Vauxhall

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Vauxhall

Vauxhall is an inner city area of south London in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is located on the south bank of the River Thames, across the water from the Tate Britain art gallery and the House of Commons.

It is hard to exactly define Vauxhall as an area - what some would include in Vauxhall others would traditionally describe as Lambeth, South Lambeth, Nine Elms, Kennington, Oval or Stockwell. Most people would agree, however, that Vauxhall encompasses the area immediately around Vauxhall station.

It has also given its name to the Vauxhall Parliamentary Constituency, which also includes large swathes of Brixton and Clapham

Since 1998, the geographical confusion has been increased as Vauxhall is now part of the borough's North Lambeth town centre for administrative purposes.

History

There is no mention of Vauxhall in the 1086 Domesday Book. The area formed part of the extensive Manor of South Lambeth. From various accounts, three local roads – the South Lambeth Road, Clapham Road (previously called Merton Road) and Wandsworth Road (previously called Kingston Road) – were ancient and well-known routes to and from London. The area was flat and marshy with parts poorly drained by ditches. The area only started to be developed in the mid 18th century. Prior to this it provided market garden produce for the nearby City of London.

The lands on which modern Vauxhall now stands belonged in the thirteenth century to Margaret de Redvers, a wealthy widow. She married Falkes de Bréauté, a mercenary soldier who was made Sheriff of Oxford and Hertford by King John, for services rendered. He was also granted the Manor of Luton, and adopted a griffin emblem as part of his coat of arms. The house they built was named Falkes' Hall, which name was gradually corrupted over time, first to Fox Hall, then Vaux Hall and finally Vauxhall.

Vauxhall was formerly renowned for the Vauxhall Gardens, London's premier pleasure gardens in the 18th century. The arrival of the London and South Western Railway in the 1840s saw Vauxhall becoming a densely populated light industrial area, and the gardens were built over following their closure in 1859. In 1857 the Vauxhall Iron Works was founded in the area and became a major manufacturer of industrial machinery. The company adopted a modified form of Falkes de Bréauté's griffin as its emblem and later became Vauxhall Motors.

The Russian connection

There are competing theories as to why the Russian word for a railway station is , which coincides with the canonical 19th century transliteration of "Vauxhall".

It has long been suggested that a Russian delegation visited the area to inspect the construction of the London and South Western Railway in 1840, and mistook the name of the location for a generic title of the building type. This was further embellished into a story that the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, visiting London in 1844, was taken to see the trains at Vauxhall and made the same mistake.

However, the L&SWR's original railway terminus and the associated railway yards were always better known as Nine Elms. A more likely explanation, however, is that the first Russian railway, constructed in 1837, ran from Saint Petersburg via Tsarskoye Selo to Pavlovsk, where extensive Pleasure Gardens had earlier been established.

In 1838 a music and entertainment pavilion was constructed at the railway terminus. This pavilion was called the Vokzal in homage to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London. The name soon came to be applied to the station itself, which was the gateway that most visitors used to enter the gardens. It later came to mean any substantial railway station building (a different Russian word, stantsiya, is used for minor stations).

The word "voksal" (воксал) has been known in Russian and Polish languages in the meaning of "amusement park" before the described events and may be found, e.g., in the poetry of Aleksandr Pushkin: (To Natalie (1813): "At fêtes and in voksals, /I've been flitting like a gentle Zephyrus" "Zephyrus" is an allegory of a gentle, warm and pleasant wind ) According to Vasmer, the word is first attested in the Saint Petersburg Vedomosti for 1777 in the form фоксал, which may reflect an earlier English spelling, Faukeshall.

Today

Now a major transport hub within minutes of central London, Vauxhall was neglected for many years. Many of its streets were also destroyed during World War II or through poor city planning. To many Londoners, Vauxhall has been seen merely as a bleak place of transit. However, a significant — and fast growing — community lives here.

Much of the area in Vauxhall contains light industry (like the New Covent Garden flower and vegetable markets) as well as offices and government buildings. Many companies and organisations were attracted in the past by Vauxhall's central location and comparatively cheap rental prices compared to Westminster on the other side of the river. In recent years, Vauxhall's riverside has undergone major redevelopment with the construction of a number of prestigious modern residential and office blocks, most notably the distinctive MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross.

Housing and population

Most Vauxhall dwellers live in social housing — mostly low-rise 1930s blocks standing four or five stories high.

There are several "gentrified" areas, and smart roads of terraced town houses such as Fentiman Road are well known desirable locations. Vauxhall is a popular residential area for Members of Parliament and civil servants due to its proximity to the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall - Kennington is within the area wired for the Commons' Division Bell. Perhaps owing to this, Vauxhall is one of the few places "south of the river" to which London black cab drivers are willing to go. Some 18th and 19th century property also survives — most famously Bonnington Square, a community which emerged from the 1970s/1980s squat scene in London, and remains mostly housing co-operatives today.

