CHAPTER IV - Brixton
This chapter covers the central of part
the parish between the Manor of Stockwell on the west and the Manor of Milkwell on the east. The greater part of the area
formed part of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
Manors of Lambeth and Lambeth Wick, and
was the scene of a great deal of undistinguished
speculative building in the first half of the 19th
century.
The Wright Estate
Nothing is known about the early history of the
land between Prima Road, South Island Place,
Clapham Road and Brixton Road. The area
formed a no-man’s land bounded by the Manor of
Kennington and Vauxhall Creek on the north,
by Vauxhall Manor on the west and by Lambeth
Wick Manor on the east and south. It may perhaps be identified with 18 acres held by Robert
Addison of St. Saviour’s, Southwark, butcher,
who was presented in 1640 to the Court of the
Commissioners of Sewers to scour the sewer which
lay along his ground near Hazards Bridge. (ref. 1)
Hazards Bridge crossed Vauxhall Creek at the
north end of Brixton Road. The land must have
been very marshy at all times until the sewer was
closed in, for the area around Kennington Common, the Oval and Claylands Road formed a
shallow depression through which the river
flowed, and indeed often overflowed. Development of these 18 acres started at the beginning of
the 19th century but only along the frontages to
the main roads. Prima Road, formerly Church
Row or Street, was laid out about 1794, when the
property belonged to John Wright of Esher,
banker. (ref. 2) Wright granted several building leases
of plots fronting Clapham and Brixton Roads and
a few of the houses erected under these leases
survive and are described below. In 1870 another
John Wright, who was then owner of the estate,
disposed of it in two parts. The northern part,
between Prima Road and the present gardens of
houses in Handforth Road, was sold to Philip
Edward Sewell of Norfolk, civil engineer. (ref. 2) The
southern portion was acquired by Robert and
Isaac Crewdson, (ref. 3) and Handforth and Crewdson
Roads were subsequently laid out across it.
No. 5 Prima Road
Formerly Severn House
This house was erected under a building lease
granted in 1801 to William Broadhurst (ref. 2) but has
probably been altered since. It is a three-storey
stock brick villa raised above a semi-basement and
finished with a cornice and blocking course to
the parapet. It has a rusticated stuccoed ground
storey and is set forward slightly at each side of
the central entrance. The entrance is sheltered
by a broad Ionic-columned porch which has
rectangular corner piers with anthemion-ornamented heads. There are bearded male mask
keystones over the windows which are identical
with those on No. 57 South Lambeth Road
(Plates 70a, b, c). The villa is partially masked by
later houses which about it at each side on an
advanced building line.
The Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Road
This hospital was founded in 1866 in Pimlico. (ref. 4) At the end of the 19th century the Governors decided that the need for hospital accommodation in south London warranted its removal from
Gloucester Street, Pimlico, and in 1899 they
took a lease of its present site from P. E. Sewell. (ref. 5)
The buildings which then occupied the site were
pulled down and the foundation stone was laid
by Princess Henry of Battenberg on June 27,
1900. (ref. 6) The east wing, centre block, out patients’ department and the ground floor of the
south wing were finished in 1903 (ref. 4) and opened on
July 20 of that year. (ref. 7) The south wing was completed in 1924 and the west wing two years
later. (ref. 4) The plan of the hospital was the work of
H. Percy Adams, but the elevations, which show
the influence of Philip Webb, were prepared by
Charles Holden, who had joined Adams in
October 1899. (ref. 8) The builders were Messrs.
Gough and Co. of Hendon. (ref. 9)
The hospital has a simple cruciform plan and
is symmetrically arranged about the Clapham
Road front. The building, which is mostly of four
storeys, is faced with red brick and has mullioned
and transomed windows of Portland stone. Its entrance wing at the centre is surmounted by a
steep gable flanked by low square battlemented
towers, and the wards in the north and south
wings are galleried, with plain towers at each
corner containing necessary services.
Nos. 13 and 15 Clapham Road
Formerly Nos. 4 and 5 Clapham Road Place or Lambeth
Place
A plan on the lease of the adjoining property
dated 1805 shows these houses on lease to Henry
Wood, (ref. 2) who may have erected them about this
time. They are paired three-storey houses and
have a stock brick front of simple design. A
narrow recession defines the party wall between
the houses, each of which has two rectangular
windows in each storey. Those to the ground
floor are set in shallow recesses with arched heads
rising from moulded imposts. Each house is
flanked by a single storey annexe containing the
entrance, the door being set with a radial-patterned fanlight in a segmental-arched opening.
