Pottery has been manufactured at Vauxhall since at least as early as the 16th century. In 1815 an apprentice from John Dwight’s Fulham Pottery, JOHN DOULTON, invested in a small pottery works on Vauxhall Walk, which laid the foundations for Royal Doulton Pottery, now based at Stoke on Trent. A red-brick and tile building in Black Prince Road is all that remains of the pottery.
Vauxhall Gardens
To Russia with Love
SPRING GARDENS ARE all that is left of the celebrated VAUXHALL PLEASURE GARDENS which opened as the New Spring Gardens in 1661. They boasted illuminated fountains, lamp-lit walks, sculpture galleries, firework displays, music and pageants, and were visited by the likes of John Evelyn, Samuel Pepys and Dr Johnson, as well as featuring in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and other literary works of the time.
In the 19th century Vauxhall Gardens became a centre for balloon ascents, with its own red-and-white striped Royal Vauxhall Balloon. In 1836 balloonist Charles Green, along with Monck Mason and MP Robert Holland, took off in the Vauxhall balloon and came down the next day in Weilburg, in Germany, after a trip of some 480 miles (770 km). More recently, it was possible during the summer months to take a ride above Vauxhall in THE WORLD’S BIGGEST HELIUM BALLOON, striped red-and-white and tethered in Spring Gardens. Unfortunately, the balloon is no longer there.
Vauxhall Gardens inspired the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. Such was their fame that Vauxhall (‘Vokzal’) became the Russian word for a railway station. Russia’s first railway went from St Petersburg to the pleasure gardens at Pavlovsk, which were called Vokzal in homage to the London gardens. Hence, going to Vokzal became associated with the first railway station and eventually Vokzal entered into the Russian language as the generic word for any railway station.
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens finally closed in 1859 after gaining a reputation as a haunt for prostitutes and footpads.
Kennington
The Ashes
THE OVAL IN Kennington was built on a cabbage patch and has been the home of the Surrey County Cricket Club since 1846. The ground has not always been used just for cricket. In February 1872 the Oval hosted both THE FIRST ENGLAND V. SCOTLAND RUGBY UNION match played in England and, the following month, THE INAUGURAL FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION (FA) CUP FINAL between Wanderers and the Royal Engineers of Chatham. Wanderers won 1–0. In 1880 THE FIRST ENGLAND V. AUSTRALIA TEST MATCH was played at the Oval. Two years later, at the Oval, England lost to Australia by seven wickets, the first time that England had ever lost at home. So traumatic was the event that Reginald Brooks, a journalist on the Sporting Times, was moved to write an obituary for English cricket
In Affectionate Remembrance
of
ENGLISH CRICKET,
which died at the Oval
on
29th AUGUST, 1882,
Deeply lamented by a large circle of
sorrowing friends and acquaintances
R.I.P.
N.B. - The body will be cremated and
the ashes taken to Australia.
When England toured Australia the following year, winning two out of the three Tests, the Australians presented the England captain with a small brown urn containing the ashes (supposedly) of a burned cricket bail, and the two countries have competed for them ever since. The ‘Ashes’ are kept in the Museum at Lord’s.
In 1886 the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) became THE FIRST MEMBER OF THE ROYAL FAMILY TO ATTEND A FOOTBALL MATCH when he went to see Gentlemen versus Players at the Oval on 20 March.
The Great Chartist Rally held at Kennington Park on 10 April 1848 was the subject of THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH EVER TAKEN OF A TOPICAL EVENT IN BRITAIN, a panorama daguerreotype shot by W.E. Kilburn.
Lambeth
Archbishop’s Horse Ferry
LAMBETH BRIDGE WAS built in 1932, replacing a suspension bridge of 1862, which in turn replaced the only ferry in London allowed to carry a horse and carriage. This ferry, which is commemorated on the west bank by Horseferry Road, was operated by the Archbishops of Canterbury whose London home, Lambeth Palace, lies at the eastern end of the bridge. The horse ferry regularly either got stuck in the mud or sank: it went under in 1633 with all of Archbishop Laud’s possessions on board, and again in 1656 with Oliver Cromwell as a passenger. In 1688 James II’s Catholic wife Mary of Modena, disguised as a washerwoman, took the ferry to escape across the river during a storm, with her baby son James, who would grow up to become the Old Pretender. She then sheltered in the corner between the tower of St Mary’s church and the gatehouse of Lambeth Palace, while waiting for a carriage to take her to Gravesend.
