VicLondon-Lambeth

Lambeth, Southwark

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District Traits

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Notable Locations

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Class: Middle class, with a sprinkling of Lower class

The London and Southern Railway comes through Lambeth into Vauxhall Station and onto Waterloo Station, a cavernous terminal that serves Lambeth, and is a junction point to Charing Cross across the river, and London Bridge Station in Southwark. Lambeth is a poor, working class neighbourhood that is joined to Whitehall by the heavy stone Westminster Bridge. This plain crossing has been reviled by Charles Dickens, but its openness makes it an excellent artery for vehicular and foot traffic from Lambeth into the city. Lambeth is a crossroads for southern London. Several high roads, packed heavily with traffic of all manner come together at St. George’s Circle. Westminster Bridge Road winds in from the west, meeting Waterloo Road and Blackfriar’s Road, both bringing trade and people across the Thames from the City, and these northern bank arteries spill vans, buses, trams, and other traffic into Borough Road, which joins Lambeth to the heavy industries of Southwark, and Lambeth Road, which routes the flow into Lambeth and its neighbourhoods of Kennington, Camberwell, and Walworth.

Alongside the Westminster Bridge is St. Thomas Hospital, an interesting building for its long central corridor that parallels the river, and the seven patients’ wings that leave the central spine of the hospital, ending at the bank of the river. A newer addition has been added on the south end of the hospital for new surgical suites and administrative of ces that are lit by electric light in the 1890s. On the other side of Lambeth Palace Road are the palace grounds and the building that gives the road its name.

St. Thomas is not the most famous of Lambeth’s hospitals, however. That dubious honour must go to the ugly Bethlehem Asylum, or Bedlam, as it is known, which occupies the corner of Lambeth, St. Georges, and Kennington Roads. The asylum is known for its psychiatric ‘care’, which consists mostly of stuf ng the insane into cages or padded rooms. The attendants in Bedlam are known for being a bit batty themselves, after a few months of exposure, and their cruelty to the patients is legendary. Hosing down troublemakers is common, and many of the inmates are constrained in strait jackets. Bethlehem, however, is on the forefront of psychiatric research, despite its vile reputation.

Near Bethlehem is the Blind School, which is on the southern side of St. Georges Circle. South of Bethlehem, along Brook Street, is the Lambeth Workhouse, the largest in all of London. As with Battersea, the main streets of Lambeth are busy, commercial, and wealthy. Off of the high streets, however, the townhouses of the middle century have decayed steadily into rookeries, illegal gin shops, and brothels. The poor here are as desperate as their northern cousins in Whitechapel and St. Giles, but Lambeth is far away from the reporters of the Strand and Fleet Street...or at least an annoying ride on the train across the river into an unfamiliar neighbourhood. Crime in these streets and allies is as diverse, cruel, and unforgiving as in Whitechapel; it just doesn’t get the press that the other district does. Police coverage is high, and arrests are frequent, but there are always more poor and desperate to replace those going to Millbank Prison over in Pimlico.

The Kennington neighbourhood of Lambeth, just over Vauxhall Bridge from Belgravia, is solidly middle-class. The homes, while as old as the rest of Lambeth, and of similar design in the low streets, are better cared for, and the residents are more watchful for their criminal brothers in the or Newington. The crime rates are dramatically lower in Kennington and other than con games and burglary, this area is fairly safe. South Lambeth, which joins Battersea to Kennington, and Camberwell in the south, is dominated by middle-class by this time, as well, although the neighbourhood is a bit dodgy at night.