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 […]
Why ‘missing’ Vauxhall plaque drives Vauxhall Motors fans up the wall
Hands up anybody who knows where to find the plaque that commemorates the spot in Vauxhall where Vauxhall Motors started? Lifelong Vauxhall car-owner Peter Fitchett didn’t know and, planning to see the plaque on a visit to Vauxhall, the Cheltenham-based fan contacted The Vauxhall Society/Vauxhall History. Today’s plaque, installed in September 2016, is so hard […]
The Doulton fairytale tiles that survived Vauxhall’s Blitz
The Doulton fairytale panels in the South Wing corridor of St Thomas’ Hospital get star billing in issue 22 (2017) of the GIST, the Guy’s and St Thomas’s magazine ‘History Corner’ feature. Margaret Thompson and William Rowe’s panels, made a short walk away at the Doulton factory in Vauxhall, once brightened up the two children’s […]
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 […]
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.
Gilbert Bayes and the Doulton House frieze
The dramatic rescue of Vauxhall’s Gilbert Bayes Frieze from the demolition of Doulton House…as it happens The Vauxhall Society is grateful to Paul Atterbury for permission to publish his account of the the rescue and subsequent restoration of the Gilbert Bayes ceramic frieze ‘Pottery Through the Ages’ as well as his contemporaneous notes on the […]
The Myer war memorial
This First World War memorial was fixed to the wall on the Myer’s Bedstead Factory in Vauxhall Walk. After being removed for safekeeping it was restored to the building in 2013. The Horatio Myer & Co Great War Memorial To the Memory of those Employees of Horatio Myer & Co. Ltd. who laid down their lives […]
Vauxhall Motors
In 1857 the Vauxhall Iron Works was founded at 90-92 Wandsworth Road, London SW8 by the Scottish engineer Alexander Wilson, who took the Falkes de Breauté’s heraldic griffin as his company badge. Alexander Wilson and Co, as it was originally known, produced engines for Admiralty pinnaces and triple-expansion engines for Thames river tugs and manufactured […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Windmills in Lambeth Walk
The following is based on an articles 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 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 […]
Industries in Lambeth Walk
The following is based on an articles by Peggy Sheath published in The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter during 1980. The opening of Westminster Bridge in 1750, had led to considerable expansion and development in Lambeth, and a new road was laid down from the bridge, which eventually linked with Brighton. Some fine houses were built in […]
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 […]
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, […]
Glasshouse Walk
Glasshouse Walk (formerly Glasshouse Street), just off the Albert Embankment, is now the only reminder that the glass making industry was once an internationally important industry in Vauxhall. Glass-making was first introduced to Britain by the Romans, who started blowing glass into moulds, thus allowing a wide variety of shapes to be made, including 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 […]
Freemans
The Freemans mail-order business started in 1905 in a gaslit terraced house in the London suburbs. The company was named after Mr H. E. Freeman, one of the four founders. Business was good and after a year the firm moved to a larger site at 215 Lavender Hill. In 1922 it moved into a nearby […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Battersea
Battersea was first mentioned in 693AD as Batrices Ege and belonged to the Abbess of Barking. The name means Badric’s Island, the original site being surrounded by water or marshland. The old village was centred on Battersea Square and the area was mainly dedicated to market gardening, supplying the city of London with carrots, melons, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
