Thames Tributary Falcon - Clapham Junction

Thames Tributary Falcon
The Falcon continues northwards but veers west towards the Thames.

TQ27387527

Very busy urban area based around a cross roads and the enormous railway station.  Old Department stores and cinemas, along with churches, modern cinemas, pubs, and a major arts centre and much else.


Post to the west Battersea York Road
Post to the south Wandsworth Common
Post to the east Clapham Common

Aliwal Road
The name commemorates a battle in the first Sikh War of 1846

Altenburg Gardens
1 St.Andrew's United Reform Church. Built as a Presbyterian church in 1886 with wooden shingled spire, which collapsed in 1977. The new building was opened in November 2002.
36 bought by local Catholics for a chapel. St Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church built in 1906-7 on the site of an orchard by Kelly & Dickie. Brick plus a mosaic design over the door.
Reference Library. Designed by the Borough Engineer, T. W.A. Hayward and built by direct labour 1927. Arts and Crafts and designed so an upper floor could be added. It remains One-storied, with a glass-roofed interior.
Bakery Place. Offices.
Telephone exchange.

Amies Street
Paper Mill. On this site before housing was built. Likely to have stood on or near the Heathwall ditch

Andoe Road
Old name for a small cul de sac north of the railway line, adjacent to the bus station
24 Railway Guard pub, long gone.
Station Works

Battersea Rise
Falcon. At Battersea Rise there used to be three ponds and lavender fields
25 The Merchant pub. Previously called Dixie’s
46 Frieda B pub
66a-66b The Goat pub. This was also O’Neills. It was a Temperance Hall which once had 21 billiard tables. It still has its original frontage with a prominent tower. Inside is a mural by a local street artist.
68 The Thomas Memorial Church of the Nazarene. Founded by Welsh businessman David Thomas as the Holiness Mission in 1907. It was an 18th house used as Board of Works Offices before the building of Battersea Town Hall.
85 B@1 pub 91a Adventure pub 110 The Duck Pub. With lots of fancy ironwork and a balcony. It was previously the Dog and Duck.
119 London Ambulance Service. Opened 1962 with three ambulances
145 St.Mark’s Infant School. Listed Grade II. Dated 1866 by Benjamin Ferry in red brick. Paid for by Philip Cazenove and land given by Earl Spencer.
St.Mark's 1872-4 by William White, the first of his Battersea churches. Promoted by Canon Clarke it replaced a previous iron church it is Large and ambitious. It stands on a slope with the end over a large crypt and has a tower covered with shingled timber spire. It is built of concrete, with a brick skin. Listed Grade II*
St.Mark’s church hall.

Batten Street
Christ Church CE Primary School. Founded in 1866 and the present buildings were opened in 1908, but since modernized.

Boutflower Road
Royal Masonic Institution for Girls. 1853 to 1934. instituted in 1788, to maintain the daughters of indigent Freemasons fallen on hard times. It began in 1789 with fifteen pupils and a Matron in Somers Place, East London. In 1934 it moved to Hertfordshire, where it remains. The Battersea building dated from 1852. It was a red brick Gothic structure by Phillip Hardwicke, with a central clock tower. It had 160 pupils.
The Peabody Trust, Clapham Junction Estate, built 1935-37, on the site of the Royal Masonic School. It has 22 five storey blocks of flats
17 Croatian Catholic Mission

Clapham Common North Side
St. Barnabas Church built in the grounds of The Shrubbery in 1897 by architect William Bassett-Smith. Listed: grade 2 it is in the Decorated Gothic style and was probably the last of twenty such churches designed by Smith. . The walls are built of brick, exposed inside, and faced with Kentish rag and Bath stone.

