Park Street

CHAPTER 11: PARK STREET

Park Street is so called because it runs across the area which was formerly the Bishop of Winchester's park (see p. 45). It includes the old street known as Maid Lane, running parallel to the river, and its continuation south and south-east, which was formerly known as Deadman's Place.

Nos. 20–26

These three-storey buildings are of yellow stock brick with a deep parapet, below which is a brick dentil cornice. The window openings have flat gauged arches and recessed double-hung sashes with glazing bars. The ground floor windows have plain-panelled wood shutters. Each house has one window on each floor fronting on to the street. The doorways have semicircular arched heads with fluted keystones and semicircular fanlights of a geometrical design (Plate 60b).

The ground between the great garden of Winchester House and Deadman's Place (now Park Street) seems to have been enfranchised by the Bishop of Winchester at an early date. It belonged in the time of Elizabeth to Robert Brandon (fn. 98) and was subsequently divided into small plots and built upon. As stated in the account of the Anchor Brewery, the northern part of this ground was bought by Edmund Halsey early in the eighteenth century, (fn. 123) and Henry Thrale cleared it and made it into a garden to serve his dwelling on the opposite side of the way.

The ground south of the garden was bought in 1736 by Ralph Thrale and a tap house (the Royal Oak) and three tenements were built there. (fn. 123) These are shown on the 1792 plan of the brewery. The present Nos. 20–26 Park Street were built about 1807. Barclay Perkins and Co. Ltd. are the owners, and the houses are occupied by employees of the firm.

Nos. 25–31

These houses have plain brick fronts four storeys high, finished with a parapet, and relieved by an arcaded ground storey and a plain stone string course at first floor sill level. The window openings on the upper floors have flat gauged brick arches with double-hung sashes. The ground floor openings are set in arched recesses and have semicircular brick heads with the outer arches linked by plain stone springing bands. The windows retain their slender glazing bars and the entrances have semicircular fanlights with radiating bars.

Reference to the plan on Plate 59 and the footnote on p. 75 will show that Nos. 31, 29 and 27 Park Street stand on part of the ground on which the Globe Playhouse was situated, while No. 25 occupies the site of Blue Anchor Passage and the Blue Anchor public house. The latter was bought by Barclay Perkins and Co. Ltd. in 1834. (fn. 23) These four houses appear to have been built circa 1835. They have remained the property of the company and have usually been let to its employees.

Tablet on No. 7

On No. 7 Park Street is the stone tablet of which a sketch is given below. Thomas Cure, Master of the Horse to King Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, (fn. 186) in 1579 bought from Viscount Montague the house called Waverley House and the property adjoining, all of which had belonged to the Abbot of Waverley prior to the dissolution of the monasteries. (fn. n1) In 1584 Cure obtained Letters Patent to establish a college or hospital for poor people there, and endowed it with his newly acquired property. Waverley House adjoined the acre of ground bought by the Churchwardens of St. Margaret's parish for a new churchyard in 1537 (see p. 10) on part of which the wardens of St. Saviour's had built six almshouses in 1580. (fn. 16) These subsequently became merged in the college.

Thomas Cure died in 1588 and was buried in St. Saviour's Church. The Latin inscription on his monument there contains several puns on his name. (fn. 186)

The college was further endowed by Jane Hargrave, Edward Hewlett, Dorothy Applebee and others. (fn. 56) Ten of the almshouses were rebuilt in 1820 by a contractor, J. Wilson, at a cost of £2,060, (fn. n2) on the same site. (fn. 187) In 1863 the ground was purchased by the Charing Cross Railway Company and the almspeople were moved to new buildings at Lower Norwood. (fn. 187)

The almshouses and churchyard were set well back from the street, but the endowments included No. 6 (The Wheatsheaf), No. 8 and No. 9 (The Harrow) on the west side of Stoney Street and Nos. 1–13 on the south side of what is now the southern end of Park Street (formerly known as Harrow Corner) (fn. 56) Part of the property between Park Street and the almshouses was used in the 16th and 17th centuries for the manufacture of soap (fn. 16) and was called Soap Yard. (fn. n3) At the beginning of the 18th century Thomas Malin was encroaching on the almshouse property to extend his brewhouse. (fn. 16) A survey of the almshouses and the property belonging to them was made by George Gwilt in 1814 and is reproduced on Plate 10.

The appearance of the whole of this area was entirely altered by the formation of the railway and of Southwark Street.