Magnificent Roupell Street: From Swamp to Movie Set
The much-photographed street has a surprising past.
One of London’s most famous residential streets turns 200 this year. Roupell Street, between Waterloo and Blackfriars, is a photographer’s delight, with its colourful doorways, vintage cars and, of course, that sawtooth roofline. The street is almost unchanged in its two centuries of existence but that doesn’t mean it lacks history.
That’s all in the main part of the newsletter. First a message and the History Radar of upcoming London history events.
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History Radar
London-history flavoured events over the coming weeks…
🎸🎶 ROCK ‘N’ ROLL: Now edging into their 80s, the Rolling Stones are about to embark on their latest world tour, but a new exhibition in Notting Hill rewinds to the band's salad days, in which they recorded Beggars Banquet, created the Rock and Roll Circus and self-exiled in the south of France. The photos by 'Spanish Tony' remained undetected in a south London attic for decades, but will now go on show at Notting Hill's J/M Gallery for the fleeting stint of 29 February-5 March 2024, and promise to capture the band in arguably their coolest period. Read Londonist’s full preview.
🏳️🌈⛵️ QUEER HISTORY NIGHT: The National Maritime Museum stays open late for Queer History Night tomorrow (Thur 22 Feb). It's a chance to hear from members of the LGBTQ+ community-led group Queer History Club about their research in the museum's archives, and to explore theories and conversations about queer/ing maritime history. Additionally, the London Society has an LGBTQ+ history walk around the West End on Saturday.
🚶🏼🧑🏾🏫 BLACK HISTORY TOUR: A new self-guided tour from Southwark Council invites you to stroll around Camberwell and gen up on its Black history. Along the way you'll see a blue plaque for the Trinidadian soldier George Roberts who was a dab hand at throwing bombs; learn about the poet, feminist and producer Una Marson; and see the theatre where Star Wars star John Boyega first trod the boards. Additionally, you could take a guided tour of Black history in the Trafalgar Square area on Sunday (25 Feb).
🐚🏺MUDLARKING: For this weekend only (24-25 Feb 2024), Watermen's Hall in the City hosts a free exhibition about mudlarking in London. Each day, 15 different mudlarks display their personal collections of items found in the Thames mud, and the history behind them.
👑🖼 RICHARD II: The medieval monarch is perhaps most famous for his confrontation of the so-called Peasants’ Revolt, but Richard II’s reign also saw a flourishing of the arts. An online talk by Peter Ross, organised by Guildhall Library, on Tue 27 February looks at some of the treasures of the period, including the famous Wilton Diptych.
👷🏽♀️👩🏾🎓 NORMAL WOMEN: Everyone should read Philippa Gregory’s bestselling book about the many roles played by women in shaping history. Not just the usual royal names, but “soldiers, guild widows, highwaywomen, pirates, miners and ship owners, international traders, theatre impresarios, runaway enslaved women, ‘female husbands’, social campaigners and rebels”. Gregory presents some highlights at the National Archives on Wed 28 Feb 2024.
Magnificent Roupell Street: From Swamp To Movie Set
“Roupell Street… should be renamed White Curtain Street, since the window of every house (and there are nearly 130) is draped with white curtains. It seems to be the hobby of the respective housewives to vie with each other both in the whiteness and scrupulous cleanness of these ornaments. Every foot scraper in the street is also highly polished.”
- Western Times, 24 May 1904
A working-class terrace for most of its history, Roupell Street near Waterloo is today home to millionaires. But it has always taken pride in its appearance, as shown by the Edwardian press cutting above.
Its timeless charms have made Roupell Street the star of countless TikTok and Instagram posts. The street has also proved popular with film-makers. Hundreds of movies and TV shows have featured the famous Roupellian backdrop of sawtooth rooftops and vintage street lamps. Call the Midwife, Whitechapel, New Tricks, Doctor Who, Eastenders… even James Bond has payed a visit. In No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s version of the spy visits gadget-master Q at his home in Roupell Street.
You’d need an MI6 salary to live here today, but the street has much humbler origins. Indeed, they could hardly have been more humble. This year marks the street’s 200th anniversary, which seems like a good enough excuse to dip into its abundant history.
Swamps, gardens and clowns
57 million people use Waterloo station each year. Millions more visit the South Bank. But step back a few hundreds years and you’ll find yourself alone, and knee-deep in mud. For much of London’s history, this well-trodden land was not really land at all, but a swampy backwater called Lambeth Marsh or Lambethmoor1.
The waters were drained in the 18th century, but their miry memory persists in the street names of Lower Marsh and Upper Marsh, just south of Waterloo station.
The reclaimed land was put to agricultural and leisure use, as can be seen in John Rocque’s map of 1746. Dozens of crop-growing fields are shown, alongside a pleasure garden (centre-left in the map below).
The land on which Roupell Street would emerge first enters history around 1767, when it appears in news reports as “Halfpenny Hatch”2. This track served as a convenient cut-through between the area’s two north-south routes, but you’d be charged a halfpenny for the pleasure.
These little-heeded fields were about to witness one of the most important moments in the history of entertainment. It was right here, on Easter Monday, 1768, that Philip and Patty Astley put on a horse-riding show, interspersed by acts from a clown. This was the humble beginnings of Asltey’s Circus, one of London’s great 18th and 19th century venues, which pretty much invented circus as we know it. Astley’s permanent circus would be built a little further north, where St Thomas’s Hospital stands today, but its origins were right here in the fields of Lambeth — probably where the green lozenge is shown, centre-left, on the map above.
