Clapham South and Balham Hill
Balham Hill
Buildings began to be constructed here following on from the development of Clapham in the late 18th.
14 Gateway Hotel
16 The Avalon. This was previously The George described as ‘spectacularly grotty’. It has since had a makeover. Once a coaching inn it is probably the oldest pub in the area
12 Majestic Wine Warehouse. This is on the site of Balham Odeon which was opened 1938. It was built for and operated by the Oscar Deutsch chain of Odeon Theatres Ltd. and designed by George Coles with a symmetrical streamlined exterior in cream faience and it stood out with a red neon Odeon sign illuminated on both sides and the building outlined in green neon. Inside there was a lavish foyer, 'welcoming' stairs to the circle and cafe with daylight let in to the circle foyer. It closed in 1972 but reopened as the Liberty Cinema in 1974 showing Asian films, and closed again in 1979. The auditorium was demolished but the frontage, rebuilt after a bomb in 1941 has become a shop.
Foyer apartments. Flats were built on the cinema auditorium site, and in the upstairs circle foyer.
Clapham South Station. Opened in 1926 the station lies Clapham Common and Balham Stations on the Northern Line. It was built by the City and South London Railway. Charles Holden built this series of stations as a unified network and it was designed by S A. Heaps, who was probably responsible for much of the interior detail. Holden designed the chaste stone-faced, stripped classical exteriors with inventive detail and the London Transport signs for capitals. Proposed names for the station were "Balham North" and "Nightingale Lane". In the 1930s flats were added above the station and the parade of shops along Balham Hill was extended as part of the same development using the same style as the original three closest to the station.
Deep Shelter. In 1940s a deep shelter was built by London Transport as agents for Minister of Home Parallel consisting of parallel tunnels on two floors with iron bunks. There were right angle extensions for first aid, wardens and ventilation and lavatories below street level so sanitation was in hoppers under the works with sleeping accommodation for 1,200 people. Post-war it was used as temporary hostels - military transit barracks and a Youth hostel for the Festival of Britain. Intended to be linked after war to a high-speed tube, which was never built.
Broomwood Road
Ash Court. This is on the site of an earlier Methodist Church demolished in 1986. It is a Methodist Housing scheme.
Broomfield Lodge, later called Broomwood House, was designed by J.T.Groves and was the home of William Wilberforce. A plaque commemorating Wilberforce is said to be on 111.
Clapham Common
The Common was once known as East Heath and West Heath but was called Clapham Common in the early 18th and is shown as such on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps. The first coach services in to London in the late 17th crossed the Common and it then became notorious for its highwaymen.
Bandstand. This is thought to be largest bandstand of its type in Britain, It was erected here in 1890, and had been thought to been one of two built in 1861 for the Royal Horticultural Society's South Kensington Gardens. It is however a replica, designed by Thomas Blashill, Architect to the London County Council. Band music was popular in the late 19th and after a residents' petition, in 1889 the London County Council approved a budget for a new bandstand for the here.
Spurgeon's Tree. A poplar on the South Side was so named since a man was killed by lightning sheltering under it in 1859. The next Sunday Spurgeon preached a sermon referring to the incident
Eagle Pond. Named from a nearby house - Eagle House which had stone eagles on gate piers. The pond is used for angling.
Mount Pond. This may be a gravel extraction site. In 1748 Mr Henton Brown of Cavendish House tried to get permission to enclose it, and dig a pond around 1747. The pond is now used for fishing.
The Mount. There is a possibility that this is the site of a windmill. It may also be formed of spoil from the digging of Mount pond. Such viewing mounds were fashionable in the late 18th.#
Clapham Common South Side
103 South London Hospital for Women and Children. This was founded as a general hospital for women staffed totally by women by Eleanor Davies-Colley and Maud Chadburn, both surgeons. It was also founded to train women doctors to become specialists. In 1911 they bought Holland House and Kingston House here and the hospital opened in 1912. Demolition and building work followed and the hospital was officially opened by Queen Mary in 1916 with 80 beds and as a state of the art building. All staff were women. In 1920 Preston House adjacent was purchased for 40 more surgical beds and in 1926 an Out-Patients Department on the site of Kingston House. The hospital continued to expand through the 1930s including a nurses’ home, which was later bombed. The Second World War intervened in the expansion and the Hospital joined the Emergency Medical Service and, following a Special Act of Parliament treated male war casualties. Buildings in various parts of the country were occupied by the organisation. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS and in 1982 The Wandsworth District Health Authority decided it was 'uneconomic' and, despite strong opposition including a petition and occupation of the building by protesters, the Hospital closed in 1984. The site was bought by Tesco with plans to demolish. The original facade of the Hospital was kept which the rest of the building was demolished in 2004. It has been replaced by a supermarket and flats,
Site of Cavendish House. The home of the noted scientist Henry Cavendish who lived here between 1782 - 1810. He used it as workshops – the dining room was filled with instruments and there was a large library with strict rules. There was an observatory, a forge and wooden staging on the trees. The builder, Thomas Cubitt and his family lived here 1827 - 1832. It was demolished in 1905
44 This site is between the Notre Dame Estate and Lambeth College and backs on to Abbeville Road. Originally part of the large gardens of the houses fronting South Side. It was developed during the 1930s by Cleeves, a confectionery manufacturer. After the war Batgers made sweets there and since the 1990s it has provided commercial, warehousing and waste transfer facilities.
