Petworth Street was laid out in the late nineteenth century linking two bridge approaches -
Albert Bridge Road and
Battersea Bridge Road.
In 1771 a bridge across the River Thames at Battersea had been built, but it was not until the construction of
Chelsea Bridge in 1851-58 by Thomas Page and the opening of new railway lines, that development was galvanised south of the River Thames.
Meanwhile, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the marshy area known as the Battersea Fields had become an undesirable pleasure ground, where the Red House Tavern was notorious for illegal racing, drinking and gambling. London’s population was expanding rapidly, the industrial revolution was causing increasing pollution and epidemics and slums were the major concerns of the day. By this time, public parks were being recognised as the lungs of the city and part of the solution to overcrowding and illness.
In 1843 Thomas Cubitt and the Vicar of St Mary’s Battersea, the Honourable Reverend Robert Eden proposed a large public park on Battersea Fields allocating 200 acres for a park and 100 acres for the building of villas. On 8 October 1845 an application was made to Parliament for a Bill to form a public park of 330 acres. The Act was passed in 1846 and £200,000 was promised for the purchase of the land. The responsibility for controlling the development of the land came under Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings (Office of Works). Sir James Pennethorne was at that time the architect to the Office of Works and the plans were therefore drawn up by him.
Battersea Park was laid out by Sir James Pennethorne and John Gibson during 1855-57, at a cost of £80,000 (excluding the £230,000 acquisition cost), and opened by Queen Victoria in 1858.
In 1873
Albert Bridge was designed and built by R. M. Ordish as a cable-stayed bridge but was modified by Sir Joseph Bazalgette between 1884-1887 who incorporated elements of a suspension bridge.
Land around the park remained undeveloped until the end of the nineteenth century. In 1845 Sir James Pennethorne drew up plans for the layout of the surrounding streets. The streets included
Albert Bridge Road, which was constructed on the alignment of the pre-existing
Surrey Lane; the re-alignment and re-naming of Prince of Wales Drive; and an ambitious new street: Victoria Road (now Queenstown
Road) linking
Chelsea Bridge with Clapham Park.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence
| CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY |
 
Peter H Davies Added: 17 Jun 2021 09:33 GMT |
Ethelburga Estate
The Ethelburga Estate - named after Ethelburga Road - was an LCC development dating between 1963‒65. According to the Wikipedia, it has a "pleasant knitting together of a series of internal squares". I have to add that it’s extremely dull :)
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reply |
 
Added: 1 May 2021 16:46 GMT |
Cheyne Place, SW3
Frances Faviell, author of the Blitz memoir, "A Chelsea Concerto", lived at 33, Cheyne Place, which was destroyed by a bomb. She survived, with her husband and unborn baby.
Reply |
Joyce Taylor Added: 5 Apr 2021 21:05 GMT |
Lavender Road, SW11
MyFather and Grand father lived at 100 Lavender Road many years .I was born here.
Reply |
 
