Thames Tributary Neckinger - South Bank

This file contains only the area in the square which is south of the river Thames

Post to the east Southwark
Post to the south Lambeth Riverside

Thames Tributary Neckinger
A western branch of the Neckinger flowing from what is now Mary Harmsworth Park flowed north east around the area to emerge at what was called Cuper’s Bridge, in the area slight north of Waterloo Bridge.


Belvedere Road
Laid out in 1814—27 It had previously been called Narrow Wall. It included the area of theHopes which was west of Hungerford Bridge and owned by Jesus College, Oxford from 1685. It included Theobald's Dock and Chambers' Dock and an open ditch on the east side as well. It was leased to members of the Cupers family. Some of the area was called Ragged Row and this was developed as Belvedere Crescent along with much else of the area.
Embankment. The retaining wall of the new embankment is 700 feet long, similar to that of the Victoria Embankment, and faced with Cornish granite. It was completed by September 1950 at a cost of £450,000.
Commercial Road – ran along the line of what is now Upper Ground up to Waterloo Bridge
Shot Tower Wharf. Shot tower at Cupers Bridge. East of Waterloo Bridge. In 1789 William Watts built a shot tower here in partnership with Philip George. It was 140 foot high with a 123-foot drop and purchased by Walkers, Maltby & Co in 1797. The Walkers were ironmasters from Rotherham with a lead works at Elswick, Newcastle in partnership with Richard Fishwick and Archer Ward, later joined by Samuel Walker Parker. This tower was destroyed by fire on 5th January 1826. A second tower was built on the same site in 1830 by Walkers, Parker & Co.
Lett's Wharf, 1869, Haywood, the City of London Surfveyor, established a scavengers' depot which he designed. It was used for House, trade and market refuse and condemned meat was disposed of. Offensive material was burnt on site or barged away within 24 hours of receipt. In 1881 an incinerator was installed with a set of ten furnaces, arranged back-to-back over a dust chamber and a tall chimney shaft with a 'bird-cage' top. The residue was sent away by barge, mostly to the Medway for brick making. The wharf could take seven barges and horses, 70 vans and other carts were based there as well as hand and mechanical tools for cleansing streets and pavements. Now site of National Theatre.
Cupers Bridge at the south end of what is now Waterloo Bridge. This was also called Arnold Outlet and was a sewer from the Wash, in York Road. One of the outlets of the Neckinger
Cuper's Gardens were an 18th tea garden near what is now the north end of Waterloo Road – the entrance roughly where the current river frontage of the National Theatre.. The gardens opened in the 1680s and were named after the original proprietor, Abraham Boydell Cuper, the gardener of the Earl of Arundel. They were also known as Cupid's Gardens. A long landing stage in the river known as Cuper's Bridge acted as the entrance. The gardens were long and narrow, extending almost to St John’s Church. In 1738 it when was developed into a centre with a concert hall and fireworks. In 1753 they were refused a new licence and finally closed in 1760.
Beaufoy works at Cuper's Gardens. In 1745 Mark Beaufoy, Quaker from Evesham, opened a distillery for the manufacture of British Wines and vinegar at King's Arms Stairs at Cupers Gardens. He had studied vinegar manufacture in Holland and married a Hanbury soap heiress. It was the only firm to make vinegar and wine and became one of the largest in the country. In 1810 he moved the works further west when the site was needed for the construction of the bridge.
National Film Theatre. Part of the Festival of Britain 1951 but was rebuilt in 1957 under the southern arch abutment of Waterloo Bridge. Designed by the L.C.C., architects. Fan shaped auditorium. Enlarged and relaunched in 2007 using the area of the Museum of the Moving Image.
Museum of the Moving Image. Demonstrations of early and modern film and TV technology, Closed 1999
Pend by sculpture by Anne Nicholson. Carving using Purbeck stone.
Waterloo Bridge. The original bridge was said to be the finest in Europe designed by George Dodd with John Rennie as engineer. It was opened on 18 June 1817, on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo and so named after the battle – it had been intended to call it the Strand Bridge. In 1924 it had to be closed, because the arches were weak and the roadway had sunk. For ten years there were rows about replacement Then Herbert Morrison bounced it through the London County Council and rebuilt it without permission from the Government. It was opened in 1945 designed by Sir Giles Scott, with five arches and was the first concrete bridge on the Thames with six lines of traffic. On the observation platform below it a relief shows John Rennie's earlier bridge. This platform is the last remaining pier of the old bridge and retains the bases of the four decorative columns.
