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Stamford Hill

Stamford Hill is an area in Inner London, England, about 5.5 miles north-east of Charing Cross. The neighbourhood is a sub-district of Hackney, the major component of the London Borough of Hackney, and is known for its Hasidic community, the largest concentration of orthodox Ashkenazi in Europe.

The district takes its name from the eponymous hill, which reaches a height of 108 ft (33m) AOD, and the originally Roman A10 also takes the name "Stamford Hill", as it makes its way through the area.

The hill is believed to be named after the ford where the A10 crossed the Hackney Brook on the southern edge of the hill. Sanford and Saundfordhill are referred to in documents from the 1200s, and mean "sand Ford". Roque's map of 1745 shows a bridge, which replaced the ford, referred to as "Stamford Bridge".

The hill rises gently from the former course of the Hackney Brook to the south, and its steeper northern slope provided a natural boundary for the traditional (parish and borough) extent of Hackney, and now does so for the wider modern borough.

History
Stamford Hill lies on the old Roman road of Ermine Street, on the high ground where it meets the Clapton Road, which runs from central Hackney. By the 18th century, the Roman road (now numbered as the A10) was subject to heavy traffic, including goods wagons pulled by six or more horses, and this caused the surface of the road to deteriorate. The local parishes appealed to Parliament in 1713 for the right to set up a Turnpike Trust, to pay for repairs and maintenance. Gates were installed at Kingsland and Stamford Hill, to collect the tolls.

Roque's map of 1745 shows a handful of buildings around the Turnpike, and by 1795, the A10 was lined with the large homes and extensive grounds of wealthy financiers and merchants attracted, in part, by the elevated position.

Stamford Hill had a gibbet that was used to display the remains of criminals executed at Tyburn in the 1740s. In 1765, a map of the area showed the Gibbet Field south of the road from Clapton Common, behind Cedar House.

The area remained essentially rural in character, and little more was built until the arrival of the railway in 1872, and the tram system at about the same time. Stamford Hill was the point where the tram line coming north from the City met the Hackney tram line, and so, it became a busy interchange, with a depot opening in 1873. Electrification commenced in 1902 and by 1924 a service was commenced between Stamford Hill and Camden Town along Amhurst Park.

Stamford Hill had many eminent Jewish residents, including the Montefiore family. Italian-born Moses Vita Montefiore (died 1789) was living there in 1763. His son Joseph (died 1804) married Rachel Mocatta, and his grandson Abraham Montefiore (died 1824) married Henrietta, whose father, the financier Nathan Meyer Rothschild, lived near the modern Colberg Place from 1818 to 1835. The Montefiores' property a little further south was to be transformed by Abraham's grandson, Claude Montefiore, into Montefiore House school. With the increased development of the area, many distinguished families moved away: In 1842, there were few remaining of the wealthy Jews who had once settled in Hackney. The philanthropist and abolitionist MP Samuel Morley had a residence here from about 1860. The gardening writer and cottage gardener Margery Fish here in 1892.

Until the late 20th century, East London was the focus of Jewish life in England, with settlement heavily focussed on an area in and around Whitechapel, extending from Bishopsgate to Cable Street. The area was chosen because of its cheap rents the independent trades, notably weaving and textiles, known colloquially as "the rag trade". Prosperity, integration and later severe wartime bomb damage saw the community disperse to other parts of East London and more widely. From the 1880's, Stamford Hill received a new influx of Jews from the core area of East End settlement and, in 1915, the New Synagogue was transferred to Stamford Hill to serve this growing population.

In 1926, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations was established in Stamford Hill, and this became a magnet for other strictly observant Jews, many fleeing Nazi persecution in the years before the Second World War. Also, many Jewish families came to the area from other areas of London, refugees in their own way from bombing and post-war clearances for new housing. One of the early Hasidic leaders in Stamford Hill was the Shotzer Rebbe. The Hungarian uprising also led to an influx of Haredi Jews fleeing hardship under Soviet rule. Another notable Jewish resident, from 1955 until his death in 2000, was the spiritual head of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, Rabbi Chanoch Dov Padwa.

Governance
Stamford Hill has never been an administrative area in its own right; it has always been an area of Hackney. Hackney was an administrative unit with consistent boundaries from the early Middle Ages to the creation of the larger modern borough in 1965. Hackney was based for many centuries on the Ancient Parish of Hackney.