Este Road
Originally called Grove Road. This is part of the site of Pocock’s brickfield from 1852 with large sheds and bricks made – some used in Prince Albert’s model housing.
11 Fire Station.
Falcon Park. Also called Banana Park. A possible branch of the Falcon stream ran through here from Falcon Road to go along the main railway line.
Sacred Heart Primary School
George Shearing Youth Centre

Falcon Road
Previously called Falcon Lane. The east side built up by Pocock whose brickfield was in that area and this was lower middle class housing.
The Falcon – it follows the line of the stream coming from Balham and Tooting flowing to the river Thames at Battersea. It is now covered over. At the bend and junction with Ingrave Street comes off to the west it may be that the Falcon divided– the eastward branch running through what is now Falcon Park, then alongside what is now the main railway line to Victoria, connecting with the Nine Elms Ditch and entering the Thames just beyond Battersea Power Station. This would have made Battersea an island of sorts. The other course ran along Ingrave Street
Timber Yard and saw mills once stood north of the railway bridges.
Falcon Estate. Built by the London County Council. 1959-63. has three six-storey point blocks and some terraces.
75 Battersea Mosque. Modern and purpose built.
81-8 Battersea Labour Club 138 Providence House. Council premises with youth club
148 The Peacock Bar. This was the Meyrick Arms remaining from the Conservative Land Society's development of the area in the 1860s.
156 Electroscope Cinema, in a converted shop
John Fownes’ Glove factory 1777, employed 600 but moved to York Place. Fownes, he lived at Poplar House and the factory and grounds took up most of one side of the lane.
Falcon Lane Goods Depot. North Western Railway. Closed under Beeching.
Coal Depot
Cattle Pens

Fownes Road
Named for local glove factory owner John Fownes

Heathwall Sewer
The Ditch ran along the foot of the slope and drained into the Falcon Brook, making Battersea an island

Heathwall Street
Marks the line of the Heathwall water course.
Glycena Road
43 Battersea Brewery. Founded 2001 to supply beer to pubs in London and the south east by Stephen Nockold. Set up to make beer without chemicals.

Grant Road
Entrance to Clapham Junction Station.

Grayshott Road
The Heathwall stream crossed the area on the line of present day road.
Lavender Gardens
Housing built on the Shrubbery gardens in 1887 as an estate by Heaver designed by architect Charles Bentley
2 The Shrubbery. A Mansion ‘in the grand manner’ built in 1796 mansion predating the development of the area. Home of pre-Raphaelite artist Marie Sparteli. Used as a school by Canon Clarke1885, then as a parish hall, then left derelict. It was restored and converted to flats in 1987. It is stuccoed with five bays and a big curved porch.
33 Home of author G.A.Henty. Plaque erected 1953 which says 'author, lived here'. He was here from 1894 until his death and wrote stories about colonial military history, from his career as war correspondent of "The Standard".
49-51 Jongleurs Comedy Club and Bar Risa. Have had lots of names including Cornet of Horse and Stanley’s Masonic Halls

Lavender Hill
Line of the Old Portsmouth Road, described also as the road to Kingston – it is the east west high road through the area. . The heart of Victorian and Edwardian Battersea. Housing in surrounding roads developed in the late 19th by Heaver and included were 31 shops here designed by Thomas of Gunnersbury.
Named from the lavender cultivated in the market gardens which once lay to the north of this road in Battersea Fields. This was an 1820 nursery owned by William Pamplin growing for perfume makers.
171 Lavender Restaurant and Bar
204 Asda 1980s. On the site of the bombed Pavilion Cinema and shops
Pavilion Chambers and Lavenham Court, replacement shops built in 1963 for shops lost in V1 attack of1944.
Pavilion Cinema. Opened in 1916 and destroyed by a V1 in 1944 killing 28. Also called Kinestra. A Crompton Organ was installed in 1926
265 Central Library. 1888-90 by Paul Mountford, built of red brick Jacobean trimmings. at the back is the Reference Library. There is a weather vane in the design of a book reader
311 At one time this was the Electro Theatre de Luxe 230 tip-up seats, an 11 feet by 8 feet picture. Prices 3d and 6d. Closed and gone. Also called The Gem.
Arding & Hobbs. Henry Arding and Mr. Hobbs had had a store in Wandsworth in 1876. This large department store was opened in 1885 on a site bought from Tom Taylor. Hobbs retired in 1905. There is a corner cupola at the corner of St John's Hill, and large display windows at first-floor level. Designed in 1910 by James Gibson, following a fire in 1909 which killed 8, on the lines of central London stores. The rebuilding was the result of a fire in 1909. Now part of Debenhams. Electric House. In 1927 this was offices for the Borough Electricity Dept and also included the Borough Health Dept.
Old Town Hall, Battersea Arts Centre. Puppet Centre Trust. Built 1892-3 as Battersea Town Hall and designed by Edward Mountford in a limited competition in 1891. It has a symmetrical front of red brick with a semicircular porch and pediments with carved reliefs by Paul Mountford celebrating municipal Battersea - Labour and Progress, Art and Literature, instruct the youthful figure of Battersea. At the back is a large hall with an octagonal glass domed lobby the entrance hall had a mosaic of industrious bees. A Sculpture, on the staircase is Eurydice by W. Calder Marshall, 1893. It was closed in 1965 but a public campaign led to it being used as a community building until 1979 and in 1981 it became an independent arts centre, with a theatre space in the former council chamber. Behind is a large public hall seating 1,140. In the Great War it was the headquarters of the Royal West Surrey Regiment and used as a recruiting office.
176 Police station and South Western magistrates’ court built 1892 and rebuilt in 1963.

