Thames Tributary Effra - Kennington

Thames Tributary Effra
The Effra flowed into this area from the south and then turned westwards towards the Thames


Post to the west Vauxhall
Post to the east Camberwell Road
Post to the south Brixton and Stockwell
Post to the north Kennington Newington Butts


Brixton Road
The river flowed down the road and then turned to the area which is now the Oval, on south side. The road originally crossed the river at Hazard’s Bridge, which is marked on a plan of 1636. The Effra here divided the manors of Kennington and Vauxhall.
1 –3 London Cab Co General Motor Cab Co. Built by the General Cab Company 1905. The Company was formed in 1907 and 1,500 taxis operated from here. This building was offices and three-storey garages for 2,000 vehicles in a yellow and red brick and terracotta. It included a Museum with a collection of restored taxicabs. A cooperative undertook repair with facilities for cab owner-drivers. “Kennington Park” on the gable was originally ‘General Motor Cab Co.Ltd.’ in art deco lettering. Next to it the archway into the courtyard was similarly lettered. The rest of the building, now the business centre, comprised garaging, washing and repair facilities.
Kennington Park Business Centre. In the Cab Co. buildings.
SOGAT House20 Centro Scalabrini – base for Italian Scalabrini Brothers.
37 National Theatre
131 Empress Cinema rebuilt but was 1898 Wesleyan and then a theatre.
20 entrance for tractor car and horses for Cable Tramway 1890s. Kennington and Streatham Cable Tramways. Brixton end
39 Cranmer House
91-137, terrace of the 1820s.
Christ Church. Built on the site of the earlier Holland chapel, demolished in 1899. This huge monstrosity was completed in 1902, by Beresford Pite for his brother-in-law, the Rev. William Mowll. The style is Byzantine Romanesque. With the layered brickwork of which Pite was so fond. The foundation stone is also by Johnston, cut by Eric Gill in 1902.
Mowll Hall, 1897-8 by Beresford Pite, with an unusual window.

Bowling Green Street
In the late 18th there was a garden and bowling green here which belonged to the landlord of the Horns tavern. It was later built-on. It is now part of the Kennington Park Estate.
Castle Tavern or Elephant and Hippo, closed but once had animal heads outside. Half timbered building. Was previously the Carpenters Arms with a tiled wall panel with a: 'Flying Tankard' and the words; '1757'; 'Charrington'; 'Toby Ale' and 'The House of Toby'

Camberwell New Road
Laid out as a turnpike road authorized by Act of Parliament in 1818 and opened in 1820. It led to Vauxhall Bridge, and developed with urban terraces and villas. It is the longest Georgian Road in England. Part of the route for cable hauled trams to Streatham. It is now part of the A202.
19 64, 84-90, 185-187, 226 Late Georgian terraces 1820s and 1830s.
181 which was originally 8 South Place home of Thomas Hood, poet.
60 The Black Sheep pub, was previously called the Skinners Arms
146 Latin Palace, restaurant and salsa dance centre. Was the Union Tavern
189 Clifton Cottage is dated 1823.
225 Miliki spot was previously called the Clarendon Arms
Gallows. In the 18th the County of Surrey gallows were on the current site of St.Marks. Many of the Scottish rebels were hanged here in 1746. Very gruesome executions of Jacobins with pamphlets handed round during disembowellings. I 1658 a woman was burnt to death for murdering her husband.
Site of Turnpike gate. Removed in 1853
St.Mark 1822-4 by Roper, but said to be designed by A. B. Clayton. Built in the 1820s, this was one of four Commissioners' churches in Lambeth; funded by the Government to commemorate the peace after the Battle of Waterloo. It has a Doric portico and a tower. The interior was renewed by Teulon in 1873-4 but after bombing it was again restored by T. F. Ford in 1960. The carved c 17 pulpit comes from St Michael Wood Street. Field Marshall Montgomery was born here and his father was vicar. Described as the ‘tramwayman’s church’.
School of St.John the Divine. Pile of books over the school entrance. The main building is at the back

