Vauxhall Road and the Elixir of Life ( was The Diary)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 86803


Geoff:
The riddle of Riddle's diary is becoming quite interesting. Shaun (in 
message 86772) has raised the point of streets being known by two 
different names, There are instances of streets changing names. I 
lived for 45 years in south-west London, mostly in Wandsworth and for 
the first two years of marriage in Wimbledon, about four miles away 
from Vauxhall.  There is a long road connecting Wandsworth and 
Tooting which until the 1930s was two separate roads with a name 
change about halfway. It is now known by only one name; the old name 
is commemorated by "formerly known as 

 Road" at intervals.

I note, having seen a comment from Steve Vander Ark (in message 
86770), that Tom Riddle may have been at Stockwell Orphanage. To put 
non-UK readers a little more in the picture, Vauxhall is an area on 
the south bank of the Thames about 1 mile upstream (south) of the 
Houses of Parliament. It is a very busy junction with roads from 
seven different directions converging. Vauxhall Bridge Road, which 
may have muddied the investigation, is just on the north side of 
Vauxhall bridge leading to Victoria. The present Kennington Lane runs 
eastwards from here for about a mile to the Elephant and Castle 
junction. Halfway along, it crosses Kennington Road which runs for 
about a mile basically south from Waterloo station to the Oval (the 
famous cricket ground) - the crossing in terms of Kennington Road 
being about a third of a mile north of the Oval. From the Oval, 
Stockwell is about two-thirds of a mile south-east.

I checked out the notes re the murder and agree with Shaun's 
information. The fact that a house number was given in the report 
means that Vauxhall Road certainly existed at the time – the question 
is where? I have proof from the 1934 London bus map that Kennington 
Road and Upper Kennington Lane (now Kennington Lane) certainly 
existed. However, the map does not show the section of Kennington 
Lane which now exists between the Kennington Road crossing and the 
Elephant and Castle, because no buses ran that way. This would appear 
to be the possible location and that at some point between 1942 now, 
the whole stretch of road became Kennington Lane.

I commented in an earlier post that Vauxhall seemed a bit off track 
for Tom Riddle. However, if he was at Stockwell, getting from Kings 
Cross to there is easy because both stations are on the Tube 
(Northern Line); Kennington is a station on the same line in between 
and is only a few minutes walk from what might have been Vauxhall 
Road, so he might have broken a journey or walked the mile and a half 
or so from Stockwell to the Kennington area. When I was a kid, it was 
not unusual to walk fair distances in the town to save on bus fares 
etc. This is not a definitive proof, but it does tie up some of the 
loose ends. Hope it makes sense to folk not familiar with London.

Geoff