Albert Embankment was built in the late 1860s over former marshlands.
Like many London roads at the time, it was named for Prince Albert, Consort of Queen Victoria.
Albert Embankment was built by Sir Joseph Bazalgette between 1866 and 1870, replacing small timber and boat-building yards and reclaiming land from the river at a cost of £1,014,525. During the construction, fragments of Delft pottery were discovered, remnants of the Lambeth potteries that had existed in the area since Elizabethan times.
The road changes its name to Lambeth Palace Road north of Lambeth Bridge, but the embankment itself continues past St Thomas’ Hospital up to Westminster Bridge.
Notable buildings along the embankment include Parliament View, a curving glazed residential building designed by EPR Architects (2001), comprising 190 apartments; Westminster Tower, a red-brick office block dating from 1983; Hampton House, an art deco building designed by E.P. Wheeler, opened by George V in 1937 as the headquarters of the London Fire Brigade; Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel, which opened in 2005; and Peninsula Heights, formerly known as Alembic House.
At the Vauxhall end of the embankment, the massive cream and green MI6 building, designed by Terry Farrell and completed in 1993, dominates the landscape. The complex, which has been home to MI6 since 1994, features five floors below street level to protect sensitive areas from terrorist attacks.
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Albert Embankment was built in the late 1860s over former marshlands.
