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

Mar 24, 2024

The front of Tenpin Records, Purley — Tenpin Records - a gem of a record shop tucked away in suburban south London

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.

Owner Lisa chats to a regular. The wall behind profiles a recent haul of early hip hop and electro originals

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.

Lisa sourced the Bowie original pressings for the landmark 2013 exhibition at the V&A

‘They approached me about sourcing the records for it,’ says Lisa. ‘A friend of mine worked in the print department at the V&A at the time and told me they had hit a snag with finding these original Bowie pressings. I think they just expected to rummage for them in charity shops, but were finding this wasn’t easy!

‘I got roped in to track these down, including the super-rare “dress sleeve” version of The Man Who Sold the World. The buyer wanted £700 for that, but I got it for £500 I think.

‘They [the V&A] hadn’t realised some of these records would cost hundreds of pounds, so had to keep going away and getting approval for more budget. It was a lot of pressure to find everything before the exhibition opened, but great fun.’

Similarly, Lisa’s expertise was called upon a few years earlier, in 2009, when ex-Radio 1 DJ Mike Read went bankrupt, forcing the sale of his 120,000-strong record collection. Lisa was one of the experts invited to a barn in Essex to check it out.

‘It was the most incredible collection,’ she says. (Apparently it included more than 100 rare Motown demos and was valued at around £1m). ‘We knew someone who knew the receiver—so we just helped out with a few bits, advising on stuff before it went to sale or auction’.

Behind the counter, Lisa has an alcove full of extra stock - with two more storage units held elsewhere

Digging for diamonds

Back to the shop, and Lisa explains that they now spend less time sourcing record collections to buy and sell (although they still buy some) as a lot of stock now comes in from people in the area. ‘We’ve got two storage units full of vinyl that isn’t even here, because so much comes into the shop now.’

She’s selective in what she buys though—as is clear when you start browsing—but open-minded when collections are proffered. ‘Someone even came in with a couple of boxes of records from the retirement home over the road,’ she says. ‘Most of it was Val Doonican and the like but, randomly, in the middle of it all, was a copy of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing and an original pressing of The Best of Blur. So I gladly picked those out!’

Run-out questions

Why the name Tenpin Records? ‘We wanted to reference something locally. The building round the corner on the main road was The Orchid Ballroom, a famous venue in the 50s and 60s which later became Cinderellas. However Orchid Records was a really common name and we wanted something a little more unusual so we fixed on Tenpin with reference to the bowling alley that was next to the Orchid Ballroom building, also now sadly gone.’

First record you remember buying? ‘Showaddywaddy - the Showaddywaddy album. Not very cool I’m afraid!’

What do you mainly sell? ‘Rock, pop, jazz, soul, blues, hip hop, electro, funk, dance, folk and reggae. Mainly secondhand, some new—especially sought-after reissues from the 90s and 2000s where the originals cost a fortune. I can’t restock reissues of Radiohead’s OK Computer quickly enough.’

The Wailers’ ‘Catch a Fire’ in rare Zippo cover (image from Discogs)

What’s a record you're always looking out for? ‘The first pressing of Bob Marley’s Catch a Fire with the folding Zippo cover. We stumbled across one in a collection a few weeks ago, in unusually great condition. It was only in the shop for a couple of hours before someone came in and had to have it. It was £350, but is a proper rarity.’

Coolest record in the shop right now? ‘For me, it’s the signed Sugarhill Gang 12-inch [Bad News b/w Rappers’ Reprise]—it was part of a collection we recently bought from a guy who was a producer, and there was a whole stack of Sugar Hill Records in there.’

Best recent gig you went to? ‘Justin and I went to Barcelona last year to see The Music of Big Star band, including one of the original Big Star members (Jody Stephens), Pat from Wilco and Mike Mills from REM. They were amazing. Before that it was War on Drugs.’

Sugarhill Gang’s 1980 Bad News 12-inch, with sleeve signed by Master Gee, Wonder Mike and Big Bank Hank

And finally, what did I buy? I left with an original 1986 copy of Run DMC’s Raising Hell, vinyl freshly cleaned behind the counter, for a very reasonable £15. Sleeve in decent nick and plays perfectly. A good buy!