Lavender Sweep
Built by Heaver on the Dives Estate. Dives had a flour mill in Church Road

Latchmere Road
Called Pig Hill until the mid-20th
Latchmere Road School. Opened 1883 and designed by London School Board architect Robson. Now flats.
66 Fox and Hounds

Northcote Road
31-37 Bank Pub
8-10 Iniquity pub

15-17 Cinema opened as The Bio Picture Palace in 1908, converted from a former assembly room, Bolingbroke Hall. It changed to The Standard Electric Theatre in 1912, then The Bolingbroke Picture Hall, and then the Globe Electric Theatre. It was renamed the Century in 1951 and closed in 1964. Demolished for a supermarket. The Globe, and lastly The Century

Spencer Road
11 Walled garden with a vine-covered pergola, and a formal bed of yew and holly.

St.John's Hill
St John's Hill has the family name of the Viscounts Bolingbroke, lords of the manor of Battersea.
4 Slug and Lettuce
21-25 The Grand Opened by Dan Leno as the new Grand Palace of Varieties in 1900 the architect was E.A.Woodrow. The name changed to the Grand in 1946, and then to Essoldo by 1950. It closed in 1963 and reopened as a Bingo Hall which lasted until the late 1980s, and it is now a music venue. A gaunt facade with two towers with arcading. The auditorium still has boxes with pagoda canopies and plaster fronts with Chinese dragons. A false ceiling obscures the upper balcony and shallow dome.
27 Drill Hall. Head Quarters East Surrey Voluntary Regiment – with a variety of names and manifestations.
36 Windsor Castle Half timbered pub
43 Project Orange pub
54-46 Station Master’s House. Pre 1838 with a wide courtyard.
58 Granada Cinema which showed the premier of ‘Up the Junction' in 1968, split to three screens 1973. A bingo club since 1980, it was closed in 1997 to exclude it from the sale of the Gala chain to a management buyout. It is listed Grade II. Originally seating 2475, it has a 1930s exterior with a rounded corner entrance. It was fully equipped for stage use with many dressing rooms, and ran both cinema and variety for many years. After the Second World War, it hosted annual pantomimes as well as circus, ballet, variety and Annie Get Your Gun. One of Komisarjevsky's finest achievements. Now Lumiere apartments
Battersea Grammar School, previously on the site of the cinema. Founded 1875 as an offshoot of Walter St.John's School
Falcon Hotel, built 1887, with engraved glass and a window showing the present building and its predecessors. It is said it gave its name to the Falcon Brook. It was itself so called from the crest of the St.John family, lords of the manor of Battersea - a rising falcon.
St.John’s Hill Centre for the Elderly. Adjacent to the Peabody estate.
The Imperial Picture Theatre. Opened in 1890 as Munt’s Variety Hall becoming the Grand Hall of Varieties in 1894. It became a cinema in 1914 and then Renamed simply as "Imperial" in 1955. It closed in 1973, then re-opened as The Ruby - named after the manager's wife. IN 1981 it closed suddenly and was demolished. The site is now a bank.
Clapham Junction Station. 2nd March 1863. Between Earlsfield and Wandsworth Town and Queenstown Road on South West Rail. Terminus of West London Line from West Brompton. Between Wandsworth Common and West Brompton on Southern Rail. The north west bit is owned by London & South West Railway, the south east bit by the West London Extension Railway, the rest was London Brighton and South Coast Railway. In 1834-8 the first line was built - the London and Southampton, by Joseph Locke, in succession to Francis Giles, running to a terminus originally at Nine Elms, and from 1848 to Waterloo. The L.S.W.R. line from Clapham Junction ran via Barnes to Richmond and