for years by a Robert Mott and one adjacent to Woodlands Street run by Florence Jackson.  Neither was mentioned in the sign though, although they may have sold bottled Fox and Co beer. More likely though is that there was a very short-lived off licence in the single story building next door – there is a photo of it but it didn’t seem to last long enough to make local directories.

Like most modern advertising billboards, it seems to have been a more general sign which the Brewery probably repeated in many locations – there is a postcard of a still serving pub from around 1906, the British Queen in Locksbottom, with an identical advertisement on the building side.

Source eBay April 2016

So what of the brewery? John Fox (born around 1787 in Buckinghamshire) had moved to Green Street Green in 1818 to run Oak Farm.  He brewed a little for himself and his employees but decided to set up a proper brewery on the site in the 1830s.  The business was taken over by his son Thomas (born 1819) who was still running the brewery (pictured below) with his sons in the 1881 census, but died in 1886. The third generation, Thomas (born 1852) and Walter St John Fox (born 1855), took full control after their father’s death.

Source here

By the mid 1860s they had three main beers – BB Bitter, which they sold at £2 a barrel, XL Pale Ale at £2.25, and East India Pale Ale for £2.50 cash price.   All had been “carefully brewed from malt of the finest quality and they are hopped with the best Kent growths.”  They delivered to most of the then rural suburbs of south east London – including Lee and Lewisham every Thursday.  By 1891 the Oak Brewery was attempting to mimic the Burton Pale Ales and treated the water with gypsum, quarried by the River Trent to try to do this.

By 1909 they had expanded their range of beer – the best known was Farnborough Ale (FA) – which they described as ‘bright, sparking and nutritious.’ They had almost 40 tied public houses and employed 110 workers in brewing, distribution as well as associated trades such as barrel making and a blacksmith.  The brewery was the centre of village life in Green Street Green, with around 30 tied cottages.

Early in the 20^th century, the brothers may have been in some financial problems – they were certainly re-mortgaging some of the ‘tied houses’ in 1906.  The partnership was dissolved in 1907 and they decided to retire, putting the brewery put up for sale including its ‘tied houses.’ (2 – see cutting below).

It was not a good time to sell – values in the brewing industry were falling sharply (3), the 1904 Licensing Act gave magistrates more powers to refuse licences, particularly if there were a number of pubs in the area, although the value of the smaller number licences was expected to increase (4).

The Oak Brewery was bought in June 1907 for £89,000 (5); but the new owners clearly struggled and there was a second auction in April 1908 (6), but with a ‘reserve’ of £60,000 it failed to attract any interest.  It was split into smaller lots in June 1909 (7 – see below) with other breweries buying up the tied houses.  As brewing stopped in July 1909, presumably there was a separate sale of the buildings which were put to a variety of other uses after 1909 including military uses in the First World War and a later a plastic factory. The buildings were demolished for housing in the 1960s.

Notes

1. The Times (London, England), Monday, Dec 10, 1894; pg. 10; Issue 34443.
2. The Times (London, England), Saturday, May 18, 1907; pg. 20; Issue 38336.
3. The Times (London, England), Saturday, Dec 28, 1907; pg. 13; Issue 38528.
4. Ibid
5. The Times (London, England), Saturday, Jun 19, 1909; pg. 15; Issue 38990.
6. Ibid
7. ibid

Census and related information comes from Find My Past

Kelly’s Directory data is from the Collection at Leicester University

 

 

 

A Bromley Ghost Sign – Uridge’s Stores

There is a well preserved ghost sign on the side of the top storey of the  Bromley Bike Co shop on Widmore Road.  I have been in the shop, stood at bus stops opposite but had never looked up until it was mentioned to me on twitter after posting on the Wallace Pring sign at Bromley Common.

The business was run by Isaac Uridge.  However, it wasn’t the first shop of a similar name in the area.  The first was opened by Isaac’s father, also Issac, who had moved with his wife Elizabeth to Bromley in 1855 where they opened a shop at at 12-13 Market Square.

The shop had clearly become well known, such that by 1872 when there were calls for greater traffic involvement from the police due to the level of accidents at ‘Uridges Corner’.

Isaac, senior, died in 1874 and it appears that at least some of the older children carried on the business until around 1881 at the Market Square, as there were still Uridges listed as living there in the census.  However, by the 1882 Kelly’s Directory, the Market Square shop was no longer trading.  This seems likely to be because the building was demolished to widen the road.  The building on the corner, now Café Rouge, is dated 1883.

The two oldest children Henry and William were running the same business at 15 Widmore Road, a few doors doors down from the sign, and now a Pizza Express.  Kellys listed them as grocers, wine and sprit merchants and were agents for W & A Gilbey – who were then wine retailers, they didn’t add their own brand gin to their portfolio until 1895.

The brothers’ partnership was dissolved in late 1884, though William continued the business opening new shops in Blackheath (Shooters Hill Road) and Chislehurst.  Henry and William both married 2nd cousins of Bromley’s famous ‘son’, HG Wells, (Marion & Minnie respectively) and both died young, William in 1895 aged around 37. The shops formerly run by William in Blackheath and Widmore Road were quickly disposed of.  The executors of his will were still running the shop in Chislehurst in the 1913 Kelly’s.

