Vanilla Reduction
by Marcus Gray with illustrations by Tom Casey
In late 1993, the ramshackle collection of buildings at that time comprising the site of 36 Causton Street, Pimlico, were demolished to make way for London Diocesan House (LDH). This was to be the new home for the London Diocesan Fund, previously housed for many years at the neighbouring number 30 Causton Street. Among the garages, offices and storerooms that met their end during the redevelopment of the site was the 30' by 10' windowless first floor room most recently used as a photographer's studio and - some years before that - the larger of the two music rehearsal rooms known as Vanilla Rehearsal Studios. It was here that the Clash wrote, rehearsed and demoed much of London Calling during the spring and early summer of 1979.
The Clash discouraged visitors while they were working on the album, especially journalists and photographers. Largely for that reason, no photographs of the band at Vanilla have ever been published. Slightly more surprisingly, though, there don't seem to be any surviving pictures of Vanilla while operational.
As this photograph reveals, there is nothing about the way the site looks today that gives any clue as to its former make-up or function. At the suggestion of Clash site owner Don Whistance, I contacted Westminster Archives Centre who were able to provide a black and white photo of the former two storey premises from the street. Unfortunately, although it did show that the double wooden doors leading to the garage section of the site were positioned right where the main door to number 36 can be found today, it didn't reveal anything more informative about what went on behind the facade.
Don's lateral thinking did shame me into doing some of my own, though. I had previously contacted LDH to ask when the site was redeveloped, and I got back in touch to ask if they had a plan of how it used to look. They did. And furthermore, a member of staff named Tom Casey had taken some photographs during the course of demolition. Tom added some further detail to the site plan, and sent me a sequence of photos, during the course of which the former Vanilla is peeled back like an onion. and then disappears without a tear being shed. There were too many photos to use in Route 19 Revisited, so Tom has graciously given his permission for them to be reproduced here. (Thanks also to his colleagues Janet Eaves and Mary Nada for their help.)
The plan shows the position of the larger Vanilla Studio in relation to the rest of the site. The numbered arrows show the approximate direction the photos were taken, in sequence, as follows:
1. Ground floor level, before demolition. The view across the covered internal courtyard, formerly home to the Motor Doctor garage, showing the rear of the office - formerly stable - block fronting onto Causton Street. »
« 2. Taken at the same time as (1) from behind the red mini, this time looking across the covered internal courtyard to the former Motor Doctor reception office, the small one-storey building dead centre which provided access to the smaller ground floor Vanilla studio and the stairs leading to the larger first floor studio. The large open doorway to the right leads into the garage proper.
3. Circa third floor level, before demolition. The view over the two former Motor Doctor garage structures to the rear of the 36 Causton Street site to the backs of the terrace houses fronting onto Regency Street. The foliage-covered roof to the far left belongs to the garage building housing the larger Vanilla studio. »
« 4. Circa second floor level, following removal of the internal courtyard roof. Again showing the courtyard, the former Motor Doctor office and the front of the building formerly housing Vanilla Rehearsal Studios.
5. Circa third floor level, from a similar angle to (4) but following the complete demolition of the nearest Motor Doctor building as seen in (3). The remaining building is now roofless. »
« 6. Circa second floor level, from same vantage point as (4), but now with even more of the remaining Motor Doctor building exposed. The debris-littered flat roof that can be seen through the rungs of the ladder is the floor of the larger Vanilla studio.
7. Circa second floor level. The floor of Vanilla in its entirety, with the ceiling and most of the walls removed. »
« 8. Circa third floor level, from the same angle as (3), showing the remnants of the former Motor Doctor buildings and, again, the floor of Vanilla in its entirety, also giving some idea of how the first floor structure was suspended over the garage below.
9. Circa third floor from a similar angle to (5), but with the first floor that formerly housed the larger Vanilla studio consigned to the landfill of history. »
The last nine photographs are © Tom Casey.
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