Victoria Place, Richmond

Image: © Stefan Czapski Taken: 24 Dec 2016

Victoria Place is a wide passageway running between Red Lion Street and George Street. The view here is roughly south-east, towards Red Lion Street. Many years ago - while at the Bartlett School of Architecture - I did some historical research into the development of central Richmond. As I remember it, this area was the target of a campaign of slum clearance in about the 1870s. Contemporary illustrations showed tarred weather-boarded cottages, with access along narrow passageways. (One such alleyway - Artichoke Walk - survives close by, in name at least). Just as Victoria Street (SW1) was driven through the slums of Westminster, and New Oxford Street driven through the rookeries of St Giles's, Victoria Place was cut through an impoverished corner of Richmond. The intention in each case was to displace and disperse the flea-bitten, vice-ridden members of the 'lower orders'. Victorian philanthropy . . . The destructive intent still shows, I think, in Victoria Place. The pedestrian passageway seems wider than it need be, and the place feels semi-inhabited.

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