The area was part of the historic (or ancient) county of Middlesex, but military and most (or all) civil county functions were managed more locally, by the Tower Division (also known as the Tower Hamlets), a historic ‘county within a county’, under the leadership of the Lord-Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets (the post was always filled by the Constable of the Tower of London). The military loyalty to the Tower meant local men served in the Tower garrison and Tower Hamlets Militia, rather than the Middlesex Militia. The Ancient Parishes provided a framework for both civil (administrative) and ecclesiastical (church) functions, but during the nineteenth century, there was a divergence into distinct civil and ecclesiastical parish systems. In London, the Ecclesiastical Parishes sub-divided to better serve the needs of a growing population, while the Civil Parishes continued to be based on the same Ancient Parish areas.

The London Government Act 1899 converted the parishes into Metropolitan Boroughs based on the same boundaries, sometimes with minor rationalisations. In 1965, Hackney merged with Shoreditch and Stoke Newington to form the new London Borough of Hackney.

Boundaries
The area's usual definition is based on the physical feature of the hill and the neighbourhood's location within the Ancient Parish and subsequent (with almost identical boundaries) Metropolitan Borough of Hackney. It also reflects the fact that what was originally the Roman A10 also takes the name 'Stamford Hill' as goes over the hill between the brook and the borough boundary.

Northern boundary with Tottenham: Takes the northern boundary of the AP\MB of Hackney. This corresponds to the current boundary between the modern borough of Hackney and Haringey.

Western boundary with Stoke Newington: Takes part of the AP\MB of Hackney's boundary with the AP\MB of Stoke Newington along Bethune Road and down to the A10.

Southern Boundary with West Hackney: The east–west course of the Hackney Brook, which may have been as wide as 22m at this point, provided a natural southern boundary for the district, however the river was culverted and it is now difficult to discern its former course on the ground. This has led to very ambiguous boundary, along its former course, in the Cazenove\Northwold Road area.

East and south-east boundary with Upper Clapton: Upper Clapton is also part of Hackney and shares much of the eastern side of the hill. There is little tradition of a particular border. The post code boundary is sometimes used but this is arbitrary: post code areas are not intended to define districts.

Demography
The high fertility of the Haredi community contributes to the area having one of highest birthrates in the UK, with a crude birth rate of more than 25 per 1,000 of the population, twice the UK average.

The data table shows 2011 ONS Census data for the wards around Stamford Hill, where respondents indicated a religion:

 * The London Borough of Hackney has expressed its concern that Haredi Jewish residents are seriously under-counted in the Census data, as the religion question is voluntary.

Haredi Jewish community
Stamford Hill is at the centre of an Ashkenazi strictly-Orthodox Jewish, and predominantly Hasidic, community estimated to be some 15,000 strong, and growing at a rate of around 5% each year. It is the largest Hasidic community in Europe, and referred to as a square mile of piety, reflecting the many Jewish men seen walking in their distinctive clothes on their way to and from worship. The congregations often represent historical links with particular areas of Eastern Europe in their dress and their worship. Many also retain links with congregations around the world. The largest of these congregations is the Satmar dynasty, which has five directly associated synagogues; Belz is another large community, with four synagogues. As well as Stamford Hill's own Jewish population, there are also many observant Jews in neighbouring Upper Clapton, West Hackney, Stoke Newington, and Tottenham; there may be as many as 80 synagogues in this wider area.

A volunteer emergency response first-aid service called Hatzola (the Hebrew word for rescue) and a volunteer community watch group called Shomrim (the Hebrew word for watchmen) are run by, and largely for, the Jewish community.

The strictly Orthodox Jewish community relies mostly on private education for schooling, with almost all Jewish children attending private, single-sex Jewish schools. In 2005, the Stamford Hill Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School achieved voluntary-aided status. In 2014, the Oxford, Cambridge, and RSA (OCR) Exam board, having conducted an investigation into alleged exam malpractice, concluded that the school had redacted questions involving the evolution of species on GCSE science exam questions. Ofqual subsequently ruled that blocking out exam questions is malpractice, and, accordingly, not permissible. The same year, it was reported by the BBC that many of the yeshivas in the area "usually don't provide any maths, English or science" classes and were operating "without the most basic health, safety, and child welfare checks". In an article on Stamford Hill yeshivas, The Daily Telegraph cited government documents obtained by Channel 4's Dispatches and the Jewish Chronicle as saying that between 800 and 1000 boys aged between 13 and 16 are "missing" from the school system in the borough of Hackney alone.