South Bank Arts Centre. Lies between Waterloo and Westminster Bridges. Plans for redeveloping the area were suggested in 1935 and echoed in 1943 by Forshaw and Abercrombie. In 1947 the L.C.C. made proposals drawn up by Charles Holden for offices a concert hall, and a theatre. In 1948 preparations began for the Festival of Britain, to include the Festival Hall.
Lambeth Lead Works
Red Lion Brewery. On the site of the Festival Hall. Built in 1836, architect Francis Edwards for members of the Goding family. In 1866 it became the Lion Brewery Company Limited And in 1924 it was taken over by Hoare and Co., The main building was damaged by fire in 1931 and was derelict until its demolition in 1949. One of the lions from the roof is that still on Westminster Bridge.
The Festival of Britain- undertaken in 1951, to celebrate the centenary of the first international exhibition. Buildings were designed by many architects. The style was 'modern', and of outstanding quality, setting a style for a generation. They included Land of Britain by H. T. Cadbury Brown, Sea and Ships by Basil Spence & Partners, and Lion and Unicorn by R. D. Russell and R. Y. Goodden. most noticed was the Dome of Discovery was Ralph Tubbs, circular, with a diameter of 365 ft, and the Skylon by Powell & Moya, 296 ft high – using motifs picked up fifty years later in the Millennium Dome. The Festival site was planned as an informal composition using the 18th principles for landscape gardening.
Purcell Room, opened 1967 372 seats. Recital room.
Hayward Gallery. Built for the exhibition of works of art, particularly the exhibitions of the Arts Council. It has galleries, then open-air sculpture courts and two more galleries. The building is reinforced concrete, externally clad with pre-cast slabs, with exposed shuttering above. Sir Isaac Hayward was leader of the L.C.C., later G.L.C., from 1947 to 1965.
Queen Elizabeth Hall. Opened 1967with 1,106 seats. Walls and roof are of concrete and it has a raking floor.
Zemran by William Pye, 1972, sinuous shiny metal forms. Presented by Nadia Nerina ballerina.
Shot tower. Put up in 1826 for the manufacture of lead shot, and became the only surviving relic of previous activity on the Festival of Britain site. Maltby built a shot tower here in 1826, after he had left the Walkers partnership and Walkers, Parker & Co moved to here in 1839 when they abandoned the Cuper's Bridge site. The shot tower, which was about 200 feet tall, was a well-known landmark and appears on many views of the area. Making of lead shot ended in 1949 and the tower was incorporated into the Exhibition of 1951. It was demolished in 1962 and is now part of the South Bank complex. The works included a rolling mill and a lead pipe factory. The site was between the Festival and Queen Elizabeth Halls and there is a tree on the site.
Royal Festival Hall. Designed by Robert H. Matthew and J. L. Martin for the L.C.C. and opened in 1951 at a cost of £2,000,000. It is built of reinforced concrete faced with Portland stone and the architects were Edwin Williams and Peter Moro. Changes were made in 1962 by Hubert Bennett, the Greater London architect when the main entrance was moved from the south to the north side. The main concert hall seats 3,400 and the platform can take a choir of 250; there are also bars, restaurant and a large circulating area. The organ, 1954, was built by Harrison and Harrison of Durham. The hall is insulated against the noise of passing trains. Seats are arranged as stalls for 2,000, plus a balcony at the back for 600 and four tiers of boxes on each side which are cantilevered out diagonally. Ascension stone design at level 2 by Stephen Cox. Birdcage sculpture by Reg Butler at Level 5 terrace.
'Passage Paving' –sculptural steps Richard Harris outside the Royal Festival Hall.
Nelson Mandela head. Fibre glass vandalised many times, eventually destroyed, re-made and re-cast in antique bronze resin. By Ian Walters and cast by Singer.
The Cellist. Over the stage door entrance to the Festival Hall. Cement and fibreglass. Siegfried Charoux 1958
Peacock sculpture. Sculpture in wood. Brian Yale 1978
Chopin statue 1975 by Marian Kubica, a Pole. The head emerges from folds of material. Black marble base on a raised garden with his name in Polish on the plinth. Erected by Stefania Nieirkrasz and paid for by subscriptions from Poles
Jubilee Oracle, a pair of abstract bronze shapes in the Hepworth tradition, by Alexander, 1980
Festival pier.Walkways elevated which connect the various venues.
Dolphin Lamp standards erected in the 1960s. They follow the design of those made in 1870 for the Victoria and Albert Embankments, which were modelled by James Mabey, under George Vulliamy as the M.B.W. Superintending Architect.
Skateboarding area. Features in films 'Who Dares Wins’.
