Place Name
The now hidden River Effra, which rises in Upper Norwood and flows out into the River Thames, close to the MI6 building at Vauxhall Bridge, runs near here. First appearing in 1840, the name is believed to be modernisation of the Old English word efre which means bank or ridge. But as David Mills in A Dictionary of London Place Names explains “the origin of the name Effra is obscure, unless it is an unusual 19th-century antiquarian revival”. He adds: “Appearing in the 7th-century bounds of Battersea and Wandsworth in the phrase hēah yore ‘high bank or ridge’ at a point where the stream meets the Thames.” He suggests that the name of Brockwell Park, which the river skirts, may have been an earlier name for the stream. The Brixton Society writes: “This was formed in 1810 during the enclosure of Rush Common. It ran in front of Effra Farm, between Coldharbour Lane and Brixton Water Lane. Effra appears to be a corruption of Heathrow, the name of the farm or estate shown in medieval records. The Effra Hall or farmhouse stood roughly where the Effra Hall Tavern stands today. The farm also gave its name to the river which runs through it. In fact the watercourse runs almost the length of Lambeth, rising near Crystal Palace, running alongside Brixton Road from the police station northwards, and emerging near the foot of Vauxhall Bridge.”
