BRUCE ISMAY (1862–1937), Chairman of the White Star Line, who survived the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.
Archeologist HOWARD CARTER (1874–1939), who discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922.
Sculptor SIR JACOB EPSTEIN (1880–1959), creator of St Michael and the Devil in the new Coventry Cathedral.
Comedian ARTHUR ASKEY (1900–82).
Desert Island Discs presenter ROY PLOMLEY (1914–85).
Carry On actresses HATTIE JACQUES (1924–80) and JOAN SIMS (1930–2001).
Actor JAMES BECK (1929–73), best known for playing the spiv Private Walker in BBC TV’s Dad’s Army.
James Beck
Wandsworth
Oldest Industrial Site
WANDSWORTH, LONDON’S OLDEST industrial area, grew up around the mouth of the RIVER WANDLE. THE RIVER THAMES’S LARGEST LONDON TRIBUTARY, 11 miles (18 km) long, the Wandle rises near Croydon and drops 100 ft (30 m) during its course, providing plenty of hydro power for the breweries and water-wheels at Wandsworth. In 1581 the owner of the Ram Inn at Wandsworth began brewing his own ale, an enterprise that grew into the RAM BREWERY, now owned by Youngs & Co. The Ram Brewery was BRITAIN’S OLDEST BREWERY until brewing ceased there in 2006.
Running along the brewery wall is the line of THE WORLD’S OLDEST PUBLIC RAILWAY, THE SURREY IRON RAILWAY, which opened in 1803 and ran from Wandsworth to Merstham in Surrey, via Croydon. Wagons were hauled by horses along a cast-iron track laid on stone sleepers, two examples of which are set in the wall beneath a plaque.
At the end of the 17th century Huguenot refugees arrived from France and used their expertise to set up hat making in Wandsworth. They brought with them the secret of a red dye that wouldn’t run, which became known as ‘Wandsworth Scarlet’, and Wandsworth was soon supplying the Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church with their distinctive red headgear.
Wandsworth Prison
Britain’s Largest Prison
WANDSWORTH PRISON, OPENED in 1851 as The Surrey House of Correction, is THE LARGEST PRISON IN BRITAIN, alongside Liverpool. OSCAR WILDE served the first six months of his sentence at Wandsworth in 1895, before being transferred to Reading. In December 1945, JOHN AMERY, the son of the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and brother of MP Julian Amery, was hanged for treason at Wandsworth, having pleaded guilty to broadcasting propaganda for the Germans on the radio while in Berlin. Two weeks later, in January 1946, WILLIAM JOYCE, ‘LORD HAW-HAW’, was hanged at Wandsworth for the same crime.
Perhaps the most controversial hanging at Wandsworth was that of 19-year-old DEREK BENTLEY in 1953 for his part in the shooting of a police officer. Bentley was alleged to have shouted the infamous words ‘Let him have it, Chris’ to his colleague, who then shot the police officer. But did Bentley mean ‘shoot him’ or ‘let him have the gun?’ In 1998, after 45 years of campaigning by his family, the Appeal Court finally found Bentley’s conviction unsafe and declared a mistrial. The case had a profound influence on the debate in Britain over capital punishment. A film based on the case, Let Him Have It, starring Christopher Eccleston as Bentley, was made in 1991.
In 1965 the Great Train robber RONNIE BIGGS escaped from Wandsworth prison, after serving just 15 months of his 30-year sentence, using a rope ladder to scale the wall and jumping on to the roof of a furniture van parked the other side, in which he was driven off, en route to Spain and then Brazil.
St Mary’s, Battersea
Turner’s Muse
ONE OF LONDON’S loveliest and most distinctive sights, ST MARY’S CHURCH, sits right on the river, a thing of beauty among some of the ugliest 1960s high-rise flats in London, and giving the old riverside village of Battersea some dignity in spite of the industry and modern architecture engulfing it. There has been a church here since Saxon times, but the present building by local architect JOSEPH DIXON dates only from 1777. The church’s greatest treasure is the 17th-century East window of painted glass which comes from the previous church and is encased in the original stonework of 1379.
Buried in the crypt are the American Revolutionary Commander BENEDICT ARNOLD (1741–1801) and his family. Patriot or traitor depending on your point of view, Arnold fought courageously for the Continental Army but became disillusioned. He devised a plan to allow the British to capture West Point and the Hudson River, in the hope that the resultant stalemate would force both sides to negotiate peacefully, but the plot failed and Arnold spent the rest of the war fighting with the British before returning to England and settling in London.
