Vauxhall Gardens, summer 1822. To great acclaim ‘Madame Georgina’, a singer and classical pianist from Calcutta, accompanies herself and performs a concerto. She appears at Vauxhall Gardens for three nights only – and then abruptly disappears from the annals of London theatre. Can you add a coda to her story? A portrait would be nice, writes David E. […]
When ‘Vauxhall’ changed gear and hit the road to make motoring history
Why do all Russian railway stations carry the name of an English middle-class car? Eric Dymock explains all.
Fun and Games at Vauxhall: ‘The New and Favorite Game of Mother Goose and the Golden Egg’, a board game of 1808
By David Coke In 2019 I attended a lecture intriguingly entitled ‘The Shows and Sights of Georgian London – a Board Game tour of the Metropolis’ by Professor Adrian Seville at the Society of Antiquaries in Burlington House. Professor Seville is a leading authority on English board games and has created what must be the […]
The Man in the White Cotton Suit: William Roupell, MP, Treachery and Fraud in Queen Victoria’s Lambeth
Olga and Michael Leapman tell the story of William Roupell, MP for Lambeth and convicted fraudster.
Vauxhall Park not lost for lavender
The opening of a lavender garden on the former bowling green in 2004 is one of the cheerier and certainly more aromatic episodes in the history of Vauxhall Park. The sponsor was General Motors, then the parent company of Vauxhall Motors which started locally. Indeed, it was said that, viewed from the air, the lavender […]
When Vauxhall Gardens went global but The Grove lost its groove and the bandstand missed a beat
Arles, Auckland, Baltimore, Barbados, Brussels, Canterbury (NZ) Charleston, Nashville, New York, Melbourne, Pavlovsk, Philadelphia, Stockholm, Toronto, are some of the places that at one time had ‘Vauxhall Gardens’. David E. Coke, historian of Vauxhall’s original and much-imitated Royal Vauxhall Gardens open-air pleasure resort, tells their story and wonders in what part of the world may […]
Millicent Fawcett and Vauxhall Park
Millicent Fawcett’s statue by artist Gillian Wearing was unveiled in Westminster on 24 April 2018 to mark the 100th anniversary of the right of some women to vote. To coincide with Millicent Fawcett’s 172nd birthday on 11 June we publish an article by Elizabeth Crawford on her work to create Vauxhall Park. Elizabeth Crawford Vauxhall […]
“The Great Original” – C.H. Simpson, Master of Ceremonies at the Royal Gardens Vauxhall 1797–1835
David E. Coke on C.H. Simpson, one of Vauxhall’s great historic characters.
Philip Astley, ringmaster of the modern Circus, commemorated at Westminster Bridge
War hero, trick-rider, entrepreneur with a flair for PR, the Lambeth-based Philip Astley was all of these things and more. Jonathan Tyers put Vauxhall on the map when, between 1729 and 1750 he made Vauxhall Gardens the world’s most famous open-air resort. Astley (1742–1814) is the father of the modern circus. He began giving equestrian […]
Why no flowers for Nellie, orchid-painter extraordinaire?
