Dee’s memories – Durand Gardens, Clapham Road, Liberty Street

Dee wrote to me in August 2012, sharing her memories of living in Durand Gardens and of the surrounding area. She writes:

My father bought 21 Durand Gardens in 1948/49 for the sum of £3250. It was our family home until 1967. He died in 1965 and my mother remarried in 1967 and the property was then sold. I remember that there were pillars at the Clapham Road entrance but note they are now gone. There was bomb damage at this entrance on the left as you entered and as children we played on the bomb site and called it the broken garden. When as a young child we moved into the house there was a well in the garden which my parents had filled in for safety reasons. Freemans backed onto the garden and and it was only when Freemans extended their building that we were overlooked.

We didn’t really use the garden in the centre and remember the residents of no 17 as being quite eccentric. Have great childhood memories of Durand Gardens. There was a small general food stores in what I think was Liberty Street and also a sweet shop further on. Early 1950′s there were pre-fabs which were still there when I left in about 1964 which I think were in Liberty Street too. As I was growing up there quite a few interesting characters and some amusing incidents. Wish I could afford to live there now!

6 Responses to Dee’s memories – Durand Gardens, Clapham Road, Liberty Street

  1. Melanie Donohoe says:

    I think the prefabs you’ve referred to were at the top of Hillyard Street, round the corner from the ‘Van Gogh’ house, opposite the school

    I have fond memories of walking past the prefabs after school, saying hello to one of the the ‘old’ ladies that lived there. And picking buttercups too – to see whether they’d make our chins shine bright x

  2. Vince says:

    The prefabs in hillyard st were built in the late 1940s possibly 1948 they were both sides of hillyard st at the Brixton rd end, I think about 6 to 10 either side, i was born at no 12 in March 1949, my dad helped to build them after he was demobbed which is how we came to live there

  3. Arnold Kremenstein says:

    I attended Kennington Secondary School from 1951 to 1956. Each day I walked from Brixton Road, along Hillyard Street to Hackford Road. From memory, all along the right-hand side of Hillyard Street were prefabs. I think I recall that they were all neat and tidy.

  4. Pearl Catlin says:

    Hello,
    I am still around and love to see new additions to this wonderful site. I wish girls didn’t change their names on marriage then I could contact (try at least) so many more. I wish the King family from Stockwell Park Road would get in touch. Tudor once came round to my dressing room on the Isle of Wight and I once bought his sister’s flat in Carlisle Mansions, Victoria. Took me ages to realise it and then could not find her ever again.
    Marriage names again.

  5. Brian Matravers says:

    Looking for imformation on a Louis Taylor living in Stanstead house, Durand gardens, Clapham Road SW9 1930s artist scene painter, musican, worked under the name of Laurence and Dunstan Mortimer.have paintings and complete music collection and history

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