Isaac (junior) was born in 1866 and by 1903 was running the shop with the ghost sign at 27 Widmore Road as well as another at 25 Masons Hill. By 1913 (Kelly’s) he had extended the business to include a shop at 2-4 London Road, Sevenoaks.

Isaac took over the  W & A Gilbey franchise, and described the shop as ‘High Class Stores’ in an advertisement in a 1906 Bromley Public Library Bulletin which had them selling groceries, fresh and dried fruits, provisions, wines and spirits, pork and poultry, ales and stout – an early incarnation of Waitrose, perhaps?

The business was certainly trading into the early 1950s and possibly beyond, although it is not clear whether it was still at Widmore Road and how long they remained in the family – the Sevenoaks shops was sold in 1938, when Isaac would have been 72. However, it is possible that his daughter, Ella, may have continued to run the business.

 

Ghost Signs – Charles Holdaway, a Lewisham Painter

This very well preserved ghost sign, next to the bowling alley on Belmont Hill in Lewisham was uncovered in early 2014, the previous advertising hoarding having been removed. Despite my expectation that it would be re-covered with a more modern advertising display, aimed at almost constant stream of drivers and bus passengers stopped at the traffic lights, it still there (mid 2017).

The C Holdaway was probably Charles Parneth Holdaway, although as it was almost certainly a family business, by the time the sign was written it may have been his son who was also Charles.

Graining was something common in the 19th and early 20th century – it was essentially either creating a wood grain effect on a non-wood surface or imitating hard, expensive woods by applying a thin layer of paint onto soft woods such as pine to mimic hardwoods such as mahogany.

The exact vintage of the sign is not completely clear, although it is certainly some time before 1912, as around halfway down on the left hand side there is an old street name, Granville Mews, painted over the advertisement. This name was replaced with its present name, Myron Place, in 1912.

Charles, senior, was born at Woodford in Essex in 1845. This predated the arrival of the railway there by a decade, so it is likely to have been largely rural in character. He had clearly moved away from the area by his early 20s, as he had married to Maria who was from Pimilco, and they had a son, Charles junior, was born in Brixton in 1868.

By the 1881 census they were living at 36 Molesworth Street, although given the birthplace and years of the other children, they had spent at least 5 years in Stratford en route from Brixton.

There was probably originally an address for the business on the sign, but this was undoubtedly lower down the wall and is now covered by several layers of paint. While this could have been Molesworth Street, it is much more likely to have been a little further up the road towards Blackheath at 27 Belmont Hill, where the family was living in 1891. Belmont Hill was the location given in the various adverts that appeared for the firm in the short-lived Blackheath Gazette in the early 1890s, a November 1892 edition included

C. Holdaway, Plumber and Painter, 3, Belmont Hill, Lee. Special attention given to Sanitary Work, Estimates for General Repairs, Contractor under the London Provincial Sanitary Company ….

Although as other editions had 0, 4 and 27, it may just have been typesetting of pre-computer Guardian levels of accuracy.

By the 1901 (and in the 1911 census) they had moved to the other side of, what would then have been known as Lee Bridge, at 33 Lewis Grove where they had a shop front. Charles, senior, was still listed as working at 68 in 1911.

Charles, junior, was at least in the same ‘trade’, working at a ‘paper hanger’ in 1901, probably in the family business. He lived close by at 59 Cressingham Road. He is listed for the same trade in 1911, but three doors away from where he was living in 1881, at 30 Molesworth Street.

Ghost Signs in Catford and Lewisham

I had an interesting run last Sunday, triggered by a detour earlier in the week stopping in traffic by a couple of ‘Ghost Signs’ in Catford. I vaguely remembered that there were a few more in the area and set off to explore.

Ghost signs are old hand-painted advertising signage which pre-dated the paper advertising hoardings. There are some fantastic blogs on ghost signs, particularly on Caroline’s Miscellany, which covers a lot of other interesting things too.

The first was en route, and is on the corner of Lee High Road and Bankwell Road in Lewisham. This was hidden for years under an advertising hoarding but became visible a few years ago.

Witalls was a car dealership on the opposite corner from the 1930s to the 1970s. It was housed in what was previously a cinema, the Lee Picture Palace, later to be Central Hall Pictures, before becoming a WW1 munitions factory.

More recently the building was home to Penfold’s car showroom and an upstairs snooker hall, but was demolished in the early 2000s for flats and a health centre.

There are seveal ghost signs around around Sandhurst Road in Catford. The first is on Muirkirk Road, for baker and pastry cook, the name was presumably in a different paint and has worn off.

On the corner of Muirkirk Road and Sandhurst Road, over the door of a supermarket, is a butcher’s sign.

At the other end of the terrace of shops that used to be called Sandhurst Market, on the corner of Inchmery Road, is a much less clear sign that has deteriorated in recent years for a chemist and druggist, over a present day pharmacy.

Behind it is my favourite of the area, that of an ‘hygienic’ baker, the least one would expect; the sign dates from the 1930s or 1940s, although there was a bakers there from 1907, and there is a sign at the rear advertising Hovis.

The bakers were Warner Bros….so I should sign off with a a phrase that originates from the same era ‘That’s All Folks!’