Clapham

For other places with the same name, see Clapham (disambiguation).

Clapham is a neighbourhood primarily in the London Borough of Lambeth, South London.

Clapham dates back to Anglo-Saxon times; the name is said to derive from the Anglo-Saxon word for "Clappa's farm". In the late seventeenth century, large country houses began to be built here, and through the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, it was favoured by the upper classes, with many large and gracious houses and villas built around Clapham Common and in the Old Town. Samuel Pepys spent the last two years of his life in Clapham living with his friend and former servant William Hewer and he died there in 1703.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Clapham Sect were a group of upper class (mostly evangelical Anglican) social reformers who lived around the Common. They included William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton and Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian Thomas Macaulay, as well as William Smith, M.P., the dissenter and Unitarian. They were very prominent in campaigns for the abolition of slavery, against child labour and for prison reform. They also promoted missionary activity in Britain's colonies.

After the coming of the railways, Clapham developed as a suburb for daily commuters into central London, and by 1900, it had fallen from favour with the upper classes. Most of their grand houses had been demolished by the middle of the twentieth century, though a few remain around the Common and in the Old Town, as do a substantial number of fine late eighteenth and early nineteenth century houses. In the twentieth century, Clapham was seen as an unremarkable suburb, often cited as representing the ordinary people: the so-called "man on the Clapham omnibus".

Today Clapham covers a largish area surrounding Clapham Common, with Holy Trinity Church (1776) close to the North Side. The Old Town and High Street to the east of the Common have a lively set of restaurants and shops. At the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first, local property prices rose steeply, and Clapham is now home to a rather homogeneous grouping of affluent young white collar workers in their twenties and thirties; the "man on the Clapham omnibus" is nowadays more likely to be a trainee accountant, lawyer or investment banker. Most of the High Street's bars and restaurants cater for them and are packed to the rafters at weekends. However to some degree the area retains a vestige of its formerly mixed character, with different social and ethnic groups living alongside each other.

Natsume Soseki's lodgings in Clapham, South London

The other side of the Common, encompassing Battersea Rise, Northcote Road and the area known as "Between the Commons", is popular with young middle-class professional families. (Although this area is often referred to as Clapham, it is in SW11 and is, in fact, in Battersea - part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and not Lambeth.)

The main railway station

Clapham Junction (which is actually in Battersea)

is the largest junction on the UK network being the point where routes to the west and southwest of London converge. Other stations include:

Nearest places:

There are several tube stations on the Northern Line in Clapham::

Clapham Common tube station
Clapham North tube station (border with Stockwell)
Clapham South tube station (border with Balham)

See also: Clapham Sect

See also: Local Web Site [ClaphamHighStreet.co.uk]

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