Thames Tributary Effra - Vauxhall and riverside

Thames Tributary Effra
The Effra flowed into the Thames in this area


Post to the east Kennington
Post to the north Lambeth
Post to the west Nine Elms
Post to the south Stockwell

Aldebert Terrace
This area was known as the 32 Acres or the Pightle and developed in the mid-19th. It is an example of Victorian terrace housing, built between 1865 and 1875. Earlier known as Williamson Street after one of the family of owners.

Albert Square
A grand scheme 1846-, by John Glenn. Built on what was market garden land in the mid-19th

Ashmole Street
Named after Elias Ashmole, 1617-92, founder of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford who lived in Lambeth. This was previously Church Street.
84 The Roebuck
Ashmole Primary School. This was a London School Board building
Triangle Adventure Playground

Bondway
This was previously called Bond Street but was any case named for an 18th landowner, John Bond.
Rowton House. Established by W.C.Corry Baron Rowton, Secretary to Disraeli, as cheap hostels for working men. This one was designed by Harry B. Measures and opened in 1892 by Lord Rowton as the first of his model lodging houses with 484 beds mostly in private cubicles. Renovated 1974 to provide 150 bedsits.
71 Brewery. 5 floor brewery, built in 1885, for Plowman, Barrett & Co. It has changed hands several times between beer brewers and mineral water makers. Later offices & store for Link.
Mineral Water factory

Carroun Road
Called after Noel Carron Dutch ambassador in 1590s. Carron House survived until 1800s.
Usborne Mews, development on the site of an old bus station

Clapham Road
124 Kelly’s pub. This was previously the Dorset Arms.
South Island Place. Tower block on what was once the southern boundary of Kennington Common. Built 1966-7 using a Wates system for a design by Lambeth Architects Department.

Dorset Road
Turner’s Function Centre
The Phoenix


Durham Street
1-45 Westminster Business Square. In the old Marmite Factory. This was the site of the New London Brewery Co. which went into liquidation in 1925. The factory was taken over by Marmite in 1927, whose product is based on brewer’s waste. Closed 1967, used as St. Mungo hostel and now as a trading estate.
St.Anne’s Catholic Primary School
Anchor House. Retirement housing.
51 Beehive. Close to the Oval with a collection of wine racks and flower prints

Ebbisham Drive
Built on the site of the Higgs and Hill Works

Effra Site
This is the site upriver of Vauxhall Bridge, at the top end of Nine Elms Lane and Wandsworth Road.

St.George’s Wharf. Oversized riverside development built against most people’s wishes. Vast great tower also planned on site
Vauxhall riverside - sewer outflow which may be the last remains of the Effra’s mouth.
Fort built to defend London during the Civil War was alongside the Effra.
Phoenix Gas works. This was alongside Vauxhall Bridge and built on part of the site of the Cumberland Tea Gardens and part on a site previously owned by the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company. The works was built up from 1847 with a retort house with 200 retorts and space for 100 more as well as a landing stage and associated railway. A rest room for the workforce was also provided. The works was extended in the 1860s onto newly acquired land despite petitions from local residents to have it removed. The works was taken over, with the rest of the Phoenix Company, by South Metropolitan Gas Co. in the 1870s.
Nine Elms Cold Store. Public cold store of 1,500,000 cu. ft. capacity located to be served by railway siding, lighter and road. Opened 1965 closed 1979. Demolished. Owned by Associated Fisheries

Fentiman Road
Methodist church. Built 1900 by G. P. & R. P. Baines For the congregation of a chapel in Miles Street. Red brick building with stone tracery.
Caron's Almshouses, founded 1618 by Noel de Caron in what is now Wandsworth Road. This was for seven women over 60. By 1857 the building had become unsuitable and it was sold to Price’s Candle Co and later to the Phoenix Gas Co. The current almshouses were built on this site in 1854. There are plaques to Caron and other benefactors.
Whicher and Kifford's Almshouses, 1855 by Hunt & Stephenson, with barge boarded gables. These almshouses were founded in Westminster in the 17th, and moved to Lambeth in 1855. George Whicher had left £1,500 for an almshouse for six old men and Judith Kifford left £300 for an almshouse for two gentlewomen. In 1855 the trustees bought land alongside Caron's almshouses and two houses were built there.
Wareham House - sculptural relief of boys playing football 1952

