Dulwich Road

Dulwich Road did not begin life under that name. Records show that Water Lane was straightened at its west end and split into two roads — Brixton Water Lane and Dulwich Road, a split confirmed by Lambeth's own records.

The sources used here do not explain why the eastern stretch was given the name Dulwich Road rather than keeping the water-lane name of its western twin. What is clear is that the split reflects a straightening of the old lane's course, not a change in its route or purpose.

Before terraces lined it, this stretch of land belonged to the manor of Heathrow, some seventy acres on the east side of Effra Road and the north-east side of this road. Robert Stone bought the manor in four parts between 1791 and 1806, and when he died in 1820 he left it heavily burdened with debts.

The laying out of Effra Road in 1810 by the Lambeth Enclosure Commissioners greatly increased the value of the land beside this road. In 1855 the Westminster Freehold Land Society bought a small estate on the road's north-east side, and the same year bought the southern portion of Effra Farm to lay out Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton Roads between this road and the footpath that became Railton Road — the origin of the area's Poets' Corner name.

In 1828 the architect Papworth designed a pair of semi-detached houses, Brockwell Terrace, intended as the start of a row running parallel with this road; the builder was Thomas Burton of Spitalfields, and the pair was demolished in 1908. Later in the century came the road's largest landmark. St Jude's Church was built on land bought from Joshua Blackburn in 1867 for £736, with its foundation stone laid by Blackburn that August. E. C. Robins's design was chosen from twelve competition entries, contractor John Kirk built it for £7,300 to hold over 1,000 people, and it opened for Divine Service on 28 October 1868, with its own parish formed the following year. It was built of Kentish ragstone with Bath stone dressings, its axis aligned with the road itself. Fire severely damaged the church in 1923, and G. H. Fellowes Prynne restored it. Writing in the 1950s, one account described the church as still disused while war-damage repairs were completed, with three bays of the east aisle enclosed in 1952 to form a chapel.

Building styles along this road shift decade by decade. Nos. 2-32, backing directly onto Brockwell Park, are a late Victorian development with double-height bays and Venetian Gothic touches, while Nos. 22-32 share the same proportions with patterned brick arches over their doorways.

Two Victorian pubs anchor the road's corners. The Prince Regent, at the junction with Regent Street, has a steep roof with slate fish-scale tiles and a niche holding a figure of the Prince Regent himself. The Florence, at No. 133, is a mid-19th-century pub built in brick with a tiled front and decoration above. Mature trees line the road throughout — ashes, limes and sycamores in front gardens, horse chestnuts opposite St Jude's, and a particularly fine Monkey Puzzle tree at No. 41, probably planted when the house was new.

Alexander Brogden, Member of Parliament for Wednesbury from December 1868 for eighteen years, gave his address as No. 46. He was born in 1825 and died in 1892; his later years were shadowed by the collapse of the family firm, John Brogden and Sons, whose liquidation was announced in the London Gazette in January 1884.

The 1911 Census recorded Lilla Howell living at Preston House on the road with five of her seven children.

Postwar rebuilding changed the road's skyline. Larger council estates and tower blocks went up here after 1945, and in 1957 the London County Council completed the Meath Estate, its eight-storey Meath House standing on the road alongside two-storey rows between Railton Road and Brockwell Park.

In the early hours of 7 August 2013, an 88-year-old water main on nearby Half Moon Lane burst, flooding this road, Norwood Road and 36 properties in Herne Hill.

Brockwell Park still runs the length of this road's southern side, railed on one stretch and backed by houses on another. St Jude's Church remains the landmark it was built to be, and the Lido still draws people in beneath the high path that runs along the park's ridge above. A lane once named for water now carries that history quietly, in a church, a pool, and a park boundary rather than in its own name.