Clapham Road
The Effra was crossed by Merton Bridge. This was called after the monks of Merton Abbey who were responsible for it
Belgrave Hospital for Children 1900-93 extension, in arts and craft style.by H. Percy Adams. And elevations by his assistant Charles Holden. The building is of brick with stone dressings and the main feature is the entrance wing with a tall gable between two towers This hospital was founded in 1866 in Pimlico but in 1899 it was rebuilt here, The east wing, centre block, out patients’ department and the ground floor were finished in 1903 and the rest completed in the 1920s. In 1948 it was amalgamated with King's College Hospital but remained a children's hospital. In 185 the Variety Club Children's Hospital, opened and this closed. It became a centre for the homeless and very run down. It is now flats.
43-59 Frank O’Neill House. Lambeth Police Command building. It is called after a PC killed on duty in 1980
9-13 Belgrave Hotel

Claylands Place
Once called Upper Dorset Place Mews
11 Kingsdown Water Company. Previously workshop of Garey, a blacksmith.
The Smokehouse old seafood smokehouse, for J Jangard, now done up as commercial units and flats.
Old lamp post

Farmers Road
Farmer vitriol makers – their works is now covered by St.Agnes place.
Synergy Centre. A community arts, environment and general good works centre.
Harleyford Street
Oval Station. 18th December 1890. Between Kennington and Stockwell on the Northern Line. Built by the City and South London railway. Opened by the Prince of Wales. A deep shelter in the Second World War was planned but not built because there was too much water in the ground. At the junction of Kennington Park Road, Camberwell New Road, Clapham Road and Harleyford Street. In the 1920s it was rebuilt. In 2000s it was refurbished at street level with a modern tiling scheme inside and out. In order to reflect its proximity to the cricket ground, the internal decorative tiling features large images of cricketers. Prominent Dome. Station tunnel 3ft deep brick lining and 20ft wide 16ft high and 20 ft long.
Oval Business Centre

Hillingdon Street
16 Sir Robert Peel
226 Royal Standard

John Ruskin Street
Was Beresford Street
House with old Whitbread sign on it

Kennington Park
Kennington Common. There used to be a vast bog here. Kennington has links with the Prince of Wales and the Duchy of Cornwall still owns much of the area including the common. However before 1852 it was just a common, a no man’s land. It included the parish pound and store yard. In 1848 the massive demonstration supporting the Chartist petition, presented by Thomas Attwood, was held there.
Kennington Park. Created from Kennington Common by the Office of Works in 1852-4. It became a park through the work of Oliver Davies, Mr. Aden and Mr. Charlton Lane - and an Act of Parliament. Money was raised through local subscription Railings put up and turned into a park. It was managed by the Metropolitan Board of Works 1887 following a Local Parks and Woods Act. Became London County Council in 1888. There are mature trees, mainly plane but also Norway maple, sycamore, evergreen oak and tree-of-heaven. There are blackbirds and blue and great tits. The Flower Garden is a quiet place to sit. Memorial to an unknown number of bodies which lie beneath the park, killed in 1940 in an air shelter which took a direct hit, and which were never recovered.
Albert Model Dwellings. Originally erected at Knightsbridge Barracks for the Great Exhibition in 1851. These were model dwellings commissioned by Prince Albert in his role as President of the Society for improving the Conditions of the Working Classes. It was designed by Henry Roberts. To be healthy, but there were also innovations - no wood used in the construction; the ceiling & roof arches are brick, and the floors are concrete. It uses larger than normal hollow bricks. It is in effect the predecessor of flats erected by later housing charities. The staircase in a niche in the centre, a motif to become almost standard for mid-Victorian cheap flats. It was used as a lodge - re-erected here by special request of Prince Albert to set an example of what working- class housing should be like.
Felix Slade fountain. Designed for Doulton in terracotta by H.Driver 1869. It showed Hagar and Ishmael at the well – although this part was soon stolen. Only the basin and steps are still there. Slade was a local Victorian art collector who donated a drinking water supply to the area with this fountain. .The rest of it disappeared in the 1950s.
Pilgrimage of Life fountain modelled by George Tinworth for Doulton and designed by John Sparkes head of the Lambeth School of Arts. First shown in connection with Lambeth Art School. In the specification of the City of Guilds of Art. Graceful. Once with a family group in medieval dress. Tall slender terracotta work presented by Doulton. 1869. Damaged by Second World War bombing, it was re-erected but destroyed by vandalism in 1981.

