Vauxhall

 

Vauxhall is derived from Falkes de Breauté, the head of King John's mercenaries, who owned a large house in the area, which was referred to as Faulke's Hall, later Foxhall, and eventually Vauxhall. The area only became generally known by this name when the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens opened as a public attraction. Initially most visitors would have approached by river, but crowds of Londoners of all classes came to know the area after the construction of Westminster Bridge in the 1740s. The station was opened by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) as "Vauxhall Bridge Station" on 11 July 1848 when the main line was extended from Nine Elms to Waterloo, then "Waterloo Bridge Station". It is on a viaduct with eight platforms. The deep tube London Underground station is on the Victoria line, and opened on 23 July 1971. Vauxhall was located next to a major creamery and milk bottling plant for United Dairies. The regular daily milk train was from Torrington, but milk trains from all over the West Country would stop at Clapham Junction in the evening, and reduce their length by half so that they did not block Vauxhall station while unloading. They would then proceed to Vauxhall, and pull into the "down" side platform, where a discharge pipe was provided to the creamery on the other side of the road.

 

There are competing theories as to why the Russian word for a central railway station is вокзал (vokzal), which coincides with the canonical 19th-century transliteration of "Vauxhall". It has long been suggested that a Russian delegation visited the area to inspect the construction of the London and South Western Railway in 1840, and mistook the name of the station for the generic name of the building type. This was further embellished into a story that the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, visiting London in 1844, was taken to see the trains at Vauxhall and made the same mistake. The locality of the L&SWR's original railway terminus, Nine Elms Station, was shown boldly and simply as "Vauxhall" in the 1841 Bradshaw timetable. The bus station, at ground level across the road from the rail station, has a photovoltaic roof supplying much of its electricity. The station has cash machines, Euro cash machines, escalators, payphones, wi-fi and help points.

 

Connections: National Rail. London Buses routes 2,77, 88, 344, 360 and night route N2 serve the station.

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