In 1782 the poet and artist WILLIAM BLAKE, who wrote the words to the hymn ‘Jerusalem’, married Catherine Boucher, the daughter of a Battersea market gardener, at St Mary’s. She signed the register with an ‘x’, suggesting that she was not well educated, but she provided love and support for the eccentric Blake for 45 years until his death in 1827, and his last words to her were ‘You have ever been an angel to me!’
To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an Hour.
William Blake, ‘Auguries of Innocence’ J.M.W. TURNER used to enjoy walking over Battersea Bridge from his house in Cheyne Walk and making sketches of the Thames and the bridge from the bay window of St Mary’s vestry. The tall chair he sat in is still there in the church.
St Mary’s is THE ONLY GRADE I LISTED CHURCH IN THE BOROUGH OF WANDSWORTH.
Battersea Bridge
Narrowest Bridge
THE PRESENT BATTERSEA Bridge, built by Sir Joseph Bazalgette in the late 1880s, is LONDON’S NARROWEST ROAD BRIDGE, only 40 ft (12 m) wide. It replaced a wooden bridge of 1771 that was constructed on the site of St Thomas More’s private landing-stage and is captured, swathed in mist, by James Whistler in his Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge.
In 2005 a barge carrying a load of gravel struck the present bridge and became wedged underneath one of the arches, causing great damage and forcing the bridge to be closed for some months while repairs were carried out.
Situated between Battersea and Albert Bridges is the modern pale green glass headquarters of Sir Norman Foster’s architectural practice, designed by Foster and built in 1990. The modern architects of London seem to like a river view – Foster could almost toss a biscuit to his rival Sir Richard Rogers, whose own glass headquarters sits by the river upstream at Hammersmith.
Albert Bridge
London’s Beauty
OPENED IN 1873 and described by Sir John Betjeman as ‘one of the beauties of the London river’, especially when lit up at night, the ALBERT BRIDGE was designed as half cantilever and half suspension bridge by Rowland Ordish, who built the roofs of the Albert Hall and St Pancras Station. When the bridge opened, the large number of people stepping along it in unison caused the bridge to sway, a phenomenon that was to re-occur when the ‘wobbly’ Millennium Bridge opened downstream in 2001. Hence on the Albert Bridge there is a sign demanding that ‘All troops must break step when marching over this bridge’.
Battersea Park
Asparagus Fields
THE 200 ACRE (81 ha) BATTERSEA PARK was laid out in 1858 on an area of isolated fertile marshland called Battersea Fields, and it was here that THE FIRST ASPARAGUS WAS GROWN IN BRITAIN, asparagus being a posh word for ‘sparrow-grass’. In the early 19th century the rumbustious Red House Tavern nearby attracted the rougher element, and the area became notorious for hooliganism and brawling – and even duelling. In 1829, on Battersea Fields, the Prime Minister of the day, the Duke of Wellington, squared up to the 10th Earl of Winchilsea, who had accused him of ‘treacherously plotting the destruction of the Protestant constitution’ with his Catholic Emancipation Act. Wellington deliberately fired wide, while Winchilsea fired into the air and later apologised. NO BRITISH PRIME MINISTER HAS FOUGHT A DUEL SINCE.
On 9 January 1864, THE FIRST FOOTBALL MATCH EVER PLAYED UNDER FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION RULES took place in Battersea Park.
In 1985 Buddhist monks from Japan donated a PEACE PAGODA to the park to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb.
Battersea Power Station
Brick by Brick
THE GAUNT, HOLLOW outline of BATTERSEA POWER STATION, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is one of the great iconic landmarks of London. It was built between 1929 and 1939 and the four fluted chimneys soar to a height of 337 ft (103 m). Originally there were just two chimneys, but the station was later doubled in size to become THE BIGGEST BRICK BUILDING IN EUROPE. On 20 April 1964, there was a fire at Battersea which caused blackouts all over London, including at the BBC Television Centre where they were intending, that evening, to launch the new BBC2 channel. The launch had to be put back until the following day and a rather patchy news bulletin was broadcast from Alexandra Palace instead, interspersed with the test card. The power station closed in 1983 and has since been the subject of endless planning applications which have come to nought. At present there are plans for a large housing, shopping and office complex, but the start date is uncertain.
