Wirtemberg Street was named after the Kingdom of Württemberg, established in what is now Germany in 1806.
At a public lecture in Clapham during 1859, a woman was reported “living in Wirtemberg Street” so it can be assumed to have been laid out in that decade or earlier. The Wirtemberg Arms public house seems to have originated then too.
Wirtemberg Street was Wirtemberg Grove during the 1860s with its very northern section called Back Lane.
Wirtemberg Street was renamed Stonhouse Street on 14 March 1919. During, and in the aftermath of, the Great War, there was a renaming effort of nearly all of London’s ’German-sounding’ roads. The Wirtemberg Arms pub was also renamed the Windsor Arms at the same time (later The Stonhouse). For more obscure reasons, Cross Street on the corner of the pub also changed its name at the time to become Cresset Street.
It continued its life as a continuous street – now Stonhouse Street – until the Blitz. A high-explosive bomb fell at 8.55pm on 7 Sepember 1940 destroying much of the northern part of the former Wirtemberg Street and the area was redeveloped.