Gasholder Place
The site of this small road is now within the area of a supermarket car park.
Gas Holders - a well-known backdrop to the Oval Cricket Ground. The site was taken over by the Phoenix Gas Light amd; Coke Co in 1850 from the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Co. This was a holder station only for gas made at their Vauxhall and Bankside Works. .The largest gasholder is on the site of one of the reservoirs and was originally built by Corbett Woodall in 1877 with two lifts. It was rebuilt under George Livesey rebuilt in 1890 and four lifts one of which was flying and which doubled its size Cast-iron frame with the emblem of the Phoenix Gas Company. In addition there were some smaller holders dating from the 1950s.

Harleyford Road
Laid out after Vauxhall Bridge was opened in 1816, providing a direct route to Westminster from Kennington and South Lambeth.
33 listed
41 Durham Arms pub
43-59 symmetrical group of houses.
96-106 built by Higgs and Hill in 1875 on land purchased for their adjacent works.
Archbishop Tenison's schools. Bombed. Founded 1682 and became voluntary aided church school in 1999.
Council estates. They can all see the cricket matches. Bombed. The railings surrounding the block of flats on the right between Vauxhall Street and Oval Way have an interesting history. After the 2nd World War they were constructed from the metal beds which had been in use in air raid shelters and also from the poles of old stretchers: a good example of recycling.
Crown Baths. This was a speculative development built by Higgs and Hill in 1875 on land purchased for their adjacent works. The pools were heated, by waste steam from the building yard's beam engine. The buildings were later occupied by Whitehead & Sons for their marble works
Imperial Marble Works. J. Whitehead and Sons
Crown Works. Higgs and Hill, on a site now covered by Ebbisham Drive and Bannerman House. The site, on market gardens, was bought by William Higgs in 1870 and in 1873 was merged with Hill. There were workshops for carpenters, joiners, stone-masons, blacksmiths, plumbers and glaziers’, a timber store and stables for twenty horses. In wartime the company undertook contract for munitions and military work as well as prefabricated buildings and aircraft parts, which included a large female workforce assembling fabric coverings for aircraft wings. Other facilities included a piggery, and the 'Crown Orchestra' to entertain workers during their lunch break. The last horse was pensioned off in 1922 and they then ran steam and petrol lorries. The Company was however responsible for many major building contracts, and the works closed in 1967. The company moved to New Malden and was taken over in 2002.
Harleyford Road Community Garden - The garden is divided into sections - a children's playground; a wildlife area with pond; wildflower meadow and hedgerow, an herb garden and an area of lawn and flowerbeds. It was created in 1986 with the help of the Harleyford Road Garden Association. It is the only accessible wildlife site of Metropolitan or Borough importance in the area
42-46 St.Anne’s Catholic Settlement.
St.Mark's Schools 1824, consist of a central part of three bays and little blocks added. For boys and girls. Attractive main building. It has a nature garden at the back, which can be glimpsed from Oval Way.

Kennington Oval
60—63 built by Higgs and Hill in 1875 on land purchased for their adjacent works
Archbishop Tenison’s School. Founded in the 17th by Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lawn Lane
Effra- A gardener ‘recently deceased’ in 1895 remembered the Effra here as ‘wide and deep enough to bear large barges’
Bannerman House. Designed Powell and Moya.
The Academy flats in the buildings of Lawn Lane Schools. This was Vauxhall Manor Comprehensive Girls School, designed by architect J Bailey for the London County Council.
Sunny Bank Laundry. Founded 1875 and later occupied by University Tailors.

Park Place
Park Mansions

Mawbey Street
7 Mawbey Arms. Listed. Family-run pub.

Meadow Road
2a St Peter’s Residence, Little Sisters of the Poor -
66 Hibberd Bros gas engines. This terraced house must have been the registered office of this gas engine and locomotive building company.
Horton House - Sculptural relief of Mother and Child playing. by Peter Peri 1952.