Coade Stone Manufactory. The stone pioneered the revival of terracotta in the 18th using china clays shipped from Cornwall, brought up the Thames and allegedly to a secret recipe. In 1769, George and Eleanor Coade came from Dorset and opened this factory. Coade's Lithodipyra Terracotta or Artificial Stone Manufactory was pre-eminent for the next 60 years. Two Eleanors, mother and daughter, ensured its success. The stone was cheap, easy to mould but resistant to heat and frost. The likely basic ingredients were kaolin with sand and a marl or feldspar, or crushed glass or mica. Products, including memorials, statues, columns and adornments for as some far afield as Canada and Russia. There is a great deal of the stone in London. Evidence of the factory's activity was unearthed when the Festival of Britain site was being cleared. A rough granite bed, with a square central hole, was displayed on the sloping grass bank in front of the Royal Festival Hall.
Hungerford Bridge. Brunel's Hungerford Suspension Bridge was named from a house near Charing Cross known as Hungerford Inne in 1472 after its owner Sir Robert Hungerford and whose successor set up the market in 1682. The suspension bridge to Hungerford Market of 1841 was designed by I.K.Brunel. Two brick piers remain of this bridge. There was a landing stage for steamers? The chains of the suspension bridge were used to complete Brunel's Clifton suspension bridge over the Avon Gorge.
Charing Cross (Hungerford) Rail Bridge. Built to give the South Eastern Railway access to the north of the river at Charing Cross. This wrought-iron lattice girder bridge was opened in 1864 designed by Sir John Hawkshaw, contractor was Cochrane & Co. of Dudley. Old Hungerford Bridge was sold by its owners to the South Eastern Railway, who took down the suspension bridge and towers, and widened it for the railway. It is on the same alignment as Brunel's bridge and makes use of the two red brick bases of his suspension towers. The other piers are cast-iron cylinders filled with concrete up to the river bed level and lined with brickwork above. The bridge has nine spans, with the rails are 31 ft above THW, originally four tracks originally; widened to six. The bridge was later rebuilt by BR.
New Hungerford footbridges crossing the Thames between the South Bank and Charing Cross Station. Designed n 1996, by a consortium comprising WSP, architect Lifschutz Davidson and DLE which won an international competition for it. It comprises two footbridges on either side of Charing Cross Railway Bridge, supported by cable stays that fan out from inclined, tapering steel pylons
Deep Post Office cable tunnel downstream of Hungerford Bridge. It goes from Rampart Exchange at Colombo House to Trafalgar Square Post Office
Lambeth Water Works was on part of the Festival Hall site in 1785, said to be where Hungerford foot bridge crosses. Initially Water was taken from the river with a 1780s 20 hp pumping engine but, there were complaints. In 1834 the company had reservoirs at Brixton Hill. This site the waterworks abandoned 1852and moved to Surbiton and Ditton in 1853.
Bakerloo Line. Tunnelled from 1898 in the area of Hungerford Bridge. In 1938, the tunnels under the Thames were plugged with concrete floodgates installed at the northern end of Waterloo station. These floodgates are 1'1" thick, weigh about 6 tons, and can resist about 800 tons. They can be closed electrically in 25 seconds, or if necessary by hand.
Dome of Discovery. Designed by architect Ralph Tubbs for the Festival of Britain. The consulting engineers were Freeman Fox and Partners, in particular Oleg Kerensky and Gilbert Roberts. It had a diameter of 365 feet and was 93 feet tall and at the time the largest dome in the world. It was constructed by Costain from concrete and aluminium. It was an iconic structure for the public. After the Festival closed, the dome was demolished and its materials sold as scrap.
Skylon. The “Vertical Feature” of the Festival of Britain. It was designed by Moya, Samuley and Powell and made by Painter Brothers. It was a steel latticework frame, pointed at both ends and supported on cables slung between three steel beams. In spite of its popularity it Skylon was scrapped in 1952 by Churchill who saw it a symbol of the Labour Government; it was toppled into the Thames, cut into pieces and allegedly turned into ashtrays. The
King's Arms Stairs. North of them was the King's Arms Glasshouse. Martineau's Brewery also here. It was founded by David Martineau in 1784 and was taken over by Whitbread in the 1820s.
India Stores was in this area from the early 1860s with a river frontage.

Concert Hall Approach
The Archduke

York Road
The stretch Between Westminster and Waterloo Bridges was laid out about 1820
Wash - stream or ditch crossing the road near Waterloo Station.

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