It’s a shame that orchid-lovers cannot leave a bouquet on the precise spot where rests Lambeth’s peerless watercolourist and illustrator Nellie Roberts. Flowers could and should be be left at Nellie’s grave in gratitude for all the beauty that this watercolorist’s brush captured during her 56-year career as an illustrator for the Royal Horticultural Society, […]
Talk: Mon 3 Sep. The Opening Night of the Old Vic and the Murder of Mary Ashford
As part of Lambeth Heritage Month, vauxhallhistory.org co-editor Naomi Clifford will be giving a talk on the subject of the opening night of the Royal Coburg Theatre (now known as the Old Vic). It’s a story that takes the audience far and wide: from the Surrey side of the Thames to a field in a […]
Rolfe Judd’s light-touch makeover of a Victorian Chapel
This year the architects and town-planners Rolfe Judd celebrate the 50th anniversary of the practice, and have marked the event by illuminating the façade of Old Church Court, their premises in Claylands Road. Who was the architect of this former Congregational chapel isn’t clear, but according to the edited extract of the Rolfe Judd article […]
A litter-bin now marks the spot in Vauxhall Gardens where once stood Roubiliac’s life-size statue of Handel: Free Vauxhall Gardens guided history walk, 21 May 2018
Vauxhall Gardens drew visitors from around the world in its 18th-century prime, not least to see Roubiliac’s sensational statue. Pale imitations sprang up elsewhere in England, and as far away as America, Australia and Russia. None could quite match Jonathan Tyers’ Vauxhall Gardens for originality and crowd-pulling spectacle with a purpose. Tyers helped civilise this […]
The Old Vic and the murder of Mary Ashford: the opening night of the Royal Coburg Theatre, 11 May 1818
Vauxhall History co-editor Naomi Clifford’s The Murder of Mary Ashford: The Crime That Changed English Legal History (Pen & Sword, 30 May 2018) presents new evidence in a notorious 200-year-old case of rape and murder which changed English legal history, leading to the abolition of ‘trial by battle’ as a means of settling murder cases. […]
Kennington, 1795: a highwayman’s dance of death on the gallows
by VauxhallHistory.org online editor Naomi Clifford On his way to the gallows at Kennington Common, Jeremiah Lewis Abershaw did what many a condemned felon had done before him: during the mile-long journey from Horsemonger Gaol in Newington to the gallows he played to the crowd. Abershaw travelled to his agonising death on Monday 3 August […]
Saturday 10 February: ‘South Lambeth Road Stories’ guided walk with Sean Creighton
Historian, community activist and blogger, and former project worker in the area Sean Creighton leads South Lambeth Road Stories, a free guided Vauxhall Society/Vauxhall History walk which kicks off from the Tate South Lambeth Library at 180 South Lambeth Rd, Vauxhall, London SW8 1QP at 10.30am on Saturday 10 February. There is the story of […]
The 1836 ‘Royal Vauxhall Balloon’ ascent that set an eight-decade world distance record for manned flight
by David E. Coke Amongst the many extraordinary facts about 19th century London, one stands out as almost unbelievable – an urban myth, you might think. How could the world record for manned-flight distance possibly have been set by a flight from Vauxhall – in 1836, the year before Queen Victoria came to the throne? Yet […]
The St Peter’s organ appeal: time to pull out all the stops?
In the 18th century (and until 1859), Vauxhall Gardens was home to an outdoor organ so mighty that it could be heard throughout the 11-acre open-air pleasure resort, and no doubt beyond. The organ could certainly have been heard at St Peter’s Church in Kennington Lane, had St Peter’s been there at the time, which it […]
Walcot Foundation: 350 years of helping ‘the Lambeth poor’
The Walcot Foundation gives away an average of £1.8 million a year ‘for the relief of the Lambeth poor’. The charity has been around for 350 years, established by the 1667 will of a wealthy haberdasher, Edmund Walcott (his surname originally had two ‘t’s), who endowed it with 17 acres of what was then […]
Not even Good Queen Bess could barge up Brixton Hill from Vauxhall for a date with Sir Walter Raleigh – River Effra: London’s Secret Spine by Jon Newman
Jon Newman’s River Effra, South London’s Secret Spine is lavishly-illustrated, deeply-researched and, above all, grippingly-readable – a landmark work, the first detailed and comprehensive account of the Effra.
1877: when Old Father Thames turned on his children – again
A brief history of local inundation.
Barrett’s Brewery and Bottling Factory
Information from Richard Greatorex, contributed the wonderful archive postcards: I found a reference to Barrett’s here: breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/123/Architecture.pdf in which the Barrett brewery is described thus: “The visual image of the ‘beer factory’ had become increasingly important, with the brewery’s image being used on bottle labels and in advertisements. Barrett’s Vauxhall Brewery (1885) was an extreme […]
Clapham Through Time: Alyson Wilson and Claire Fry’s Clapham then and now
Alyson Wilson tells us about Clapham Through Time, a collection of photographs of Clapham past shown beside the same view shot in 2015 by Claire Fry.