Miles Street
Railway bridge for extension to York Road. Built 1844 with a skew arch 48ft one side and 38ft the other. This is a curve of 54'span. It took 90,000 bricks and was built in 45 hours.
Bruton's Lead Works. Part of the wall remained into the 1970s. It became Girdler Bruton and then the Billiter Group.

Nine Elms Lane
Effra. The river had two exits to the Thames. The westerly one in this area.
1 Market Towers. Oversize offices
1 Club Colosseum oversize entertainment venue.
Nine Elms Station. 21st May 1838. The London and Southampton Railway sited their original London terminus on the edge of the central area at Nine Elms and also provided an imposing terminus building by architect William Tite. It was near to river and road services into London but too far out and ten years later it was replaced by Waterloo. The building remained in use as a goods depot plus some celebrity traffic. It was bombed in the Second World War and demolished in the 1960s. It had an Italian front of seven bays, the centre five opened up in a giant loggia of pillars and arches.
The station and the surrounding area became part of the Nine Elms Goods Station, the main part of which was south of here and now covered by Covent Garden Market
2 steamboat piers
Phoenix Wharf. Francis Cement Works. Charles Francis wanted to make Parker cement when the patent expired. He was a wharfinger, limeburner, cement and marble merchant. He was sited there until 1868 when his worked had to move a few hundred yards because of the building of Vauxhall bridge. The works moved away again in the 1890s because the Metropolitan Board of Works wanted to move the bridge.
Brunswick Dock. Initially a timber dock it was used by the gas works, and subsequently by the railway.

Palfrey Place
Garage Keith & Boyle (London) motor vehicle distributors. This was also the London Terminal Coach Station. Now Usborne Mews
MOT Testing Station and yard

Rita Road
St George’s Bridge Gardens. Housing in the Beaufoy Vinegar Works buildings. Behind the offices is preserved an early industrial group. The original buildings date from c. 1810 including one of the lodges with columns, the Beaufoy Mansion, Caron Place was the family home but a ballroom extension was bombed and burnt. At the end of the courtyard is the Vat House, three bays with a cupola and a tin roof following bombing. The bell in the cupola had an inscription. “THOMAS MEARS LONDON FOUNDER 1843”. The manufactory and offices are in buildings of two and three storeys, built in stock brick with stone dressings, and grouped about a long yard. The yard was approached through a walled garden along a short road, with two storey lodges. The south lodge was destroyed by bombing on October 12, 1940, but the north lodge had a loggia with cast-iron columns, surmounted by the arms of the Beaufoy family. The floor behind the yard is paved with mill stones.

St.Stephen's Terrace
Victorian terrace housing, built late 1860s.
St.Stephen 1967-8 by N. A. Green, replaces a church on the same site.
St Stephen. 19th church 1860 by J.Barnett. Demolished in 1951.
The Tradescant sculpture. Outside St Stephen’s Church and the corner of Wilkinson Street. Unveiled in 1988 by naturalist David Bellamy as a memorial to the Tradescant family. 17th pioneer collectors of plants whose garden was on this site.
Royal Albert pub

