Nine Elms Lane, SW8

In 1838, at the time of construction of the London and Southampton Railway, the area was described as “a low swampy district occasionally overflowed by the Thames [whose] osier beds, pollards and windmille and the river give it a Dutch effect“.

Nine Elms railway station opened on 21 May 1838 as the first London terminus of the London and South Western Railway, which that day changed its name from the London and Southampton Railway. The neo-classical building was designed by Sir William Tite. The station was inconveniently situated for travel to central London, with the necessity to complete the journey by road or by steam boat. Originally, in the 1834 plans, engines would not cross Nine Elms Lane; horses would draw the wagons to the river wharf.

A second line from Nine Elms was opened in 1846, this went initially to Richmond and was later extended to Windsor.


The station was closed to passengers from 11 July 1848 when the L&SWR opened its metropolitan extension from Nine Elms to Waterloo (then called Waterloo Bridge Station), and the area adjacent to the station housed the L&SWR’s carriage and wagon works until their relocation to Eastleigh in 1909. In 1941 the building was damaged by German bombs and it was demolished in the 1960s. The site became the flower section of the New Covent Garden Market in 1974.

Gasworks were established in 1853, close to the existing waterworks of the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company. Later Battersea Power Station was built on this site.

Vauxhall Motors was formed in 1857 by Scottish engineer Alexander Wilson at Nine Elms, originally as Alex Wilson and Company, before moving to Luton in 1907. There is a plaque commemorating the site of the original factory at the Sainsbury’s Nine Elms petrol station on Wandsworth Road.

 


Nine_Elms_Lane

69-79 Nine Elms Lane during 1908


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