The Tate South Lambeth Library, a much-loved gift that councillors want to grab
The Tate South Lambeth Library, the gift of a Victorian well-wisher, and now a vibrant cultural centre with deep roots in today’s Vauxhall, is the target of repeated threats from Lambeth Councillors
Vauxhall’s Doulton & Co – from sewer pipes to art pottery
To mark the launch of vauxhallhistory.org on 6 September 2016, Alex Werner of Museum of London talks about the rise of Doulton, one of England’s greatest pottery manufacturers. All welcome.
Slum Clearance in Southwark: A personal perspective
Malcolm Green was there in the 60s and 70s when the Council demolished more streets of Victorian terraced houses than the Luftwaffe – all to make way for soulless, isolating high-rise flats, desolate and dangerous open spaces resulting in widespread social breakdown.
Robert Cocking: rise and fatal fall of a pioneer parachutist
The tragic end of the balloon enthusiast who attempted a parachute descent
“Our quest does not appear to take us to very fashionable regions”: Sherlock Holmes and Lambeth
Roger Johnson, editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal, on the spoor of the sleuth and his ever-faithful Watson in these parts
Oval brick a brac? The Richardsons of Vauxhall and Brunswick Wharf
The Vauxhall branch of the Richardson family brick-making firm made a notable contribution to the foundations of what is now the Kia Oval cricket ground.
Vauxhall’s other pleasure gardens and a ‘Vauxhall Cross Plan’ of yesterday
Added 13 June 2015 By David Coke The extraordinary commercial success of the re-launched Vauxhall Gardens in the middle of the 18th century encouraged other entrepreneurs to believe they could imitate it. Pleasure Gardens mushroomed all over London, around Great Britain, and then throughout the world. Most of these lesser ‘Vauxhalls’ were short-lived and, frankly, […]
St Anne and All Saints Church, South Lambeth Road
In the 1700s most of Vauxhall was marshland. People had to cross this land to get to church at St. Mary’s next to Lambeth Palace. This was a most dangerous route as there were robbers hiding in the marshes waiting to attack anyone crossing them. Naturally this made the people reluctant to cross the marshland […]
Henry Fawcett: The Mysterious Case of Vauxhall Park’s Missing Monument
By Sarah Bridger A terracotta statue of Henry Fawcett, which was unveiled on Wednesday 7th June 1893 by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Vauxhall Park, mysteriously vanished in late 1959.[1] It was designed by the celebrated Victorian sculptor George Tinworth, and donated by Sir Henry Doulton. The statue has not had a confirmed sighting since […]
Vauxhall Gardens and St Peter’s Church
As soon as the great pleasure garden of Vauxhall Gardens closed its doors for the final time after the ‘Last Night Forever’ on 25 July 1859, the twelve-acre site was cleared of all traces of the entertainments that had stood on that spot since the Restoration. One of the reasons why Vauxhall closed when it […]
How advertising pioneer Thomas Bish revived Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
By 1821 Vauxhall Gardens had lost their lustre. Takings were down, and the attractions had become stale. Cash-strapped customers were getting less value for money from their food and drink. ‘ Supper was a perfect abomination,’ recalled Lord William Lennox, military aide to the Duke of Wellington. Fortunately, an entrepreneur who had pioneered modern advertising […]
Vauxhall Gardens: A History – review by Andrew Saint
