Mantua Street started its story in the 1860s.
John Cornelius Park was a dealer in building materials but who dabbled in south London land speculation.
He may have sold some land which became part of the Battersea Park which may have financed in 1850 the purchase of low-lying meadows around Falcon Brook from a banker called Joseph Tritton. Park built Lavender Road across the middle.
Park had been perhaps inspired by a Scottish market gardener Francis Lithgow who bought Grove House on York Road in 1836 and a field behind it. From about 1845 Lithgow built on the field some cramped streets: Grove Lane, Francis Street (later Lithgow Street), Edward Street (later Wye Street) and Tibet Street. Lithgow sold up in 1853 and the land was purchased by the Conservative Land Society.
The Conservative Land Society was set up to create small freeholders who would then qualify as (Conservative) voters voters under the then voting system.
Under the high-class names of the the Society’s chairman Viscount Ranelagh and that of Robert Bourke, later Lord Connemara, Grove House was replaced with new streets to go along with the newly formed Verona Street.
By the end of the 1860s Edward Street (Wye Street) was complete, Francis Street and Tibet Street were being built and Mantua Street laid out but undeveloped.
Finally developed in the 1870s, the street’s layout lasted until after the Second World War. It became a stump of a street when new blocks were built across its former route.
