Time Walk
A Square That Isn't There
A whole Regency square once stood here, and now you could walk past its site and never know it. Where paired stucco villas faced each other across a garden, there is a small car park off Brixton Road. A concrete lamp post, of a type once common on the roads to Eddystone, still stands where the square's entrance used to be.
Beneath the tarmac and the postwar estate around it lies a street plan laid out in the 1820s, on land that had belonged to the Lambeth Wick estate. That older layer is where the square's name — and its story — begins.
Name Origin
A Prime Minister's Name on a Brixton Square
Melbourne Square is thought to be named after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Prime Minister of England. Melbourne laid the first stone of the nearby Licensed Victuallers' School on 21 January 1836, a few years after the square's own houses had gone up. The naming decision itself is not spelled out beyond this connection.
History
Built on the Wick, Delayed by a Bridge
Melbourne Square belonged to the Lambeth Wick estate in Brixton. The estate's northernmost parcel ran from Kennington Common south and west to the site of the square, and across Brixton Road to Clapham Road. It was developed by Henry Richard Vassall, the third Baron Holland.
Building did not start until 1820, probably held up by uncertainty over how new roads linked to the planned Vauxhall Bridge would run. The square's own houses came later still: Nos. 4–10 and 14–15 were finished on 26 May 1831 by Benjamin Currey, paired villas set back from the road behind lower linking blocks. No. 3, which had paired No. 4, does not survive.
People
A Baron, a Builder, a Prime Minister
Three names run through the square's short life: Henry Richard Vassall, 3rd Baron Holland, who held the estate it was built on; Benjamin Currey, who put up the villas; and William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, the Prime Minister it is thought to honour.
Recent Times
Cleared for Myatt's Field North
The square did not survive the century that made it. In the 1960s the approach road was cut short when nearby Regency villas were cleared to build the Myatts Fields Estate. The square itself followed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when all its houses were demolished for the Myatt's Field North Estate.
Today
A Car Park Marks the Spot
A small car park on Brixton Road now occupies what was once the entrance to Melbourne Square.
The only physical survivor of Melbourne Square is a concrete lamp post, of a type associated with the Eddystone lighthouse, standing in the car park that now covers the square's former entrance.
On the Map
Melbourne Square Then & Now
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it called Melbourne Square?
It is thought to be named after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Prime Minister of England, who laid the foundation stone of the nearby Licensed Victuallers' School in January 1836.
What is Melbourne Square known for?
It was a Regency square of paired stucco villas built in 1831 on the Lambeth Wick estate, entirely demolished in the late 1970s and early 1980s to make way for the Myatt's Field North Estate.
Does anything of Melbourne Square still stand?
No houses remain. A small car park on Brixton Road now occupies the former entrance to the square, marked by a surviving Eddystone-type concrete lamp post.