Battersea Power Station appeared on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album, complete with a huge flying pig hovering above it. Apparently the inflatable pig broke loose and drifted into Heathrow Airport’s air space, causing some consternation. The power station has also featured in numerous Doctor Who episodes, in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 film Sabotage, and as the scary Ministry of Love in the 1984 film version of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Clapham
The Man in the Street
THE EXPRESSION ‘THE man on the Clapham omnibus’, meaning the ordinary man on the street, is attributed to the Appeal Court Judge, Lord Bowen (1835–94). He adapted it from journalist Walter Bagehot’s phrase ‘the bald-headed man at the back of the Clapham omnibus’, used to describe a normal London man, Clapham being regarded in the 19th century as a quiet, unexceptional sort of place.
The CLAPHAM SECT was a group of wealthy, evangelical Anglicans who met at Broomfield, William Wilberforce’s home on Clapham Common, on the corner of what is now Broomwood Road, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Their purpose was to promote good causes, principally the abolition of slavery. Apart from Wilberforce, the members included his cousin the financier Henry Thornton; colonial administrator Zachary Macaulay, father of historian and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay; Granville Sharp, who founded Sierra Leone in 1787 as a home for emancipated slaves, and John Hatchard, the founder of London’s oldest bookshop. The Church Missionary Society was born out of the Clapham Sect.
In 1768 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN conducted experiments in Mount Pond on Clapham Common. These included pouring ‘oil on troubled waters’ to demonstrate that molecules had thickness.
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
WANDSWORTH
The great Swedish naturalist CARL LINNAEUS (1707–78) saw gorse for the first time on PUTNEY HEATH and fell to his knees thanking God for ‘creating this golden loveliness’. His name is remembered by the world’s oldest extant biological society, the Linnean Society, whose members have included Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Joseph Hooker and Thomas Huxley.
The poet ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837–1909) lived with his solicitous friend Theodore Watts-Dunton for 30 years at No. 2, The Pines, on Putney Hill.
The editor and political commentator JAMES LEIGH HUNT (1784–1859) died in Putney.
In 1953 JOHN CHRISTIE, the serial murderer of No. 10 Rillington Place, was arrested outside the riverside Star and Garter pub in Putney.
Two Prime Ministers died at Putney, William Pitt the Younger, at his home Bowling Green House on Putney Heath in 1806, and Frederick Robinson, Viscount Goderich, Prime Minister from 1827–8, who died at his home on Putney Heath in 1859.
The French writer and philosopher VOLTAIRE (1694–1778) spent his three years of exile from France in Wandsworth, living from 1726 to 1729 at Sword House, the home of Sir Everard Fawkener. The house is now the site of Wandsworth Police Station.
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE’S first London home was at No. 179 Trinity Road, Wandsworth. In 1904 he moved to No. 3 Routh Road, where he lived until 1908.
The author GEORGE ELIOT (1819–80) lived for a time in Wimbledon Park Road, Wandsworth, where she wrote The Mill on the Floss, published in 1860.
WANDSWORTH BRIDGE is probably the least interesting Thames bridge in London. It was designed by Sir T. Pierson Frank and opened in 1940, replacing the first Wandsworth Bridge, a private toll bridge of 1873.
The London Westland Heliport in Battersea is LONDON’S BUSIEST HELIPORT. Once owned by Harrods, it was acquired in 2007 by Von Essen Hotels. Single-engine helicopters flying over London must follow the course of the River Thames, so that in the event of engine failure they will not come down on a residential area.
Battersea Dogs Home, now BATTERSEA DOGS AND CATS HOME, was founded by MARY TEALBY in 1861 and moved to Battersea from Holloway, in North London, in 1871. It is THE LARGEST DOGS (AND CATS) HOME IN BRITAIN.
LONDON’S BIGGEST EXPLOSION OF THE 19TH CENTURY occurred at a gasworks in Nine Elms in 1865, killing 11 men.
In 1974 the flower, fruit and vegetable market at Covent Garden moved to Nine Elms, where it was renamed the New Covent Garden Market.
