The remains of the oldest prehistoric bridge in Britain have been found at Vauxhall about 100m upstream from the outflow from the River Effra. The bridge suggests that their was a significant settlement nearby. The discovery of the two lines of oak posts date to between 1750BC and 1285BC (the middle Bronze Age). It is […]
Industry
This article appeared in the Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter January 1982 Much has been said and written in recent years about the decline of industry in the inner areas of London, and with it the decline of opportunities for local employment. Whatever the causes of this change, it is interesting to look back a hundred years […]
Lion Brewery
The Lion Brewery, a prominent riverside landmark in Lambeth, just before it was demolished in 1949 for the building of the Royal Festival Hall. The pilastered building was the storehouse, designed in 1836 by Francis Edwards for the Coding family. As the section shows, the storehouse was massively constructed of load-bearing brick with an all-iron […]
Surrey Theatre
The article below 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 With the success of Astley‘s, a former artiste, Charles Hughes, in partnership with Charles Dibden, the songwriter, on 14 November 1782 […]
Old Vic
This article appeared in the March 1982 edition of The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter. In May last year [1981], our best-known theatre, the Old Vic, went into liquidation with debts of £400,000. The closure was a direct result of the Arts Council’s decision to withdraw its grant (the National Youth Orchestra and D’Oyly Carte Opera were […]
Peabody
Peabody Buildings, housing blocks for ‘the artisan and labouring poor of London’, were built from the trust funds set up by the philanthropist, George Peabody. Peabody was born in Massachusetts in 1795 but spent most of his life in London. In March 1862 he donated £150,000 to endow a fund ‘to ameliorate the condition of […]
Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes, who was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Lambeth in 1865, was the author of children’s books including Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). Hughes was educated at Rugby and Oriel College, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1848 and became a judge at Chester in 1882. He was a Christian […]
Hydraulic Power Company
This article is adapted from a talk given in November 1979 by Mr Donnachie to the Lambeth and Southwark Archaeological Society. The Victorian age was the age of steam power, not only for steamships and railway engines, but for a multitude of smaller applications where nowadays we would find an electric motor or diesel. Pumps, […]
Horns Tavern
The Horns Tavern, rebuilt several times in its history, stood at the junction of Kennington Road and Kennington Park Road, opposite the Post Office. Not only was it a place of drinking and entertainment but it also acted as a good meeting place and as a lecture hall and exhibition space. The court of the […]
Hackford Road
The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh lived in this road for a short period in 1873-74. He lodged at No. 87 with Ursula Loyer, the French widow of a curate. While there, he fell in love with Eugenie, the widow’s daughter who rejected him because she was engaged to someone else. The well-received 2003 play […]
Guinness Trust
In 1890 Edward Cecil Guinness (1847-1927), great grandson of the founder of the Guinness Brewery gave £250,000 to set up the Guinness Trust. Guinness’s purpose was to help the many people in London and Dublin who found themselves destitute and unable to afford decent homes. The first trustees were concerned with more than just housing […]
Charles Green (1785-1870)
English balloonist whose outstanding achievement was his flight with two companions in 1836 from Vauxhall Gardens, London, to Weilburg, Germany, a distance of 480 miles. Green’s 18-hour trip set a long-distance balloon record for flights from England not beaten until 1907. He was accompanied on the flight by Monck Mason and Robert Hollond, who financed […]
The Great Western
The Great Western was the first of the three steamships for which Isambard Kingdom Brunel was responsible. This wooden paddle steamer was launched from the yard of Patterson & Mercer in Bristol on 19 July 1837 and sailed to London later that month to have its machinery fitted; the two side lever engines and four […]
Sir Ernest George (1839-1922)
The following article appeared The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter in April 1985. Sir Ernest George was one of the most successful of the later Victorian architects. Specialising in domestic buildings, his style was notable for the use of red brick and terracotta and his attention to details such as ironmongery, perhaps inherited from his father, a […]
Gatti’s Theatre
The article is reproduced from a 1991 booklet Lambeth’s Theatrical Heritage with the kind permission of the Streatham Society. Copies of this booklet are available from the Streatham Society website (£1.80). The Italian Gatti family established a chain of inexpensive restaurants and cafes, which were successful until superceded by the Lyons’ teashops in 1894. The […]
Gas
Practical use of gas was first demonstrated by William Murdock in 1792. He developed production techniques, which made commercial use practicable by 1802. In 1814 coal gas was first used for street lighting in Westminster to help prevent crime. The first gas street lamps used a simple (non-aerated) jet, which gave a poor light and […]
Flooding
Vauxhall and areas to the south are in the Thames tidal flood plain and the risk of flooding is increasing. The sea level is rising by about 2ft (60cm) every hundred years owing to a number of factors including: higher sea levels greater storminess increased tidal amplitude the tilting of the British Isles Rising ground water […]
Henry Fawcett and Millicent Garrett
Henry Fawcett (1833-1884) lived at No 8 The Lawn (which ran parallel to South Lambeth Road, between Lawn Lane and Fentiman Road). It was Fawcett’s special wish to form a park on the site. Fawcett was a Member of Parliament, an educational reformer and an economist. He became blind at the age of 25 when […]
