Lansdowne Gardens

The sources used here do not explain why the circus was called Lansdowne. What they do set out is the land itself: James Humphrys bought the 12-acre copyhold holding on which it later stood in 1806. Decades passed before that field became a garden square.

It was divided into small plots and developed under licences to demise granted between 1843 and 1850, with a circus at the centre holding a garden and roads radiating towards the cardinal points. The plan survives in the street pattern, even though no document consulted here records the choice of name.

James Humphrys's purchase of the field in 1806 set the ground for everything that followed. Development did not come until the 1840s, when the land was split into small plots under licences to demise issued between 1843 and 1850, laid out with a circus and garden at the centre and roads running to the cardinal points. The houses around the circus were put up by John Snell of Dorset Street, builder: simple two-storey villas with porches on paired columns. Along Lansdowne Way, the builders raised plainer three-storey terrace houses.

On land leading east, St Barnabas' Church rose at the same time. Its first stone was laid on 27 July 1848 by Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge. Built to designs by Isaac Clarke and James Humphrys, and erected by George Myers at a cost of £4,800, it was consecrated on 24 June 1850 and seated about 1,500 people. A district was assigned to it in 1851. In 1948 the church was restored and refurnished with an organ and pulpit brought from two other South London churches.

Almost every house in the gardens carries a Grade II listing, including the paired villas elsewhere in the circus. The consistency of the listing across nearly the whole street reflects how closely the circus still follows its original plan.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, O.M., was at one time organist at St Barnabas' Church.

Lansdowne Gardens now sits within its own conservation area, which adjoins the South Lambeth Road Conservation Area and shares much, historically and stylistically, with the neighbouring Stockwell Park area. Lansdowne Way forms the northern edge of the Larkhall Conservation Area, and the properties within Lansdowne Gardens are described as giving that area a pleasant backdrop and continuity along the street. The circus that James Humphrys's field became in the 1840s is still read today as part of a connected group of South Lambeth garden squares.