Time Walk
A Track to the Common, Still Walked Today
This short street still follows a path first mapped nearly 400 years ago. Walk its short length today and you notice tired shopfronts behind uPVC windows and security shutters, the odd garish plastic sign, and, at No. 12, one shopfront that has survived largely intact since about 1890.
Beneath the shutters and modern signage lies an older route: a track that once led walkers from Kennington Cross out to the open ground of Kennington Common. That older use helps explain why a street of such modest shops carries a name with its own story to tell.
Name Origin
An Unexplained Name on an Old Line
The sources used here do not explain why the street is called Windmill Row. What they do establish is its route: the street followed the line of an old track running from Kennington Cross to the Common, a path already shown on Harbord's map of 1636. The land through which it passed, a triangle bounded by Kennington Lane, Windmill Row and Kennington Road, formed part of the copyhold estate of Mary Cleaver.
History
From Cleaver's Copyhold to a Row of Shops
By the mid-19th century, shops had risen along the street, and Lambeth Council's survey notes that Nos. 4–10 may be earlier still, though heavily altered since.
One shopfront escaped the alterations that affected its neighbours. No. 12 Windmill Row keeps a fairly simple but attractive and intact shop front dating to about 1890, complete with fascia, pilasters with console brackets, and a panelled stallriser.
Culture
The Windmill Fish Bar, Worn Down by Time
Elsewhere along the row, uPVC replacement windows, externally mounted security shutters and garish plastic signs have left many premises similarly altered.
People
Three Generations Behind One Counter
At No. 14, a single shop passed through one family's hands for decades. Alfred Winsley took it up sometime between 1881 and 1888, the year he married Bessie, running it as a tobacconist's and stationer's. When Alfred died in 1899, Bessie took over the running of the business herself.
By the 1901 Census the shop had become a newsagent's, and that same year Bessie remarried — to Robert Winsley, Alfred's cousin. By 1911 the family had moved out to Enfield, but the shop they left behind at No. 14 was still trading as a newsagent's.
On the Map
Windmill Row Then & Now
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it called Windmill Row?
The sources used here do not explain the name. What is known is that the street followed an old track to Kennington Common, already shown on a map of 1636.
What is Windmill Row known for?
A short Kennington street of mid-19th-century shops, including an intact shopfront of about 1890 at No. 12, and a tobacconist's at No. 14 run by three generations of one family between the 1880s and 1911.
How old is the line of the street?
Older than its buildings: Windmill Row follows a track from Kennington Cross to the Common that was already shown on Harbord's map of 1636.