Nos. 17–25 (odd) Clapham Road
Formerly Nos. 6–10 (consec.) Clapham Road Place
These houses were erected in 1805 at the costs
of James Medland of St. Mary Newington, surveyor, and were let to him in that year by John
Wright’s trustees. (ref. 2) They are a terrace of five
houses sharing a stock brick front that presents
a balanced composition. All the houses are three
windows wide and each end house forms a slightly
projecting pavilion, four storeys high, the last
being an attic above the mutule cornice. The
three intermediate houses are three storeys high,
and the cornice is surmounted by an open balustrade. A bandcourse marks the first-floor level.
The windows generally are rectangular excepting
those to the ground floor, which have flat segmental heads. Each house has a wood doorcase of
simple design, except for No. 21 where the stucco
surrounds are later.
Nos. 27–33 (odd) Clapham Road
Formerly Nos. 11–14 (consec.) Clapham Road Place
No building lease of these houses has survived,
but again by comparing the leases of adjoining
houses it can be deduced that their site was on
lease to Head, (ref. 10) probably William Head, a local
builder (see page 76), in 1805. These are paired
houses similar to Nos. 13 and 15, but with twoleaved doors and elaborated parapets to the
annexes, which are now heightened or altered.
The ground floor of No. 27 has been partly cut
away to provide access to the rear, and the upper
part of No. 29 has been rebuilt.
Nos. 35–41 and 61–77 (odd) Clapham Road
Formerly Nos. 15–18 and 25–33 (consec.) Clapham Road
Place
In 1809 the trustees of John Wright, then
deceased, let the whole of the frontage of Clapham
Road between and including the site of No. 35
and the site of the present South Island Place, on
building lease of 80½ years. (ref. 3) The lessees were the
trustees of Richard Wooding, surveyor, who
probably had an agreement for the building lease
before his death in 1808. The trustees included
Mary, wife of Richard Wooding, his executor
Robert Roberts, who was also a surveyor, and
Isaac Bates of Kennington, brickmaker (see
page 21). Nos. 35 and 37 are built of stock brick,
three storeys high, and form a six-bay block with
end bays recessed and containing the doorways.
The upper windows are square-headed and on the
ground floor round-headed in shallow arched
recesses, which, like the arched entrances, have
rectangular impost blocks. Nos. 39 and 41 are
a pair of three-storeyed stock brick houses with
semi-basements. The two ground-floor windows
and the entrance to each house are round-headed
and recessed beneath shallow arches springing
from moulded imposts. Above, the windows are
rectangular, two to a storey, and there is a sillband at first-floor level. The doorcases have
pilasters with reeded panels, capped by wreathed
blocks. The street railings to No. 41 remain in
part. They are spear-headed, the principal uprights having elegant urn finials. Nos. 63–73
form a symmetrical group of three linked pairs,
the centre pair being considerably larger than the
other two. No. 61 is nearly identical with the
right-hand house in either of the smaller pairs,
but has suffered some alteration. All are built of
stock brick, of three storeys raised on a rendered
semi-basement. Nos. 67 and 69, the centre pair,
have each three windows to a floor, square-headed
upstairs and round-headed on the ground floor
where they are set in arched recesses with moulded
imposts, to match the entrance. Both their doorways have plain fanlights and are flanked by very
slender Roman Doric columns. No. 69 retains
its original frieze, cornice and blocking course.
Nos. 63 and 65 and Nos. 71 and 73 are flanked
by one-storey links containing the doorways and
each house is two windows wide. Otherwise they
are treated in the same way as the centre pair.
No. 75 is a two-storey stock brick house with a
semi-basement, its front finished with a cornice
and blocking course. It is three windows wide
and there is a centrally placed porch resting on
columns. The basement is faced with stucco.
No. 77 is a narrow three-storey house wedged in
between Nos. 75 and 79. It is very similar to
Nos. 39 and 41, but has a cast-iron balcony across
the full width of the house at first-floor level.
Nos. 22 and 24 Brixton Road
Formerly Nos. 28 and 30 Brixton Road, previously Nos.
6 and 7 Spencer Place
In 1802 a building lease of the land on which
these houses stand was granted to William Broadhurst, (ref. 2) who also built No. 5 Prima Road. They
are a pair of modest, stock brick houses of three
storeys, each two windows wide. Single storey
extensions, now altered, contain the round-headed
doorways, that to No. 22 having a reeded stucco
architrave. The windows have segmental heads
and lattice pattern iron guards on the first floor.
No. 24 has an attic in a mansard roof and No. 22
has been extended to the side.