Lower Marsh
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Lower Marsh (formerly known as Lambeth Marsh ) is a street that remains on the site of one of the oldest settlements on the South Bank of London.
Until the early 19th century much of north Lambeth (now known as The South Bank) was mostly marsh. The settlement of Lambeth Marsh was built on a raised through road over the marsh lands, potentially dating back to Roman times. The land on which it stands was owned by the church of England, with Lambeth Palace nearby. Records and maps show that it was a separate village until the early 19th Century when the church sold off the land in small pockets, thereby leading to random development of individual houses rather than the grander redevelopments occurring north of the river.
Lower Marsh can be seen in the background of this picture in 1685.
Maps
It appears on the following historic maps:
- Holler - 1566
- Rocque - 1746 - The Roque Map of 1746
- Horwood - 1799 The Horwood Map of 1799
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[edit] Notable Residents
William James - William James, the son of a solicitor, was born in Henry-in-Arden in 1771. He trained as a solicitor but became a land agent for the Earl of Warwick. He later moved to London where he established one of the largest land agency businesses in the country. In 1804 he projected the drainage of Lambeth Marsh which he surveyed on the instructions of the Prince of Wales and the Archbishop of Canturbury. His plans included a proposal for a new bridge over the Thames although not quite in the same position as the Waterloo Bridge that was eventually built. He tried to raise interest in draining Lambeth Marsh again in 1808 and this time he proposed a tunnel under the Thames from College Lane (roughly in the middle of Jubilee Gardens) to Scotland Yard.
Bishop Bonner - Bonner was the Bishop of London. He was born around 1500 [to be confirmed and expanded]
William Curtis - Curtis ran a botanical garden close to the site of The Old Vic from 178? to ..... when he felt forced to close the botanical garden due to poor air quality. He published a magazine called The Botanical Magazine (still in publication) and the later, larger "Flora Londinensis"; both of which featured full page hand-colored illustrations of various plant species. Born in Alton in 1746, William Curtis early on left an apprenticeship at an apothecary to pursue the love of plants. Flora Londinensis, which, though highly acclaimed by his fellow naturalists, was not a financial success. Curtis had labored on this work for over ten years, selling it out of his own home. H
[edit] Early Records
At a very early date, probably dating to the original Roman settlements, banks of earth were erected along the south side of the Thames in order to keep out the tidal waters and to hold them in check. One of them near he river was called Narrow Wall whilst another binding the marsh to the east was called Broad Wall, an ancient raised road which followed the line of Lambeth Marsh.
Domesday Book Entry One of the first records of the area is recorded in the Domesday book, referring to the local Manor closest to London (Water Lambeth & Lambeth Marsh):
“There is a manor of St Mary’s which is called Lambeth. Countess Gode, sister of Kind Edward, held it. It was then assessed at ten hides; now at two and a half hides. There is tand for two and a half ploughs. In demesne are two ploughs, twelve villeins and 27 bordars with four ploughs. There is a church, and 19 burgesses in London who pay 36/-, and there are three slaves and 16 acres of meadow and woodland for three pigs.”
17th Century
Samuel Pepys refers to Lambeth Marsh in 1664.
“…and away to Westminster Hall, and there sight of Mrs Lane, and plotted with her to go over ot the old house in Lambeth Marsh, and there eat and drank, and had my pleasure with her twice, she being the strangest woman in talk of love to her husband sometimes, and sometimes again she do not care for him, and yet willing enough to allow me a liberty of doing what I would with her. So spending 5s or 6s upon her, I could do what I would, and after an hours stay and more, back again and set her ashore again” 25th July 1664.
18th Century Mark Beaufoy’s Vinegar Yard, was established in the 1750’s in Cupers Gardens. Extended in 1763.
In 1779 Curtis established the Royal Botanical Gardens, believed to be on the site of the current Emma Cons gardens.
As the Horwood Map of 1799 shows, by the end of the 18th century Lambeth Marsh was still a predominantly rural area, with people maintaining market gardens.
[edit] 19th Century Lambeth Marsh
Up until the beginning of the 19th Century Lambeth Marsh was surrounded by open fields, and a windmill in the cut.
A number of notable factories would have employed a number of local people:
- Maudslay’s Ironworks and Engineering - Westminster Bridge Road – 1810-1899
- John Doulton’s pottery – Lambeth High Street – 1826, and from 1870’s at the Doulton Works on the Embankment
- William Clowes & Sons – 1825 in Upper Ground, and then in Duke Street (in the 1840’s was the largets printworks in the world) Closed following bombing in 1941.
August 1815, the Bedlam Hospital was opened nearby for 200 patients. The dome was added between 1830 and 1850. It remained until 1864 when patients were moved to Broadmoor.
By 1824, most of the cultivated land had been built over, including the addition of the following streets ………
[edit] The Arrival of the Railway
Waterloo Station was built in 1848 and completely changed forever Lambeth Marsh's relationship to its surrounds. The sheer scale and proximity of the railway created a barrier between the street and the rest of the Lambeth Marsh.
