Electric Lane

The street was known as Back Lane until 1889, when it took its present name. The sources used here do not explain why "Electric" was chosen. It began life as a mews lane, built to serve the grand terraced houses that fronted Brixton Road. It once ran together with Beehive Place, before the two were divided by the construction of a railway viaduct.

A service lane grew into a market thoroughfare over fifty years. The Railway Hotel, a corner pub with decorative brickwork, was built in 1880 at the corner of Electric Lane, to a design by the architect R Cruwy, its six-faced clock tower becoming a local landmark. Nine years later the lane itself was renamed. In the mid-1920s Reliance Arcade opened leading through to Electric Lane. In 1928 Market Row was built on the back land behind the lane, linking Atlantic Road, Coldharbour Lane and Electric Lane with Reliance Arcade.

Three arcades meet behind this lane, turning a service passage into a shopping route. Looking along the lane, the brick viaducts and the tower of the Railway Hotel give the views real character.

Electric Lane still curves between Atlantic Road and Coldharbour Lane. At the Coldharbour Lane end stands the former Coach and Horses public house at No. 443, two storeys of red brick with fine ceramic detail, an oriel window and a bottle balustrade. Further along, the lane narrows into the stretch judged shabby and unwelcoming. It remains, as it began, a working lane behind grander streets.