The area quickly changed in character as housing and industry encroached. The map above shows an iron works and lead works just north of Halfpenny Hatch. These proved deeply unpopular with early residents. The proprietor of the lead works was hauled before a magistrate in 1819 (same year as the map) for releasing noxious fumes “affecting all those who respired it, with head-aches, inflammations in the eyes, and a sensation similar to suffocation”. No fewer than 23 witnesses came forward to register their complaints.
The name of the reckless smelter? John Roupell.
The unscrupulous Roupells
John Roupell wasn’t just some random menace to public health. He also happened to be the local land owner. Back in 1792, Roupell had bought up seven acres of Lambeth fields, which he gradually set about developing.
Roupell Street as we know it was first laid out in 1824 — exactly 200 years ago at the time of writing. Its original occupants were all working class. The Lambeth Estate Residents Association (LERA) website lists typical occupations as “builders, joiners, printers, furniture makers, saddlers, blacksmiths, clothing makers, butchers, bakers, teachers or nurses”. All would have rented their properties from the Roupells, with as many as 20 people living in each house.
The Roupell family held onto the land for many years, amassing a fortune from rents and building up a property empire that included land in Streatham. They seem to have had a talent for mischief. Family pastimes included document forgery, fraud and internecine deceit. Rather than tell the whole epic story — which even includes a redemption arc — I instead refer you to the excellent LERA website.
Roupell Street continued for decades as a fairly typical 19th century terraced street. The newspapers are full of the usual stories of petty thefts, publicans adulterating their beer, and minor scuffles between neighbours. One story caught my eye, however, as it relates to a newsletter I wrote last summer. Long-time readers might remember the ‘earthquake scare’ of 1842, a spurious prophecy that convinced many Londoners to flee the doomed capital. It seems that the phantom quake did in fact claim at least one victim. 19 year old Emma Edmonds was so affected by the prophecy that she took her own life by jumping into the Thames. The coroner’s enquiry took place at the King’s Arms, the pub which still stands on Roupell Street.
Motoring Matters
If you walk along Roupell Street today, chances are you’ll notice a classic car or two, especially Citroëns. They’ve been here for decades, by all accounts, owned by a local enthusiast and photographed by just about everybody who passes by — myself very much included.
It’s ironic that Roupell Street is now celebrated for its vintage cars, because motors were once the bane of the place. In 1912, the Daily Herald dubbed it Peril Street, because of the danger to life from motor traffic. As we’ve seen, the street has always been a convenient cut-through, from its earliest days as the ‘Halfpenny hatch’. 20th century Roupell Street was a popular route with workers arriving at Waterloo and heading to the City or local factories on foot. But it also teemed with children thanks to the presence of three schools in the area. At times, the street’s narrow pavements could not cope and pedestrians spilled into the carriageway. The words “veritable deathtrap” were deployed in the press. The street sadly became an actual deathtrap when, in 1910, a boy was killed by a speeding vehicle.
Calls were made to ban motor traffic down Roupell Street, or at least introduce a speed restriction of 6mph. This would have been a very early example of an “LTN”, or low-traffic neighbourhood. A Local Government Board enquiry was set up but, bizarrely, it found no grounds for imposing speed restrictions. Local campaigners complained that inspectors had turned up at the quietest time, and that the dangers were best witnessed in the early morning. But all to no avail.
Roupell Street today is heavily controlled. Motorists must enter from side streets and are restricted to 20mph. Only cyclists can ride right through. This is all for the good, as it allows us to appreciate Roupell Street in all its handsome glory.
If you’re paying a visit to the street (and its almost equally evocative neighbours of Theed Street and Whittlesey Street), be sure to pop into the King’s Arms. The main bar of this historic pub, scene of many coroners’ inquests in the 19th century, is as timeless as the streetscape outside. The magnificent back conservatory has hosted a Thai kitchen for over two decades, which is approaching ‘historic’ in its own right.
But some things do change here. At the time of writing, a modest two-bedroom terrace house on the street is on sale for £1.8 million. It’s quite a step up from the Halfpenny Hatch of yore.
Thanks for reading! Do you have memories of Roupell Street and the surrounding area? I’d love to hear them in the comments box below. Or you can email me anytime, about anything (relevant to London history) at matt@londonist.com
Next week: I’m taking a very brief break as I catch up from a week of half-term exploration with the kids. But we have a very special guest post lined up about a forgotten palace near London Bridge.
The marsh wasn’t entirely uninhabited. A north-south road known as Broad Wall cut through the marsh on raised ground. It followed the route of the modern Broadwall, south onto Hatfields. Lambeth Palace has stood to the south of the marsh since the 13th century, on the site of an even earlier manor house. Even before the marshes were drained, the famous Tradescant had settled near Lambeth Palace, making many pioneering contributions to botany and natural history. Lambeth’s Garden Museum tells their story.
A common name for minor toll gates. There was another one in Bermondsey.
I used to work around the corner in the 1990s and walked along the street from and to Waterloo Station. I just loved it. It brought back happy memories, so thank you. One of my favourite London patisseries/bakeries is there too: Konditor & Cook. It's not historical, but definitely worth a mention!
Lambeth is such a fascinating part of London. We’re lucky enough to live close by in Kennington, but have never heard of this street until now