In deference to the traditions of Parliament Lambeth Bridge is painted red to match the red benches of the House of Lords, located at the rear end of the Palace of Westminster, while Westminster Bridge is painted green to match the benches in the Commons.
St Mary-at-Lambeth
Mutiny in the Garden
ST MARY-AT-LAMBETH, WHOSE tall 14th-century tower stands hard up against the gatehouse of Lambeth Palace, used to be the parish church of Lambeth but was deconsecrated in the 1970s. In 1977 it became THE WORLD’S FIRST MUSEUM OF GARDEN HISTORY, as a tribute to the Tradescants, father and son, who are buried in the churchyard. JOHN TRADESCANT THE ELDER (1570–1638) was gardener to Charles I, JOHN TRADESCANT THE YOUNGER (1608–62) to Charles II’s wife Catherine of Braganza, and they both toured the world collecting new plants and fauna to bring back to Britain. Among the plants they introduced to the country were the tulip tree, the plane tree and the pineapple – hence the pineapples on top of the columns on Lambeth Bridge. John Tradescant the Elder leased a house in South Lambeth Road, where he created a garden and a small museum known as the Ark to show off the curiosities he had gathered on his travels, and the churchyard of St Mary’s has been laid out in a style similar to that of the Ark.
When he died, John Tradescant the Younger bequeathed both collections to his Lambeth neighbour and friend ELIAS ASHMOLE (1617–92), who used them as the basis for BRITAIN’S FIRST PUBLIC MUSEUM, THE ASHMOLEAN, opened in Oxford in 1683. Elias Ashmole is buried inside St Mary’s.
In the churchyard next to the Tradescants is the big chest tomb of CAPTAIN WILLIAM BLIGH OF THE BOUNTY (1754–1817), cast adrift in the Pacific by Fletcher Christian and the crew of HMS Bounty in 1789.
Six Archbishops of Canterbury are buried in St Mary’s, as well as a pedlar and his dog, commemorated by the stained-glass Pedlar’s Window in the south wall. The pedlar left an acre (0.4 ha) of land to the church on the condition that he and his dog should always be remembered there. The Pedlar’s Acre, as it became known, was where County Hall now stands.
St Mary-at-Lambeth possesses THE ONLY TOTAL IMMERSION FONT IN LONDON, and one of only two in England.
Lambeth Palace
Archbishops’ Home
LAMBETH PALACE IS one of the great overlooked treasures of London. Tourists and TV crews come here to gaze across at the glorious façade of the Houses of Parliament, never realising that resting demurely behind the high wall at their backs is one of the oldest and most historic sites in the capital. Lambeth has been the London presence of the Archbishops of Canterbury since the end of the 12th century, but the present eclectic string of mismatched buildings dates from almost every age. The most recognisable part of the palace is the 15th-century gatehouse known as Morton’s Tower, regarded as the finest early Tudor brick gatehouse in England. The Lambeth Dole of bread and milk was distributed from here, thrice weekly, until 1842.
Morton’s Tower
The earliest part of the palace is the exquisite vaulted crypt of c.1220, supported by three pillars of Purbeck marble. Anne Boleyn was secretly questioned here and forced to confess her guilt by Archbishop Cranmer, three days before her execution in 1536. The beautiful chapel above is also 13th century but has been many times restored, most recently after the Blitz. Here, in 1378, John Wycliffe, the first man to translate the Bible into English, was arraigned for heresy on the orders of Pope Gregory XI.
Buried in the antechapel, beyond a magnificent 17th-century wooden screen, is the original ‘nosey’ Parker, Elizabeth I’s Archbishop MATTHEW PARKER, given his nickname by the Queen herself, not just on account of his large proboscis but also because of his prying nature. Parker was originally buried before the altar in the chapel, but his remains were dug up during the Commonwealth and flung into the garden, from where they were later retrieved and re-interred.
