Place Name
Agricultural heritage. Named after the crop that was cultivated in the market gardens of Battersea Fields in the 18thCentury which was used to make perfume or for medicinal purposes. The higher well-drained soil, which was also used to grow asparagus, was surrounded by marshland. The first reference to the name came in the summer of 1774 when a Mr Porter put up a reward for the return of his pony, which has strayed or been stolen from “a Field on Lavender-Hill”. The Survey of London project states: “This is the earliest mention to have come to light of a name which, by implication, was already in common use. It referred to the north-facing slopes on either side of the Wandsworth road between the Battersea–Clapham boundary and the crossroads by the Falcon inn, at what is now Clapham Junction: a distance of about three-quarters of a mile. The roadway itself, which runs lengthways just below the crest of the hill, was not generally called Lavender Hill until well into the second half of the nineteenth century. No doubt it was the commercial growing of lavender that helped distinguish this area from the wider district of Battersea Rise, but firm evidence for lavender’s cultivation here is lacking… The name may have been applied originally to a single property, for a field on the north side of the road was once called Sun Hill and a field or fields on the south side Rush Hill. The first house here to have the name ‘Lavender’ was Lavender Hall on the south side in 1790, later called Lavender Lodge and finally Linden Lodge.” The road itself formed part of the Southwark to Kingston Turnpike from 1717.
