Larkhall Lane

Two explanations survive side by side, and neither is certain. One account holds that "Lark Hall" was a historic house once standing in the locality. The other says the name comes from the Lark Hall Tavern, said to honour a former licensee who kept larks in a cage.

The sources used here do not resolve which account is correct, or whether the tavern took its own name from the earlier house. Either way, the lane's modern form was already in place by the mid 17th century, well before any of the buildings now standing on it.

The lane's buildings arrived in waves. Nos. 2–10 form an interesting terrace of late Georgian houses with a solid, uniform roofline. Numbers 6 and 8 are a handed pair with semi-circular windows and large central pediments, while No. 10 carries a shaped top and a pedimented porch. No. 12, an early-to-mid 19th century house of three bays, still keeps good railings at its front garden.

At the north end, close to the junction with Lansdowne Way, the Angell Arms faces onto the lane from Binfield Road — a pub first shown on a map of 1868 though perhaps built as early as the 1850s, meant from the start to stand out as a local landmark.

Further south, Nos. 88, 90, 92 and 94 form a unified terrace with spiked finials and unusual swag details. Nos. 76 and 78 are a plainer pair, two storeys over a basement, Grade II listed in 1976. In 1902 the Church of St Francis of Sales and St Gertrude was built on the lane, its east end carrying a large circular window and a tall metal cross; F. W. Tasker was probably its architect.

The conservation area around the lane has shifted shape more than once. Designated in June 1981 and extended in July 1983, it forms an L running along Lansdowne Way and Larkhall Lane. The Angell Arms was folded into it in 2001, while properties facing Wandsworth Road were moved out into a separate designation the following year.

Nearby, Larkhall Park was created on the site of damaged and demolished housing southeast of Wandsworth Road. Its creation swept away Southville Road and Courland Street, which had originally run from Wandsworth Road through to Larkhall Lane.

Lambeth's 2012 conservation area statement singles out the lane's mature trees and soft landscaping, which give much-needed greenery to an otherwise urban stretch.

Not every change has helped it. Many buildings have seen inappropriate alterations to windows, doors and boundaries, and two noticeable gaps remain: a playground behind a high chain-link fence, and the plot at No. 94b. Even so, the attractive 19th century groupings and sympathetic infill keep the lane recognisably the same old road it has long been.