Hundred of Brixton
Brixton Hundred or the Hundred of Brixton was an ancient hundred in the north east of the county of Surrey, England. Its area has been absorbed by the growth of London. The name is first recorded as Brixiges stan in 1062, meaning stone of a man called Beorhtsige, the stone may have been the location that early hundred meetings took place. Gower suggests that the stone was located at the boundary of Streatham, Clapham, a nearby location on Brixton Hill became the location for the hundred gallows. Brixton Hill had been known as Bristowe Causeway long before the modern Brixton area was developed, the Surrey House of Correction, now known as Brixton Prison, was opened there in 1820. The hundred contained the parishes of Battersea, Camberwell, Lambeth, Streatham, Merton, Tooting, the northern boundary with the City of London and the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex was the River Thames. Within Surrey it was bounded by Wallington hundred to the south, in the east was a boundary with the Blackheath hundred of Kent.
In 1831, the hundred occupied 30,400 acres, most of the hundred was included in 1829 in the Metropolitan Police District by the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 and in 1840 the rest of the hundred was included by the Metropolitan Police Act 1839. In 1851 the hundred is recorded as comprising an Eastern division of 22,186 acres and a population of 314,815 and Western division of 7,699 acres, the population in 1861 is recorded as 409,504. In 1887 the hundred is recorded as occupying an area of 29,714 acres, the hundreds of England declined in administrative use because of the rise of various ad hoc boards. In 1855, most of the hundred was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, the hundred was effectively abolished when the area became part of the County of London in 1889. The entire area has formed part of Greater London since 1965
Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company
The Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company was a utility company supplying water to parts of south London in England. The company was formed by the merger of the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Companies in 1845, the Borough Waterworks Company was formed in 1770, originally supplying water to a brewery and the surrounding area, which spanned the distance between London and Southwark Bridges. The adjacent area was supplied by the London Bridge Waterworks Company, London Bridge Waterworks was dissolved in 1822, and its water supply licence was purchased by the New River Company. The Borough Waterworks Company purchased the licence from the New River Company that same year, the company extracted water from the River Thames using steam engines to pump it to a cistern at the top of a 60-foot-high tower. The South London Waterworks Company was established by act of parliament in 1805. The company extracted water from the Thames beside Vauxhall Bridge, in 1833 the company supplied 12,046 houses with approximately 12,000 gallons of water.
In 1834, the company was renamed the Vauxhall Water Company, on 10 January 1845 the two companies submitted a memorial to the Health of Towns Commissioners proposing amalgamation. That the principle of competition cannot with advantage be applied to the operations of water companies, the bill promoted by the two companies successfully passed through parliament, and the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company formed that year. The area supplied by the SVWC was centred on the Borough of Southwark, reaching east to Rotherhithe, south to Camberwell and in the west including Battersea and parts of Clapham and Lambeth. The amalgamated company established waterworks at Battersea Fields with two depositing reservoirs with a capacity of 32 million gallons, and two filtering reservoirs holding 11 million gallons, in 1850 the companys water was described by the microbiologist Arthur Hassall as the most disgusting which I have ever examined. The Metropolis Water Act 1852 was enacted to make provision for securing the supply to the Metropolis of pure, in the meantime, an outbreak of cholera in 1854 led to the deaths of 286 people supplied by the company.
To comply with the legislation, the Southwark and Vauxhall Company built new waterworks in Hampton between Molesey and Sunbury Locks in 1855, the site was shared in a joint venture with the Grand Junction Waterworks Company and the West Middlesex Waterworks Company. The company constructed the Stain Hill Reservoirs and a 36-inch-diameter direct water main to Battersea, a third reservoir was opened in the year between Nunhead Cemetery and Peckham Rye. Notwithstanding this, in 1878 from contamination or poor filtration, this company had substantially the worst quality of water. This may in part have been due to used, uncovered filter beds in Battersea which were soon after 1900 made defunct. Dr. Franklands analysis of water supplied to London during the month of October 1876 gave a degree of organic impurity compared to a given volume of the Kent Companys water. He compared the samples from those of August and September, organic impurity was measured relative to the Kent Water Companys benchmark, who supplied part of London.