Lower Marsh was not a place that respectable Londoners would have ventured in the latter part of the 19th century.
George Sala “Twice Round the Clock” 1859
Writing of the New Cut:
“It isn’t picturesque, it isn’t quaint, it isn’t curious. It has not even the questionable merit of being old. It is simply Low. It is sordid, squalid, and the truth must out, disreputable. The broad thoroughfare, which , bordered with fitting houses, would make one of the handsomest streets in London, is gorged with vile, rotten tenements, occupied, by merchants who ofttimes pursue the very contrary to innocent callings. Everything is second hand, except the leviathan gin shops, which are ghastly in their newness and richness of decoration. The broad pavement presents a mixture of Vanity Fair and Rag Fair. It is the paradise of the lowest of costermongers, and often the saturnalia of the most emerited thieves. Women appear there in their most unloveley aspect: brazen, slovenly, dishevelled, brawling, muddled with beer or fractious with gin. The howling of beaten children and kicked dogs, the yells of ballad-singers, death and fire-hunters, and reciters of sham murders and elopements; the bawling recitations of professional denunciators of the Queen, the Royal family, and the ministry; the monotonous jodels of the itinerant hucksters; the fumes of the vilest tobacco, of stale corduroy suits, of oilskin caps, of mildewed umbrellas, of decaying vegetables, of escaping (and frequently surreptitiously tapped) gas, of deceased cats, of ancient fish, of cagmag meat, of dubious mutton pies, and of unwashed, soddened, unkempt, reckless humanity; all these make the night hideous and the heart sick. The New Cut is one of the most unpleasant samples of London that you could offer a foreigner.”
The following quote is from "Old and New London" published in 1879:
"The regular habitues of the place may be divided into two classes - the various deals and vendors, mostly of "perishable articles", with their regular customers, on the one hand; and on the dealers in miscellaneous goods , and the hundreds of men and boys of the working, and what some people call the "dangerous" classes - irregular customers - among whom may be seen the real British "navvy" as good a specimen of humanity after his kind as one need wish to look upon, whose Sunday morning costume differs only from his week-day in having his boots unlaced."
Dates of Bridges opened in the area:
Bridges had a significant impact on Lambeth Marsh and it’s connection to the north bank of the Thames. In the early 1800’s there was much resistance from watermen (who operated the ferries) to the introduction of further bridges.
Westminster Bridge: Original Stone Bridge, 1750 (Architect: Labelye), replaced in Victorian Times [date] with the current iron version
Blackfriars Bridge: 1769
Waterloo Bridge: The original, built by John Rennie, was opened in 1817, pulled down in 1936, and reopened in 194?
Lambeth Bridge: The first structure was a suspension bridge that
Land ownership (work in progress)
1066 – Countess Gode, sister of King Edward (listed in the Domesday book) After Doomsday – Bishop of Rochester 14th Century – Edward III grants Kennington Palace (Lambeth Marsh part of the estate?) to Edward Duke of Cornwall 1646 – Act of Sequestration – returns land to the crown. (but Lambeth Marsh remains in Duchy of Cornwall?) 1800 ? – Sir Robert Clayton, leased from the Duchy of Cornwall 1800 – Thomas and John Lett sublet from Clayton?
Railway Dates:
1848: The railway extends from Vauxhall to Waterloo. The original station was considerably smaller than today
1866: The first extension on the northern side is opened
1911/2: A further, more sizable extension in 1911-12 is established. Replacing James Street and Aubin Streetm which at the time ran parallel to Lower Marsh.
[edit] Early 20th Century
Tanswell Street, which runs south off Lower Marsh was identified for slum clearance in 1930/1. Pictures in the metropolitan archives show the condemned back to back houses in 1937 shortly before they were pulled down.
Another arial photo [to be inserted shortly] shows the area in the late 30's shortly after the Spur Road was built linking the station down to Bayliss Road.
[edit] 1980s and 1990s - The impact of Eurostar and LCC
When the Eurostar was announced in the 1980s a wave of speculative property acquisition started, based on developers assumptions that Lower Marsh would be swallowed up by compulsory puchase orders to make way for hotels and car parks. As the Eurostar development was limited to the north of Waterloo Station this left many freeholds in the hands of developers who had little interest in enhancing the properties that they had purchased, leading to stagnation of renovation projects in the street.
The closure of Greater London Council (GLC) headquarters at County Hall on the Southbank had a significant impact on the level of footfall traffic coming to the street, and contributed further to the decrease in the number of traders operating on the street.
[edit] Lower Marsh in the 21st Century
Lower Marsh retains a quiet sense of community and is slowly being regenerated. There are an active number of community and business groups working on the regeneration of the area:
- Waterloo Community Development Group WCDG
- Waterloo Quarter Business Alliance WQBA
A recent project in 2006 has been organised by the Royal Festival Hall to capture residents memories of the street and includes a community photography project. Trading Places Web Site