David Coke and Alan Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, A History. Yale University Press, London, 2011. ISBN 978-0-300-17382-6 Not long back, two curious columns sprang up at the southern entrance to Vauxhall Spring Gardens, the modern and, let’s be honest, pathetic equivalent to the celebrated Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. As readers may know, these fat, black, shiny monoliths […]
How Vauxhall Gardens saved English music, 1661-1859
by David Coke The history of the music of Vauxhall Gardens represents the development of a purely English style from the time of John Playford, John Blow and the early works of Henry Purcell, through to Felix Mendelssohn’s great oratorio Elijah. It can be argued that the pleasure gardens single-handedly fostered and maintained the English […]
Vauxhall
Some Mesolithic (8300-4000 BC) flint blades together with some Neolithic (4000-1800BC) pottery shards were found at an archaeological dig on a site directly opposite Vauxhall Park in South Lambeth Road. The site of a prehistoric bridge dating to between 1750BC and 1285BC has recently found near Vauxhall Bridge, which suggests that the area had a […]
Vincent van Gogh in Stockwell
Vincent van Gogh moved to London in May 1873 at the age of 20 and lived intermittently in the city until 1876. During this time he is known to have visited, and written about, several of the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibitions, Christie’s and iconic sites including St Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court. He also […]
Henry Tate (1819-1899)
The ‘Tate’ of Tate and Lyle fame, was born in Chorley and was the son of a clergyman. He started out at age 16 as an apprentice in the grocery trade, but by age 20 had set up his own shop which soon became a chain of 5 shops. In 1859 he sold his shops […]
Surrey Zoological Gardens
The Surrey Literacy, Scientific and Zoological Society was formed by Edward Cross in 1831 with the intention of setting up a public zoo. Cross has previously owned a menagerie on the Strand and he sold his animals to the Society who leased a 13-acre site, formerly part of the Manor of Walworth, from Lord Holland. […]
St Thomas’s Hospital
St Thomas’s Hospital was founded in about 1106, probably as part of the Priory of St Mary Overie, Southwark but its name The Hospital of St Thomas the Martyr probably dates after Thomas Beckett was made a cannon in 1173. Around 1210 the Priory was destroyed by fire and the hospitals moved to land near […]
Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan, who revitalised British music in Queen Victoria’s reign, was born in Lambeth. His parents, Thomas and Maria, spent their honeymoon in 1838 as the first tenants of No 8 in the newly built Bolwell Terrace. Thomas earned a guinea a week for clarinet playing and paid an annual rent of £22. The first […]
Stockwell Training College
At age 18 Joseph Lancaster opened his first school in a room in his father’s house. Two years later, in 1798, his school moved into new purpose-built premises in Borough Road, Southwark. The new school building initially had 300 pupils but a sign outside read: “All who will may send their children and have them […]
Stockwell
The name Stokewell (first recorded in 1197) means the well by the stump or wood and comes from the Old English stocc + wella. There was a Stockwell Wood till the 17th century. The manor of Stockwell was formed in the late 13th century, when King Edward I acquired the manor of South Lambeth and […]
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904)
Sir Henry Morton Stanley of “Dr Livingstone I presume” fame was the MP for North Lambeth at his second attempt from 1895 to 1900. He only spoke on one or two occasions and then without much success.
