Vauxhall Street

Vauxhall Street is named after Vauxhall itself, and Vauxhall is named after a man. Falkes de Breauté was a Norman knight and head of King John's mercenaries who owned a large house in the area, known in his time as Faulke's Hall. He came to live there after marrying Margaret, the widow of Baldwin de Redvers.

Over time the name shifted: Faulke's Hall became Foxhall, and eventually Vauxhall. From the 17th century onward, the name Vauxhall was applied to ground that had previously formed part of the manor of Kennington. The street took its name from that wider district, as streets nearby did too.

Long before the street existed, the land it crosses belonged to a manor with its own chain of owners. In 1337 Edward III granted the manor of Vauxhall to the Black Prince. In 1362 the Prince of Wales passed it on to the Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury. After the Dissolution it went to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, and administration of the manor was taken over by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1862.

Vauxhall Bridge opened nearby in 1816, reshaping the district the street sits within. By the 1840s the street itself carried two public houses: the George and Dragon at 16 Vauxhall Street, and the Duke of Clarence at 60 Vauxhall Street. Both pubs later shifted address within the area over the following decades.

Industry followed. The Phoenix Gas Light and Coke Company, established in 1824, moved to Vauxhall in 1847. Around 1900, directories record a piano factory run by W.E. Gayler at 166-170 Vauxhall Street; by the 1960s and 1970s the same premises housed Englehard, metal refiners producing liquid gold and other preparations for the ceramic trade.

The George and Dragon survives as a plain, dormered pub building with steel-framed windows, its ground floor altered over the years. Vauxhall Primary School stands in dark red brick with a flat roofline, a tower and porthole windows.

Falkes de Breauté never walked a street called Vauxhall Street; his hall simply gave the district its name, centuries before any road here was laid out. He had come to hold the land after marrying Margaret, widow of Baldwin de Redvers.

Closer to the street's own working life, W.E. Gayler ran a piano factory at 166-170 Vauxhall Street around 1900, one of the trades that occupied the street's buildings before metal refining took over the same premises decades later.

By 2003, Lambeth's own appraisal found the shopfronts of the LCC estate along Vauxhall Street spoilt by thoughtless alteration, though it suggested conservation area designation might encourage their restoration. The street also marks the edge beyond which properties fall within the Vauxhall Gardens Conservation Area (CA56).