Stockwell

 

I'm slowly making my way north on the 9th of the 11 underground lines I am trying to visit. Stockwell station, services the Victoria line as well as the Northern line, which is the one I am concentrating on at the moment. Stockwell was opened in November 1890 by the Prince of Wales who later became King Edward VII. It was London's first successful deep level tube station. 

In the late 60s when the Victoria Line was being designed, London Transport wanted a distinctive design for the Victoria Line platforms to distinguish them from other Underground Line platforms. It was decided to provide some added colour to the tiling in the platform seat recess. Here at the Victoria Line platform at Stockwell there is a semi abstract swan design. It represents the nearby pub of the same name just outside the station. I couldn't see it at first and then I noticed the black and yellow triangles. Got it!

The ticket hall is light and airy with a mosaic floor but there is a darker side to this space. It was here that Jean Charles De Menezes was shot dead by plain-clothes policemen on 22nd July 2005. It was the day after London had been the target of failed terrorist attacks on tube trains and a bus. Jean Charles was a Brazilian electrician living in London. It later emerged that it was a case of mistaken identity on the part of the police. He took fright when challenged by the police and jumped over the ticket barrier to get away. No-one will ever know the reason why he did that, but sadly it cost an innocent man his life. Two years after the shooting the investigation into the shooting was published. It identified 16 recommendations for operational changes to improve public safety in future anti terrorist operations including the introduction of police radios that work underground.

After the shooting a small shrine was created by mourners outside the station. Eventually this became a permanent memorial mosaic created by local artist Mary Edwards with the help of Menezes' cousin.

The original station building was a single storey with a dome which housed the machinery for two lifts. Nothing is left of that building as it was demolished when the station was modernised in the 1920s. But the building was replaced once again in the late 1960s with the building of the Victoria line at Stockwell. The work proved so expensive and time consuming that the surface building was simplified to get it finished quickly. 

Being a deep level station Stockwell was used by many Londoners as an air raid shelter. Further deeper tunnels were built in 1942 to provide a safer shelter. They were constructed as two parallel tunnels with the intention that in peacetime that could be used as an express underground line. The new tunnels were equipped with dormitories and living areas for up to 8000 people in each of the two tunnels. This is one of eight deep level shelters built under underground stations. This one didn't open to the public until July 1944 after the V1 flying bombs began their assault on London. After the war it was used as a transit camp for HM Forces . London Transport held on to the shelters as a possible new underground line but passed ownership to the Government's Property Services Agency in the early 1970s. I could find no information about their current usage.

Across the road from the station is The Swan . Once a notorious coaching inn, there has been a hostelry on this site for 400 years. It has been rebuilt on numerous occasions. The present Swan was built in the 1930s. It is now known as a meeting place for Irish people and for playing  traditional Irish music.

Diagonally across from the station is TDA House. It has had a number of different owners and uses. It opened in 1915 as the Stockwell Palladium Cinema but was rebuilt in 1937 as the Ritz Cinema. It remained a cinema until 1981 although for a number of years between 1969 and 1981 it became the Tatler Film Club showing uncensored blue movies. After its life as a cinema ended it became a snooker hall before it was taken over by the Tigray Development Association (TDA) supporting Ethiopian refugees and now is also an Ethiopian restaurant.

I turned left from the station  to the memorial clock and small garden. The Stockwell War Memorial and clock was erected in 1921 with funds raised by public subscription. The panels on the tower list the names of 574 local men who were killed in WW1.  Today the main act of Remembrance for the people of the Borough of Lambeth is held here. 

Behind the tower you can see the brightly decorated shaft of the deep level shelter.

The shaft has been decorated with a local history mural, created by artist Brian Barnes with Stockwell children. I'm not sure of the date of the mural but it is beginning to fade which is a pity. The face of the lady is Violette Szabo.

Violette Szabo grew up in the area. During WW2 she was recruited as a secret agent and sent into occupied France. Although she was captured and tortured she refused to betray her comrades. Szabo was just 23 when the Nazis executed her in 1945. She is one of only four women to be awarded the George Cross for her bravery.

Other women recognised in the memorial gardens include Claudia Jones, originally from Trinidad, 

She lived in Stockwell and worked at the bus garage before becoming an equal rights campaigner. In 1958 she founded and edited the first Black British newspaper, The West Indian Gazette. This was published in nearby Brixton. Driven to improve race relations, Jones is also known as the 'mother' of the Notting Hill Carnival.

Apparently this is England's very first public sculpture of a Caribbean lady. It was unveiled in 2008. It's inspiration was the poem Bronze Woman by the Stockwell poet, Cecile Nobrega. 

Just a short walk from the clock tower on Lansdowne Way is the Stockwell Bus Garage. 

It opened in April 1952 and was designed to hold 200 vehicles. It was Grade II listed in 1988 as being an example of post war modernist architecture. Its elegant unsupported, single span concrete roof was the largest in Europe when first built. Being built in the post war years meant there was a shortage of steel hence the use of concrete for the roof.The otherwise dark garage is flooded with natural light from the skylights in the vaulted ceiling.

I continued walking down Clapham Road with its variety of housing.

This is the Printworks. It was built in 1903 for Causton's, one of the largest printing companies in the country. It used to print labels for various products including Marmite and Guiness. During the first World War they printed propaganda posters etc.  In 1936 the company moved out to Hampshire and the building was sold to Freemans catalogue co. Finally in 2009 it was bought by a development company and converted into an apartment complex.

I turned left off Clapham Road into Albert Square built between 1846-49, it is a Grade II listed square and part of a conservation area. 

The Albert Square garden itself is private, owned by a trust for the benefit of the residents of the 37 houses surrounding the Square. Residents are allowed access to the garden on payment of an annual fee. This is common for most of the London squares. I photographed the garden through the railings.

I walked round the square and then out on to Lambeth Road  to walk back towards the station.

This classically built chapel is Stockwell Baptist church. It was erected in 1866 by James Stiff, a pottery manufacturer.

Detailed sculpture at the top of the columns.

I walked back along South Lambeth Road with this row of Victorian terraced housing well set back from the busy roadway.

I am now at the other side of the station wandering down a few of the side roads. This mosaic is part of an advert for the Stockwell art studios on Jeffries Road. Individual local art studios that are built on the site of  a maternity hospital.

Walking around the corner from the art studios I think this building might be all that remains of the hospital. Dr Annie McCall was one of Britain's first female doctors. McCall established a maternity hospital here in Jeffreys Road in 1889 and pioneered new standards of care for mothers and babies. She employed only women doctors, took in all those who needed help, including the poor and unmarried and trained staff of all nationalities. In October 1927 Roger Moore was born at the Annie McCall maternity Hospital. He later lived in Albert Square.

Larkhall Park is created on the site of a series of older streets and houses. The park is only around 30 years old although the idea for a park here was first conceived towards the end of WW2.  

An interesting adventure playground.

I walked through the park admiring some of its wilder parts. 

Across the road from the park is this eye catching building. Although the building is now apartments and offices, it still retains part of its history with the signage. The Wenlock Brewery was taken over and closed down by Bass in 1962. The current building dates from 1933 but there has been a pub on this site since 1871. The pub closed its doors in 2010 before reopening as business premises in 2017. I like the fact that the repurposing of the building has not detracted from its attraction.