Record Shop Story #1: Tenpin Records, Purley
Purley’s queen of vinyl, Lisa Docherty, on the story behind her knockout south London shop, and tracking down Bowie rarities for the V&A
Most people who go to Purley on a Sunday afternoon are headed for Ikea. Or one of the car showrooms that adorn the Purley Way, as it snakes its way from south London to Brighton.
But I’m here for records, not flat-pack furniture. And I want to go home with something that spins at 33rpm, not revving to 7,000.
Tenpin Records, tucked away down an unassuming side street between a hair salon and a massage therapist, makes vinyl-hunting easy. Not that I know what I’m looking for on this occasion. No matter—you’d be hard-pushed to leave empty handed, such is the quality of the predominantly second-hand selection in Tenpin.
Straight outta lockdown
Owner Lisa Docherty opened the shop in late 2022, after Covid lockdowns had eased and we were all returning to shops in search of, well, some different people to talk to.
Lisa found lockdown hard work. Having been buying and selling records online for more than 15 years, living among all her stock in this more claustrophobic world had started to grate - even if online buyers were still keeping her very busy.
‘I was so sick of selling from home and I just couldn’t do it any more. So I started looking for storage or office space where I could run the online business from. Then I drove past here one day, saw this shop for rent and it was just perfect—a clean shell with this very handy alcove out the back for extra storage. I called the landlord and we struck a deal to move in—all we really had to do was build some record racks.’
And those racks are now chock-full of high-quality pre-loved vinyl, and a few virgin releases, thanks to Lisa’s years of experience selling on Ebay and later Discogs. Her schoolfriend Debbie Welch also works in the shop, and husband Justin helps out when he can at weekends.
Tenpin makes a virtue of being owned and run by two women, but Lisa also points out that ‘women have always worked in record shops’ and it really shouldn’t be as uncommon as it seems to be to find a woman behind the counter.
‘As a child, I can remember record shops feeling intimidating, but I hope that we're not,’ says Lisa. It certainly isn’t—the shop is welcoming from the moment you walk in, with the glowing ‘Happy days’ sign behind the counter signalling that this is a good-vibes-only kinda place. As she points out: ‘Running a record shop is a lovely thing to do. I’m not a supermarket—most people that come in here are very happy to be in here.’
Bowie, bankrupt DJs, and a barnful of records near Brentwood
(That’s not the title of an album but, if you happen to be making a conceptual art-pop record, it could be one to consider).
Behind the counter I also find a framed flyer for the 2013 David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum. Lisa points out that it was one of the first such high-profile exhibitions into the life and work of an iconic musician.
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