Vauxhall Topics

• Station
• Bridge
• Underground

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Vauxhall, Vauxhall

This pavilion was called the Vokzal in homage to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London. The name soon came to be applied to the station itself, which was the gateway that most visitors used to enter the gardens. It later came to mean any substantial railway station building (a different Russian word, stantsiya , is used for minor stations).

In recent years, Vauxhall's riverside has undergone major redevelopment with the construction of a number of modern residential and office blocks, most notably the distinctive MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross.

Vauxhall is also a popular residential area for Members of Parliament and civil servants due to its proximity to the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall -- Kennington is within the area wired for the Commons' Division bell.

Today the church is a community centre and arts venue as well as a church. Next to the St Peter's is Vauxhall City Farm.

More recently, a large complex of apartments and offices has been built to the south of Vauxhall Bridge.

The latter featured a fictional London Underground station, Vauxhall Cross, a supposedly closed stop on the Piccadilly Line now employed by MI6 as an extension to its HQ. In fact, the Piccadilly Line does not come south of the river at all; only the Victoria Line passes anywhere nearby, and the secret entrance to the station shown in the film is on the east side of Westminster Bridge some considerable distance down river.

Through 2002 to 2004 the Cross underwent a gradual redesign to accommodate a bus interchange linked to the Vauxhall mainline railway and tube stations, both of which are located to the south-eastern end of the cross. Work has involved design changes to traffic lanes, improved pedestrian and cycle crossings, refurbishment of walkways beneath the mainline railway viaduct, and the construction of a bus station, completed in December 2004 featuring an undulating steel-frame canopy and ribbed steel walls. An interesting feature of the canopy is a series of photoelectric cells generating electricity to offset the energy used by the bus station.

However, the market has become more and more lucrative with the arrival of more venues and more nights, and Vauxhall has been criticised as becoming increasingly commercial, diluting its once underground appeal. But the demise of other club venues in London, such as Turnmills, the Astoria and The Fridge, have led to the gay club scene to become more centralised in Vauxhall, turning it into an alternative destination from Soho for gay people to socialise. Vauxhall has also become colloquially known as "Voho" (a consolidation of the names Vauxhall and Soho) within the gay community, due to the emergence of Vauxhall as a gay village after Soho.

Source: Wikipedia > Vauxhall