CLAPHAM JUNCTION Station, which is actually in Battersea, began life in 1838 as a signal box, and grew to become THE BUSIEST STATION IN THE WORLD, with over 2,500 trains passing through every day. It has since been overtaken by Shin-juku Station in Tokyo, but with some 2,000 trains now passing through daily it is still reckoned to be THE BUSIEST RAILWAY STATION IN EUROPE. In 1988 three commuter trains collided just outside the station, killing 35 people and injuring more than 100 in what became known as the Clapham Rail Disaster.
YORK HOUSE, on York Road in Battersea, is now apartments but was once the premises of BRITAIN’S LARGEST CANDLE-MAKER, PRICE’S CANDLES. Before that it was the home in the 1750s of BATTERSEA ENAMELS, where the process of transfer printing was invented by engraver JOHN BROOKS. Although the quality of the items manufactured at Battersea Enamels was unsurpassed, the firm only survived for a short time owing to financial troubles, but the process was taken up by others and even today most English enamels are known to collectors as ‘Battersea Enamels’.
Natalie, the tea lady played by Martine McCutcheon who is Hugh Grant’s love interest in the 2003 Richard Curtis film Love Actually, lives in Wandsworth, and the climax of the film is played out against the background of a Nativity play at a school in Wandsworth – although the scene was actually shot at Elliot School in neighbouring Putney.
LAMBETH
VAUXHALL – KENNINGTON – WATERLOO – SOUTH BANK – CLAPHAM NORTH
Lambeth Palace – London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury for 900 years
Vauxhall
What’s In a Name?
VAUXHALL, WHERE THE River Effra runs into the River Thames, takes its name from one of King John’s knights, FALKES DE BREAUTE. He acquired land here on his marriage to Margaret de Redvers, the widowed daughter-in-law of the Earl of Devon, and built a house called Falkes Hall which, over time, became Faukeshall, Foxhall and finally Vauxhall. Today, Vauxhall is emerging from a period of deprivation into one of London’s busiest transport hubs, home to MI6 and a massive glass apartment complex, St George’s Wharf.
Situated at the junction of Nine Elms Lane and Wandsworth Road, and dwarfed by the great glass towers of St George’s Wharf is a lonely but glorious remnant of Georgian Vauxhall, BRUNSWICK HOUSE. Built in 1758, it was the home of the exiled Duke of Brunswick from 1811 until 1830, and possesses a splendid porch made by the famous
Mrs Coade’s Patent Stone Manufactory, makers of the South Bank Lion. The house is presently being restored as a showroom and gallery.
Brunswick House
Vauxhall is the site of LONDON’S OLDEST BRIDGE. A little way upstream of the present Vauxhall Bridge oak post stumps, remnants of a Bronze Age wooden bridge dating from around 1500 BC, have been uncovered. The river would have been much shallower then, flowing through several channels between gravel islands, which may have been linked by a series of bridges.
The first Vauxhall Bridge of modern times, built by James Walker and opened in 1816, was THE FIRST IRON BRIDGE OVER THE THAMES IN LONDON. This was replaced in 1906 with the present bridge, designed by Sir Alexander Binnie and THE FIRST BRIDGE ACROSS THE THAMES TO CARRY TRAMS. It is decorated with eight bronze statues representing female accomplishments – upstream are Agriculture, Architecture (holding a model of St Paul’s Cathedral), Engineering and Pottery. Downstream, facing Westminster, are Local Government, Education, Fine Arts and Astronomy.
Perhaps the most striking building associated with Vauxhall today is the understated, top secret headquarters of MI6 known officially as 85 VAUXHALL CROSS, unofficially as Legoland, the Aztec Temple, Ceaucescu Towers or Babylon on Thames. Designed by Terry Farrell, it opened in 1995 and starred in the opening sequence of the 1999 James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough, when Bond’s boat explodes out of the side of the building and lands in the river. Bullet-proof and bomb-proof, the building was left unscathed by a rocket attack, allegedly by the Real IRA, in 2000.
One of Vauxhall’s current residents is best-selling author JEFFREY ARCHER, who owns the penthouse atop the 1960s tower block PENINSULA HEIGHTS (formerly Alembic House), on the embankment north of Vauxhall Bridge. It was here that he used to throw his celebrated Krug and Shepherd’s Pie parties in the 1980s and 90s. Singer Tommy Steele and film score composer John Barry also had apartments here. Stunning views up the river to the Houses of Parliament have made Peninsula Heights a favourite TV and film location.
I Never Knew That About London Page 23