It had a proportion of contamination with organic matter
Cross River Tram
Cross River Tram was a Transport for London proposal for a 10-mile tram system in London. It was planned to run on a route from Camden Town in the north, via Kings Cross, to Peckham. The Cross River Tram scheme was proposed to relieve overcrowding on the London Underground and was due to operation by 2016. The project was cancelled in 2008 due to funding problems, however, in July 2016, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has said he does not intend to revive the Cross River Tram project cancelled by his predecessor Boris Johnson. Trams would have run up to every 4 minutes on each branch, despite following the same route, it was not envisaged that the Cross River Tram line would use the former Kingsway tramway subway. In May 2008, Livingstones successor as mayor, Boris Johnson, on 6 November 2008, Transport for London announced that the Cross River Tram would not be built
Nunhead Cemetery
Nunhead Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London, England. It is perhaps the least famous and celebrated of them, the cemetery is located in the Nunhead area of southern London and was originally known as All Saints Cemetery. Nunhead Cemetery was consecrated in 1840 and opened by the London Necropolis Company and it is a Local Nature Reserve. The Main Gate is located on Linden Grove and the South Gate is located on Limesford Road, the cemetery is in the London Borough of Southwark, SE15. Consecrated in 1840, with an Anglican chapel designed by Thomas Little, the first burial was of Charles Abbott, a 101-year-old Ipswich grocer, the last burial was of a volunteer soldier who became a canon of Lahore Cathedral. The first grave in Nunhead was dug in October 1840, the average annual number of burials there over the last ten years, has been 1685,1350 in the consecrated, and 335 in the unconsecrated ground. In the cemetery were reinterred remains removed, in 1867 and 1933, the cemetery contains examples of the imposing monuments to the most eminent citizens of the day, which contrast sharply with the small, simple headstones marking common or public burials.
By the middle of the 20th century the cemetery was nearly full, with the ensuing neglect, the cemetery gradually changed from lawn to meadow and eventually to woodland. It is now a Local Nature Reserve and Site of Metropolitan Importance for wildlife, populated with songbirds and tawny owls. A lack of care and cash surrendered the graves to the ravages of nature and vandalism, the cemetery was reopened in May 2001 after an extensive restoration project funded by Southwark Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Fifty memorials were restored along with the Anglican Chapel, views across London include St Pauls Cathedral. The Victorian part of the cemetery is currently in a state of repair, being best described as an elegant wilderness. Many areas of the cemetery are fairly overgrown with vines, as visible in newer tourist photos, numerous tombstones lean to the side. Although the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery are doing their best to restore parts of the cemetery it is badly in need of care. It is about 52 acres and is a place to walk.
The lodges and monumental entrance were designed by James Bunstone Bunning and it was erected by Radical MP Joseph Hume in 1837. It is immediately on the right on Dissenters Road, when entering through the North Gate, percy Baden Powell Huxford, aged 12, was one of nine Sea Scouts who died in the Leysdown Tragedy off the Isle of Sheppey in 1912. A special memorial was built for these Sea Scouts in this cemetery in 1914, most of this was removed after vandalism, and only the base remains
London Victoria station
Victoria station is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Victoria, in the City of Westminster. It is near to Victoria Street, which along with the area and it is in Travelcard Zone 1. From the main lines, trains can connect to the Catford Loop Line, Dartford Loop Line, Southern operates the majority of commuter and regional services to south London and parts of east Surrey, while Southeastern operates trains to south east London and Kent. Gatwick Express trains run direct from Victoria to Gatwick Airport, the Underground station is on the Circle and District lines between Sloane Square and St. Jamess Park, and the Victoria line between Pimlico and Green Park. With over 81 million passenger entries and exits in 2015/16, Victoria is the second-busiest station in London after Waterloo, combined with the Underground Station and interchanges in the national rail station, London Victoria handled about 170 million passengers in the 2015/2016 period. It is one of 19 stations managed by Network Rail, the area around the station is an important interchange for other forms of transport, a local bus station is in the forecourt and Victoria Coach Station is nearby.
Victoria Station came about in a fashion to help address this problem for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway. It consisted of two adjacent main line railway stations which, from the viewpoint of passengers, were unconnected, the London and Brighton Railway terminus at London Bridge provided reasonable access to the City of London but was most inconvenient for travellers to and from Westminster. As early as 1842 John Urpeth Rastrick had proposed that the railway should build a branch to serve the West End, but his proposal came to nothing. During the summer of 1857 a scheme for an independent Grosvenor Basin Terminus in the West End of London, the station was originally referred to as the Grosvenor Terminus but renamed Victoria as it was sited at the end of Victoria Street. Three other railway companies were seeking a terminus in Westminster, the Great Western, the London & North Western. The first two already had access to Battersea through their joint ownership of the West London Line with the LB&SCR.