later Windsor, 1846 by Locke. Via Balham and Clapham Junction. It was a very early station, built for the London and Southampton line in 1838. In 1853 the western leg of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway was added, originally the independent West End and Crystal Palace Railway. This runs alongside the L.S.W.R., and across the river by Grosvenor Bridge to Victoria, the last stretch built as the Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway, 1859-60 by John Fowler. In 1859-63 the West London Extension Railway was added. This is by William Baker, crosses the river to Kensington and the main lines to the west and north. In 1860 Converging on the same bridge as the London and Brighton, via Brixton, is the West-End leg of the London Chatham and Dover Railway, by Joseph Cubitt. This was realigned through Battersea on a high-level line in 1866-7. In 1867 Alongside the L.C.D.R. the Brighton Company's South London line via Brixton to London Bridge, was added, again on the high level, to which their line via Clapham Junction was also raised. In the rush hours, the railway lines are the busiest in the world. They run on stock- brick viaducts, with the earlier low-level lines serving railway yards with a complicated history. It has 16 active platforms with upwards of 2,000 trains passing through daily. There are two distinct and independent sides to the station. The Central Division of Southern Region has the lines from Victoria to Surrey and Sussex (platforms 12-17) and South Western Division the lines from Waterloo to the south west suburbs and Portsmouth, Weymouth, Exeter, etc., plus the 'Windsor' lines. The layout is controlled by three signal boxes, 'B' (Central Division) and 'A' & 'C' (S.W. Division).
A Signal Box of 1911 as part of the London & South Western Railway's scheme to introduce pneumatically powered semaphore signalling to its main routes. The box is mounted on a gantry spanning the South Western Division tracks at the London end. The framework for a wartime protective steel plate roof remains. It remained in service until the area was resignalled with colour lights in 1956
C_Signal Box. This box which is situated at the end of platforms 5 and 4. A typical LSWR type box of the early part of the 20th it was probably opened at the same time as 'A' Box. The base is brick while the upper storey is of timber and glass.
B Box. The most recent of the three signal boxes at Clapham Junction, being opened in 1952 in connection with the introduction of colour light signaling to the London end of the Brighton Line. It is responsible for all movements on the Central Division side with flanking signal boxes. It is situated at the east end of the station and, typically for the period, is constructed of concrete and brick
Parcels office of 1910, restored

Theatre Street
Named because it was adjoining the old Shakespeare Theatre

Town Hall Road
Named because it was next to the Town Hall

Sources
Arding and Hobbs. Web site
Battersea Mosque. Web site
Blue Plaque Guide
Battersea  Arts Centre. Web site
Christ Church School. Web site
Church of the Nazarene. Web site
Cinema Theatres Association. Newsletter
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clapham Junction. Wikipdia. Web site
Drill Halls. Web site
Falcon Hotel. Web site
Field. London Place Names
Goat. Web site
Jonglers. Web site
London Railway Record
Lucas. London
Osborne, Defending London
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
St. Andrews., URC Web site
St.Barnabas. Web site
St. Mark's Web site
St. Vincent de Paul. Web site
The Merchant. Web site
Wandsworth Council. Web site

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