Henry Fauntleroy (1785-1824): Hanged for forgery
Henry Fauntleroy was born in 1785, the son of one of the founders of Marsh, Sibbald & Co. Bankers. In 1800 he joined his father’s firm as a clerk, and after seven years he was taken into the partnership. He soon took over day-to-day management of the bank but economic conditions in the early 1800s […]
Executions
South of Kennington Park where St Mark’s Church now stands is the site of the Surrey gallows (the whole area formed part of the County of Surrey until the formation of the London County Council). Those executed included some of the Jacobites following their trial in 1746. These unfortunates were then beheaded and disembowelled, and […]
Effra River
This article is based on an article in the Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter of January 1987. The Effra (from the Celtic yfrid – a torrent) rises in the south near Crystal Palace then flows through Norwood Cemetery, parts of Dulwich, Herne Hill, Brockwell Park, Brixton and Kennington before joining the Thames by Vauxhall Bridge. The River […]
Vauxhall, Dunedin, New Zealand
The New Zealand Vauxhall is in Otago Province and is a short distance from the city of Dunedin, which has a population of about 120,000 (so roughly about the size of Exeter in the UK). Today it is a small, upmarket, leafy and sunny suburb built on a moderate slope with a sharper drop to […]
Duchy of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall estate dates back to 1337 when Edward III granted a Royal Charter to his oldest son, the Black Prince. This charter said that from then on the eldest surviving son of the monarch (and heir to the throne) would also be the Duke of Cornwall. The idea was to provide the […]
Lambeth pottery
We don’t know exactly when pottery was first made on the banks of the Thames in Lambeth but the trade probably started in Roman times. The tradition most likely continued from then through the Middle Ages until Royal Doulton moved its headquarters and works from the area in the mid 20th century. In 1570 two […]
Doulton pottery
John Dwight Doulton, sometimes called the father of English pottery, took out patents in 1671 for stoneware of the type previously imported from Cologne (Cologne ware). He set up a pottery in Fulham, which was then just a small village near London. John Doulton was born in Fulham in 1793 and completed his apprenticeship at […]
Dorset Road gas engines
Gas engines in Dorset Road Engines using town gas were first developed by the Dowson Company, Westerham, Kent, in about 1876. Several other companies became active in this field, including Crossley, National, Andrews and Hornsby, but large engines were also imported from Belgium. The engines in the smaller range were principally used for workshop drives […]
Cuper’s Gardens
This celebrated pleasure garden, also known as Cupid’s Gardens, was originally part of Lambeth Marsh. In the late medieval period three acres of this meadowland came into the possession of the Earls of Arundel. After passing through other hands, it eventually came back in the form of a large garden to Thomas, Earl of Arundel […]
Crown Works
Among the many well-known business enterprises that have been associated with the Vauxhall area is the building contracting firm of Higgs & Hill which, until 1967, occupied the site now covered by Ebbisham Drive and Bannerman House. Just one hundred years before, in 1867, William Higgs, a successful building contractor whose work had included Chelsea […]
Crown Baths
The Crown Baths, Kennington Oval, was a speculative 19th-century enterprise, a private swimming pool that was well patronised in the days before the introduction of municipal baths. The pools were heated by waste steam from the beam engine of the Crown Works builders yard. The first Inter-Varsity water polo match was held on Friday 23 […]
John Selby Watson
It had all the elements of a classic Victorian murder – so many it is almost a parody: the blood on the carpet in the study, the shrewish alcoholic wife, the devoted family servant, the prussic acid, the airtight chest ordered the day after the deed, the upright, uptight ‘gentle’ scholar also known for unpredictable […]
William Chester Minor
In 1871 Dr William Chester Minor, a surgeon in the United States Union Army, resigned his commission and settled in London. Shortly afterwards he shot and killed George Merritt, a stoker, believing he had broken into his room. The subsequent trial revealed the extent of Minor’s mental instability and the details of the “Lambeth Tragedy” […]
Thomas Neill Cream
Dr Thomas Neill Cream was a Glasgow-born poisoner, who claimed his first proven victims in America and the rest in England, with possibly others in Canada and Scotland. He was undone when he attempted to frame other people for his crimes and he was executed in England in 1892. He was cross-eyed and had a […]
David Cox (1783-1859)
David Cox, the son of a blacksmith, was born in Birmingham on 29 April 1783 and in his youth was apprenticed to become a miniature painter. Following his employer’s death, he moved on to become a scenery painter at Birmingham and Leicester theatres. In 1803 he moved to London to work on scenery at Astley’s […]
Lewis Nockalls Cottingham (1787-1847)
Lewis Nockalls Cottingham was an architect who pioneered the study of Medieval Gothic architecture. He was a sensitive restorer and conservator of existing buildings and he was keen to share his knowledge and enthusiasm with others. To this end he set up a Museum of Medieval Art in Waterloo Road where he assembled a collection […]
Claylands Road
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, Vauxhall Manor was transferred to Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury. In 1575 Peter Palmer had a lease from the Dean on two closes called Claylands. By 1590 a Lawrence Palmer was the leaseholder of Claylands and several other plots of land in the Vauxhall […]
Church Street
Church Street, Lambeth is now part of Lambeth Bridge Road.
