As London and indeed national landmarks go, Battersea Power Station ranks amongst the best known. Sitting beside the Thames, the silhouette of its four chimneys is as instantly recognizable as the Houses of Parliament or the Tower of London. Yet, Battersea is far more than just Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's (and Pearce and Halliday’s) masterpiece, and the two latest volumes of the Survey of London address this with gusto, bringing to light the rich history and architectural wealth of the area.
Spread over two volumes and 900 pages, the Survey takes both a thematic and topographical approach to Battersea, leaving no stone unturned. Focused on public, commercial and cultural subjects, volume XLIX opens with a detailed introduction to the area's history, an obvious yet vital starting point, before working through thematic chapters on specific building types: public buildings, health and welfare, churches and chapels, schools and colleges, open spaces, entertainment, railways and industry. Buildings of particular note such as the Power Station and New Covent Garden Market, or subjects such as the current development taking place around Nine Elms, are given their own chapters.
Volume L tackles the residential building stock found in Battersea, a subject much less easily grouped due to the sheer variety and quantity of housing. A topographical street by street and area by area approach is taken, more suitable to such a subject.
Although Battersea's rise to prominence came during the mid- to late nineteenth century, and consequently most of its building stock dates from this time, the area has a history stretching back to the seventh century, with the earliest record being a land grant to the nunnery of St Mary, Barking, in 693. Ownership of the manor has at various times included the monks of Westminster Abbey, the bishops of York, Tory politician Viscount Bolingbroke (and the St John family) and the Earls Spencer.
Battersea was an attractive prospect due to its location on the river and its fertile farming land, of which there was abundance. By the twelfth century, it had become one of the principal manors serving Westminster Abbey, and the area's growth owes much to the strip farming and market gardens which thrived there as late as 1853. Such was the availability of agricultural work that seasonal workers from as far as Shropshire and North Wales came to tend to a variety of crops including grain, peas, beans and root vegetables, as well as the more specialized melons, medicinal herbs, varieties of anemones exclusive to Battersea and asparagus, the latter of which became the parish's proverbial crop. The location on the river gave Battersea a ready means of transport to the ever-growing City population and markets, and boatloads of urban manure were returned to maintain the richness of the land.
The buildings of Battersea, which are predominantly late Georgian and Victorian, however, reflect little of its agricultural heritage. The boom in Battersea's population came unsurprisingly during the later nineteenth century, as the area became an industrial powerhouse. Wharves and jetties and factories and workshops sprang up along the banks of the Thames, producing ‘candles, cement, chemicals, crucibles, flour, oil, paint, soap, starch, sugar, turpentine and vinegar’, as well as buildings occupied by the brewing and engineering trades. Between 1841 and the early 1900s, its population increased by more than 2,500 per cent. In this respect, it is interesting to consider Battersea in relation to the industrial cities of Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, which all witnessed substantial growth during this period, and this element of the provincial industrial ‘town’ impacted upon the area's architecture, in particular its public buildings, one of the main focuses of volume XLIX9.
The Battersea vestry opted for improving municipal services rather than maintaining low rates before most other London vestries, and this elevating desire (a common feature of Victorian provincial towns and cities) led to several architectural competitions for buildings such as a town hall, local libraries and public baths. Again, as in provincial cities, certain ‘local’ names proved particularly adept at winning such competitions, and in Battersea E.W. Mountford, perhaps best known for the Old Bailey, is one such figure. Although born in Worcestershire, Mountford was a Battersea resident, and was well placed to benefit from the several competitions organized by the Vestry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As such, the mark he left on Battersea includes the town hall, central library and polytechnic college, as well as several churches and other smaller buildings, and the Survey's description of these is utterly comprehensive and beautifully illustrated.
The weaving together of architecture and wider social history – such as the political and social history of Battersea as explained through the construction of its town hall – is one of the real qualities of the Survey. Thorough historical research is paired with architectural plans and sublime photography, immersing the reader in the subject, be it the notable eighteenth-century church of St Mary, lesser known twentieth-century cinemas or a singular example of the many kinds of housing found in Battersea. The overall picture presented to the reader is wholesome and informative, and yet without being excessively academic or technical: the two volumes of the Survey are extremely readable.