Milestone. This is at the junction of South Side with The Avenue & Cavendish Road. It is probably 18th and gives mileages to Whitehall & Royal Exchange.
Entrance building to deep tube and shelter system. Built as an extension to Clapham South Underground Station in 1940-2 by D C Burn for the Home office. Two main shafts descend from these surface buildings. Some 1940s iron bunks and painted signage remain, along with graffiti from the 1940s and 1950s. They were designed so that they could be used by London Transport after the war as by-pass tunnels, creating a fast non-stop service but this never happened.
45 Lambeth College, It was formed in 1992 from three former institutions – one of which was the South London College. A Sixth Form Centre was opened here in 2000 by the College and new buildings erected.
46 Stowey House. Open Air School. Stowey House was a 19th house and the birthplace of Lytton Strachey. In 1920 the London County Council set up an open air school in the grounds. It had 8 classroom pavilions and a structure for folk dancing and corrective exercise. Children had built much of this themselves and worked in the gardens. The School featured sun therapy and stripped to shorts or loincloths children sat on an open wooden platform. The School closed in the mid 1960s. Stowey House was demolished in 1967 and the site, along with adjacent South Lodge, was redeveloped for Henry Thornton School, now Lambeth College.
Henry Thornton School. The school was founded in 1894 as "Battersea Polytechnic Secondary School", in Battersea and from 1905 it was a boys' only school. In 1918 it became a London County Council school called "The County Secondary School, Battersea" and 1926 was moved here to South Lodge and named after the leader of the Clapham Sect. A new school was built, designed by LCC architect George Topham Forrest. In the Second World War pupils were evacuated and the buildings became "South-West London Emergency Secondary School for Boys". The school became comprehensive in 1968 and was merged with other schools. South Lodge itself was demolished in the late 1960s and replaced by the comprehensive school buildings fronting South Side In 1986 the school itself moved to Balham and the buildings became the Henry Thornton Centre of Clapham and Balham Adult Education Institute. The 1929 building was demolished in 2003 and the site is now Lambeth College.
Clapham Common West Side
85 Western Lodge. This dates from around 1784 and includes an old coach house. It was home to a series of distinguished residents. Between 1925 and 2012 it was used by the Society for the Relief of the Homeless Poor, since called ‘Western Lodge’ and housing homeless men. The Society moved here from Highbury in 1925 and in 2012 moved to Tooting.
Prefabs. In the Second World War 27 prefabs were built on the Common parallel with Leathwaite Road. The site was returned to grass later
Denning Mews
This is a gated road running parallel between ordinary public roads and is apparently a new development. It is built on the site of a large factory complex facing on to Nightingale Lane
Hazelbourne Road
Anchor Mews. New Era Studios on the site of Anchor Works, lithographic printers,
Kyrle Road
Broomwood Methodist Church . Built 1899 in Arts and Crafts style by Rea Macdonald
Malwood Road
23 Church of the Ascension. Built by Arthur Cawston 1883 – 1890. In 1993 it merged with St. Mark’s Battersea Rise. Inside is a narrow aisle with a tile mosaic and some interesting stained glass.
10 St. Francis Xaviour. Roman Catholic Sixth Forum College. It is on the site of Clapham College which fronted onto Nightingale Lane and opened here in 1985. It takes pupils who are over 16 from local Roman Catholic Secondary Schools.