Cholera
Cholera is a severe bacterial infection caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae, which primarily affects the small intestine. The main symptoms are watery diarrhoea and vomiting. The mortality rate is about 50 per cent. In what was known as the Second Pandemic, cholera reached Britain in October 1831 and within months there were 6,536 deaths. […]
Chartists
The Chartists were a political movement that took its name from the “People’s Six Points Charter”. This charter or petition called for: universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, payment of Members of Parliament, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, the abolition of property qualifications for Members of Parliament (then £300 in land). Huge meetings were held […]
Beulah House, 274 South Lambeth Road
Number 274 South Lambeth Road was once known as Beulah House. Despite its apparent neglect this Georgian remnant is Grade II listed (NGR: TQ3042376874): Circa 1800 house of three storeys and basement, five windows. Stock brick. Rusticated stone basement, first floor cill band and mutuled cornice. Gauged flat brick arches to sash windows with glazing […]
Munt’s piano factory
Munt’s piano factory once stood in Wilcox Road. There is a post by a descendent of the family on the UK Piano Page Piano Discussion Forums: My grandfather Cornelius Munt and his brother Norman were the last of the Munt brothers to make pianos at 69 Wilcox road Brixton until 1935 when they sold the factory […]
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin and South London Kennington Cross is the focus of several sites associated with Lambeth’s most famous son, Charlie Chaplin. The Tommyfields bar was formerly the White Hart pub where, sitting on the pavement, Charlie first discovered the joy of music. One of his schools was in Sancroft Street and one of his (many) […]
Cement works at Nine Elms
Major A. J. Francis of Tunbridge Wells writes: “My two greats grandfather, Charles Francis, set up a cement works at Nine Elms in 1809 and was one of the earliest pioneers of that industry. He and others amalgamated at the end of the century to form the present Blue Circle Group. The Guildhall Library contains […]
Caroun House, Vauxhall
A view of Carroun House in 1887, which shortly afterwards made way for Vauxhall Park.
