Long before Spotify, YouTube and music downloads, buying an album meant heading into a record shop and spending time looking through the shelves.
For many people growing up in and around South Harrow, one of those places was Sellanby.
The independent record shop stood on Northolt Road, close to South Harrow station, and became a familiar part of the area for decades.
Customers remember buying vinyl, cassettes and later CDs there, while the shop also sold second hand music and videos.
For some, it was the place where they first discovered bands and artists they would continue listening to for years.
A South Harrow favourite
Sellanby is believed to have been trading in South Harrow from around the mid 1970s.
The business had more than one location in the area over the years. An old Sellanby carrier bag lists an address at 198 Northolt Road as well as a presence in South Harrow Market on a Sunday, both opposite the station.
The shop later moved to 245 Northolt Road, which is the location many former customers still remember.
Another branch also operated in Field End Road, Eastcote.
Sellanby was not a large chain. It was the sort of independent shop where regular customers got to know what was available and could spend time searching for something different.
Records, cassettes and Saturday afternoons
Memories of the shop have continued to appear online long after it closed.
One former customer described it as the best record shop he had ever visited, remembering a wide choice of new and second hand records and cassettes.
Others recall heading there with money earned from paper rounds and other weekend jobs, then coming home with albums they had never owned before.
Collectors have also remembered finding records for just a few pounds that would later become far more valuable.
One music fan recalled picking up early Iron Maiden singles for around 80p each. The store didn’t only sell music, you could take your old tapes, CDs and vinyl and hope that you’d get a decent price – think of a music version of CeX.
Another memory paints a very different picture from today’s clean and carefully designed music shops, with the South Harrow store remembered as dark, packed with records and, at one stage, even having ashtrays sitting around the racks.
Speaking to Harrow Online, Harrow Weald resident Fred said, “I’d travel all the way from Long Elmes to South Harrow to sell my tapes. They’d give you a decent price too, I remember people smoking in the shop with ashtrays on the side. You’d never see that now.”
It was very much a shop of its time.
A changing music industry
Sellanby survived through several major changes in the way people bought music.
Vinyl gave way to cassettes and CDs, while video rentals also became part of the business.
The shop even appeared in music industry publication Music Week during the early 1990s.
In 1991, David Smith, who was identified as manager of Sellanby Records in Northolt Road, spoke to the publication about damaged stock being supplied to record shops.
The following year, sales assistant Cathy Downs was quoted in another article about blank cassette tapes.
At the time, customers were increasingly buying longer tapes so they could record CDs and listen to them elsewhere.
It is a small detail, but one that captures how quickly music habits were changing.
Those yellow Sellanby bags
Some former customers may remember the shop before they remember exactly what they bought there.
Sellanby’s bright yellow carrier bags became something of a trademark.
Surviving examples feature the shop name in bold black lettering, while another version included a winged horse style logo.
They have since become little pieces of local music history in their own right.
Fred told Harrow Online, “The bags were just as popular as the tapes! They were pretty strong too, not flimsy things like in the supermarkets. If you had one, you’d take your lunch to school in it.”
The end of the shop
By 2008, Sellanby’s time in South Harrow was coming to an end.
A photograph taken in March that year shows closing down signs displayed at the Northolt Road shop.
The photographer wrote about spending hours there as a teenager and buying and selling hundreds of CDs and records over the years.
By the summer of 2008, the shop had gone.
Its closure came during a difficult period for independent record stores across the country.
Downloading music had become commonplace and the way people bought and listened to songs was changing rapidly.
For shops built around browsing physical records, CDs and cassettes, the high street was becoming a much tougher place to survive.
Still remembered in South Harrow
Nearly two decades after it closed, Sellanby still comes up in conversations about old South Harrow. Whenever Harrow Online asks members to share their memories of favourite shops without fail – Sellanby always gets a mention.
Do you remember the shop? What did you buy there, and do you have any old photographs of the shop? Let us know in the comments on our socials.
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Chris Mitchell is the founder and editor of Harrow Online, Harrow’s leading local news platform.
He launched Harrow Online in 2010 as a Facebook page sharing local news and information. Since then, it has grown into a trusted source for breaking news, crime, council decisions, planning, transport, business and community stories across the borough.
Harrow Online reaches hundreds of thousands of readers each month and has a social media audience of more than 200,000 followers.
For news tips, press releases or enquiries, contact Chris at info@harrowonline.org.
