Blackfriars Road

Blackfriars Bridge was built in the late 1760s and the third bridge to be built over the River Thames in London.  The Blackfriars Bridge Committee  envisioned an approach road on the south side that would take the form of a wide, elegant street leading to the Dog and Duck Tavern on St George’s Fields (now the site of the Imperial War Museum). A “circle, area or place” was to be constructed where the new road crossed the turnpike road in St George’s Fields and named St George’s Circus. There was already some development around the southern foot of the new bridge but the new road and circus was largely built over the marshy land and tenter fields of Paris Garden and St George’s Fields.  

 

Originally called Great Surrey Street, it became known as Blackfriars Road in 1829. It was lined with newly built large houses and more houses were built to form side streets on the surrounding fields.  Houses for the middle classes were built on Stamford Street and Nelson Square who were attracted to the quiet and peace to be found after a day’s work in the City of London. For over 50 years the area was regarded as prosperous but the area industrialised, in particular with engineering and hatting factories.   This led to increased smoke and pollution, and the area became more densely populated as more people moved into the area looking for work.  The building of the railway increased the overcrowding and pollution but it also became possible for the wealthy to move further out to what was then the country and to commute daily to their place of work in the City.  The vacated large houses were-divided and, with no shortage of tenants in an ever growing city, were sub-divided again, and new sub-standard housing built alongside them.  The once prosperous area had deteriorated into an area of over-crowding and slum conditions.  

 

Over a hundred years later, there is no sign of that today and there are many recently built blocks lining the road, some in the process of construction, and each seemingly vying with each other to be the most luxurious.  Some late Victorian houses remain and are Grade II listed, but the industries celebrated in the 1960s by the stained glass windows in Christ Church  have mostly disappeared.  The Albion Flour Mills on the river's edge burned down in spectacular fashion in 1791 and other buildings and/or organisations, once familiar landmarks in Blackfriars Road which have now disappeared without trace include The Surrey Chapel that used to be on the site where Palestra House now stands, The Surrey Institution, the Working Men's College, The Temperance  Hall and The Surrey Theatre. Most recently the building in Stamford Street that was the headquarters for Sainsbury's for over a hundred years has recently been demolished.

 

Some signs of Blackfriars Road's history still remain and, travelling southward from the bridge, here are a few.