York Road

York Road was formed on demesne land belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury's manor of Lambeth. In 1807 the Archbishop obtained an Act authorising the land to be developed for building, and the road itself was cut in 1824.

The first Waterloo Bridge Act had included a clause for continuing Stamford Street south across Waterloo Road to Westminster Bridge Road; this continuation became York Road. For several years the new road was itself called Stamford Street before it finally took the name York Road. The sources used here do not explain why "York" was chosen in its place.

Building moved fast once the road was open. Between 1825 and 1830 practically the whole frontage on either side was let on building leases. Henry Warburton took one such lease from the Archbishop in 1824, on ground described as lying partly in "Float Mead" and partly in the "seven acres of Sowters Lands," including the site of Phelps' soap factory.

Nos. 2–16 went up around 1830, later used as a nurses' home for the Royal Waterloo Hospital. A turnpike stood roughly opposite today's tube station entrance until it was taken down about 1848. Nos. 3–13, built around 1829, earned the nickname "Poverty Corner" in the 19th century.

The railway reshaped the street's eastern side. Land there was sold to the London and South Western Railway in 1848 when its line was extended from Nine Elms, and Waterloo Station, designed by William Tite and raised on arches above marshy ground, opened on 11 July 1848. The South Eastern Railway extended its own line to Waterloo and Charing Cross in 1864, linking Waterloo Junction to the main station by a bridge over Waterloo Road. In 1872 the South Eastern Railway bought the eastern part of the ground once leased to wax chandler John Field, by then described as a disreputable slum. Between 1900 and 1922 the station was extended and rebuilt, culminating in the great arched entrance from York Road, which doubled as a staff war memorial.

Nos. 57–69, dating from 1843–5, were among the last houses built on the road. Much of the older frontage did not survive the 20th century: Nos. 18–28 were demolished in 1949 for road improvements tied to the Festival of Britain, and Nos. 15–23, similar "Poverty Corner" houses, followed in 1950.

Close to the stage doors and booking offices of the South Bank theatre world, this stretch of York Road became a byword for actors between engagements. The nickname did not survive the buildings: the adjoining terrace at Nos. 15–23 was pulled down in 1950.

The General Lying-in Hospital opened on the east side of York Road in 1828, with a 100-foot frontage designed by Henry Harrison for about £3,000. Its first patient was delivered of a son on 22 September 1828, the same day the Committee met there for the first time.

In March 1879 Joseph, afterwards Lord Lister, took the office of consulting surgeon at the hospital, a post he held, with the Presidency, until 1911. The following year, Sir John Williams and Sir Francis Champneys were appointed Physicians Accoucheurs, and under them the hospital became the first in the country to practise antiseptic midwifery.

The hospital was reconditioned in 1879, gained nurses' accommodation from the neighbouring Albany Baths in 1907 and a purpose-built nurses' home in 1930–33. It moved out to St Albans during the Second World War, when the old building took some bomb damage, and reopened on York Road in 1946.

The 20th century filled the road with large public and corporate buildings. County Hall's North and South Blocks were built on York Road between 1937 and 1963 to the design of F. R. Hiorns, with Sir Giles Gilbert Scott as consulting architect, and the Shell Centre was built on the street between 1953 and 1963.

In 1953 the York Road entrance to the Festival of Britain site reopened as the BEA Waterloo Air Terminal, offering check-in, luggage drop-off and coach links to Heathrow until 1957; a helicopter service to Heathrow ran from the terminal in 1955. Elisabeth House, a seven-storey office block with ground-floor shops, was built on the road in the 1960s to designs by John Poulson. A bridge across York Road connected the GLC's Island Block to the rest of County Hall from 1974. The former General Lying-in Hospital building has formed part of a Premier Inn hotel since 2013.

York Road still works as an approach road more than a destination. Large 1960s commercial buildings on both sides give the street a strong sense of enclosure, while Westminster Bridge, York Road and Lambeth Palace Road converge nearby at the County Hall roundabout. At its southern end, facing Forum Magnum Square, the former Lying-in Hospital's Georgian front and its neighbouring Neo-Georgian building still stand. Leake Street, the old York Street, runs beneath Waterloo Station to link York Road with Lower Marsh. The farmland the Archbishop released for building in 1807 is now one of the busiest corridors on the South Bank.