The new line followed part of the route of the Grosvenor Canal with Victoria station on the canal basin. It required the construction of a new bridge over the Thames, originally known as Victoria Bridge and it was of mixed gauge to cater for GWR trains. The LB&SCR had hoped to amalgamate with the VS&PR, and introduced a Parliamentary Bill to allow it to do so in 1860 and this was opposed by the GWR and LC&DR and rejected. By way of compromise the LB&SCR was permitted to lease Victoria station from the VS&PR, Victoria station proved to be unexpectedly popular for both the main companies, and by 1862 there were frequent delays due to congestion at Stewarts Lane Junction. In March 1863 the LB&SCR and the LC&DR jointly funded a new route into Victoria, avoiding Stewarts Lane. The work was completed during 1867/8, the LB&SCR side of Victoria station opened on 1 October 1860, the temporary terminus in Battersea having closed the day before
Reservoir
A reservoir is a storage space for fluids. These fluids may be water, hydrocarbons or gas, a reservoir usually means an enlarged natural or artificial lake, storage pond or impoundment created using a dam or lock to store water. Reservoirs can be created by controlling a stream that drains a body of water. They can be constructed in river valleys using a dam, alternately, a reservoir can be built by excavating flat ground or constructing retaining walls and levees. Tank reservoirs store liquids or gases in storage tanks that may be elevated, at grade level, tank reservoirs for water are called cisterns. Underground reservoirs are used to store liquids, principally either water or petroleum, a dam constructed in a valley relies on the natural topography to provide most of the basin of the reservoir. Dams are typically located at a part of a valley downstream of a natural basin. The valley sides act as walls, with the dam located at the narrowest practical point to provide strength. In many reservoir construction projects, people have to be moved and re-housed, construction of a reservoir in a valley will usually need the river to be diverted during part of the build, often through a temporary tunnel or by-pass channel.
In hilly regions, reservoirs are constructed by enlarging existing lakes. Sometimes in such reservoirs the new top water level exceeds the height on one or more of the feeder streams such as at Llyn Clywedog in Mid Wales. In such cases additional side dams are required to contain the reservoir, where water is pumped or siphoned from a river of variable quality or quantity, bank-side reservoirs may be built to store the water. Such reservoirs are usually formed partly by excavation and partly by building a complete encircling bund or embankment, the water stored in such reservoirs may stay there for several months, during which time normal biological processes may substantially reduce many contaminants and almost eliminate any turbidity. The use of reservoirs allows water abstraction to be stopped for some time. Service reservoirs store fully treated potable water close to the point of distribution, many service reservoirs are constructed as water towers, often as elevated structures on concrete pillars where the landscape is relatively flat.
Other service reservoirs can be almost entirely underground, especially in hilly or mountainous country. In the United Kingdom, Thames Water has many underground reservoirs, sometimes called cisterns, built in the 1800s. A good example is the Honor Oak Reservoir in London, constructed between 1901 and 1909, when it was completed it was said to be the largest brick built underground reservoir in the world and it is still one of the largest in Europe
New Cross
New Cross is a district of Lewisham in south London, England,4.5 miles south-east of Charing Cross, covered by the SE14 postcode district. New Cross Gate, on the west of New Cross, is named after the New Cross tollgate and it is the location of New Cross Gate station. New Cross Gate corresponds to the manor and district formerly known as Hatcham, the area was originally known as Hatcham. The earliest reference to Hatcham is the Domesday Book of 1086 as Hacheham and it was held by the Bishop of Lisieux from the Bishop of Bayeux. According to the entry in the Domesday Book Hatchams assets were,3 hides,3 ploughs,6 acres of meadow, woodland worth 3 hog, Hatcham tithes were paid to Bermondsey Abbey from 1173 until the dissolution of the monasteries. Telegraph Hill was for many years covered by market gardens owned by the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers. Until the creation of the London County Council in 1889, the area was a part of the counties of Kent and Surrey. New Cross is believed to have taken its name from a house originally known as the Golden Cross.