Lynette beardwood Added: 29 Nov 2022 20:53 GMT |
Spy’s Club
Topham’s Hotel at 24-28 Ebury Street was called the Ebury Court Hotel. Its first proprietor was a Mrs Topham. In WW2 it was a favourite watering hole for the various intelligence organisations based in the Pimlico area. The first woman infiltrated into France in 1942, FANY Yvonne Rudellat, was recruited by the Special Operations Executive while working there. She died in Bergen Belsen in April 1945.
Reply |
| LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT |
Added: 27 Mar 2023 18:28 GMT |
Nower Hill, HA5
lo
Reply |
Added: 26 Mar 2023 14:50 GMT |
Albert Mews
It is not a gargoyle over the entrance arch to Albert Mews, it is a likeness of Prince Albert himself.
Reply |
Christine D Elliott Added: 20 Mar 2023 15:52 GMT |
The Blute Family
My grandparents, Frederick William Blute & Alice Elizabeth Blute nee: Warnham lived at 89 Blockhouse Street Deptford from around 1917.They had six children. 1. Alice Maragret Blute (my mother) 2. Frederick William Blute 3. Charles Adrian Blute 4. Violet Lillian Blute 5. Donald Blute 6. Stanley Vincent Blute (Lived 15 months). I lived there with my family from 1954 (Birth) until 1965 when we were re-housed for regeneration to the area.
I attended Ilderton Road School.
Very happy memories of that time.
Reply |
Pearl Foster Added: 20 Mar 2023 12:22 GMT |
Dukes Place, EC3A
Until his death in 1767, Daniel Nunes de Lara worked from his home in Dukes Street as a Pastry Cook. It was not until much later the street was renamed Dukes Place. Daniel and his family attended the nearby Bevis Marks synagogue for Sephardic Jews. The Ashkenazi Great Synagogue was established in Duke Street, which meant Daniel’s business perfectly situated for his occupation as it allowed him to cater for both congregations.
Reply |
Dr Paul Flewers Added: 9 Mar 2023 18:12 GMT |
Some Brief Notes on Hawthorne Close / Hawthorne Street
My great-grandparents lived in the last house on the south side of Hawthorne Street, no 13, and my grandmother Alice Knopp and her brothers and sisters grew up there. Alice Knopp married Charles Flewers, from nearby Hayling Road, and moved to Richmond, Surrey, where I was born. Leonard Knopp married Esther Gutenberg and lived there until the street was demolished in the mid-1960s, moving on to Tottenham. Uncle Len worked in the fur trade, then ran a pet shop in, I think, the Kingsland Road.
From the back garden, one could see the almshouses in the Balls Pond Road. There was an ink factory at the end of the street, which I recall as rather malodorous.
Reply |
KJH Added: 7 Mar 2023 17:14 GMT |
Andover Road, N7 (1939 - 1957)
My aunt, Doris nee Curtis (aka Jo) and her husband John Hawkins (aka Jack) ran a small general stores at 92 Andover Road (N7). I have found details in the 1939 register but don’t know how long before that it was opened.He died in 1957. In the 1939 register he is noted as being an ARP warden for Islington warden
Reply |
Added: 2 Mar 2023 13:50 GMT |
The Queens Head
Queens Head demolished and a NISA supermarket and flats built in its place.
Reply |
Mike Added: 28 Feb 2023 18:09 GMT |
6 Elia Street
When I was young I lived in 6 Elia Street. At the end of the garden there was a garage owned by Initial Laundries which ran from an access in Quick Street all the way up to the back of our garden. The fire exit to the garage was a window leading into our garden. 6 Elia Street was owned by Initial Laundry.
Reply |
V:0The Prince Albert Originally called the Albert Tavern, the Prince Albert public house is a three
storey building dating from 1866-68. Anerley Street, SW11 Anerley Street has taken two forms over its history - recently running north-south but previously east-west. Anhalt Road, SW11 Anhalt Road is one of the streets of London in the SW11 postal area. Battersea Park Road, SW11 Battersea Park Road is one of the main roads of the area, connecting Battersea and the suburbs to its east. Bridge Lane, SW11 Bridge Lane is one of the streets of London in the SW11 postal area. Edna Street, SW11 Edna Street is one of the streets of London in the SW11 postal area. Ethelburga Street, SW11 Ethelburga Street was named after Saint Æthelburh (Ethelburga), founder and first Abbess of Barking. Hester Road, SW11 Hester Road is one of the streets of London in the SW11 postal area. Juer Street, SW11 Juer Street is one of the streets of London in the SW11 postal area. Kersley Mews, SW11 Kersley Mews is a rare survival of a local mews and built to serve the residents of Foxmore Street and Kersley Street. Morgan’s Walk, SW11 Morgan’s Walk incorporated Little Europa Street (Little Europa Place) after 1936. Park South, SW11 Park South is one of the streets of London in the SW11 postal area. Rosenau Road, SW11 Rosenau Road was named after Schloss Rosenau, the birthplace and boyhood home of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who became the consort of Queen Victoria. Surrey Lane, SW11 Surrey Lane is one of the streets of London in the SW11 postal area. The Prince Albert Originally called the Albert Tavern, the Prince Albert public house is a three
storey building dating from 1866-68.
Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district on the south side of the River Thames.Battersea covers quite a wide area - it spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east. Battersea is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon times as Badrices ieg =
Badric's Island.
Although in modern times it is known mostly for its wealth, Battersea remains characterised by economic inequality, with council estates being surrounded by more prosperous areas.
Battersea was an island settlement established in the river delta of the Falconbrook; a river that rises in Tooting Bec Common and flowed through south London to the River Thames.
As with many former Thames island settlements, Battersea was reclaimed by draining marshland and building culverts for streams.
Before the Industrial Revolution, much of the area was farmland, providing food for the City of London and surrounding population centres; and with particular specialisms, such as growing lavender on Lavender Hill, asparagus (sold as 'Battersea Bundles') or pig breeding on Pig Hill (later the site of the Shaftesbury Park Estate).
At the end of the 18th century, above 300 acres of land in the parish of Battersea were occupied by some 20 market gardeners, who rented from five to near 60 acres each.
Villages in the wider area - Battersea, Wandsworth, Earlsfield (hamlet of Garratt), Tooting, Balham - were isolated one from another; and throughout the second half of the second millennium, the wealthy built their country retreats in Battersea and neighbouring areas.
Industry developed eastwards along the bank of the Thames during the industrial revolution from 1750s onwards; the Thames provided water for transport, for steam engines and for water-intensive industrial processes. Bridges erected across the Thames encouraged growth; Battersea Bridge was built in 1771. Inland from the river, the rural agricultural community persisted.
Battersea was radically altered by the coming of railways. The London and Southampton Railway Company was the first to drive a railway line from east to west through Battersea, in 1838, terminating at Nine Elms at the north west tip of the area. Over the next 22 years five other lines were built, across which all trains from Waterloo Station and Victoria Station ran. An interchange station was built in 1863 towards the north west of the area, at a junction of the railway. Taking the name of a fashionable village a mile and more away, the station was named Clapham Junction.
During the latter decades of the nineteenth century Battersea had developed into a major town railway centre with two locomotive works at Nine Elms and Longhedge and three important motive power depots (Nine Elms, Stewarts Lane and Battersea) all situated within a relatively small area in the north of the district.
A population of 6000 people in 1840 was increased to 168 000 by 1910; and save for the green spaces of Battersea Park, Clapham Common, Wandsworth Common and some smaller isolated pockets, all other farmland was built over, with, from north to south, industrial buildings and vast railway sheds and sidings (much of which remain), slum housing for workers, especially north of the main east–west railway, and gradually more genteel residential terraced housing further south.
The railway station encouraged local government to site its buildings - the town hall, library, police station, court and post office in the area surrounding Clapham Junction.
All this building around the station marginalised
Battersea High Street (the main street of the original village) into no more than an extension of Falcon Road.
