Brixton history – cable-hauled tram on Brixton Hill in late Victorian times – Brixton Buzz

Brixton history – cable-hauled tram on Brixton Hill in late Victorian times – Brixton Buzz

... The Metropolitan company’s line between Brixton, Gresham Road and the ‘Horns Tavern’, Kennington opened in May 1870, the lines later extending to the junction of Water Lane, and to the south bank at Vauxhall, Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges, Waterloo Road and St George’s Church, Borough. ...

... In 1890, the Company decided to build a cable line from Kennington to Telford Avenue, replacing horse power between Brixton and Kennington, the line opened in 1892, and was extended south to Streatham Library in 1895.

Passengers travelled in the Company’s standard double deck, open top trams, the horses changing places at Kennington with a ‘dummy’ or ‘gripper’ car which hauled the tram over the cable section of route. ...

... A large depot and ‘winding house’ was built on Streatham Hill, opposite Telford Avenue, with winding gear powered by coke burning boilers. A small depot at Kennington had space for two or three ‘dummy’ cars and a number of horses. ...

... In the late 1890s, the need for a separate ‘dummy’ car to haul the passenger cars seems to have been called in to question, and the passenger cars were gradually adapted so that cable gripping equipment could be placed under a southbound tram at Kennington, and controlled from the front platform. ...

... The survivor of the cable car network is the small depot at 20 Brixton Road, Kennington. It served briefly as an electrical sub-station for the new trams, but was sold off in the late 1920s, and became a Temperance Billiard Hall, with a shop (in 1934 Hannibal Matthews, fruiterer) in the front central arch. ...