The diarist John Evelyn, who lived in Deptford, wrote in 1675 that he met a friend at New Crosse in his coach before travelling down through Kent and on to France. In the 19th century, the became known as the New Cross Tangle on account of its numerous railway lines, workshops. Hatcham Iron Works in Pomeroy Street was an important steam locomotive factory, the Strike Committee met at the Crown and Anchor pub in New Cross Road, now the site of Hong Kong City Chinese restaurant. George England’s house, Hatcham Lodge, is now 56 Kender Street, New Cross bus garage was formerly the largest tram depot in London, opening in 1906. During the 1926 General Strike in support of the miners, strikebreakers were brought in to drive trams from the depot, on 7 May, police baton charges were launched to clear a crowd of 2-3,000 pickets blockading the entrance. The last London tram, in July 1952, ran from Woolwich to New Cross and it was driven through enormous crowds, finally arriving at its destination in the early hours of 6 July.
On 25 November 1944 a V-2 rocket exploded at the Woolworths store in New Cross Road,168 people were killed and it was Londons most devastating V-bombing of the entire war. On Wednesday 25 November 2009 a new plaque was unveiled on the site by the Mayor of Lewisham. In August 1977 the area saw the so-called Battle of Lewisham, during which the far right British National Front were beaten off by militant anti-fascists, on 18 January 198113 young black people were killed in the New Cross Fire at a party at 439 New Cross Road. Suspicions that the fire was caused by a racist attack, and apparent official indifference to the deaths, during the 1980s, the Goldsmiths Tavern hosted alternative cabaret nights, organised by Nikky Smedley
London Fire Brigade
The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act of 1865 under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. Dany Cotton is the Commissioner for Fire and Emergency Planning, which includes the position of Chief Fire Officer, statutory responsibility for the running of the brigade lies with the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2013/14 the LFB handled 171,067999 emergency calls, of the calls it actually mobilised to,20,934 were fires, including 10,992 that were of a serious nature, making it one of the busiest fire brigades in the world. In the same 12-month period, it received 3,172 hoax calls, the highest number of any UK fire service, in 2015/16 the LFB received 171,488 emergency calls. These consisted of,20,773 fires,30,066 special service callouts and it conducts emergency planning and performs fire safety inspections and education. He introduced a uniform that, for the first time, included personal protection from the hazards of firefighting.
With 80 firefighters and 13 fire stations, the unit was still a private enterprise, funded by the insurance companies, in 1904 it was renamed as the London Fire Brigade. The LFB moved into a new headquarters built by Higgs and Hill on the Albert Embankment in Lambeth in 1937, during the Second World War the countrys brigades were amalgamated into a single National Fire Service. The separate London Fire Brigade for the County of London was re-established in 1948, in 1986 the Greater London Council was disbanded and a new statutory authority, the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority, was formed to take responsibility for the LFB. The LFCDA was replaced in 2000 by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, at the same time, the Greater London Authority was established to administer the LFEPA and coordinate emergency planning for London. Consisting of the Mayor of London and other elected members, the GLA takes responsibility for the Metropolitan Police Authority, Transport for London, in 2007 the LFB vacated its Lambeth headquarters and moved to a site in Union Street, Southwark.
In the same year, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced that LFB Commissioner Ken Knight had been appointed as the first Chief Fire, Knight was succeeded as Commissioner at that time by Ron Dobson, who served for almost ten years. Dany Cotton took over in 2017, becoming the brigades first female commissioner, dany Cotton is the current commissioner, having taken up the role on 1 January 2017. She holds the Queens Fire Service Medal, frank Jackson, CBE1938 to 1941, Cdr. Sir Aylmer Firebrace, CBE1933 to 1938, Maj. Cyril Morris 1918 to 1933, Arthur Reginald Dyer 1909 to 1918, sir Sampson Sladen 1903 to 1909, RAdm. James de Courcy Hamilton 1896 to 1903, lionel de Latour Wells 1891 to 1896, James Sexton Simmonds 1861 to 1891, Capt. Both divisions were divided into three districts, each under a Superintendent with his headquarters at a superintendent station, the superintendent stations themselves were commanded by District Officers, with the other stations under Station Officers
Brockley
Brockley is a district and an electoral ward of south London, England, in the London Borough of Lewisham 5 miles south-east of Charing Cross. The name Brockley is derived from Brocas woodland clearing, a wood where badgers are seen or Brook by a wood. Brockley has its origins in an agricultural hamlet of the same name located in the area of the Brockley Jack. Brockley Hall stood nearby and now gives its name to a road on a 1930s housing estate, Crofton Park railway station was built nearby in 1892 by the London and Dover Railway. The oldest surviving house in the area of what is now considered to be the extent of Brockley is the Stone House on Lewisham Way built in 1773 by the architect George Gibson the Younger. This was historically considered to be in Deptford, Brockley market gardens were famous for their enormous Victoria rhubarb which were fertilised by night soil from London. There were orchards too and some ancient fruit trees survive in local gardens, until the late 19th century a small river flowed northward from Crofton Park and east of Malpas Rd to join the River Thames via Deptford Creek.