Caron Almshouses
Sir Philip Noel Caron was the Dutch Ambassador to the court from 1609 to 1624. He was a close friend of King James 1. In 1618 he founded an almshouse, in what is now Wandsworth Road. It was a long, two-storied building containing seven apartments built specifically for seven “poor but honest women”. Caron died […]
Carlisle House
In about 1200 a house was built for the Bishop of Rochester on a site between modern day Hercules Road and Carlisle Lane. Some time about 1217 it was rebuilt and called La Place. In 1531 a poisoning attempt was made on John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, by his cook Richard Rouse (Rose). But the […]
Canterbury Theatre
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 The passing of a law in 1843 allowed a modest growth in proto-music halls, probably the most important being the Cyder Cellars […]
Candles
Historically, candles were made in numerous small workshops from expensive beeswax or cheap tallow (purified animal fat) which gave a poor light and released smoke and unpleasant smells. Candles can also be made using vegetable fat including palm nut oil. One of the British government’s alternatives to the slave trade was the encouragement of palm […]
Brunswick House
Brunswick House (30 Wandsworth Road) was built by John Dawson in 1758 on about three acres of freehold land bought by his late uncle Richard Dawson in 1737 from Joseph Pratt. Originally called Belmont House, presumably after the southern boundary road then called Belmont Row or Place (now Nine Elms Lane), this three-storey grade II* […]
Hablot Knight Browne
Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1882) was an English artist, famous for illustrating works by Charles Dickens. Hablot Knight Browne was born on 15 June 1815 in Kennington and was apprenticed to the engraver William Finden who gave him his only artistic education. At the age of 19 he gave up engraving to pursue other artistic interests. […]
Brown Institute for Animals
The Brown Institute for Animals in Wandsworth Road was the first animal hospital in the country. In 1855 Thomas Brown M.A., LL.B., who lived in both Dublin and London, left £20,000 to the University of London to found ‘an Animal Sanatory Institution’ which was to be concerned with “investigating, studying, and without charge beyond immediate […]
Patrick Nasmyth
Patrick Nasmyth (1787-1831) was born in Edinburgh on 7 January 1787. He was the eldest of 11 children of the Scottish artist Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840). One of his brothers was the engineer James Nasmyth, who worked for a while in Lambeth. Patrick Nasmyth had an early love of nature and often played truant from school […]
James Nasmyth (1808-1890)
James Nasmyth (1808-1890) was born Edinburgh to an eminent landscape painter (Alexander Nasmyth) whose hobby was mechanics. One of his brothers was Patrick Nasmyth, a landscape painter, who depicted scenes in Lambeth. As a schoolboy, Nasmyth played in his father’s workshop and showed a great mechanical aptitude in building successful model steam engines. His ambition […]
Henry Maudslay
Henry Maudslay (1771-1831) was apprenticed to Joseph Bramah (lock maker and inventor of the hydraulic press) but soon became his foreman. Maudslay invented the self tightening leather collar that sealed the pistons of Bramah’s hydraulic press making it watertight. He also designed and greatly improved the machine tools used to make the locks. Maudslay fell […]
Joseph Bramah
Joseph Bramah (1748-1815) was was an inventor and locksmith best known for having invented the hydraulic press. He had a workshop in Pimlico and employed Henry Maudslay, who went on to found a factory in Lambeth. Bramah was originally a Yorkshire ploughman but as a result of an accident he was forced to change professions […]
Bower Saloon
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 The Bower was a popular pleasure haunt of the 19th century. It was originally attached to the Duke’s Tavern in Stangate Street, […]
Bonnington Square
The Bonnington Square community, which emerged from the London squat scene of the Seventies and Eighties, now mostly consists of co-operative housing. The central communal area, dubbed the “Pleasure Garden” occupies an area that was bombed in the Second World War and was a derelict playground when taken over by the Bonnington Square Garden Association, […]
Bonner’s House, Lower Marsh
There are many illustrations of a rather quaint old house in Lower Marsh which is sometimes labelled Bishop Bonner’s House. Confusingly there are a few illustrations of a completely different building with the same title. Needless to say there is no evidence that either were anything to do with Archbishop Edmund Bonner, who became notorious […]
William Blake
William Blake (1757-1827) was a poet, a painter and engraver, who created a unique form of illustrated verse. His poetry, inspired by mystical visions, is among the most original, lyric and prophetic in the English language. Blake’s style has been described as a pre-Romantic. Blake, the son of a hosier, was born in London. Although […]
George Parker Bidder
George Parker Bidder (1806-1878) was was an English engineer and calculating prodigy, who resided for a time in South Lambeth Road. Bidder was born at Mortonhampstead in Devon in 1806, the son of a stonemason. An older brother taught him to count when he was about 5 and he learned to multiply by himself by […]
Bethlehem Royal Hospital
The Bethlehem Royal Hospital was founded in 1247 by Sheriff Simon Fitz Mary as the Priory of St Mary Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate. In 1377 ‘distracted’ patients were being treated (i.e. chained to the wall and ducked in water or whipped). In 1547 the hospital was fully functioning as a lunatic asylum. In 1675-6 it was […]
Beefeater gin
James Burrough was born in 1834 and trained as a chemist in the West Country. After his apprenticeship finished, he travelled to North America where it is believed he made the decision to apply his knowledge of chemistry to the drinks trade. On his return to the UK he bought the old gin and liqueur […]