There is a significant Portuguese community in the area; many Portuguese restaurants and bars are located in South Lambeth Road and the surrounding area.

The late 1990s/early 2000s explosion in London property prices has led to a boom in riverside developments and property re-developments, such as the large St George Wharf development by Vauxhall Bridge. Residents include John Major, Chelsea Clinton, Dan MacMillan and Lee from Blue. Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare is a noted Vauxhall resident, living in a large penthouse on the river.

The impact of new house building and the rise in house prices has created a dramatic change in Vauxhall's demographics. Long-term Vauxhall residents are increasingly being priced out of the area and replaced with moneyed people.

Noted residents

Owing to its position close to the Houses of Parliament, many famous politicians have their London homes in the Vauxhall/Kennington area. They include:

Community facilities

Vauxhall Park ^* contains an area of miniature model houses (also in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne) as well as tennis courts, one o'clock club and children's playground. It is open daily for recreation and has an open day once a year.

St Peter's Church in Kennington Lane ^* was designed by John Loughborough Pearson who was architect at Rochester, Bristol, Peterborough, Lincoln Cathedrals and designed Truro (Cornwall) and Brisbane (Australia) Cathedrals. Today the church acts as a community centre and arts venue as well as a church. Next to the St Peter's is Vauxhall City Farm which has many farm animals and pets.

'Gay Village'

Vauxhall is home to several gay bars and nightclubs such as Factory, Crash, Beyond, Orange, Fire, Area, Barcode, South Central and of course the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, one of London's longest-running gay bars. This pub dates back to at least the late 1800s, and was for years a traditional English music hall and cabaret venue. Today it is packed out every weekend with revellers. Unsurprisingly, in recent years the building has been under constant threat of demolition from encroaching property developers, as it stands alone on a prime piece of grassland adjacent to Vauxhall railway station; luckily the pub was bought in 2004 by sympathetic owners who have announced "business as usual".

The presence of London's only exclusively gay gym (Paris Gym), the burgeoning club scene and the recent opening of another branch of Chariots (gay sauna) and several shops serving the gay community have resulted in the ironic nickname of "Vauxhall Gay Village" being applied to the area. Recently open is another gay bar called Barcode, a sister venue to a popular one of the same name situated in Soho's gay village.

British music artist Morrissey titled one of his album releases Vauxhall and I. It is thought this is a reference to Jonny Rogan, the author of an unauthorised biography on Morrissey called 'The severed alliance', who at the time lived in Vauxhall. It is also a reference to the film 'Withnall and I'.

Vauxhall Cross

Vauxhall Cross dominates the Vauxhall riverside. It is immediately to the south-east of Vauxhall Bridge where six major roads converge, including the Albert Embankment which exits the Cross to the north, and which is the southernmost point of entry into the London congestion charge area.

Vauxhall Cross is the site of the central headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which occupies purpose built offices erected between 1989 and 1992 and commonly referred to as Vauxhall Cross. More recently, a large complex of apartments and offices has been built to the south of Vauxhall Bridge.

The James Bond film Die Another Day featured the fictional London Underground station of Vauxhall Cross, a closed station apparently on the Piccadilly Line and now employed by MI6 as an extension to its HQ. In fact, the Piccadilly Line does not go south of the river at all; only the Victoria Line passes anywhere nearby, and the secret entrance to the station being shown as on the east side of Westminster Bridge is not accurate either.

Vauxhall Cross was described as "one of the most unpleasant road junctions in South London", in Nikolaus Pevsner's architectural guide to London. Throughout the 2002 to 2004 period, the Cross underwent a gradual redesign to accommodate a bus interchange linked to the Vauxhall mainline railway and tube stations, both of which are located to the south-eastern end of the cross. Work has involved design changes to traffic lanes, improved pedestrian and cycle crossings, refurbishment of walkways beneath the mainline railway viaduct, and the construction of a bus station, completed in December 2004 featuring an undulating steel-frame canopy and ribbed steel walls. An interesting feature of the canopy is a series of photoelectric cells generating electricity to offset that used by the bus station.

Nearby

Nearest places:

Nearest tube stations:

External links

The Vauxhall Society
Vauxhall Gardens 1661-1859 - site on the history of the Pleasure Gardens including lists of performers etc.
A Strange Connection, between a garden, a train station and a composer
Michael Carter, "Vauxhall Gardens Revisit'd"
Vauxhall Bus Terminal - A critical critique