Time Walk
A Street That Refused to Change
Cottages built for artisan workers two centuries ago still line both sides of this street almost unaltered. The brick is the same yellow London stock, the parapets still step up and down in little gables, and at No. 25 the King's Arms pub still stands in its original early-nineteenth-century building.
Before any of this was laid out, the ground beneath was marsh. A new road cut through the marsh in 1798 and a bridge opened across the river in 1817, and together these two things opened the land to building. What looks today like a fixed and timeless corner of Waterloo was, not long before, open and wet ground with no name worth keeping.
Name Origin
A Gold Refiner's Row
Roupell Street is named after John Roupell, a gold refiner who developed this area in the 1820s. The deeds give his fuller name as John Palmer Roupell; he developed the Lambeth estate between 1820 and 1840 and lived close by, at 16 Meymott Street, then known as Cross Street.
The name was not the first one used here. Maps of 1815 show the site as Curtis's Row, before Roupell's development replaced it. The sources used here do not explain who Curtis was or why the earlier name fell out of use.
History
From Wild Marsh to Workers' Cottages
The ground here was once called Wild Marsh, lying between The Cut and Prince's Meadows on Lambeth's eastern edge. It stayed marshland until the New Cut was laid out in 1798 and Waterloo Bridge opened in 1817, making the land fit for building. Roupell developed it through the 1820s and into the 1840s, putting up modest, brick-built, two-storey terraced houses for artisan workers along conventional streets. By the time of the 1841 Tithe Map, Roupell Street itself was shown complete, while the neighbouring Whittlesey Street was still under construction.
The streets of the estate have changed little since the 1820s, apart from minor street-name changes recorded on nineteenth-century maps.
Culture
Nairn's "Architectural Purity"
He praised its unbroken run of yellow brick houses and the way its gables run across the street rather than along it.
"Here is true architectural purity... nothing but yellow London brick and unselfconscious self respect."Ian Nairn, Nairn's London
St Andrew's School was established on the street in 1868.
People
The Gold Refiner Behind the Terrace
John Palmer Roupell gave the street its name but did not live on it. He built the terrace through the 1820s and into the 1840s while living nearby, at 16 Meymott Street, which was then called Cross Street. His trade as a gold refiner is recorded in the deeds of the estate he built.
Today
A Georgian Terrace Protected
Roupell Street is still lined with the two-storey cottages Roupell built, most of them protected since the mid-1970s. It sits within its own conservation area, next to the Waterloo Conservation Area designated in 1981 and the South Bank Conservation Area beyond it. The well-preserved housing that Nairn admired is still what draws people to walk down it today.
Before it carried the name of a gold refiner, the site of Roupell Street appeared on maps of 1815 as Curtis's Row.
On the Map
Roupell Street Then & Now
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it called Roupell Street?
It is named after John Roupell (full name John Palmer Roupell), a gold refiner who developed the area for artisan workers in the 1820s and 1830s.
What is Roupell Street known for?
Its well-preserved terrace of early-nineteenth-century artisan cottages, praised by the writer Ian Nairn and now largely Grade II listed within its own conservation area.
What was Roupell Street called before it had its current name?
Maps of 1815 show the site as Curtis's Row, before John Roupell's development gave it its present name in the 1820s.
When was Roupell Street built?
It was developed through the 1820s and 1830s; the 1841 Tithe Map shows the street complete.