Stockwell is a district located in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. It is situated 2.4 miles (3.9 km) south of Charing Cross.
History
A map showing the Stockwell ward of Lambeth Metropolitan Borough as it appeared in 1916.
The name Stockwell is likely to have originated from a local well, with "stoc" being Old English for a tree trunk or post. From the thirteenth to the start of the nineteenth century, Stockwell was a rural manor at the edge of London. It included market gardens and John Tradescant's botanical garden – commemorated in Tradescant Road, which was built over it in 1880, and in a memorial outside St Stephen's church. In the nineteenth century it developed as an elegant middle-class suburb. Residents included the artist Arthur Rackham, who was born on South Lambeth Road in 1867, moving with his family to Albert Square when he was 15 years old. Another famed cultural figure who was born in Stockwell in October 1914, was theatre director Joan Littlewood, who has been called the mother of modern theatre.
Its social and architectural fortunes in the twentieth century were more mixed. The area immediately around Stockwell tube station was extensively rebuilt following the Second World War, and the original domed tube station was replaced first in the 1920s, then again with the opening of the Victoria line in 1971.
The area also has much social housing; the main estates are Lansdowne Green, Stockwell Park, Studley, Spurgeon, Mursell and Stockwell Gardens. However, many remnants of the area's nineteenth-century grandeur can be found in the side and back streets of Stockwell, notably in the Stockwell Park Conservation Area,[1] mostly built between 1825 and 1840 and centred on Stockwell Park Road,[2] Stockwell Park Crescent,[3] Durand Gardens, and Albert Square. The only twentieth-century building of significant architectural interest in the area is Stockwell Bus Garage. Before the creation of the County of London in 1889, Stockwell was part of Surrey.
In 1986, Kenneth Erskine, a serial killer dubbed the 'Stockwell Strangler', killed seven elderly victims, three of whom were from Stockwell.[4]
Politics
Stockwell[5] is a ward in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is currently represented by three Labour councillors: Lucy Caldicott, Dr. Mahamed Hashi and Mohamed Jaser.[6] At parliamentary level it is in the Vauxhall constituency, represented by Labour MP Florence Eshalomi.
There are three schools in Stockwell ward[5] - St Stephen's,[8] Allen Edwards[9] and Stockwell Primary School - and also a campus of Lambeth College.[10] In the Stockwell area (on Clapham Road) there is also Platanos College,[11] a secondary school, Lansdowne School and numerous primary schools including Van Gogh Primary.
Churches
In addition to Anglican and Catholic churches, Afro-Caribbean communities have influenced the expression of Christianity in the area, with a variety of congregations, some sharing churches with more long established Anglican and Catholic congregations. One of the many Afro-Caribbean churches is C.A.C. Stockwell.
Population of Stockwell
Stockwell and neighbouring South Lambeth are home to one of the UK's biggest Portuguese communities, known as 'Little Portugal'. Most of the local Portuguese people originate from Madeira and Lisbon and have established many cafes, restaurants, bakeries, neighbourhood associations and delicatessens. Stockwell is also home to many people of Caribbean and West African origin. They are also well represented in the local population, and cafes, grocers, barbers' shops and salons run by people from these communities are scattered around Stockwell.
To the south, the Victoria line terminates one stop away at Brixton. The Northern line terminates in the south at Morden, which provides Stockwell with a direct link to Clapham and South Wimbledon.
Other nearby stations include Brixton (Victoria line) or Clapham North (Northern line) to the south of Stockwell, and Vauxhall (Victoria line) or Oval (Northern line) to the north.[14]
In 2017, there were 11.7 million entries and exits at Stockwell tube station.[15]
National Rail & London Overground
There is no National Rail station in Stockwell, but several stations can be found in the locale:[14]
Pollution around Stockwell has been a concern for local health professionals and authorities since the mid-2000s, largely owing to the number of arterial routes in the neighbourhood.
A 2010 study found that, in Stockwell, 7 deaths each year could be attributed to exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5), compared to 139 in the London Borough of Lambeth as a whole in the same year (2008).[18] Road traffic is a primary source of air pollution in Lambeth.[19]
In 2016, Clapham Road south of Stockwell was identified by the local authority as an area of concern when it came to tackling air quality in the Borough, as this section of road is "exceeding EU limits for the gas Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)."[20] Lambeth monitor air quality on Clapham Road in Stockwell using diffusion tubes.[21] Since the introduction of the Oval STN, the pollution in the adjacent part of Clapham Road has got worse.
Just to the north of Stockwell, Cycle Superhighway 5 (CS5) terminates in a junction with CS7, linking Victoria and Millbank to Stockwell using a cycle track, separating cyclists from other road traffic.[25]
Quietway 5 (Q5) runs on residential streets in the north of Stockwell, offering a slower but quieter signposted route direct to Clapham or Waterloo.[26]
^"Councillors". Moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk. Lambeth Council. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
^"London Borough council elections"(PDF). londondatastore-upload.s3.amazonaws.com. Greater London Council. 6 May 1982. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
