Horseferry Road, SW1P

Horseferry Road marks the point where an ancient horse ferry took passengers from Thorney Island (Westminster) to Lamb Hythe (Lambeth)

Westminster
Credit: Creative Commons

King James II, fleeing London, threw his Great Seal into the Thames at this point. It was picked up by the ferryman in 1688.

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY

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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Wendy The Polygon Added: 22 Mar 2024 15:33 GMT	Polygon Buildings Following the demolition of the Polygon, and prior to the construction of Oakshott Court in 1974, 4 tenement type blocks of flats were built on the site at Clarendon Sq/Phoenix Rd called Polygon Buildings. These were primarily for people working for the Midland Railway and subsequently British Rail. My family lived for 5 years in Block C in the 1950s. It seems that very few photos exist of these buildings. Reply
Steve Charleville Circus, SE26 Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:42 GMT	Road construction and houses completed New Charleville Circus road layout shown on Stanford’s Library Map Of London And Its Suburbs 1879 with access via West Hill only. Plans showing street numbering were recorded in 1888 so we can concluded the houses in Charleville Circus were built by this date. Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London Reply
Steve Charleville Circus, SE26 Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:04 GMT	Charleville Circus, Sydenham: One Place Study (OPS) One Place Study’s (OPS) are a recent innovation to research and record historical facts/events/people focused on a single place �’ building, street, town etc. I have created an open access OPS of Charleville Circus on WikiTree that has over a million members across the globe working on a single family tree for everyone to enjoy, for free, forever. Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London Reply
Charles Hornsey Rise, N19 Added: 8 Mar 2024 20:45 GMT	My House I want to know who lived in my house in the 1860’s. Reply
NH Woodgrange Road, E7 Added: 7 Mar 2024 11:41 GMT	Telephone House Donald Hunter House, formerly Telephone House, was the BT Offices closed in 2000 Reply
Paul Cox Aldine Street, W12 Added: 5 Mar 2024 22:18 GMT	War damage reinstatement plans of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street Whilst clearing my elderly Mothers house of general detritus, I’ve come across original plans (one on acetate) of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street. Might they be of interest or should I just dispose of them? There are 4 copies seemingly from the one single acetate example. Seems a shame to just junk them as the level of detail is exquisite. No worries if of no interest, but thought I’d put it out there. Reply
Diana New Inn Yard, E1 Added: 28 Feb 2024 13:52 GMT	New Inn Yard, E1 My great grandparents x 6 lived in New Inn Yard. On this date, their son was baptised in nearby St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch Source: BDM London, Cripplegate and Shoreditch registers written by church clerk. Reply
Vic Stanley Peckham High Street, SE1 Added: 24 Feb 2024 17:38 GMT	Postcose The postcode is SE15, NOT SE1 Reply

LOCAL PHOTOS

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Overflow of the Thames at Lambeth Stairs on Tuesday 29 January 1850. Lambeth Stairs was near to Lambeth Palace. Poor river wall maintenance meant that the area was flooded whenever there was an unusually high tide. Credit: Illustrated London News TUM image id: 1623706174 Licence:	Wood engraving showing mothers, with their children, exercising at Tothill Fields Prison Credit: Wiki Commons TUM image id: 1504357431 Licence:	The Lillington Gardens estate Credit: Ewan Munro TUM image id: 1516208904 Licence: CC BY 2.0	Westminster Abbey with a procession of Knights of the Bath (1749) Credit: Canaletto TUM image id: 1557315488 Licence:	Victoria coach station’s temporary base (1929) This was sited where the Tachbrook Estate is now. The open-air King’s Scholar Pond sewer is on the left. TUM image id: 1545177549 Licence:
Broadway SW1 TUM image id: 1530117235 Licence:	The Two Chairmen, Dartmouth Street Adjacent to the Cockpit Stairs, the "Two Chairmen" pub was established possibly in 1729. It is thought to be the oldest public house in Westminster. The pub’s name is a nod to the practice of hiring sedan chairs, which were available for rent outside the establishment. Sedan chairs, a popular mode of transport for short London journeys, allowed passengers to travel above the city’s filth and mud. They were introduced in the early years of King Charles I’s reign. Credit: Wiki Commons/Philafrenzy TUM image id: 1706885335 Licence:	Newspaper seller on Horse Guards Avenue (1937) A reminder that newspapers invented ’clickbait’. From the archive of amateur London photographer, John Turner Credit: John Turner/Museum of London TUM image id: 1649108027 Licence:	South Lambeth Place Credit: The Underground Map TUM image id: 1575382850 Licence:	The Queen and Royal Family return from Trooping the Colour with Admiralty Arch in the background (2018) Credit: Stephen Harvey/MOD TUM image id: 1629980777 Licence:
Vauxhall Cross (1930s) In this view only the railway bridgework remains the same. Everything else is gone, even the road layout. TUM image id: 1605010188 Licence:	Vauxhall Mansion and Vauxhall Walk in Lambeth about to be redeveloped, September 1953. Credit: Mirrorpix TUM image id: 1691059432 Licence: CC BY 2.0	Traffic jam on Victoria Embankment (1926) It’s possible that this photo dates from the period of the General Strike - explaining the lack of trams in the shot Credit: Associated Newspapers TUM image id: 1682518095 Licence:	Cockpit Steps in Westminster once led down to the Royal Cockpit - an 18th century cockfighting venue. The Royal Cockpit disappeared in 1810 but the stairs have remained. Credit: GoArt/The Underground Map TUM image id: 1617007476 Licence:	Catherine Street, Vauxhall looking South (1930) Catherine Street, as Worgan Street, became part of the Vauxhall Gardens Estate. Credit: London Metropolitan Archives TUM image id: 1643826581 Licence: CC BY 2.0

In the neighbourhood...

