Spenser Street is a road in the SW1E postcode area
Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace is the official London residence and principal workplace of the British monarch. Little Ben Little Ben is a cast iron miniature clock tower, situated at the intersection of Vauxhall Bridge Road and Victoria Street, close to the approach to Victoria station. Royal Mews The Royal Mews is a mews (i.e. combined stables, carriage house and in recent times also the garage) of the British Royal Family. Tothill Fields Bridewell Tothill Fields Bridewell (also known as Tothill Fields Prison and Westminster Bridewell) was a prison located in Westminster between 1618 and 1884. Victoria Bus Station Victoria bus station is a bus station outside Victoria Station in Terminus Place. Westminster Cathedral The ’Metropolitan Cathedral of the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ’ is the mother church of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Arneway Street, SW1P Arneway Street is named for Thomas Arneway, former benefactor to the Westminster parish poor. Artillery Place, SW1P Artillery Place was named after a former nearby artillery practice ground which stood here in the 19th century. Ashley Place, SW1P Ashley Place is thought to be named after Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Victorian politician and philanthropist. Birdcage Walk, SW1E Birdcage Walk runs east-west from the Parliament Square area (as Great George Street) to Buckingham Palace. Birdcage Walk, SW1H Birdcage Walk runs east from Great George Street, along the south side of St James’s Park. Broadway, SW1H Broadway - formerly the location of the headquarters of both London Transport and the Metropolitan Police. Castle Lane, SW1E Castle Lane is one of the streets of London in the SW1E postal area. Caxton Street, SW1H William Caxton was responsible for the introduction of the printing press to England. Deans Yard, SW1P Dean’s Yard comprises most of the precincts of the former monastery of Westminster, not occupied by the Abbey buildings. Old Pye Street, SW1P Old Pye Street gets its name from Sir Robert Pye, member of parliament for Westminster in the time of Charles I.
Page Street, SW1P Page Street runs from Regency Street in the west to the junction of John Islip Street and Dean Ryle Street in the east. Portland House Portland House is a block 101 metres tall with 29 floors. Stag Place, SW1E The old brewhouse of the Westminster Abbey moved to Stag Place after the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century. Storey’s Gate, SW1H Abraham Storey, one of Wren’s master-masons, built Storey’s Gate that now commemorates his name.
Warwick Row, SW1E Warwick Row is one of the streets of London in the SW1E postal area. Wilton Road, SW1V Wilton Road is one of the streets of London in the SW1V postal area.
The railways largely replaced the canals as a means of transport. Uniquely for a main line station, Victoria station was built on top of one.Before the railway arrived in 1862, this area - like the area immediately south of it - was known as
Pimlico. The Grosvenor Canal ended in a large basin here.
Victoria station’s origins lie with the Great Exhibition of 1851, when a railway called the
West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway came into existence, serving the site of the exhibition halls which had been transferred to Sydenham from Hyde Park. The terminus of that railway was at Stewarts Lane in Battersea on the south side of the river. In 1858 a joint enterprise was set up to take trains over the river: it was entitled the
Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway; and was a mile and a quarter in length. The railway was owned by four railway companies: the Great Western (GWR); London & North Western (LNWR); the London, Brighton and South Coast (LBSCR); and the London Chatham and Dover Railways (LCDR). It was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1858.
The station was built in two parts: those on the western side, opened in 1862, with six platforms, ten tracks and an hotel (the 300-bedroom Grosvenor) were occupied by the Brighton company; whilst adjacent, and in the same year, the Chatham company were to occupy a less imposing wooden-fronted building. The latter’s station had nine tracks and was shared by broad-gauge trains of the GWR, whose trains arrived from Southall via the West London Extension Joint Railway through Chelsea. The GWR remained part owner of the station until 1932, although its trains had long since ceased to use it. Each side of the station had its own entrance and a separate station master; a wall between the two sections effectively emphasised that fact.
At the start of the twentieth century both parts of the station were rebuilt. It now had a decent frontage and forecourt, but not as yet a unified existence. Work on the Brighton side was completed in 1908 and was carried out in red brick; the Grosvenor Hotel was rebuilt at the same time. The Chatham side, in a Edwardian style with baroque elements, designed by Alfred Bloomfield, was completed a year later. The two sections were eventually connected in 1924 by removing part of a screen wall, when the platforms were renumbered as an entity. The station was redeveloped internally in the 1980s, with the addition of shops within the concourse, and above the western platforms.
The station was now serving boat trains, and during WWI it became the hub of trains carrying soldiers to and from France, many of them wounded. After the war the Continental steamer traffic became concentrated there, including the most famous of those trains, the Golden Arrow. The area around the station also became a site for other other forms of transport: a bus station in the forecourt; a coach terminal to the south; and it is now the terminal for trains serving Gatwick Airport.
Victoria is also well-served by London underground. The sub-surface Circle and District Lines opened on December 24, 1868; and the Victoria Line line came to Victoria Station with the third phase of construction of the line - the station’s platforms were opened on March 7, 1969, six months after the Victoria line had started running in outer London.
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