Southwestern Hospital
It is now hard to comprehend how badly epidemics hit the population of the UK in the days before the advent of decent housing, clean water, modern sewerage systems and antibiotics. For example measles and whooping cough alone accounted for 50,000 deaths in England and Wales between 1838 and 1840. The first smallpox hospital was […]
South Bank
The article is reproduced from a 1991 booklet Lambeth’s Theatrical Heritage with the kind permission of the Streatham Society. Copies of this very interesting booklet are still available from the Streatham Society website. It was appropriate to hold a festival of self-appraisal in 1951 – a century after the Great Exhibition. It was conceived whilst […]
W. H. Smith
In 1792 Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna opened a small ‘newswalk’ or newspaper round in Little Grosvenor Street, London. Unfortunately Henry died suddenly a few months later leaving Anna to run the business. She went into partnership with Zaccheus Coates until he died in 1812. When Anna died in 1816 the newsagents and […]
Smallpox and fever hospitals
The following article is reproduced from Geoffrey Rivett’s very interesting book The Development of the London Hospital System 1823-1982, published by the Kings Fund in 1986, with the kind permission of the author. For more information see his excellent NHS History Website Fevers, including smallpox, typhus and enteric fever, were one of the greatest problems […]
Felix Slade (1788-1868)
Felix Joseph Slade, the son of a wealthy Surrey Landowner Robert Slade, was born in Lambeth on 6 August 1788. Felix, a rich bachelor, was a passionate collector and purchased many books, engravings and glass objects with which he adorned his home in Walcot Place (Kennington Road). When he died on 29 March 1868, four […]
St Stephen’s, South Lambeth
2011 saw the 150th anniversary of St Stephen’s Church, South Lambeth – the angular red brick building on the corner of St Stephen’s Terrace and Wilkinson Street. On 23 April 1861 the original church – built on “a waste piece of ground at the back of Albert Square” – held its first service. According […]
St Peter’s, Vauxhall
St Peter’s Church, located in Kennington Lane on the edge of what was Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (on the site of the Neptune Fountain), was built in 1863-4 by the notable Victorian gothic revival architect John Loughborough Pearson (1817-1897). It has an active and thriving congregation. The following article was published in 1991 by Vauxhall St Peter’s Heritage Centre, which is […]
St Michael’s, Stockwell
St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, a Grade 2 listed church by W. Rogers, was constructed in 1840-1 in the Gothic Style. The building was originally planned with the sanctuary beneath the spire and the main entrance was from Stockwell Park Crescent. The orientation was changed in 1880 when the altar was moved and the […]
St Andrew’s, Landor Road
Possibly the oldest public building in Stockwell, St Andrew’s Church is a shadow of its first incarnation, a rather attractive chapel first put up in 1767. Extended in 1810 and then remodelled in the Romanesque style, it is now a grubby-looking non-descript building. Here is what the 1956 Survey of London (ed F. H. W. […]
Rowton House, Bondway
Rownton Houses were a chain of hostels built in London by the Victorian philanthropist Montagu William Lowry (1838–1903) (Lord Rowton) to provide decent accommodation for working men in place of the squalid lodging houses of the time. The first one was established at Bondway, Vauxhall. Rowton had been private secretary to Disraeli and had helped […]
Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen (1843-1902)
William Chandler Roberts-Austen was born 3 March 1843 in Kennington and became famous for his research into the physical properties of metals and their alloys. He developed procedures for the analysis of alloy constituents and an automatic recording pyrometer used to record temperature changes in furnaces and molten materials. He became a world authority on […]
Richborne Terrace
Andrew Nicholl, RHA, a 19th-century Irish artist lived at 33 Richmond Terrace (now 72 Richborne Terrace) in 1882/3. And in 1872, after living at other addresses in the area, he moved into 26 Osborne Terrace (now 55 Richborne Terrace). Richborne Terrace came into being in 1936 when the two sides of the same road (Osborne […]
David Ricardo (1772-1823)
David Ricardo, a political economist, was born in 1772 and was the third of 17 children. Although his father was a wealthy merchant banker and stockbroker David had little formal education and at age 14 went to work in his fathers business. He was disinherited at age 21 when he married against his parents’ wishes. […]
Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham was born at 210 South Lambeth Road on 19th September 1867. He came from a big family, his mother Annie having 11 other children though not all survived childhood. He was educated at the City of London School and showed a natural aptitude for art and drawing. In 1884 Arthur became an insurance […]
Samuel Prout (1783-1852)
Samuel Prout was born in 1783 and studied at Plymouth Grammar School. As a teenager he tried to earn a living as an illustrator and accompanied the historical painter B. R. Haydon on a tour of Devon and produced some good work but in 1796 his drawings of Cornwall for the publisher John Britton were […]
Charles Pritchard
Charles Pritchard, headmaster of a private school in Stockwell in 1833, was an astronomer. He was educated at Merchant Taylors School and Christ’s Hospital and gained his degree from Cambridge in 1832. He then turned his attention to educational reform. In 1834 he moved from Stockwell to Clapham grammar school, which was founded to give […]
Printing
On leaving school William Clowes (1779-1847) was apprenticed to a printer at Chichester. Early in 1802, after serving seven years apprenticeship, he moved to London to seek employment as a journeyman printer. He found a job but on 21 October 1803 he set up on his own at 20 Villiers Street (off The Strand). (Charles […]
Oval Cricket Ground
Oval Cricket Ground is the headquarters of the Surrey County Cricket Club (SCCC) and is on land leased from the Duchy of Cornwall that was originally a cabbage patch and market garden. The Montpelier Cricket Club of Walworth was granted a lease on the site in 1845 initially for 31 years at £120 per annum. […]
Orphanages
The Stockwell Orphanage for boys was founded by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle (Elephant and Castle). His church had already supported a number of alms houses and following a prayer meeting at which Spurgeon had stressed the need for an orphanage and an article in The Sword and Trowel in 1866, […]
Vauxhall Station
This photo was probably taken in 1966 and shows the A2 class Locomotive designed by Arthur H. Peppercorn for the LNER and manufactured in 1948. It was originally named The Blue Peter after a famous racehorse, and under Bristish Railways was numbered 60532. Weighing in at over 161 tons this 4-6-2 had 6’2″ driving wheels […]
Stockwell Station
The text of this page is based on two articles that appeared in the Vauxhall Society’s newsletters during 1983. In previous Newsletters we have described the history and architecture of some tube stations within the Society’s area. But the station at Stockwell, and former railway depot nearby (of which hardly a trace remains) are of […]
Northern Line
The Northern Line was formed out of the City and South London Railway (C&SLR) and the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR). The City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first deep level tube railway in London as well as the capital’s first electric railway. It ran from Stockwell to the City of […]
Nine Elms: The National Railway Museum now leaving…
By Simon Midgley Imagine if Vauxhall were to become home to a world-class museum. What would that do for the image and prosperity of the area? Well, it turns out, that’s what could have happened. Vauxhall nearly got the National Railway Museum, but it went to York instead and is now the most-visited museum outside […]
Nine Elms Station
Nine Elms Station was designed by Sir William Tite as the London terminus of the London and Southampton Railway and was opened in 1838. Joseph Locke was the chief engineer of the line which was build by Thomas Brassey. Just nine days after the opening, eight special trains ran to Epsom and carried more than […]
Nine Elms
William Lithgow’s Survey of the Civil War defences of London in early May 1643 mentions a fort at ‘Nyne Elmes’. This area was a low swampy district, which was prone to flooding and had some windmills and some willow beds. Despite its swampy setting, the area soon attracted industry with docks for wood and timber […]
Andrew Nicholl
Andrew Nicholl RHA (1804-1886) was the son of a Belfast bootmaker and started out as a compositor on the Northern Whig newspaper, but from an early age was interested in art. His artistic talents were spotted by Sir James Emerson Tennent, the Colonial Secretary, who became his patron, funding a trip to London in the early […]
Florence Nightingale Times obituary
This obituary for Florence Nightingale appeared in The Times on August 15, 1910. We deeply regret to state that Miss Florence Nightingale, O.M., the organizer of the Crimean War Nursing Service, died at her residence, 10, South-street, Park-lane, on Saturday afternoon. She had been unwell about a week ago, but had recovered her usual cheerfulness […]
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was a British nurse, hospital reformer and humanitarian. She was born in Florence on 12 May 1820, and named after the city, while her parents were in Italy as part of a tour of Europe. Nightingale’s early life was spent, in the main, in Derbyshire. Her father tutored her in the classics. Aged […]