Kennington Oval
Kennington was, once an area of marshland and market gardens. The Oval was laid out in 1790 but never developed- can be seen on early 19th maps, as an ambitious piece of street planning. Development was stopped by Prince Albert whose son, as Prince of Wales, controlled the land here owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. This area was eventually built over between 1837 and 1857.
Effra. The river flowed down Brixton Road and then turned to the area which is now the Oval. It runs along the eastern side and raised banks of cement were built round it, which hid the pipes containing the river. Here it, or a tributary, was called Vauxhall Creek. Plans to build a deep shelter planned here were defeated by the Effra. It was again apparently responsible for a flood at the Oval in the 1950s.South London Waterworks. By an Act of Parliament in 1805, the Company was incorporated to provide water to residents south of the River Thames who were not customers of either the Lambeth or Southwark Water companies. They took tidal water from the Effra and stored it in two reservoirs on five acres of land situated in the common area next to Kennington Oval. From 1827, this was pumped from a sire closer to the River Thames the River Effra became increasingly polluted, and in 1831, the House of Lords forced them to take water only from the River Thames. In 1834 they were renamed the Vauxhall Water Company. And in 1845 merged with the Southwark Water Company. By 1847, the reservoirs at the Oval were no longer needed, and the property of the original South London Waterworks Company, was sold to the Phoenix Gas Company.
Cricket ground. Headquarters of the Surrey County Club. The area is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and they are allowed to use the Prince of Wales feathers as a badge... The site was a market garden here, was first used for cricket in 1844 by the Montpellier Cricket Club, which had been thrown out of its grounds at Walworth. Turf was brought here from Tooting Common. Soon after Surrey Cricket Club was founded and this became their home. The first match against Kent was played here then. In 1872 the first FA football match was played here, and also the first Rugby Union matches. The final Test match every season is played there Pavilion by T. Muirhead of Manchester, 1895-7. Jack Hobbs Gate. Memorial, iron built 1934 designed By L. de Soissons. Memorial to Len Hutton brick relief by Walter Ritchie paid for by subscription. In 2002 a number of stands were demolished - Surridge, Fender, Jardine and Peter May - and the OCS Stand built. This is a single four tier grandstand known increasing the capacity of the ground to 23,000. In 1991, during a Test Match, a black stork flew over the ground; the second record of this species in London
52-4 Oval House. Previously used as St. Paul's Vicarage. Plaque to Field Marshal. Bernard Montgomery, Viscount of Alamein 1887-1976 who was the son of the vicar. Plaque erected 1987.
52-54 Oval House Theatre. Oval House began in the 1930s as a settlement for Christ Church (Oxford). Since then it has worked in education and the arts. Oval House Theatre was a centre for fringe theatre from the 1960s, supporting experimental theatre and gay and lesbian and women's theatre in the 1970's and 80's and Black and Asian writing in the 19'90s.
58 Bishop Montgomery Hall. Parish office for St.Marks
17 Cricketers’ pub. Was previously the Clayton Arms. Closed and demolished.
Surrey Tavern. Part of the cricket ground. Cricketing scenes and a moulded timber ceiling. Large, very comfortable one bar pub. Built 1890s now closed and demolished.

Kennington Park Gardens
Kennington Park Children’s Centre. Includes buildings of Aspen House School for delicate children. By Stillman & Eastwick Field, completed 1977. A neat low red-brick building looking inwards to courtyards.

Kennington Park Place
Bishops’ House Early Years Centre., This is the former Bishop's House of 1895 by R Norman Shaw.

Kennington Park Road
Turnpike was by Magee Street
186 Whitfield House Evangelical Alliance
Westminster Bank Ltd building in other use
Job Centre
326 River of Life Evangelical Church in the closed Hanover Arms pub
336 Greyhound pub. Quiet, friendly local with no juke box.
Kennington Train staff Mess Room
Kennington Theatre stood on the Kennington Park Road corner, Opened originally as the Princess of Wales Theatre in with "Cinderella.” Designed by W.G.R. Sprague with interior decorations by De Jong & Co. the foundation stone was laid by Henry Irving. Converted into a cinema in 1921 and taken over by the Gaumont British in 1930. Later taken over by the Odeon circuit, with a view to demolish and build a new Theatre site to the plans of Georg Coles but this never happened. Bomb damage in the Second World War and partially demolished in 1943. In 1949 the remains were subject to a Compulsory Purchase Order and flats built on the site in 1950.
334 Hanover Electric Cinema, Opened 1912 and didn’t last long
214 Horns Tavern. 1887. The pub was there at least by the 1760s and was where the4 manor courts were held. It is here that Surrey Cricket Club was formed in the mid-1840s. Assembly rooms next door. Bombed and demolished.

