Stockwell Park Road

Stockwell itself is thought to come from Old English "stoc", a wood, combined with a well that gave a plentiful supply of water. The place became a manor in its own right at about the end of the 13th century. Stockwell acquired that manorial status when the Crown-owned South Lambeth Manor was divided in 1293 into two separate manors, Vauxhall and Stockwell.

The eastern boundary of Stockwell Manor probably ran down from Clapham Road to the junction of Stockwell Park Road and Groveway, and then followed Stockwell Park Road itself. The road built across this land in the 19th century simply took the manor's name forward.

The land came onto the market early. In 1806 Edward Shewell bought the ground that would become Stockwell Park Crescent and part of Stockwell Park Road from John Bedwell, heir of Benjamin Robertson. Building did not follow at once: development waited until after Shewell's death, and it was William Cox of Kennington, who bought part of the estate in 1838, who actually laid the road out. The northern section of Stockwell Park Road had been set out by about 1832, and in 1840 and 1841 Cox let Nos. 44 and 46 on 85-year terms. The stretch south of Robsart Street followed towards the end of the 1840s, built on a field called Long Field, part of the neighbouring Angell estate.

Cox also gave the ground for a new church. In 1839 he freely handed the site to the Commissioners set up under an 1818 Act for building churches in populous parishes. St Michael's was designed by William Rogers and built by John Jay of London Wall, and the Bishop of Winchester consecrated it on 18 November 1841. A parish was formally assigned to it in 1845. The church's design was later judged harshly: the Survey of London calls it "an emaciated Gothic building of brick … reflecting the taste and parsimony of the Commissioners at that time."

The building was altered more than once. In 1880 a faculty allowed the altar to be moved from the east end to the west, and in 1896 its pinnacles were renewed and the exterior repaired. Architect A. R. Powys carried out internal renovation in 1920. A flying bomb severely damaged the church in June 1944, and it was re-dedicated in 1952 after restoration by Thomas F. Ford.

Charity also built on the street. The Friendly Female Society, founded in 1802 for the relief of aged women living within ten miles of St Paul's, put up seven houses on the east side of Stockwell Park Road in 1863, housing 28 women. These almshouses were badly damaged by enemy action in 1940 and 1941, and a new block replaced several of the old houses in 1947–8, designed by Leslie Wyatt.

She was famous for songs including "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow" and "Waiting at the Church".

Lilian Baylis (1874–1937) lived at No. 27 Stockwell Park Road, and died there after a heart attack; her blue plaque reads "lived and died here". She began assisting her aunt in running the Old Vic theatre in 1898, and became its manager herself when her aunt died in 1912.

In the 1920s she raised funds and managed the separation of Morley College from the Old Vic, and she also raised money to re-establish the derelict Sadler's Wells theatre. By the 1930s three "Vic-Wells" companies — opera, theatre and ballet — were working across the two venues under her direction, with the opera company later becoming the basis of the English National Opera. She died at No. 27 following a heart attack in 1937, and a blue plaque now marks the house.

A narrow pedestrian passage still links the street to its neighbour. Astoria Walk runs down the side of the O2 Academy, connecting Stockwell Park Road to Stockwell Park Walk. It began life as a footpath running behind the back gardens of terraced houses that fronted Brixton Road.