Millbank Penitentiary
Millbank, on the other side of the Thames to Vauxhall, takes its name from the mill belonging to Westminster Abbey. The mill stood on a lonely and marshy riverside road linking Westminster to Chelsea until it was demolished by Sir Robert Grosvenor who built a house there in about 1736. The house was pulled down […]
Dr Annie McCall
Dr Annie McCall, L.R.Q.C.P. (Ireland) and L.M., MD Berne (1859-1949), was born in Manchester and had an international education – Gottingen Germany, Paris, Berne and Vienna as well as the London School of Medicine for Women. She qualified in 1885 and was one of the first 50 women doctors. Her interests included midwifery and tuberculosis. […]
Lower Marsh
The text for this topic is taken from the excellent www.lower-marsh.co.uk website with their kind permission. Lower Marsh Street pre-dates all the buildings now present. It is shown in the de la Feuille survey of 1690 as a lane lined with cottages and small holdings crossing Lambeth Marsh, on an almost identical alignment. It formed, […]
Lambeth Waterworks Company
The Lambeth Waterworks Company was formed in 1785 to supply local parishes with water, drawn directly from the Thames near Waterloo, by means of wooden pipes and channels. By 1802 the main had reached Kennington and iron pipes were replacing the wooden ones. A reservoir was constructed at Streatham Hill in 1832 and new works […]
Lambeth Parish Watch House
A watch house was erected on Lambeth High Street in 1825, for the purpose of holding ‘the drunk and disorderly’. Its site is marked with a stone in Lambeth High Street Recreational Ground. The building was apparently demolished at some point between the wars. There was a second Lambeth Watch House next to St John’s […]
Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company
Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company was formed in 1845 on the merger of the Southwark Water Company and the Vauxhall Water Company. The reservoirs covered nearly 18 acres of ground which now houses Battersea Power Station. Steam engines were used to pump water to a height of 175 ft to supply Brixton. The water quality […]
Vauxhall Water Company
Vauxhall Water Company was formed in 1805 as the South London Waterworks Company (pictured). The works were based at the Oval and took water from both the Thames and Vauxhall Creek. It supplied the parish of St Giles, Camberwell, parts of Lambeth together with other parts of Surrey. The Vauxhall Creek supply became very polluted […]
London Pneumatic Despatch Company
In the mid 1850s the Post Office commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the possibility of a pneumatic tube system to convey packages between two offices. The study concluded that, while possible, it would have high capital and running costs – so the Post Office dropped the idea. However, on 30 June 1859 Thomas Webster […]
London Fire Brigade Headquarters
The London Fire Brigade Headquarters on the Albert Embankment were opened on the 21 July 1937 by King George VI. The building, designed by the LCC architects, E.P.Wheeler FRIBA and assistant architect, G.Weald FRIBA, was built to replace the old headquarters building in Southwark. The large site is in two sections on either side of […]
Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham
Liza of Lambeth was the first novel by W(illiam) Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), the English author and novelist. Maugham was born in Paris, orphaned when he was only 10 and then brought up by an uncle. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury and after a year at Heidelberg University, he studied medicine at St. Thomas’ […]
Lambeth Wells
There were two wells called ‘Nearer’ and ‘Farther’ situated on, or very close to what is now Lambeth Walk. At some time before 1697 a ‘Great Room’ was opened for music and dancing, the admission being 3d (1.25 pence); by 1721 the entry fee, for special events, had risen to 1s (one shilling – 5 […]
Lambeth Walk street market
The following is based on an articles by Peggy Sheath published in The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter during 1980. A street market was in existence in Lambeth Walk by the 1860s. In a report by the London County Council dated 6 December 1901, from a survey made that year, it is stated: “It is noticeable that […]
Windmills in Lambeth Walk
The following is based on an article by Peggy Sheath published in The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter during 1980. There were three windmills in the vicinity of Lambeth Walk. They were much used by the market gardens which helped to swell the food supplies for the ever-growing population north of the Thames in the 18th and […]
Lambeth Walk