South Lambeth Road
South Lambeth was first recorded as ‘Sutlamehethe’ in 1241 and lies in both Wandsworth and Lambeth
Effra crossed the road at Cox Bridge – the name is recorded in 1340. It then discharges into the Thames.
5 United Dairies Milk bottling plant, fed by a pipe from platform l Vauxhall Station. Gone
51 Henry Fawcett, M.P., the blind Postmaster-General, lived here from 1875 until his death in 1884. It was pulled down for the formation of the park,
72-84 Brand and Co. The site included food drying kilns which were still there in 1967. H.W.Brand had developed a chicken essence drink for George IV and then exploited it commercially. In the 1870s he sold the business to J.J.Mason and Thomas Dence. Dence, from Kent, developed a process based on oast houses. Keybridge House is on the site
80 Keybridge House 1975-6 by G. W. Mills & Associates, huge telecommunications centre with shiny aluminium projections. On the site of the Brand works.
126 Wheatsheaf. Corner house pub rebuilt in 1862. Public bar and a large saloon with ornate mirrors behind the bar.
220-218 Mawbey Place Built before 1791
274 Beulah House the oldest house in the area. Coade stone keystones over the windows.
276 Stockwell Baptist Church. 1866. Classical.
87 Comfort Inn. This is in an office block built for Sarson's Vinegar. It was formally called Paul Robeson House. The site extends to an area covered by housing behind Travis Perkins once the Beaufoy Vinegar Works. Now flats based in Rita Road.
Travis Perkins. Timber and building supplies firm on the site of the Sarsons Vinegar works.
Aerostatic Academy. This was on the corner of the South Lambeth Road and Stockwell Road, the site of the Vauxhall Turnpike in the very early 19th. It has been suggested that experimental work on balloons filled with coal gas was undertaken here. It had been opened by the balloonist, Charles Blanchard, with his prize money received for a balloon ascent from Dover in 1785.
Coronation Buildings. Built c. 1905 by London & S.W. Railway. 5 floors. Demolished.
Railway bridge for extension to York Road 1844
St Anne. Founded as a private chapel in 1793, became a parish church in 1869. Chancel, vestry, and tower added in 1874 by R. Parkinson.
Stockwell Partnership Office
Tate Library 1888. Lambeth had the patronage of Sir Henry Tate, who lived at Streatham. Libraries were designed by his protégé S. R.J. Smith. It had a curved porch with caryatids which were removed probably in the 1950s.
Tradescant's home. John Tradescant the Elder and John Tradescant the Younger were travellers, naturalists and gardeners of repute, who lived in South Lambeth Road in the 17th . Their house, known as the Ark adjoined Turret House, the home of Elias Ashmole. The two houses were demolished in the 1880s The elder John Tradescant was Charles I's gardener in 1638 and both he and his son were distinguished botanical travellers..The Tradescants displayed the results in their house at Lambeth, Their Ark of Novelties constituted the first public collection in Britain. It was divided into two major sections, natural and artificial. The Ark was eventually inherited by deed of gift by Elias Ashmole who added his own accumulations of rarities, books and coins. In 1677 Ashmole donated the augmented collection  to his old university, Oxford and the result was the Old Ashmolean Museum. .

Tradescant Road
Art Metal Work Company .  Mr. J Starkie Gardner (1844-1930) was 'Metalworker to King Edward VII', and for 50 years he was the foremost authority on the history of decorative ironwork. The business began in 1752 and was a partnership between two families Starkie and Gardner. Following a marriage. Their first factory was  Lambeth from 1885 to 1922 but then moced to Wandsworth, closing in 1994. Starkie Gardner's 'Art Metal Work' From 1885 to 1905 the firm was at 29 Albert Embankment. From 1907 to 1909 at 69 Wilcox Road, South Lambeth. From 1914 to 1922 at Tradescant Road.

Vauxhall Cross
One of London's busiest junctions with seven main roads. Plus connections to the underground and railway stations.
New bus station. Designed by Arup Associates with two cantilevered arms containing 167 solar panels providing a third of the bus station's electricity.

Vauxhall Park
On the site of Carroun, Carron or Caron House.This is different to Caron House on the Beaufoy site. It was built by Sir Noel de Caen and in the 1630s given to Clarendon. Fleet prisoners taken there in the Great Fire. It was demolished 1687.occupied by Sir Charles Blicke and later sold to William Evans in 1838. In 1886 it was proposed that that it could be developed for housing but through Octavia Hill eight and a half acres were bought by the Lambeth Vestry in 1889 for a park. Mark Beaufoy, at that time M.P. for Kennington, also made a contribution. The design of the park was undertaken by the Kyrle Society and their landscape gardener, Fanny R. Wilkinson. Harrison Townsend designed the entrance gates and railings. Octavia Hill was present at the opening ceremony in 1890, performed by the Prince of Wales. On the site of Henry Fawcett's house is a memorial to him modelled by George Tinworth and made at Doulton's pottery. This was destroyed in 1955. Goldfish basin by Basil Champneys 1930 in memory of Lord Cheylesmore.

