From Sean Creighton's booklet, Battersea
Growing Up in Battersea 1860s (1) Arthur Newton’s family came to Battersea in 1859 when he was 18 months old. His father was a builder in Pimlico. He built the two Clarence Cottages in Love Lane (later Surrey Lane South).
After living in one of them, the family moved to Carlton Grove off Battersea Park Rd. Newton comments that when the family came to Battersea ‘it was quite a suburban, almost rural district, with orchards and markets gardens’. The Square still had a pump. Tradesmen in the Square included Trow, the bootmaker, Sly, the baker, Paragreen, the grocer, and Trott, the ironmonger. When his hoop needed repair it was mended in the blacksmith’s forge where Trott St was later built.
‘Surrey Lane was quite a country lane with but few houses. Bridge Road was very select and Battersea Park Road had a few houses only, on one side of the road, the other side nearest the park being occupied by wheat fields and market gardens. Fownes, the glove maker had a large house there and his factory adjoined it. The part now occupied by Kambala Road and the adjoining streets was mostly lavender fields near what is still called, and for that reason, Lavender Road.
The old Prince’s Head was a country inn on York Road, or Lower Wandsworth Road, as part of it was called between the Princes Head and Plough Lane (now Plough Road) only had a few cottages, orchards and fields occupied the remainder. Adjoining the old Grove School in York Road was a large meadow owned by Price’s Candle Factory and which extended to the rear of Creek Street where the old Creek used to run through under York Road to the Thames. This meadow was for years the scene of our Sunday School treat where on Whit Monday we had games and sports as children. It is now covered by the houses of Benfield, Barmore and Ingrave Streets, and the frontage of York Road covered by the shops now existing. I remember that when these shops were in course of erection, some of them, those between Barmore and Ingrave Street, owing to some faulty construction, suddenly collapsed.’ ‘The Falcon Tavern at the foot of St John’s Hill was a quaint old place with a very old tree and a wooden horse trough by the side of it. Lavender Hill was flanked by Lavender Sweep, a fine private thoroughfare serving only a few large Georgian residences with lawns, cedar trees and flower gardens. A fine lodge, and gateway led into the Sweep from Lavender Hill.
St John’s Road was a pleasant residential road with only a few villas on one side, the other being mainly occupied by the old walls of the big houses in Lavender Sweep. The last of these old houses was owned by Matthew Whiting, in whose house I have been many times in my early business days, for he and his brother Henry, who lived on Lavender Hill, were both directors of the old Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company whose staff I joined in 1878. From Matthew Whiting’s House, which stood where Barnard Road now stands, you looked right over St. John’s Road to a large meadow of about 8 acres, owned by his bother Henry and which later became Aliwal, Comyn, Eckstein and Severus Roads, which were built in 1887-9.’ ‘Bolingbroke Grove, called at one time Five House Lane, had at the time only five houses in it.
They each had extensive grounds running down the hill at the rear towards where Northcote Road now stands. The valley between Bolingbroke Grove and Clapham Common was a beautiful spot, with the Falcon Brook running at the bottom in a series of small waterfalls.
On the other side of Wandsworth Common another favourite spot with many of us was the large pond near the windmill, known as the Black Sea. My memory of that is not so vivid, as I was very young then and regarded the Black Sea with some timidity. It was rather deep in some parts, and was much resorted to for fishing in the summer and for sliding and skating on in winter. This piece of water was not long after drained off and became the site of what is now Spencer Park with its gardens and lawns in the centre, and its fringe of substantial houses around it. Mr Calderwood, the manager of Price’s Candle Factory lived in one of these houses, “Gowanlea” facing Windmill Road.’ When we lived in Carlton Grove, and later in Latchmere Road we used to visit for fishing, and in winter for skating some old flooded gravel pits known as “The Cuttings” where the Shaftesbury Estate now is. The Battersea piggeries were also in that neighbourhood, and were frequently very odoriferous and gave rise to many complaints.
Plough Road, or Plough Lane as it was then called, was a quiet and rural lane with only a few houses and cottages. Nearby were one or two good sized 18th century houses of the gentry, with large gardens. A very old fashioned and picturesque public house ‘The Old House’ stood in Plough Lane just above the fork where Newcomen Road now joins Plough Road and the adjoining Streets have since been built were part of the estate of the Rev. Israel May Soule, the minister of Battersea Chapel. The railway crossed by a level crossing and the upper part of Plough Lane was occupied on one side by a row of almshouses, known to us as Soule’s Almshouses. On the other side was the wall enclosing the house and gardens of Mr Soule, the entrance gates and carriage drive to which were at the top of where Cologne Road now stands.’ ‘The house was a large, white, detached mansion built in the early 1800s. There must have been considerable means in the family for they kept one or two man servants besides domestics. The gardens and meadows were some acres in extent and ran down the hill to and beyond the railway, and included the land on which now stand all houses in the lower part of Harbut Road, Maysoule Road and Tritton Street so that the development of that estate must have represented considerable value.’
Footnote
(1) Roger Armstrong. Battersea in the 1860s. In a Solon Housing Association Annual Report. Roger was the development worker and house purchaser. He used the memoirs of Arthur Newton.
There's a reference to an "Arthur Newton House" in Battersea:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sites/bartlett/files/50.08_north_of_clapham_junction.pdf
Any connection?
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