Lambeth Walk was the site of two wells, the road to which slowly became lined with houses of one sort or another. By the 1840s ‘The Walk’ had a well-established market and by 1861 it was thriving with 164 costermongers’ stalls. Related links Windmills in Lambeth Lambeth Walk street market Industries in Lambeth Walk Lambeth […]
Lambeth Road, notable inhabitants
The Marine Society, 202 Lambeth Road The following article appeared in The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter of May 1980. A major contribution to the refurbishing of properties in Lambeth Road has been made in recent time by the Marine Society. In December 1979, HM the Queen officially opened its new headquarters in the former Archbishop William […]
Lambeth School of Art
Lambeth School of Art was established in 1854 by William Gregory, vicar of St Mary the Less Church. St Mary the Less Church was in Princes Road (now called Black Prince Road). It was demolished in the 1960s. At the end of the 1850s, the school was solely a night school. Dean Gregory was Rector, […]
Lambeth North Station
The following article appeared in The Vauxhall Society Newsletter of July 1981. To the casual traveller, the underground station at Lambeth North is pretty unprepossessing. With its clanking lifts and lonely platforms it characterises some of the depression of the inner city. In recent months a modest effort has been made by London Transport to […]
Lambeth High Street
People are sometimes puzzled by the name of Lambeth High Street, which runs southwards from St. Mary’s church, Lambeth to join Black Prince Road. It seems so unlike the typical high street scene, and yet a hundred years ago this is exactly what it was. It was especially a place for traders connected with the […]
Lambeth Baths
Over the past 150 years at least three local buildings have been called “Lambeth Baths”. The first was run by Lambeth Baths & Washhouses Company Limited and was behind 156 Westminster Bridge Road (between Oakley Street and Lambeth Marsh). At the time of writing we do not know when the baths were built but they […]
Lambeth
Lambeth has been described as a village between Southwark and Battersea. The name comes from Lamhytha (1088), a ‘Landing-place for lambs’. Lambeth has been spelt in various ways including Lamb-hythe, Lamheth, Lambyth, Lamedh, Lamhees. The area was mostly marsh and fields with scattered villages and hamlets until the 18th century. King Harthacnut owned the Manor […]
‘A Night in a London Workhouse’ (song)
A Night in a London Workhouse (song) All you that dwell in Lambeth, listen for awhile, To a song to enlighten and amuse you, In the workhouse only mark, there’s queer doings after dark. And believe me it is true I now tell you; It’s of the ups and downs, of a pauper’s life, Which […]
Inquest on boy flogged at Lambeth Workhouse
Extract from The London Medical Gazette 1837-8 Editorial – Inquest on boy flogged at Lambeth Workhouse The gist of the case may be comprised in a small compass. The boy, whose age is not stated, had been in Lambeth Workhouse, where he was flogged by a Mr Rowe, with such severity, that the body, when […]
Lambeth Workhouse
The text below has been compiled from various websites, particularly Peter Higginbotham’s Workhouse site and England’s Poor Law Commissioners and the Trade in Pauper Lunacy website. Related links Inquest on boy flogged at Lambeth Workhouse ‘A Night in a London Workhouse’ (song) The workhouse system provided basic sustenance for the very poor, infirm and aged, […]
Kennington Station
The following article appeared in the Vauxhall Society Newsletter in the early 1980s Three of London’s oldest tube stations are at Kennington, Oval and Stockwell, and one of the very newest, at Vauxhall itself. The oldest stations were completed originally by the City and South London Railway Co. and opened, after three years of work, […]
Prince Consort Lodge, Kennington
Prince Consort Lodge was erected in 1851 at a cost of £458 14s 7d. (£458.73) on land adjoining the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. The land was acquired by the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes with the influence of their president, the Prince Consort. The two-storey Lodge was designed by Henry […]
Kennington Park
Kennington Park, formerly known as Kennington Common, consists of approximately 20 acres and is still part of the Duchy of Cornwall though now managed by Lambeth Borough Council. From the earliest recorded times, the Common was widely used for fairs and gatherings of all sorts. Preachers including both John Wesley and George Whitefield held services […]
Kennington: Walter Thornbury
The following is an extract from the six-volume History of Old and New London by Walter Thornbury published between 1872-1878. On the north side of Stockwell, and hemmed in by Walworth, Newington, and South Lambeth, is the once royal manor of Kennington. The name of Kennington, it is said by some topographers, was probably derived originally […]