Wandsworth Road
Runs along the NW edge of the borough of Lambeth towards Clapham Junction,
Effra. The river is believed to have had two entries into the Thames one just south of Vauxhall Bridge. In 1875 there were floods
Railway bridge for extension to York Road 1844
30 Brunswick House. Three storeys with a semicircular porch with rams'-skull frieze of Coade stone. It was built in 1758 and later occupied by the Duke of Brunswick. It was on land owned by the Dawson family which included a timber dock. In 1791 the house, which was then called Belmont, was divided into two. Half was sold to the Western Gas Company in 1845 and purchased by the London and South Western Railway Company in 1854. In 1811 the other half was purchased by Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick, whose sister Caroline married the Prince Regent. He had fled to England after the battle of Wagram. His part of Belmont House was also purchased by the Gas Company and sold to the Railway Company in 1855. The two parts became Brunswick House and have been used ever since as an institute and club for railway workers.
101 -105 Early 19 terrace. Stock brick with parapet front.
109 Early 19 terraced house. Stock brick
Sainsbury’s. Features in film 'My Beautiful Launderette’
Vauxhall Iron Works. Alexander Wilson had a factory here in 1857 here. He made marine engines and other engineering items. The company later developed a small 1 cylinder marine petrol engine to power a small river launch. This engine was later used as the basis for their "horseless carriage,” sold in 1903. The car had tiller steering, like a small yacht. The main factory was on what is now the Sainsbury's petrol station on Wandsworth Road
But the need for more space caused the company to move to Luton in 1905 to become Vauxhall Motors.
124-130 South Bank Club. Health club which was the Granada Cinema 1936-1967. Previously it had been the site of the Clock Tower Cinema (1921-1936). Taken over by Bernstein Theatres in the early 1930's and demolished in 1936. The Granada Theatre was on an enlarged site designed by architects E.D. Lyons, L. Israel and C.H. Elsom, their only cinema which had a brick tower over the entrance and a vertical fin sign. The entire facade was brick with a plain foyer but the side of the theatre had motifs depicting musical instruments, by Frank Barnes. The theatre was equipped with a Wurlitzer 3Manual/8Rank organ now with a collector in Chorley Wood. There was also a fully equipped stage and dressing rooms, but initially these were rarely used. It was closed in 1940 following bombing and again in 1941. It eventually re-opened in 1949. In the early 1960's bingo was introduced and the last film shown in 1965 was "Carry On Nurse”. It then became a full time Bingo Club until 1977 when it became a skate-board centre for a while and in 1986, reopened as Southbank Club.
Renaissance rooms. Night club

Wheatsheaf Lane
Gothic Hall Congregational Mission for railway workers. Rounded ends, and quirky detail. This was built in 1896 It a now a community centre with a hall open to hire. It is used by a Portuguese language church and the Unity Baptist Church

Wilcox Road
11 Magic T Shirts, and several other buildings used as locations in 'My Beautiful Launderette’.
Nolan’s pub
69 Art Metal Work Company J Starkie Gardner.  Mr. J Starkie Gardner (1844-1930) was 'Metalworker to King Edward VII', and for 50 years he was the foremost authority on the history of decorative ironwork. The business began in 1752 and was a partnership between two families Starkie and Gardner. Following a marriage. Their first factory was  Lambeth from 1885 to 1922 but then moced to Wandsworth, closing in 1994. Starkie Gardner's 'Art Metal Work' From 1885 to 1905 the firm was at 29 Albert Embankment. From 1907 to 1909 at 69 Wilcox Road, South Lambeth. From 1914 to 1922 at Tradescant Road.

Wilkinson Street
Victorian terrace housing, built between 1865 and 1875.

Wyvil Road
Wyvil Road School. Early example of a London School Board School by Robson. 1876. with only the usual terracotta panels as modest ornament

Sources
British History. Online. Lambeth. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. Face of London
Ffoulkes. Gunfounders of England
Gibberd. On Lambeth Marsh
GLIAS Newsletter
Grace’s Guide. Web site
Hillman. Underground London
London Borough of Lambeth. Web site
London Archaeology
London Encyclopedia
London Gardens Online. Web site
Lost Pubs. Web site
National Archives. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Renier. Lambeth Past
Stewart. Gas Works in the North Thames area.
Thames Basin Archaeology of Industry Group. Report
Vauxhall Society. Web site
Victorian Web. Web site
Watts. Glassmaking in London

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