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Westminster Abbey with a procession of Knights of the Bath (1749)
Credit: Canaletto
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Broadway SW1
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The Two Chairmen, Dartmouth Street Adjacent to the Cockpit Stairs, the "Two Chairmen" pub was established possibly in 1729. It is thought to be the oldest public house in Westminster. The pub’s name is a nod to the practice of hiring sedan chairs, which were available for rent outside the establishment. Sedan chairs, a popular mode of transport for short London journeys, allowed passengers to travel above the city’s filth and mud. They were introduced in the early years of King Charles I’s reign.
Credit: Wiki Commons/Philafrenzy
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Cockpit Steps in Westminster once led down to the Royal Cockpit - an 18th century cockfighting venue. The Royal Cockpit disappeared in 1810 but the stairs have remained.
Credit: GoArt/The Underground Map
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Parliament Square (1980) Parliament Square features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contains twelve political statues of statesmen and other notable individuals.
Credit: Wiki Commons/Misterweiss
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Recruiting Sergeants (1877) "The most prominent figure in the accompanying photograph, standing with his back to the Abbey, and nearest to the kerb stone, is that of Sergeant Ison, who is always looked upon with more than ordinary curiosity as the representative of the 6th Dragoon Guards, or Carbineers - a regiment which of late has been chiefly distinguished for having included in its ranks no less a person than Sir Roger Tichborne himself! To the right we have the representatives of two heavy regiments, Sergeant Titswell, of the 5th Dragoon Guards, and Sergeant Badcock, of the 2nd Dragoons, or Scots Greys; the latter is leaning against the corner of the public-house. Close to him may be recognized the features of Sergeant Bilton, of the Royal Engineers, while Sergeant Minett, of the 14th Hussars, turns his head towards Sergeant McGilney, of the 6th Dragoons, or Enniskillen, whose stalwart frame occupies the foreground. This group would not, however, have been complete without giving a glimpse at Mr. Cox, the policeman, to whose discretion and pacific interference may be attributed the order which is generally preserved even under the most trying circumstances at the Mitre and Dove." From ’Street Life in London’ by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith
Credit: John Thomson and Adolphe Smith
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Upper Fore Street, Lambeth (1860s)
Credit: William Strudwick (1834-1910)
Licence: CC BY 2.0

Palace of Westminster (1859) Henry Pether’s view follows the River Thames from Millbank (slightly above Lambeth Palace on the opposite side of the river) and looks towards the Palace of Westminster, which was completed in 1859, the same year he made this work
Credit: Henry Pether
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The Temperance Sweep (1877) From ’Street Life in London’, 1877, by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith: "Born in Lambeth, the son of a road-mender, John Day was sent out to work when scarcely more than ten years old. His father was decidedly addicted to drink, and was in the habit of taking his son on Sunday to public-houses, where drink was sold in defiance of the Licensing Act. So long as the child had a few halfpence for beer, he was in the parental eyes a good boy; but when his meagre earnings had been thus uselessly spent, his father came to the conclusion that he could not afford to keep him, and that it was high time the boy should fight his own way in the world. He was therefore turned out of his home, and had to resort to the friendly, if cheerless shelter of railway arches; or at times he would sleep on a barge, and profited by the opportunity to wash his solitary shirt in the canal, and hang it up on the rigging of his temporary home, while he disported himself amidst the tarpaulin till it dried. At time when there was nothing to be done at the flour-mill, he obtained a little work as assistant to a neighbouring chimney-sweep; but in either employ he rarely made more than 3s per week. "He is now the happy father of a large family, he lives in a house near Lambeth Walk, where he once humbly worked in the capacity of a mere assistant. As a master sweep he has an extensive connexion. The money he earns enables him to subscribe to several benefit societies, and he is entitled to receive from them 10s. a week in sickness, while his wife will have £46 given her at his death, or he will receive £18 should she die first. Altogether he is both prosperous and respected throughout the neighbourhood, where he ardently advocates the cause of total abstinence, and is well known as the temperance sweep."
Credit: John Thomson
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Westminster Hall (1821) Westminster Hall is one of the few parts of the Palace of Westminster still managed by the Crown - since 1965, both parliament houses no longer are. From the twelfth century to the nineteenth, coronation banquets honouring new monarchs were held here, the last being that of George IV in 1821. The Hall has been used as a place for lying in state during state and ceremonial funerals. Such an honour is usually reserved for the Sovereign and for their consorts.
Licence: CC BY 2.0

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