Albert Embankment
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The Albert Embankment is a stretch of the river bank on the south side of the River Thames in Central London. It stretches approximately one mile northwards from Vauxhall Bridge to Westminster Bridge, and is located in the London Borough of Lambeth.
Albert Embankment is also the name given to the part of the A3036 road between Vauxhall Bridge and Lambeth Bridge, where it adjoins Lambeth Palace Road and Lambeth Road.
Created by the engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette for the Metropolitan Board of Works between July 1866 and November 1869, it included land reclaimed from the river and various small timber and boat building yards, and was intended to protect low-lying areas of Lambeth from flooding while also providing a new highway to bypass local congested streets.
Unlike Bazalgette's Thames Embankment (including Chelsea Embankment and Victoria Embankment), the Albert Embankment does not incorporate major interceptor sewers. This allowed the southern section of the embankment (upstream from Lambeth Bridge) to include a number of bridges into a small dock — White Hart Dock — used for barges to bring clay and other supplies to the Royal Doulton pottery works.
Some of the reclaimed land was sold to the trustees of St Thomas' Hospital. To the north of Lambeth Bridge, the Embankment is a narrower pedestrian promenade in front of the hospital, with motor traffic carried behind the hospital on Lambeth Palace Road.
In common with other Bazalgatte works, the original embankment is adorned with Sturgeon Lamp Standards to the designs of George Vulliamy. The southern limit of Bazalgatte's embankment was opposite Tinworth Street, where the road moves away from the riverside.
The stretch south of Tinworth Street was occupied by industrial and wharf premises until World War II. These areas have subsequently been redeveloped as offices, with extensions to the embankment being constructed to a more utilitarian design than the Bazalgatte/Vulliamy stretch. Public pedestrian access to this newer embankment between Lambeth Bridge and the main road stretch of Albert Embankment was only secured in the 1990s. Parts of this section of the embankment have a provisional appearance, as the landowners still have hopes for future redevelopment that could move the embankment line further into the river. However, encroachment of the tidal river bed habitat is contrary to the current planning policies of Lambeth.
