Place Name
Originally called Ferry Lane. So-named because of its proximity to Battersea’s first, and for a long time, only river crossing. By the 1740s two straight roads, the northern end of the present Battersea Bridge Road and Ferry Lane, linked Battersea village and its emerging road system with the ferry across the River Thames to Chelsea. The development of these roads may have been influenced by proposals from the St John family, then lords of Battersea manor, for a bridge on the ferry site. However Battersea Bridge wasn’t constructed until 1771 – 1772 under a new lord of the manor, the 2nd Earl Spencer.