Industrial development arrived in 1809 in the form of the Croydon Canal running from Croydon to Bermondsey and this was filled in and replaced by the London & Croydon railway which runs through the original canal cutting between Brockley and New Cross Gate stations. Some of the oldest houses in Brockley are the cottages and shops which form a terrace on Coulgate Street. These are believed to date from 1833 and were originally associated with the canal. From 1872 until 1917, Brockley Lane railway station provided access to the Greenwich Park branch line, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Tyrwhitt-Drake family developed the north side of Brockley with grand villas, large terraces and semi-detached houses. Development started south of Lewisham Way in the late 1840s with the modest cottages at 2-22 Upper Brockley Rd and spread south, in 1900 Chalsey Rd was the last road to be completed within the current conservation area. However, open farmland remained south of Brockley Grove and west of the line into the early 1930s.
Many grand houses in Brockley were occupied by the owners and managers of factories in neighbouring areas such as Deptford. The terraced streets west of Brockley Rd were more mixed, the artist/poet David Jones, whose father was a printer, grew up in Howson Rd. Some of David Joness paintings and illustrations depict his parents house, the writer Henry Williamson, the son of a bank clerk, was born in nearby Braxfield Rd. The latter was designed by J E Newberry in the Arts and Crafts movement style, after World War I Brockley began to lose its exclusivity as the wealthy began to relocate to the outer suburbs and the big houses were increasingly sub-divided into multiple occupation. The typical inter-war houses on Upper Brockley Gardens and on Harefield Rd are clearly more modest than their Victorian neighbours, small industrial workshops became established in the mews behind the large houses
Metropolitan Police Service
As of March 2016, the Met employed 48,661 full-time personnel. This included 32,125 sworn police officers,9,521 police staff and this number excludes the 3,271 Special Constables, who work part-time and who have the same powers and uniform as their regular colleagues. This makes the Metropolitan Police the largest police force in the United Kingdom by a significant margin, the post of Commissioner was first held jointly by Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne. The post is occupied by the now-outgoing Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. The Commissioners deputy, the Deputy Commissioner, is currently Craig Mackey, a number of informal names and abbreviations exists for the Metropolitan Police Service, the most common being the Met. In colloquial London, it is referred to as the Old Bill. The Met is referred to by the metonym Scotland Yard after the location of its headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The Mets current headquarters is New Scotland Yard, in Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Service, whose officers became affectionately known as bobbies, was founded in 1829 by Robert Peel under the Metropolitan Police Act 1829.
In 1839, the Marine Police Force, which had formed in 1798, was amalgamated into the Metropolitan Police. In 1837, it incorporated with the Bow Street Horse Patrol that had organised in 1805. Since January 2012, the Mayor of London is responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Police through the Mayors Office for Policing, the mayor is able to appoint someone to act on his behalf, the current office-holder is Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden. The work of MOPAC is scrutinised by the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly, the area policed by the Metropolitan Police Service is known as the Metropolitan Police District. In terms of policing, the Met is divided into a number of Borough Operational Command Units. The City of London is a police area and is the responsibility of the separate City of London Police. The British Transport Police are responsible for policing of the network in the United Kingdom. Within London, they are responsible for the policing of the London Underground, The Emirates Air Line.
There is a park police force, the Kew Constabulary, responsible for the Royal Botanic Gardens. Officers have limited powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland, within the MPD, the Met will take over the investigation of any serious crime from the British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police, if it is deemed appropriate