In a room overlooking the altar at the east end of the chapel, now filled with organ pipes, Archbishop Cranmer penned the 1552 revised Book of Common Prayer, written with the most beautiful language of any English Christian text.
Unexpectedly lovely is the 14th-century GUARD ROOM with its display of wall-mounted arms, wooden roof and impressive portrait gallery of past Archbishops. St Thomas More was interrogated here by Thomas Cromwell in 1534. In days gone by a guard was essential for Archbishops. Lambeth was sacked in 1381 during the Peasants’ Revolt by a mob seeking Archbishop Sudbury, whom they later ran down and executed on Tower Hill; Archbishop Laud just escaped with his life when Lambeth was attacked by 500 apprentices in 1640; and in 1780 the Gordon Rioters surrounded the palace but failed to break in. On display in the corridor outside the Guard Room leading to the chapel is the shell of Archbishop Laud’s tortoise, introduced to the Lambeth Palace garden by Laud in 1633 and killed by a negligent gardener in 1753.
The greatest glory of Lambeth Palace is the 17th-century Great Hall, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, with perhaps the finest hammer beam roof in London after that of Westminster Hall. Among the treasures found in the Great hall, which now houses the LAMBETH PALACE LIBRARY, ENGLAND’S FIRST FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY, are the gloves worn by Charles I on the scaffold and handed to Archbishop Juxon just before his execution, a Gutenburg Bible printed on vellum in 1455, and a first edition of St Thomas More’s Utopia illustrated by Holbein.
The garden at Lambeth Palace is THE SECOND LARGEST PRIVATE GARDEN IN LONDON, after that of Buckingham Palace, and was re-designed in part during the 1980s by Lindy, the wife of Archbishop Runcie. In the front courtyard, growing against the wall of the Great Hall, is THE OLDEST FIG TREE IN BRITAIN, planted in the 16th century by CARDINAL POLE, ENGLAND’S LAST ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP.
Waterloo
Lion’s Eye View
POSING PROUDLY BY the eastern approach to Westminster Bridge is the SOUTH BANK LION, one of the last known examples of COADE STONE, a virtually indestructible material made from a long-lost secret recipe by ELEANOR COADE, at her factory close to where County Hall now stands, in the 18th century. The lion was originally painted red and stood over the entrance to the Red Lion Brewery on the south bank. When the brewery was demolished to make way for the Festival Hall in 1951, the Lion was rescued on the orders of George VI, and it was moved to its present location in 1966.
Situated not far from Westminster Bridge, in the 18th century, was ASTLEY’S CIRCUS, THE WORLD’S FIRST MODERN CIRCUS. After fighting in the Seven Years War, SERGEANT MAJOR PHILIP ASTLEY, a cavalry officer with the 15th Light Dragoons, began training horses and giving riding lessons, and before long was performing equestrian stunts in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. These exhibitions became so popular that in 1769 he built an amphitheatre at his riding school by Westminster Bridge and began performing there, as a means of advertising the school. Trial and error had taught Astley that spectacular stunts could best be achieved by cantering a horse round inside a ring, ideally with a diameter of 42 ft (13 m). This was the size he built his amphitheatre and is the standard size for a circus ring today. To broaden the appeal of his show, Astley introduced new acts such as clowns and acrobats, and his format was soon being copied around the world.
The imposing COUNTY HALL sits on Pedlar’s Acre, (see St Mary-at-Lambeth), once a squalid jumble of wharves and warehouses, but now one of the most spectacular riverside sites in London. It is the only large building designed by Ralph Knott and was opened in 1922 as the new home of the London County Council. During excavations a well-preserved Roman galley from the 3rd century was uncovered in the Thames mud. It can now be seen in the Museum of London.
In 1986 the LCC’s successor, the Greater London Council (then under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, who went on to become the first Mayor of London), was abolished and County Hall was left empty. The magnificent central debating chamber was left untouched and is now used as a spectacular venue for talks and exhibitions. The rest of the huge complex is filled with a mix of conference rooms, a hotel, a Japanese restaurant, a gallery dedicated to Salvador Dali and the London Aquarium.
Nearby, in Westminster Bridge Road, the 20-storey Century House was the 1984-style home of the secret service MI6, from the early 1960s until it moved to Vauxhall Cross in 1994. Far beneath the building was a private tube station connected to the Bakerloo Line.
