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Triangle Place, LONDON, SW4 7EQ

A horse tram depot was originally built here in 1885 and converted for electric trams in 1904. The sheds were badly damaged during the war and were rebuilt in 1950 as a bus garage. In 1958 the garage closed and two years later it was used by the Museum of British Transport, until 1973. From 1979 to 1987 it was a bus garage again until it ended its days as an indoor go-kart operation. In 1996 all of this went to be replaced by a Sainsbury’s superstore. (http://claphamhighstreet.co.uk/Content/chshistory.htm)

From 1960-73 the Museum of British Transport was housed in a former bus depot at Clapham. I made the trip specially to see Great Central Railway Director 4-4-0 locomotive No 506 "Butler Henderson", which I had last seen at Nottingham Victoria in 1960, when it was a dirty plain black and on one of its last revenue-earning duties. At Clapham the restored engine was in the elaborate Great Central green livery. "Butler Henderson" eventually returned to work on the preserved Great Central Railway at Loughborough, but it is now at the National Railway Museum at York and a static exhibit again. The bus depot was replaced by a Sainsbury's supermarket, which Richard Rogerson photographed in 2009: Image

Housed in what had been a London Transport bus garage, it's core was the London Transport historic collection, but by this time a number of national exhibits had been added. The railway exhibits formed the basis of what would become the National Railway Museum at York, whilst the London-specific items largely ended up at the Covent Garden Museum. In the foreground is one of the earliest surviving steam locomotives, Furness Railway no.3, built in 1846 to the design of Edward Bury of Liverpool. This type of locomotive became the standard for many of the early English railways, including the London and Birmingham Railway.