Loughborough Road Histories – round-up of the year and upcoming walks and talks for 2025

Leach Family update:

In May, the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery (FOWNC) kindly published an article I’d written on the Leach family who had a small chain of hardware shops, the first of which opened on Loughborough Road in the 1880s. Thanks to Tony Leach and Paul Adams who have shared incredible images of the family and their memories over the last few years.

The Leach family grave is in West Norwood Cemetery and there is a faded memorial on it to William Nesbeth Leach who was killed in France in the last weeks of World War 1. The memorial was thought to be lost, but there is an incredible story of Tony literally stumbling across it on a visit to West Norwood.

The original blog I wrote on the Leach family can be found here.

Cemetery walks

Keeping on the theme of cemeteries, I teamed up again with the incredible Geoff Simmons to lead walks of Lambeth and Streatham Cemeteries in Tooting. More than 150 people joined us on the four walks in May and September. Thanks to everyone who came.

We shared stories of just a few of the fascinating people buried in these much less well known cemeteries. From music hall performers to the sausage king and vegan pioneers, via campaigners, war heroes and many more people who settled or just passed through south London from all around the world. I’m teaming up again with Geoff in 2025. See more about that below.

Women of Loughborough Road podcasts

The wonderful Naomi Clifford and Lena Augustinson invited me to join them at The Door History podcast to record a mini-series of short stories about six women who lived on Loughborough Road in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

We talked about high wire walker Ella Zuila; Irene Pye fishmonger, landlady and matriarch; Eva Tear committed to an inebriate reformatory; Alphonsine spiral ascensionist and skirt dancer; Janet Tassie Cowan who made the headlines when her baby died while in the care of a Brixton baby farmer and Bella Burge, the first woman boxing promoter.

You can find all the podcasts here.

I also highly recommend Naomi’s latest book 13 Park Lane. Historical crime fiction based on real events.”One house, four women, a crime waiting to happen“.

Other 2024 Loughborough Road Histories happenings

A short history of five Loughborough Road pubs was the theme of my talk for Lambeth Heritage Festival in September. Hoping to do the talk again at some point in the coming year.

Also in September the Circus Friends Association published my article on Brixton’s four legged performers in their magazine King Pole. The article was based on a talk I did for the British Music Hall Society conference in 2023. I will be expanding on that for the relaunch of the Brixton Society talks series in 2025.

Already lined up for 2025:

Women of Lambeth Cemetery walk, entertainers, campiagners, crooks, artists and more. 29 March, 11.30am.

More details and to book here.

Brixton’s four-legged performers, 20 March, 6.30pm Brixton Library.

More details and to book here.

The campaign for the repair and reuse of Cormont Road School

The school on Cormont Road (former Kennington Boys’ School and then Charles Edward Brooke School) attended by Loughborough Road children over more than 100 years, is netted and decaying.

In May 2024 the school joined the Victorian Society Top Ten Endangered list. The campaign definitely raised awareness and Lambeth Council, owners of the building, have started to look into a future use for the old school.

But the pace is slow. The campaign is still very live and calling for urgent repairs to make the building weathertight.