The Loughborough connection with Brixton

[editor]

'Scuse the cut and paste but this text is only available as a PDF and I know some peeps hate reading those, so I've copied it and reformatted it.

If you look at a railway map of South London, you will see a station called Loughborough Junction, on
the line going south from Blackfriars.

Loughborough Junction was originally called Loughborough Road, and between there and Brixton
was another station called Loughborough Park (later renamed East Brixton and now closed).

As well as those stations, and the thoroughfares of Loughborough Road and Loughborough Park, a row of early nineteenth century houses in Brixton Road called Loughborough Place, a block of flats called Loughborough Mansions, a row of shops called Loughborough Parade, Loughborough Park Congregational Church and the Loughborough Park Tavern, in Coldharbour Lane, all provide evidence of a link between seventeenth-century Leicestershire and an area that was once part of Surrey but is now in the London Borough of Lambeth.

That link was provided by Henry Hastings, first Baron Loughborough (c.1609-1667), to whom the manor of
Lambeth Wick, of which this land once formed part, was leased.

The younger son of the fifth Earl of Huntingdon, he was born at the Manor House on Sparrow Hill, Loughborough. During the Civil War, as Colonel Hastings, he was an important Royalist commander and led troops at Edgehill in 1642, was involved in the relief of Newark in 1644, became governor of Leicester in 1645 and held Ashby Castle till 1646. In 1649 he escaped to Holland, but returned to England in 1660 and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire the following year.

In 1664 he was living at the manor house of Lambeth Wick, which became known as Loughborough House,
and in that year obtained an Act of Parliament to make the river Effra navigable from Brixton Causeway to the Thames, but died before his project could be implemented.


By the beginning of the 18th century, the Hastings family were no longer lessees of the manor of Lambeth
Wick. Loughborough House became ‘a superior academy for young gentlemen’; a collection of elocution
lessons published in 1787 was dedicated ‘To the Young Noblemen and Gentlemen receiving their education at
Loughborough House School’.

A drawing in Lambeth Archives of c.1825 shows it as a three-storey house of ten bays, which had clearly been rebuilt, or at least refronted, since Henry Hastings’ time. It still had 30 resident pupils at the time of the 1841 census.

Piecemeal development of Lambeth Wick had started in 1820, and the laying out of roads like Loughborough
Park from 1844 onwards, the demolition of Loughborough House in 1854, and the opening of the lines to Central London in the 1860s and early 1870s, coupled with the availability of cheap, early morning
workmen’s fares, accelerated the transformation of the area into a railway suburb.

The manor of Loughborough remained in the possession of the Hastings family until 1810, though the building on Sparrow Hill which is still known as the Manor House was sold by them in 1654. After many owners and changes of use, it has been restored and is now a hotel and restaurant
http://www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/lh2004.pdf

[g force]

Very interesting stuff - i'd often wondered about the connection. I can now rest easy on the Thameslink every morning

[editor]

Could this be the Loughborough House (the "superior academy for young gentlemen") referred to? It's got 3 storeys and there's no mistaking the name.

If so - blimey, it's hit rock bottom!

[Crispy]

From
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rep...x?compid=49769
the original house stood

On the triangular-shaped piece of ground now covered by Evandale, Claribel, parts of Loughborough, Lilford and Akerman Roads, stood Loughborough House and grounds. The house itself, shown on a plan of 1825 (ref. 33) as an oblong range of buildings facing west with its south side abutting on Loughborough Lane, stood on the site of the south-east corner of Evandale Road and part of the roadway.

which is here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...&t=h&z=17&om=1
and then

the house was pulled down about 1854

So, no, I don't think that's it

[editor]

heers for that.

Funny thing is that the 'new' Loughborough House looks like it was built in the early 19th century/very early Victorian, so maybe it snaffled the name as soon as the old building was demolished?

[Minnie_the_Minx]

A drawing in Lambeth Archives of c.1825 shows it as a three-storey house of ten bays, which had clearly been rebuilt, or at least refronted, since Henry Hastings’ time. It still had 30 resident pupils at the time of the 1841 census.

10 bays? I take it that is bay windows?

[Dan U]

Where was East Brixton Station?
Am trying to visualise where it might be but failing!

I've seen Editor mention it a few times.

[editor]

Originally Posted by Dan U

Where was East Brixton Station?
Am trying to visualise where it might be but failing!

I've seen Editor mention it a few times.

East Brixton Station was located on the east side of Barrington Road, 30m north of its junction with Coldharbour Lane, Brixton.

http://www.urban75.org/railway/east-brixton.html
Map: http://tinyurl.com/cqlsb

[memespring]

great stuff !

[Crispy]

East Brixton is interesting. If they ever open a brixton station for the ELL extension, that's where it'll have to go I suppose.

[ringo]

Interesting stuff, didn't know about the other train station.
Last time I looked at the Museum of London's map collection I photocopied all their maps of the area. I seem to remember Loughborough House being at Fiveways, not on Coldharbour Lane. I think it was about where the building with the White Hart on it is (junction of Lilford Road and Loughborough Road.
Will have a look for the maps, but have a feeling they disappeared in a period of upheaval.

[drag0n]

I've always wondered about the loughborough connection. ta.

[Dan U]

Originally Posted by editor

East Brixton Station was located on the east side of Barrington Road, 30m north of its junction with Coldharbour Lane, Brixton.

http://www.urban75.org/railway/east-brixton.html
Map: http://tinyurl.com/cqlsb

well i never.

thanks

eta - i've been to medussa too and never twigged
<3 drugs

[dogmatique]

"...and in that year obtained an Act of Parliament to make the river Effra navigable from Brixton Causeway to the Thames, but died before his project could be implemented.

Now that would have been interesting had it actually happened. A very different Brixton we might have had had it come to pass. It could have turned Coldharbour Lane into a place worthy of it's name!

Though in the back of my mind I can see a wide, sewage and rubbish filled ditch that was eventually culverted much like the reality today.

On the other hand, a working waterway that survived until the 1940's, and then turned into a stagnant, rubbish filled ditch that was filled in the sixties.

Or a surviving canal like the branch of the Grand Union at Brentford off the Thames.

One can but dream.

[lang rabbie]

Originally Posted by Minnie_the_Minx

10 bays? I take it that is bay windows?

bay= originally meant a section of a building between a column or buttress. However, if a larger building has a regular pattern of windows one above the other, it is often used to mean to refer to each section of the building regardless of whether there are pillars between - so Loughbrough House gets described as a ten bay building as it was a building with ten sets of windows across the width of the front.

[editor]

Originally Posted by Crispy

East Brixton is interesting. If they ever open a brixton station for the ELL extension, that's where it'll have to go I suppose.

I'm only half remembering this, but I'm sure I heard it was highly unlikely to be rebuilt because the station is on a slope or something.

[hipipol]

Pity he didn't get the navigable Effra plan up and running, Brixton couldve bee the Venice of South London!!!!!