A little glimpse of paradise on the Wandsworth Road

As so often seems to happen, I switch on the radio and hear, within seconds, someone talking about something that has been cooking away at the back of my mind for years.

As so often seems to happen, I switch on the radio and hear, within seconds, someone talking about something that has been cooking away at the back of my mind for years. Usually it's on BBC Radio London, and even more usually it's on the Robert Elms SHow. As indeed was the case today.

Today, it was hearing someone from the National Trust  talking about an amazing house interior, created entirely by one man in his spare time from a busy job in the Civil Service. I immediately thought they had to be discussing 575 Wandsworth Road - a house I have walked past thousands of times - and which is now owned by the National Trust and is also about to open to the public after years of restoration.

This NT person mentioned a free lecture on the topic to be held later the same day in Twickenham Public Library. Oddly enough, for someone spending more than half his life in SW LOndon, I'd never been to Twickenham town centre before (well I have been through it, but never to it). That day, I was there within  an hour, thanks to SW Trains.

It was an excellent lecture by the NT's conservationists, who helped to bring the house back to life with her discussion of the owner and creator of this place, Khadambi Asalache. Mr Asalache came to London in the 1960s as a student. His multiple talents - poet, novelist, mathematician, philosopher - flowered in the fertile climate of that age, even while he was holding down a full-time day job in the Treasury.

She added that he first spotted the house when travelling to work on the 77 bus - a route that we all know only too well, and still love, even though it's now the 87.

Next day, I more or less run down the road to scope the place out. There's nothing outside to give the slightest clue of the treasures within, nor even a hint the tit's a National Trust property. The place is so fragile that the trust is having to limit visitors, and advance booking is essential. But what a place it is,  to enter the house is to enter one man's dream, a secret dream world of East African artistry, heavily influenced by both indigenous art from Kenya but also the Islamic art of North Africa and Spain, the art of Granada.

He needed a place nearer the office. He bought the house in 1983, and began decorating it to his taste - but persistent damp in the cellar led him to line the walls with fretwork panels which now characterise the whole place. It's a fretwork Alhambra, built in a tiny Victorian terrace on an unglamorous stretch of an unglamorous south London trunk route, and it is magical.

Visit!

Great to hear the NT has employed a musician in residence this year - check out the programme of events on the NT's 575 Wandsworth Road website.

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Bingo! Another slice of Wandsworth Road's history is about to disappear in a cloud of dust

Just a hundred yards west of the former Tearooms des Artistes, there was another hub of social life on the Wandsworth Road,  Rileys Snooker Hall, just opposite the Baptist Chapel on the corner of

As it was: Riley's snooker
hall in the Wandsworth Road,
complete with lovely cladding

Victoria Rise.

This place was always regarded as one of the ugliest buildings in a street that was not exactly beautiful.
And yet, once the demolition team got to work, they began to uncover details that made you stop and look and think - hang on, what the hell was that place?

According to a fellow blogger  this surprisingly large building was almost certainly a Temperance Hall.

Once the hideous facade had been pulled away (I always thought of it as corrugated iron, but it is actually some sort of plastic cladding), you see this elaborate stucco work, all very garish and mock-exotic. Surely this is all a bit much for what was supposed to be a former Temperance Hall?

No - a little more research soon turned up a load of information on the Temperance and Billiard Hall movement of the early 20th century. The images on this site are of buildings very similar in design to the one on Wandsworth Road which is now on the brink of demolition.

It's clear several very similar buildings were erected across south London in the early 20th Century. Maybe they were designed to be alluring enough to tempt wayward souls away from the pubs and gin palaces. Once inside they'd get a nice game of billiards and a glass of ginger beer, or a tea. And maybe a pamphlet or two?

Oddly enough, Rileys always seemed quite a sleazy place. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Bingo Nights advertised there - I can remember discussing this with a friend who wanted to go along as she wanted to film it. Like an idiot I never went inside. You can sewe from the outside it was a big space - there's a second hall behind the first, and they appear to be interconnected.

In recent years,  I think - I am sure I remember this - it sometimes ran club nights, which would  be policed by massive bouncers wearing lots of gold chains. Can't imagine there was an awful lot of temperance in the air inside - just walking past you almost swooned in the exhalations of after-shave.

I knew this area had been famously teetotal - even poor Graham Greene noticed this when he had to cross Clapham Common to buy beer for his visiting guest, Julian Maclaren Ross, from the Windmill pub. It seems the heavily disapproving temperance  mood of the Clapham Sect - for all the good they did in parliament in  pushing through abolition - had a deep and lasting impact on the social fabric.

Ayway, the Temperance Halls, for all their worthiness, could not resist a distinctly racy, kiss-me-quick architectural details. Look at the photos below of the poor old building, before it is pulverised. Beneath that hideous facade lurked a bit of dandy, a man or girl about town with its exotic curves and curlicues.

Love it. Now it's on the way out - and I am sure the Travelogue (is that the right name?) that replaces it will be haunted by all manner of randy but alcohol free ghosts.

The Wandsworth Road itself is changing very fast, but at least two of its very well hidden treasures should be safe from the developers of Nine Elms. The Larkhall Estate close to Wandswroth Road  overground station, with its deeply shaded quadrangle gardens and steep pitched roofing -  is grade 2 listed - while ornate and flamboyant interior decoration of Khadambi Asalache's 575 Wandsworth Road is now in the hands of the National Trust.