Idea: Let's follow the borough boundary between Lambeth and Southwark, close to the Thames. Rationale: It follows wiggly insignificant streets, I bet there's a great historical backstory. Reality: Oh, these are quite dull backstreets, let's just walk the first half mile. Post-walk research: Ah there is a rationale, and it might just be a lost river...
We start at Old Barge House Stairs, or as you'll more likely know it the western end of Oxo Tower Wharf, which is the precise point where Lambeth merges into Southwark. During Tudor times the monarch's state barge was housed here and the royal barge masters lived alongside. London Bridge was then the only fixed crossing, and a mile downstream, so King and citizens often crossed to Southwark by boat for a bit of theatre, bear-baiting or other activity that wouldn't be tolerated on the northern bank. At low tide you can still see the remains of a stone causeway from which boats once launched, and nip down some steps onto a decent sized patch of scrappy beach. Ah, although this is where the current boundary is, the Lambeth/Southwark divide used to be a fraction further upstream to encompass the bargehouse site, which was coincident with what's now Bernie Spain Gardens.
Old Barge House Alley lives on as a drab narrow corridor underneath Oxo Tower Wharf lined with fire regulations. This way for further eateries, more design studios and additional exhibition space. A modern arch then leads past a four-storey repurposed warehouse, but do check the opposite wall where an original plaque from Crofoot Court 1722 has been embedded in the brickwork. The road round the back is Upper Ground, named at a time when most of the riverside was marshland but this raised section supported a row of buildings.
The next road is called Broadwall, a sanitised scrap of what was once a much longer street called Broad Wall. This ran south following a narrow artificial drainage channel which once helped protect the land beyond from high tides. It looped inland as far as Surrey Row and was one of the sources for the elusive River Neckinger (which eventually flowed into the Thames in Bermondsey), so there's your lost river connection. A dyke across medieval marshland would also make a pretty good administrative boundary, so there's your underlying rationale for what turned into the Lambeth/Southwark divide.
There's been a fair amount of boundary-fiddling since. Broad Wall once continued beyond Stamford Street, but in the 1960s the London Nautical School moved in and inexorably built additional facilities until all trace of the road was swallowed up. They retained the portico of the former Stamford Street Unitarian Chapel as the entrance to the schoolyard, and the curved wall of buildings beyond makes for a particularly hideous architectural confection. Gregg Wallace was a student, if that helps you get a measure of the place. The boundary now diverts round the eastern side of the school after the Boundary Commission agreed with Lambeth in the 1990s to unite the entire site in their borough.
Today it's Hatfields not Broad Wall which forms the Lambeth/Southwark boundary. This peculiar street name comes from the historic use of the local fields for drying animal skins before being made into hats, back when London's industry was a lot more basic. I learned this fact from an information board on Hatfields Green, a 'truly relaxing environment' created in the 1960s on the site of a former envelope factory. The Southwark side of the street is a lot more built-up, first with a characterful converted warehouse, then a modern building unsuccessfully mimicking a warehouse and an unapologetically modern slatted apartment block perched on top of the Central School of Ballet.
Just out of sight to the east is Christ Church on Blackfriars Road, whose parish once extended here to the Broad Wall. When the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark was formed in 1900 it took local parishes as the building block, so there's your ecclesiastical connection. And before the church was built this same area was known as the manor ofParis Garden, one of Southwark's three liberties, reputedly named after 14th century Lord of the Manor Robert de Paris. Imagine a marshy landscape with willow trees, a mill and a manor house, which is quite a feat when you're staring at flats, a corner shop and the back of a 1960s BT office block. The road between the church and Hatfields is still called Paris Garden, so there's your medieval liberty connection.
Here's where the railway line at Waterloo East station soars across the street, with the eastern end of the platforms nudging a few metres into Southwark. Conversely the escalators at the western end of Southwark tube station rise underneath Hatfields to land in Lambeth - look, there's the isolated ticket hall that connects to National Rail. The Lambeth side also boasts two stark apartment blocks called Tait and Benson, while the Southwark side offers Jack's Thai snacks, 20 taps of awesome craft beer and some allotments.
The next educational establishment to get in the way is Lewisham Southwark College, which has entirely devoured Marlborough Street. The boundary instead diverts along The Cut, an important commercial street since the 19th century, with the Old Vic at one end and the Young Vic further east where we are. A brief stretch of The Cut - precisely the bit that's the boundary between boroughs - was recently converted into a Low Traffic Neighbourhood with the addition of large tropical planters. It's not especially well signed, which may explain why I watched a Zipcar driver merrily turning into the penalty zone and greatly increasing the cost of her hire.
The modern boundary next follows Short Street, which indeed is. At the next corner an exasperated sign in the window of St Andrew's warns "This is a Church Building, not a public urinal". But ooh, Ufford Street is lovely, with a proper run of Edwardian Arts and Crafts cottages all the way along one side. It's just a shame about the jarring Premier Inn shoehorned in opposite, which I note is on the only stretch of the road under the jurisdiction of Southwark's planning committee. Neighbouring Chaplin Close, an inlet of sheltered housing, used to be divided in two by the borough boundary until local MP Kate Hoey suggested an administrative tweak and the Boundary Commission obliged. That means of the three changes to the historic boundary introduced in 1994, Lambeth came out the winners every time.
We've reached a road called Boundary Row, which is no coincidence because it still is, and long was. It marks the point where an ancient drainage channel became the edge of a medieval estate became the edge of a Stuart church's parish became the edge of a Victorian borough. On such historic trifles are administrative dividing lines drawn. But whereas Boundary Row bends east here to cross Blackfriars Road the modern boundary breaks off and heads southwest instead, so that's as far as I decided to walk.
Conclusion: Some places are a lot more interesting than they look, but only after you get home and research them properly.
