Lavender Hill

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A hill in South London near Clapham Junction. The Street name Lavender Hill is a continuation of St John's Hill and forms the section of the A3036 as it rises eastwards out of the Falconbrook valley at Clapham Junction, and retains that name for approximately 1.5km to the corner of Queenstown Road in Battersea, beyond which it is called Wandsworth Road towards Vauxhall.

The geographical feature is named Lavender Hill due to the commercial cultivation of Lavender there in the pre-industrial era. Several other smaller streets including Lavender Gardens and Lavender Sweep (rumoured to be the former home of Sarah Ferguson, duchess of York) also bear the reference and can be seen on 18th Century maps as being largely farmland.

[edit] Lavender Hill in Fiction

It is known in popular culture thanks to the Ealing comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. It is also featured with a chapter of its own in the historical novel London by Edward Rutherfurd, with descriptions of it in the 18th century from the pre-industrial era.

[edit] Contemporary Lavender Hill

Lavender Hill is now principally a shopping street along much of its length, starting from the landmark Arding and Hobbs building (now part of Debenhams), a number of specialist food and music outlets, a large supermarket, a bewildering number (c15) of Estate Agents and a larger concentration of restaurants and bars along the flatter section atop the hill, where Lavender Hill Police station and the Battersea Arts Centre are to be found.