Nightingale Lane
This was once known as Balham Wood Lane or Balham Lane
3-5 Police Section House, now demolished and replaced by flats
7-11 Oliver House School. Oliver House ‘Preparatory’ School opened in 2004 in two buildings, known as Hollywood and Broadoak. Hollywood was built in 1782 probably by Moses Lopes and was the home of the Harrison family members of the Clapham Sect and later to botanist and pharmacologist, Daniel Hanbury. A mouding of Neptune lies above the Coade stone doorway , Broadoak was in 1875, for the widow of Titus Salt. In 1896 the Xaverian Brothers opened Clapham College here. Broadoak has a porch with an Oliver Plunkett mosaic and the school is now named after him. It is a private fee paying school for boys and girls aged 3-11
7 Clapham College. This opened in 1897 founded by the Xaverian Brothers a religious order founded in Belgium in 1839 dedicated to the Roman Catholic education of boys. It was part of a wave of Catholic school building in the late 19th , In 1896 the Brothers bought Broadoak and opned what was partly a boarding school until 1932. It expanded rapidly with the addition of playing fields at Norbury acquired. In 1924 a preparatory department was opened in Hollywood, the adjacent house. . In the Second World the school was evacuated to East Grinstead and then to Taunton. On its return to Clapham in 1945 it became a secondary modern School funded by the local authority. Many pupils were from Irish, Italian and Polish families. In the 1950s it became a grammar school but in 1975 it amalgamated with St. Gerard's School to become Clapham College Roman Catholic Comprehensive. New buildings were added but in 1985 the school moved out and the site became the new Saint Francis Xavier 6th Form College.
45 Audiology House. villa by George Jennings. Used by P.C.Werth for hearing aids and other audio equipment. The company had had a number of names but appear to have sold this premises following the death of Laurence Werth in 2014.
Mullard. In the Great War Captain Stanley R. Mullard worked for the Admiralty on high vacuum development and supervision of the production of transmitting and receiving valves, In 1920 he established the Mullard Radio Valve Co. Ltd. and moved to Nightingale Lane 1922. They made transmitting valves and some receiving valves. Mullard was one of the founders of the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. and there was a much increased demand for valves and in 1924 in order to finance expanded production half the shares in Mullard Radio Valve Co. Ltd were sold to N.V. Philips Gloeilampenfabriken of Eindhoven, Holland. Mullard was a founder member of the British Radio Valve Association cartel in 1926. Over the years valve type and design was changed and evolved. They were to expand greatly from this site includingh major works in the Midlands. By the Second World War this was Radio Transmission Equipment Ltd. who had also made radio receivers for aircraft. Just inside the factory gates, a large underground room was constructed where vital 'frequency standards' equipment could be kept safe from the Luftwaffe. The site of the factory stretched from Nightingale Lane to Temperley Road. It has now been redeveloped as a gated housing development.
101 Oak Lodge School GLC 1968. specialist day school with residential provision for students with hearing, speech, language and communication needs. other services: Deaf First and a Sixth Form.
Ramsden Road
194 St.Luke’s Church, This was built on the site of Old Psrk House. In 1874, Canon Clarke boufht the site from the Simpson family. Initially an iron chuch was installed here, having been moved from St.Mark’s Battersea. F. W. Hunt of Upper Baker Street, was appointed as architect, and by 1883 the first section of the Chancel was built and the nave completed by 1888. The church has a red brick Lombard Romanesque exterior while money and gifts were presented for the interior. In 1891 the Parish Hall was enlarged and in 1892 the tower with an open bell-chamber was built and electric Light was also installed. There is a war memorial for victims of the Great War.
St. Luke's Vicarage, built 1902.
The Avenue
This is the South Circular Road running along the western edges of Clapham Common
Windmill Drive
Windmill Pub, Youngs’ pub with some ‘boutique’rooms. Probably dates from the 1820s but Youngs have had it since 1848. It is thought there was a real windmill here in the late 17th
Sources
Barton. Lost Rivers of London
Behind Blue Plaques
Blue Plaque Guide
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Church of the Ascension. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clapham Society. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Day. London Underground.
Field. London Place Names
GLIAS Newsletter
Hillman and Trench. London Under London
Lambeth College. Web site
Lambeth Landmark. Web site
London Borough of Lambeth. Web site
London Borough of Wandsworth. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Mullard History. Web site
Nairn. Modern Buildings
Old Thorntonians. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry South London
Shady Old Lady. Blog
Smith. Clapham
Smythe. Citywildspace,
St.Luke’s. Web site
Wandsworth History Journal
Western Lodge. Web site
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