Baylis Road

Baylis Road cuts through the heart of Waterloo, running from Westminster Bridge Road in the south-west to Waterloo Road in the north-east, where it dissolves into The Cut. The Old Vic Theatre stands at that junction, its portico visible from the length of the road — a constant reminder of why the street was renamed. As documented by SE1 Direct, the road sits within the London Borough of Lambeth, close to the South Bank arts corridor that transformed this stretch of the river from industrial wasteland into a cultural district.

2006

Baylis Road, Waterloo

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

2016

Lilian Baylis Technology School

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

2017

Bollards, Baylis Road, Waterloo, London 2017-03-23

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0

Today

Baylis Rd — near Baylis Road

Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0

Today the road carries a mix of independent businesses, the Waterloo Action Centre community gallery at number 14, and the Duke of Sussex pub at number 23, rebuilt in its current form in 1924. The street has the unassuming look of a working thoroughfare rather than a celebrated one — yet the name above every door plate belongs to one of British theatre’s most formidable figures. That name only arrived after 1937; the street had been known by something else entirely for well over a century before it.

The road takes its name from Lilian Mary Baylis, born 9 May 1874 in Marylebone, who managed the Old Vic Theatre at the road’s northern end for nearly four decades. As recorded by Historic England, the Old Vic — a Grade II* listed building — was originally built as the Royal Coburg Theatre in 1816 and renamed the Royal Victoria Hall in 1833. Baylis became acting manager in 1898 and took full responsibility after her aunt Emma Cons died in 1912. She then transformed a struggling temperance music hall into the foremost Shakespeare theatre in Britain.

The road’s former name was Oakley Street, a reference that likely derived from the Oakley family or a local landowner whose identity is not definitively recorded in surviving documents. The renaming to Baylis Road honoured Lilian after her death on 25 November 1937 — the night before the Old Vic was to open a production of Macbeth starring Laurence Olivier. The road’s route was also altered at its northern end following the Second World War, merging with Lower Marsh.

The most violent moment in Oakley Street’s history came on 16 November 1802, when Bow Street Runners descended on the Oakley Arms public house at number 72. Colonel Edward Marcus Despard and nearly forty co-conspirators were arrested there for their part in what became known as the Despard Plot — a scheme to assassinate King George III, seize the Bank of England and the Tower of London, and overthrow the government. As recorded by British History Online, the area around the street in 1802 sat at the edge of St George’s Fields, a district of labourers, soldiers, and working men — exactly the constituency to which Despard had been recruiting.

The trial before a Special Commission on 7 February 1803 convicted Despard and six of his associates of three counts of high treason. They were executed at Horsemonger Lane Gaol on 21 February 1803. Three others — Newman, Tindall, and Lander — were reprieved and transported as convicts to Australia. The conspiracy had been betrayed from within by Thomas Windsor, a private soldier who had offered his services as a government spy almost from the moment he joined the group. Despard went to his death in silence, declining to name any further accomplices.

The street’s Victorian era brought Campbell Buildings, a large estate of workers’ housing. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the estate had become home to one of London’s larger punk squats. Australian author Bob Short documented his time in Baylis Road in his memoir Trash Can. The estate also featured in Episode 3 of the television series Hammer House of Horror, “Rude Awakening,” in which characters are trapped inside as the building is demolished. Campbell Buildings was finally cleared in the mid-1980s.

The institutional legacy flowing from the northern end of Baylis Road is extraordinary for a single street. Historic England records the Old Vic as a Grade II* listed building, originally constructed in 1816. Lilian Baylis transformed it across four decades: she staged all of Shakespeare’s First Folio plays — the first complete cycle in theatrical history — and in 1931 took over the derelict Sadler’s Wells Theatre to house her opera and ballet companies. The companies she built became the English National Opera, the National Theatre, and the Royal Ballet.

The Waterloo Action Centre at 14 Baylis Road — co-located with the Waterloo Action Centre Gallery, established 1997 — continues the area’s tradition of community arts. The Duke of Sussex pub at number 23, rebuilt in 1924, historically served Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co. brewery beers, one of the great old East London brewing firms now defunct. The road itself was featured in the 1980 television production Hammer House of Horror, the Campbell Buildings estate serving as a suitably atmospheric setting for a story about demolition and entrapment.

Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, the Irish-born former governor of Honduras and Spanish Bay, brought his revolutionary plans to the Oakley Arms on this road in the autumn of 1802. He had fought alongside Nelson on the Spanish Main and distinguished himself in colonial service, only to be sidelined on half pay and radicalised during years of harsh imprisonment at Cold Bath Fields. His final meeting at the Oakley Arms was betrayed by Thomas Windsor, a spy within the group. Despard refused to name accomplices under interrogation and went to the gallows in silence on 21 February 1803.

Lilian Baylis, born 9 May 1874, is the road’s permanent memorial. MOLA excavations in the broader Waterloo area have revealed how extensively the post-industrial South Bank was built and rebuilt across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — Baylis herself was part of that transformation, salvaging a decaying Victorian music hall and making it the most important theatre in England. She was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1929, received honorary degrees from Oxford and Birmingham, and died on 25 November 1937 — one night before the Old Vic was to open Macbeth with Laurence Olivier in the title role. A Greater London Council blue plaque commemorates her at her home at 27 Stockwell Park Road.

The late 1970s brought an unexpected chapter to Baylis Road. Campbell Buildings, a substantial Victorian estate on the road, became one of London’s larger squats for the punk community. At its peak in the early 1980s the estate housed a significant counter-cultural gathering. Australian author Bob Short documented his time living there in his memoir Trash Can, which records the everyday texture of squatting in post-industrial south London. The estate also appeared on television — in a Hammer House of Horror episode in which characters find themselves trapped as a building is demolished around them, a scenario that proved grimly apt when Campbell Buildings was finally cleared in the mid-1980s.

The Waterloo Action Centre, established on the road in 1997, has provided community arts programming and gallery space for Waterloo residents in the decades since. The road’s post-war alignment also reflects the physical replanning of the neighbourhood: after the Second World War the northern end was redirected, merging with Lower Marsh, and the Waterloo Millennium Green was laid out on land formerly occupied by older street frontages.

Baylis Road today is a working street serving Waterloo’s mixed residential and commercial community. The Waterloo Action Centre Gallery at number 14 continues to stage exhibitions. The Duke of Sussex at number 23 remains a functioning pub. Lambeth North Underground station sits at the road’s southern junction with Westminster Bridge Road, and Waterloo mainline station lies a short walk to the north. The Old Vic’s portico anchors the view at the road’s head, a theatrical backdrop that few streets in London can match.

The green spaces within easy reach offer relief from the dense urban fabric. Waterloo and its surroundings have undergone significant investment since the 1990s, with the South Bank arts quarter drawing millions of visitors annually to within a few minutes’ walk of the road. The street itself remains quieter — a connector rather than a destination — which gives it the slightly backstage quality appropriate to a road named after someone who always preferred to work behind the scenes.