Q: Do you remember where you first used to buy records?
A: Yeah, in Woking. There were two shops, one called Maxwell’s and one called Aerco. I am old enough to remember the listening booths. They had the Top 10 or maybe Top 20 laid out in a rack behind the counter, and all the racks of albums. We used to go in there after school and keep playing different records until the got f***ed off and kicked us out. Magical places, really.
- From an interview with Paul Weller by Michael Bonner, 10 October 2014
Comments
Name: Edward Black
Comment: At the foot of Wimbledon Hill was a very posh music shop called Maxwells - instruments, everything. Had separate listening booths. They would put anything on for you from stock or ordered - probably from the influence of The Gramophone (mainly classical LPs reviewed but some jazz). They were very good and did not seem to mind if you didn't buy the LP you had heard! We schoolkids used it a lot!
Name: Mick Brocking
Comment: There was also a branch in Clarence Street, Kingston-on-Thames in the early/middle 1950s. Ground floor pianos and all musical instruments, sheet music etc, first floor sold 78rpm records. I bought some of my first jazz and blues records there.
(17 April 2013)
Name: Irene Burton
Comment: I worked upstairs in the Clarence Street, Kingston-on-Thames shop in the mid- to late 1960s. As well as records (which you could listen to in the booths) they also sold record players and radios/radiograms upstairs; downstairs was pianos, accordions, violins, etc. I'll be honest... it was one of the worst places I've ever worked in! The management thought they were rather more important than the rest of us!
(2021)
Name: Bridget Kelly (neé Maxwell)
Comment: Although we sold records the company was principally known for pianos - we had a workshop round the corner in Wimbledon. We also had great respect in the industry as we were regulators (piano tuners) to all the instruments in the Royal Albert Hall. My grandfather used to make violins and my father was a good piano player but lost part of his hand in the Second World War, so couldn't play but he still used to regulate pianos.
There was a branch at 927 Brighton Road, Purley (we lived in Purley so that's the branch I remember best, coming in to visit my dad from school which was just round the corner in the high street). I remember Mrs Gladdon working there but not sure if she was the manager or not. I think it was the last shop to be acquired.
(2025)
https://www.45spaces.com/record-shop-sleeves/r.php?r=reg597725
I also found this advert in the 'Croydon Times' dated 23rd October 1959:
“SALESLADY with experience required to take charge of gramophone record department — Maxwell & Sons Ltd., 927 Brighton Road, Purley. UPLands 3410.”
… and this piece from the 'Staines & Ashford News' dated 3rd March 1950: “Notable publicity! In Maxwell's, High Street, Staines, another record achievement is the large display comprising a cut-out of a dummy gramophone record, around which are the names of each song sung in the film.” ['Jolson Sings Again' showing at the Odeon-Majestic, Staines].