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/report.aspx?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=...,-0.10672&spn=0.003328,0.006652&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]

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

 

[netbob]

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.

 

[wtfftw]

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

 

[Dan U]

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]

[old] Loughborough House

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]

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!!!!!

 

[calno4]

It might not have been Loughborough House the "superior academy for young gentlemen" but I do think it was a school back in the late 1860´s.
This is from South London Chronicles 13th Oct 1866



15th Sept 1866 South London Chronicle

The Charles Hole mentioned appears on the 1871 census at Loughborough House, with his family and several boarders listed as scholars

Chandos Terrace mentioned on this census I think no longer exists but this ad from 22 Aug 1868 describes it as being opposite the Crown Tavern Pub


This from 31 October 1868 - South London Press describes a large hall of the school, am thinking that might be the big hall at the back maybe, Loughborough Hall.

 

[calno4]

Here it is for sale in 1882

London Standard 9th May 1882

 

[calno4]

Another mention of it here in 1871

Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper August 13, 1871

 

[calno4]

The 1871 census doesnt list its number in Coldharbour Lane but if it was No 202 then its a coffee house in 1891



I like to think it might have been this one..



1911 census shows No 202 to be a Refreshment House


Re the previous entry to this in 1911, its listed as 17 rooms and they are Milliners 196/200 Coldharbour Lane. No 204 is a gas engineer, and a confectioner and an assistant.

I missed out 1881, then it was an upholsterer


Maybe connected to this ad London Evening Standard 17 November 1881, so he didnt last long there

 

[CH1]

Chandos Terrace mentioned on this census I think no longer exists but this ad from 22 Aug 1868 describes it as being opposite the Crown Tavern Pub

All of Coldharbour Lane was terraces then. Chichester Terrace is still clearly and manically marked same side two blocks towards Camberwell.

I expect Chandos Terrace is the row of shops of earlier design than Chichester Terrace opposite the Co-op. The Co-op was formerly the Crown public house, and was trading as the Crown as recently as 1986 after which is unsuccessfully rebranded as "The Mucky Duck".

If I am right Chandos Terrace starts on the corner of Flaxman Road with the cycle shop and ends with the Kashmir grocers on the corner of Pomfret Road. It is similar in design to the terrace of shops opposite the Barrier Block, and I would date it to the 1850s/early 1860s. Maybe always shops too - your 1868 press cutting points to that. The fish & poultry could have been either end of the terrace.

The convention was to number sequentially starting from the main road. On the Brixton side of Lougborough Road the low numbers would definitely be at the Brixton end of the terrace. Not sure about Chandos terrace numbering - the current post code is SE5 (Camberwell) although the advert in your cutting describes the location as Brixton. That suggests to me that probably the Fish & Poultry shop was where the cycle shop now is. When the terrace was orginally built the only railway line was probably the loop line from Victoria to Holborn via "Loughborough Road" station, so the area would have been more Brixton oriented than now. I am no expert on Camberwell, but Camberwell at that time is likely to have been more focussed on St Giles Church than Camberwell Green - and much more rural.

 

[lang rabbie]

This image of the original Loughborough House annotated "1799... now a boarding school" from Lambeth archives is on the new Watercolour world website.