Place Name
The Angell family owned estates around Lambeth from the late 17thCentury after William Angell, originally from Crowhurst in Surrey, bought land in area. But it was his grandson Justinian who secured the family’s connection with the borough following his marriage to Elizabeth Scaldwell whose father John owned large swathes of land in Lambeth Manor as well as the leasehold of Stockwell Manor. When John died this property was left via his wife to his two grandsons, Thomas Fox and John Angell junior. At some stage Thomas passed his share to his cousin. But when John junior died unexpectedly in 1784, there began a long legal squabble, which was only resolved six years later when William Brown, a distant cousin, was given the estate on the condition, in accordance with the complicated will, that he change his name to Angell. Some development of the land began in the early 19thCentury but it took off around 1850 with the building of the Angell Estate. In 1852 Benedict Angell gave the land for St John’s Church. The last part of the estate to be developed was Angell Terrace, between St John’s Crescent and Gresham Road, which was only completed in 1868. Much of the original estate was demolished by Lambeth Council in the early 1970s to build their own Angell Town Estate, but it had to be rebuilt many years later due to poor design.