Outside County Hall stands the LONDON EYE, THE TALLEST OBSERVATION WHEEL IN THE WORLD, 443 ft (135 m) high, and one of the tallest structures in London. The circumference of the wheel is 1,392 ft (424 m), almost twice the height of Canary Wharf Tower. Opened in March 2000, the London Eye was conceived by David Marks and Julia Barfield on the kitchen table of their South London home. It is THE ONLY CANTILEVERED STRUCTURE OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD and THE LARGEST STRUCTURE EVER HOISTED INTO A VERTICAL POSITION IN ONE OPERATION. When the various component parts of the wheel were being transported into position along the Thames there was at times only 16 inches’ (40 cm) clearance under Southwark Bridge.
The wheel turns at 0.6 mph (1 kph) and each ‘flight’ or rotation takes 30 minutes. From the summit on a clear day you can see for 25 miles (40 km), as far as Windsor Castle. But the London Eye’s greatest achievement is to create countless exciting new vistas from street level with the slender curves of the Eye forming an almost ethereal backdrop to many historic Central London sights.
Set back from the Jubilee Gardens is the 351 ft (107 m) high SHELL CENTRE, headquarters of oil company Shell, built in 1961 and THE FIRST SKYSCRAPER IN LONDON TO EXCEED THE HEIGHT OF THE VICTORIA TOWER at the Houses of Parliament. At the time of its construction the Shell Centre, including the downstream block on the other side of the railway lines, was THE BIGGEST OFFICE BLOCK IN EUROPE.
Waterloo Bridge
Waterloo Sunset
ORIGINALLY CALLED THE Strand Bridge and renamed in honour of the recent British victory over the French, the first WATERLOO BRIDGE was designed by John Rennie, with nine arches and Doric columns on the piers. It opened in 1817 and was described by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova as ‘the noblest bridge in the world’. Constable and Monet both painted it, and people who came ‘from the remotest corners of the earth’ to see it were not disappointed.
The cries of anguish when the bridge was demolished in 1936 were loud and many, but the structure had proved not strong enough and it was replaced by a supremely elegant bridge, perhaps the most graceful of any across the Thames, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and opened in 1945. It is sometimes referred to as ‘Ladies Bridge’ because, with construction taking place during the war years, it was built mostly by women, as the men were away fighting. Also it is faced with Portland stone, which cleans itself in the rain, the sort of practical detail only a woman would have thought of.
Because of its position at the bend of the river, the views from Waterloo bridge are considered the finest of any bridge in London and inspired the song ‘Waterloo Sunset’, written in 1967 by Ray Davies of the Kinks. Two films have been made with the title Waterloo Bridge, in 1931 and 1940, the latter starring Vivien Leigh as t
he heroine whose fate is decided on the bridge at the film’s climax.
In 1978 Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was fatally stabbed in the thigh with a poisoned umbrella while waiting for a bus on Waterloo Bridge.
Waterloo Bridge is THE LONGEST BRIDGE IN CENTRAL LONDON.
South Bank
Arts Centre
SINCE THE FESTIVAL of Britain in 1951 the SOUTH BANK has been transformed into Britain’s largest arts centre, not always without controversy. THE FESTIVAL HALL is the only remnant from the Festival and was substantially altered in 1964 and 2007. It was THE FIRST POST-WAR BUILDING IN ENGLAND TO BE GRADE 1 LISTED.
Other venues include the BFI SOUTH-BANK, formerly the National Film Theatre, opened in 1957 and home to the annual London Film Festival, the QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL and PURCELL ROOM, opened in 1967, and the HAYWARD GALLERY for contemporary art, opened in 1968 and named after the leader of the London County Council, Sir Isaac Hayward. It is crowned with a kinetic sculpture that changes colour according to the speed and direction of the wind.
The most eye-catching of the buildings, with its clean, horizontal lines, is the NATIONAL THEATRE, opened in 1976. Here the South Bank ‘Modernist’ style in reinforced concrete, loved and hated in equal measure, is seen in its purest form.
Popular televisions shows such as Have I Got News For You, GMTV and The South Bank Show are broadcast from the London Studios next door.
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