Lorrimore Road
Lorrimore was the name of a commons in Walworth, largely used for grazing until it was developed. The Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens were opened here in 1831 and this represents the southern extent of them. In 1872 the area was sold for development.
Greig Terrace, a nicely restored terrace dated 1852, and with all kinds of new houses round about with boarded upper floor and gables
St.Wilfrid’s Montessori pre- School
St Wilfrid R.C. Brick – looks a bit patched. Designed by Frederick Arthur Walters, and built in 1914.

Lorrimore Square
One side of the square is mid c 19 with plain stuccoed ground floors, the rest are new
Garden, the animal sculptures represent the animals of the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens
St.Paul’s, part of the Brandon Estate. 1955-60 by Woodroffe Buchanan & Coulter. It replaces a church by H. Jarvis of 1854-6, destroyed in 1941. It has spiky gables and a zigzagging band of honeycomb windows. The church hall, and vestry are underneath, Sculpture of the Risen Christ, by Freda Skinner.
Parsonage with garden and churchyard in the middle.

Lothian Road.
5 site of Toles Garage which was still there in l977. They ran newspaper vans for W.H.Smith. The site was used by independent private buses in the 1920s. Gone.

Maddock Way
2 Canterbury Arms

Montford Place
Gas Works. The South London Water works site was bought in 1847 by the Phoenix Gas Company. The gasholders are decorated with phoenix devices. In the 1870s it was taken over by the South Metropolitan Gas Company who ran it as a holder station for their Vauxhall Works.
20 Allied Distillers and the Borroughs Beefeater Distillery. Large sandstone office block where gin was made. Victorian elements and 1960s extensions. This was previously Haywards Pickle factory - plaque on the building says founded 1820

Prima Road
5 Severn House. 1801

St.Agnes Place
Site of Farmer’s vitriol works. Richard Farmer's vitriol factory was founded in 1778. His son, Thomas, succeeded him. In 1839 Farmer became the first industrial chemist to use pyrites on a large scale as part of the process for sulphuric acid manufacture. Thomas Farmer held an 1840 patent for the process.
Old Victorian houses swept away and flats and maisonettes have made this a thoroughly modern residential area. Features in films 'The Calcium Kid’
St.Agnes. The church of 1874-7 by G. G. Scott Jun was ruined in 1952 and demolished. Some of the old furnishings have been preserved
Rebuilt St. Agnes' Church. A building of 1956 by R. Covell on the site of Gilbert Scott's bombed building. It is smaller than its predecessor but it does retain a few features from the old. One of these is the Triptych Reredos which was designed by Scott and Temple Moore and is adorned with figures of apostles and saints. The west wall mosaic is by Tess Mansley.
1-7 an early c 19 terrace with bow-windows at the back
Conant House council flats

Sutherland Square
A narrow rectangle with 19th houses.

Vassall Road
Terraces in part of a development called Holland Town, built on Lord Holland's land soon after the opening of Camberwell New Road in 1818.
105-123 blocks which were the first to be restored by the G.L.C. in 1973-4.
80 villa one of a number converted to flats by Lambeth Council 1975-6 and with the addition of annexes where Victorian coach-houses normally stood.
11-27 Shops which have been preserved.
St.John the Divine. By G. E. Street, 1870-4 but not finished until l888. The church was gutted in 1940, but restored by Goodhart-Rendel in 1955-8,
Terraced Flats for the Church Commissioners by Clifford Culpin & Partners completed in 1971.
92-96 H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, 1954, a vicarage and home for the Wantage sisters

Warham Street
Was previously called James Street.
St.John the Divine Church of England Primary School. Opened in, 1872. Later additions have been included the red brick and Portland stone front to

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