Lambeth Ragged School
Ragged schools were free school for poor vagrant children, where they were taught and usually given food. The name comes from the pupils’ ragged appearance. The schools gave children some basic instruction, in often makeshift accommodation, and helped them find work, or even to emigrate. In 1818 John Pounds, a Portsmouth shoemaker, started teaching poor […]
St Mark’s, Kennington Oval
St Mark’s Church was the second of the four Commissioners’ or “Waterloo” churches built in Lambeth by the Commissioners for Building New Churches. The others being St Matthew’s (Brixton), St Luke’s (Norwood) and St John’s (Waterloo). Due to financial constraints (in total only £64,000 was allocated for all four churches) the Duchy of Cornwall was […]
Fires in Vauxhall
Extract from Recollections of My Boyhood by George Bower Opposite Fentiman Road on the corner of Miles Street stands St. Anne’s Church. This took fire one wintry Sunday afternoon about the year 1854 [actually 1856]. All the resources of the fire brigade, the parish squirter and local firms were mastered together but to no […]
The Dollond family
Just over 150 years ago, British optician and inventor George Dollond died. His passing marked the demise of his family’s century-old instrument-making business. The story of the Dollond enterprise starts with John Dollond (left), who was born in 1706. His father was involved in silk weaving, and John picked up that trade. Because his father […]
St Mary’s, Lambeth
St Mary-at-Lambeth Church is mentioned in the Domesday Book as being owned by Countess Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor. The Bishops of Rochester were later given the living, which in 1197 passed to the Archbishops of Canterbury. The church was rebuilt in the 1370s and again in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. […]
Society for Waifs and Strays
In the middle and late 1800s there were large numbers of poor and no social security system as we know it today. The only official system of support was the workhouse. These harsh, overcrowded and badly run institutions were really hated by the poor, many of whom would rather die than enter one. Charity […]
Beaufoy Vinegar Factory
In 1812, John Henry Beaufoy moved his vinegar brewery from Cuper’s Gardens to South Lambeth. The Cupers site was needed for the new Strand Bridge, which was later called Waterloo Bridge, and Beaufoy was well compensated for the inconvenience of moving. The first Beaufoy to enter the distilling business was Mark, who in 1730 […]
Breweries: Hammerton and Barrett’s
Before good clean public drinking water was available it was often safer to drink beer or ale than polluted river water, so it is not surprising that the area housed a number of breweries. Goding’s Lion Brewery building, near Waterloo, was erected as a storehouse in 1836 and was topped by a lion made of […]
Lambeth Bridge
A horse ferry had linked the Lambeth and Westminster banks of the Thames for centuries, one of only a few Thames ferries capable of taking a coach and horses. The ferry sank on many occasions, notably in 1633 with Archbishop Laud’s belongings and in 1656 with Oliver Cromwell’s coach. Permission to build a bridge here […]
Balloons
Balloons have been about for centuries. Archimedes, using his famous principle, proposed the use of balloons around 250BC but it is not known if he experimented with this idea. Small hot air balloons were used for open air lighting by the Chinese in 170 AD. In 1513 Leonardo da Vinci also got hot air balloons […]
Coade stone
Around 1720 Richard Holt of Lambeth was granted a patent for an artificial stone. In 1769, after the patent expired, a Mr Coade set up a factory in north Lambeth, close to the one belonging to Holt. After Coade’s death, first his wife Eleanor Coade carried on the business until her death in 1796 and […]
Astley’s Amphitheatre
While the Romans had circles or circuses as venues for entertainments of all sorts, there is no direct link to the modern circus,. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire small fairs had travelled from town to town with the odd attraction – a juggler or acrobat. But no one had brought together all the various […]
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
Under Charles II public entertainments were once more became fashionable and England strove to outdo the extravagances of the court of Charles’s French cousin Louis XIV. In 1661 the famous garden at Vaux-le-Visconte, designed by Andre Le Notre, was opened with a fete in honour of the young king, and in the same year the […]
Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official residence. The Convent of St Andrew of Rochester sold part of the Manor to Archbishop Haldwin of Canterbury in 1190. Archbishop Hubert Walter bought the rest of the Manor in 1197 and built a house by the river roughly opposite the Palace of Westminster. This house was […]
All Saint’s, Lower Marsh
Waterloo Station kept expanding from its rather modest beginnings and each time it did so whole streets were swept away. One of the most significant losses during one of these great growth spurts was the church of All Saints on the corner of Lower Marsh and Leake Street (then York Street). This had been built […]
Albion Mill
This corn mill was erected by Matthew Boulton, with the backing of City financiers, at the foot of Blackfriars Bridge in 1786. Matthew was an entrepreneur and the business partner of James Watt and the mill provided an ideal opportunity to use their steam engines for grinding the corn and all the associated handling of […]
Albert Embankment
The Albert Embankment is on the east bank of the Thames and was created by Sir Joseph Bazalgette out of Fore Street, numerous small timber and boat-building yards and reclaimed land. This embankment is one of three built by Bazalgette, the Victoria and Chelsea embankments being the other two. The main reason for building the embankment […]
