The New Fender Club

A Memory of Kenton.

A view of Kenton Road to the west of the railway bridge.

To the immediate left of this shot behind the Shell petrol pump (now a car park) is Churchill Hall, home of the Wembley North Conservative Club. Rather more interestingly, in the early '60s the hall hosted the New Fender Club. It was a popular R&B music venue of the day with appearances by such bands as The Who, The Yardbirds and The Graham Bond Organisation. Hard to believe now, looking at it.

Most of this part of Kenton Road remains, although the shops now have very different uses. The parade on the right hand side included Dry's Garage (out of shot), a cafe, Martin's the newsagent (with Tony's, the barber at the rear of the shop), a bakers, George Durrant's the greengrocer, a dairy (which later became Nearly New - a second hand clothes shop) and a grocers (on the opposite corners of Churchill Avenue), a shoe repairers and next to Kenton Station, a florists and a wood yard (both replaced now by a singularly ugly modern block of.flats with retail units underneath.)

On the left hand side of the picture are Kenton Court flats. Probably quite swish in their day. Beyond that is the old Barclays Bank.


Edit Dec 2015: The Churchill Hall is boarded off and is due to be demolished and redeveloped as a block of residential flats. It was not an attractive building, but nevertheless has been a local landmark since the 1930s.