Moreover, the approaches taken by each volume are sensible and fitting for the subjects they deal with. The thematic approach taken in volume XLIX allows for a greater understanding of named architects and their works, as well as the common design features found in particular building types, ultimately contributing to the reader's knowledge of Battersea's architecture and development as a whole. Similarly, the topographical approach of volume L suits the sprawling subject of residential architecture, whose development and design is often very much tied to its immediate surroundings.
The Survey covers an area of some 2,164 acres, and to address the subject of residential development properly, volume L is split into 19 area-specific chapters, with an introduction providing a general overview to Battersea's residential building stock and its development. By the mid-eighteenth century London merchants were colonizing Battersea with suburban villas, following the sale of the 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke's estates to the Spencer family. The Spencers sold freeholds around Battersea and Wandsworth Commons to city merchants who were attracted by the location, it being a mid-point between their town and country holdings, and, subsequently, ‘second-rank professionals’ such as lawyers, attorneys and stockbrokers followed, a migration aided by ever-improving transport links to London. By the 1840s, however, this was changing, as Battersea's resident population began to rise dramatically. This resulted in the construction of some 25,000 houses between 1840 and 1914, composed of a variety of types and styles, including one of the largest concentrations of mansion flats in the capital, found in the streets around Battersea Park.
One can only hint in the smallest possible way at the richness of information and anecdote found in volume L, doing so with two select examples. The first is how Battersea's agricultural past clung to it, in spite of its industrial growth, with the district board recording the keeping of 77 pigs behind 39 small cottages in 1857. Even as late as 1872, when the district was significantly urbanized, there were still 232 separate piggeries in Battersea.
The second relates to the more substantial point of Battersea's public housing. Battersea's progressive political history is revealed at numerous points in the Survey, but is best seen in its approach to housing. As early as 1903, Battersea was being talked of as ‘the land of the free and the brave’, with the dispossessed knowing that the council would ‘cater for them and somehow fight for them’. Whereas other boroughs were driving out the poor through improvement schemes, Battersea was all too glad to accommodate them, in developments such as the much lauded Latchmere and Town Hall Estates, built by direct labour, and the department of works. The post-war era saw the building of municipal housing intensify, with 9,000 new homes planned by the late 1960s. Much of the residential development built in post-war Battersea can be credited to councillor and Mayor Sidney Sporle, a figure whose chequered history illustrates the borough's commitment to getting people housed. When Sporle was convicted for corruption in 1971, relating to the awarding of contracts, his sentence was reduced on account of a petition from Battersea residents, who praised his energy in rehousing people. That even today, following years of privatization and the weakening of local authority power, so much municipal housing remains in Battersea is testament to the commitment of Sporle to providing affordable public housing in inner London.
The Survey does not just look to the past, however, and with regards to the chapters on the Power Station and Nine Elms, the timing of Battersea's inclusion in the Survey of London is fortunate. After prolonged issues dating back to 1981, when the threat of its demolition was first highlighted by SAVE Britain's Heritage, the Power Station is seemingly set to be revitalized as part of one of the largest redevelopment schemes the capital, and indeed the country, has ever seen, with ‘starchitects’ Frank Gehry and Norman Foster designing new buildings adjacent to the iconic cathedral of power. Similarly, the Survey is well placed to capture the start of the major changes currently taking place around Nine Elms, which include the fortress-like American embassy and future plans for the Dutch and Chinese embassies, as well as several large residential and office schemes which are now breaking ground and rising alongside the river.
The Survey of London has come a long way since C.R. Ashbee's survey of Bromley by Bow in 1900, which contained just 16 building entries. Its sponsors have changed several times (and are set to change again for Marylebone, volumes LI–LIV), and its editors have come and gone. Yet, it remains a unique resource vital to understanding the metropolis, borne out of a labour of love and a quality of research second to none. Ashbee founded the Survey on the principle of stimulating the historic and social conscience of London. The Battersea volumes gallantly continue to do so.
