The Battersea Tangle is a complex set of railway lines and junctions in Battersea, south of the River Thames in London. It grew up around the lines built to reach Waterloo and Victoria stations (and earlier termini) by several competing and cooperating railway companies. It has included a number of goods depots, as well as engine sheds, carriage sidings, and larger railway workshops. It is sometimes referred to as Clapham Junction, after its principal station.
Most of the routes were established between 1838 and 1867, after which time the development of the surrounding area made new lines impractical. New goods depots were added after this date, and the track alignments and junctions were adjusted to meet changing requirements. A new flyover, above existing tracks, was added in 1990 to allow Eurostar trains to reach Waterloo.
Architectural historian Priscilla Metcalf records 'The Battersea Tangle' as a railwaymen's term for the 'fortuitous concourse of railway lines northeast of Clapham Junction', [1] Tim Sherwood describes it as 'the maze of lines between Clapham Junction and Nine Elms' [2] in his history of railways in that area, while Andrew Saint and Colin Thom, in the Survey of London, use the phrase to describe the outcome of four railway companies trying to interconnect with each other in Battersea while protecting their own assets and business. [3]
Railway historian Edwin Course gives a definition [4] equivalent to this: the Battersea Tangle is the confluence of seven railway lines coming from five directions. From the south, clockwise, they are
This is also the area covered by the Sketch map of the Battersea 'Tangle' in Sherwood's book, [5] and by the pre- and post-grouping ownership diagrams in Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith's volume on Clapham Junction. [6]
Point |
Coordinates (Links to map resources) |
OS Grid Ref | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Vauxhall | 51°29′07″N 0°07′22″W / 51.4854°N 0.1229°W | TQ30437794 | 1848– |
Clapham Junction | 51°27′53″N 0°10′14″W / 51.4646°N 0.1705°W | TQ27187554 | 1863– |
Wandsworth Road | 51°28′12″N 0°08′18″W / 51.47°N 0.1384°W | TQ29397620 | 1863– |
|
51°28′40″N 0°08′52″W / 51.4779°N 0.1477°W | TQ28737706 | 1867– |
Queenstown Road | 51°28′29″N 0°08′49″W / 51.4748°N 0.147°W | TQ28787672 | 1877– |
Point |
Coordinates (Links to map resources) |
OS Grid Ref | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Clapham Common (Wandsworth till 1846) |
51°27′34″N 0°10′24″W / 51.4594°N 0.1733°W | TQ27007496 | 1838–1863 |
Nine Elms | 51°29′05″N 0°07′40″W / 51.4846°N 0.1278°W | TQ30097784 | 1838–1848 |
The Royal Station | 51°28′55″N 0°07′41″W / 51.4819°N 0.1280°W | TQ30087754 | 1854–1876 |
Pimlico | 51°28′56″N 0°08′55″W / 51.4823°N 0.1486°W | TQ28657755 | 1858–1860 |
New Wandsworth | 51°27′31″N 0°10′22″W / 51.4587°N 0.1727°W | TQ27047488 | 1858–1869 |
Battersea Park (Battersea till 1862) |
51°29′00″N 0°08′52″W / 51.4832°N 0.1477°W | TQ28717765 | 1860–1870 |
Stewart's Lane (LCDR)??? | 51°28′29″N 0°08′32″W / 51.4748°N 0.1423°W | TQ29117672 | 1863–1867 |
Stewart's Lane (WELCPR) | 51°28′35″N 0°08′34″W / 51.4763°N 0.1428°W | TQ29077689 | 1858–1858 |
Battersea | 51°28′17″N 0°10′20″W / 51.47152°N 0.1722°W | TQ27047631 | 1863–1940 |
Battersea Park Road | 51°28′42″N 0°08′43″W / 51.4782°N 0.1452°W | TQ28907710 | 1867–1916 |
In the early years of the ninteenth century, the area between Clapham Common and the Thames was mostly open fields. Among them were found Long Hedge Farm, the market gardens of Samuel Poupart, Lavender Hill and the Falcon brook, all of which left their names to later railway features.
Market gardens lay below Lavender Hill. "This was dairy-farm and market-garden country, supplying food for London." [7] Longhedge Farm's northern border was the long hedge on the line of what is now Battersea Park Road (A3205) [8]
Queen Victoria purchased Osborne House on the Isle of Wight in 1845, and thereafter she and Prince Albert regularly took the train from Nine Elms to Gosport. When Nine Elms closed to passengers in 1848, becoming only a goods depot, the Queen still found Nine Elms more convenient than Waterloo, and the LSWR continued to make it available to her by special arrangement. However, hosting royalty in a goods depot was impractical, so in 1854 the LSWR created a private station on a siding to the south of the lines to Waterloo. The station was approached by a carriage drive off Wandsworth Road, and at first had only an awning, but in 1857 a luxuriously appointed waiting room was built for her Majesty and her guests. After the Prince Consort's death in 1861 the station was used less. It finally closed and was removed when the viaduct was widened in 1891. [11]
In 1854, the London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company started a train-based funeral service, running from its own station beside Waterloo Station, out to Brookwood Cemetery, where a short branch allowed trains to deliver both coffins and mourners direct to the mortuary chapels. Renamed the London Necropolis Railway in 1927, it continued operating until its Waterloo terminus was destroyed by bombing on 16 April 1941. In practice, the trains were composed of LSWR (later SR) locomotives and rolling stock (apart from the specially-built hearse carriages), run by those companies, and the LNR owned no track except at Waterloo and Brookwood, running through Battersea on the Waterloo–Basingstoke line. [12] [13]
WLER opened 2 Mar 1863; 8 trains each direction daily Southall - Victoria; BG services withdrawn Sep 1866; by 1897 svcs between Victoria and Windsor, Reading, Uxbridge; from 16 April 1905 railcars ran to Victoria and Claphma Junction, until 22 March 1915; passenger svcs to Victoria ceased 12 July 1915. [14]
Nine Elms history, maps and pictures
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High Speed 1#Section 1 terminating at Waterloo International, with coaching stock stabled at North Pole Depot, Old Oak Common, via WLER lines using Sheepcote Lane Junction (formerly West London Jnc) [23]
WLR/Waterloo lines lifted 1936, reinstated 15 November 1992 for Eurostar. [24]
The British Transport Commission proposed, in 1951, that a museum for larger railway exhibits should be established at the disused Nine Elms station, which then still had its 1838 facade. However, British Railways would not release the building; the exhibits were moved to a bus garage in Clapham, and eventually to the National Railway Museum in York. [25]
In 1961, the artist Terence Cuneo was commissioned by British Railway's Southern Region to paint a poster of Clapham Junction.
Here was a veritable Grand Canyon of railway impedimenta. A vast area of tracks, points and crossovers, signal gantries, bridges and station platforms and out of this tangled medley I had to pick a view which would display the Junction to best advantage.
— Terence Cuneo, The Railway Painting of Terence Cuneo (1984)
Cuneo chose the gantry supporting 'A' signal box [26] as the viewpoint for a painting [27] of the trains and tracks spreading out through Clapham Junction station to the west. He added a variety of trains and locomotives to the picture as they passed, but when he submitted his initial efforts to the scrutiny of the men in the signal box, he found he had to rearrange all but two of them to comply with the railwaymen's professional regard for regulations and timetables. [28]
The tracks and warehouses of the ex-GWR South Lambeth goods depot appear in the foreground of the cover picture of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals.
Category:Battersea
Category:Rail infrastructure in London
Category:History of rail transport in London
Category:Transport in the London Borough of Wandsworth