Last year I took a fresh look at the origins of Railton Road when evidence was requested for a court case, a boundary dispute over an access path behind some of the shops halfway along the road.

One side-effect of Lambeth Council buying up large slices of Brixton in the 1970s is that a good selection of title deeds have since been handed down to Lambeth Archives at the Minet Library. These deeds – particularly the older versions – reveal the original developers and often the intended plot boundaries. The picture that emerges is of several owners developing large chunks of land with scant regard for what their neighbours were doing, but all taking advantage of the opening of Herne Hill and Brixton railway stations to build new houses and shops to let.

However, it soon became clear that some property numbers had changed – in fact houses in Railton Road were re-numbered in two stages, first in 1879 from Brixton up to the original St.Jude’s School, continuing south in

1888 to include the former West Place, Lett Street and Bransby Road up to the present gateway to Brockwell Park. These changes are recorded in documents from the old Metropolitan Board of Works, an ancestor of the GLA.

The Archives also hold a good selection of local directories, which helped build up a picture of what the different shops had been used for over a long period. Post-1945, other records add to the story, such as Planning applications and various enforcement actions taken by the Council while the neighbourhood endured first the stress of threatened demolition, and then attempts at rescuing the neglected buildings to eventually improve the area. Add to this the area’s role as the focal point for the 1981 Brixton Riots, and the result is many official and press sources to draw upon.

As for Edinburgh Terrace itself, like Saltoun and Mervan Roads nearby, it was part of a large estate owned by a Scotsman, James Stuart. He died before much of it had been developed, so it is his executors whose names appear on most of the original building leases – his widow Helen, her sister Anna and the sister’s husband, Major General Michael Bruce. It seems that the estate was eventually divided among the next generation of the Bruce family, whose names appear as freeholders on later deeds or leases. In contrast, the builders were mostly local, including John Cobeldick of Dalyell Road, Stockwell, and Earle Bird of Shepherds Lane (now Ferndale Road).