Lambeth gets its name from being a ‘lamb hythe’ – the wharf where lambs were shipped.

It’s difficult to imagine that deer, wild boar and wild bulls were to be found here, but deer were still being hunted here in the park as late as 1768.

Shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1066, Geoffrey de Mandeville bequeathed three extensive properties, Ebury, Neate and Hyde, to the monks of Westminster.

It is believed to have been the burial place of the lepers who used to live in the former Hospital of St James’s, the site of which was used by Henry VIII to build St James’s Palace. The name Green Park was given because no flowers are planted there, the reason for this being that it was a burial area. In the eighteenth century it was a favourite

The Underground station is named after the pub that stands near the meeting point of the roads to Kennington, Walworth and Lambeth.

The first railway escalator was installed at Earls Court Underground Station in 1911. Nervous passengers were so suspicious of this new-fangled device that the station authorities employed a man with a wooden leg – nicknamed ‘Bumper’ Harris – to travel up and down the escalator all day long, just to show everyone how safe it was!

In modern English, we would refer to a Cutty Sark as a ‘mini-skirt’! The ship got its name from the witch in Robert Burns’ poem ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ (1791), which was written in a Scottish idiom. The witch wore just a ‘cutty sark’

Covent Garden market in about 1820. St Paul’s church is seen at the back of the picture.

This land was once the herb and vegetable garden belonging to the Convent of St Peter at Westminster – better known today as Westminster Abbey.