Haredi families, on average, have 5.9 children, almost 2.5 times the average for England and Wales, and many families live in over-crowded flats. National planning policy and guidance are applied by the local council, prohibiting development of family housing. This has led to conflict between the council and the Jewish population, sometimes represented by the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. Agudas Israel Housing Association is active in developing housing for the Jewish community in Stamford Hill.

There is also a notable population of Yemenite Jews, especially Adeni Jews who originated in the port city of Aden in Yemen. They settled in Stamford Hill, after fleeing anti-Jewish violence at the end of the Aden Protectorate. The Adeni Congregation synagogue, Nahalat Yosef, is named after the original Adeni synagogue in Yemen. A further wave of immigration of Yemenite Jews occurred in the 1990s and 2000s when several families escaped antisemitic persecution from Houthis in the north of Yemen.

In 2014, the community met with controversy after a sign was spotted in the location reading, "Women should please walk along this side of the road only". The sign was reportedly put up for a Torah Procession parade, and was meant to provide directions for members who wished to avoid contact with the opposite sex. After complaints about the sign were raised, a group of Shomrim who regularly police the area contacted the organisers to tell them that the posters "lacked explanation". The posters were removed, and the organisers agreed to take the signs down more quickly the following year.

Since the 2011 census, there has been a migration of Stamford Hill Hasidic Jews to Canvey Island, in Essex. Canvey Island has a fairly homogenous ethnic make-up, and did not previously have a significant Jewish presence, but community relations appear to be good, and were the subject of a TV documentary.

Education
The Jesuit order founded St Ignatius' College, nearby, at the foot of the hill, on High Road, Tottenham, in 1894, The school consisted of two houses called Morecombe Lodge and Burleigh House. In 1907, the college was recognised by the Board of Education, and began to receive public money. Notable former pupils of St Ignatius include Alfred Hitchcock and Cardinal Heenan. It remained as a grammar school until 1968, and then became a two-form entry comprehensive school, the Lower School being located at the old Cardinal Allen School in Enfield, and the Upper School in new premises at Turkey Street, Enfield.

Today, Lubavitch Senior Girls' School, Our Lady's RC High School, Skinners' Academy, and Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School are secondary schools located in the area.

There are also many independent or Haredi schools in the area.

Notable people

 * Lionel Blair (1928–2021), Canadian-born British actor, grew up in Stamford Hill
 * Bernard Butler (born 1970), guitarist, known for his time with Suede; born in Stamford Hill
 * Mel Calman (1931–1994), cartoonist and writer, was born in Stamford Hill
 * Dave Kaye (1906–1996), pianist, lived in Stamford Hill
 * Leona Lewis (born 1985), singer, songwriter, first female winner of The X Factor; lived in Stamford Hill
 * Moses Montefiore (1784 –1885), financier and philanthropist, lived in Stamford Hill
 * Samuel Morley (1809–1886), philanthropist and abolitionist, born in Homerton and lived in Stamford Hill
 * Rabbi Chanoch Dov Padwa (1908–2000), Orthodox Jewish posek, Talmudist and rabbinic leader, lived in Stamford Hill
 * Nathan Meyer Rothschild (1777–1836), financier, lived in Stamford Hill
 * Mark Williams (born 1955), cricketer, was born in Stamford Hill
 * Clavish (born 1998), rapper, was born in Stamford Hill
 * Paul Greer (born 1975), creator of the Nitro Warriors series of popular stop-motion films, lived in Stamford Hill

Nearby areas

 * North-west - Harringay
 * North - South Tottenham
 * North-east - Walthamstow
 * West - Manor House
 * Centre - Stamford Hill
 * East - Clapton
 * South-west - Finsbury Park
 * South - Stoke Newington
 * South-east - Upper Clapton

Nearest stations

 * Stamford Hill Overground station
 * South Tottenham Overground station
 * Manor House tube station
 * Seven Sisters station
 * Stoke Newington Overground station

title: Stamford Hill


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Stanmore

Stanmore is part of the London Borough of Harrow in Greater London. It is centred 11 mi northwest of Charing Cross, lies on the outskirts of the London urban area and includes Stanmore Hill, one of the highest points of London, at 152 m high. The district, which developed from the ancient Middlesex parishes of Great and Little Stanmore, lies immediately west of Roman Watling Street (the A5 road) and forms the eastern part of the modern London Borough of Harrow.

Stanmore is the location of the former RAF Bentley Priory station – base of the Fighter Command during both world wars – along with its accommodating Bentley Priory mansion, notably the last residence of Queen Adelaide. Some members of the Bernays family were also based here, including Adolphus Bernays and his son and grandson who were both rectors of St John's church; the Bernays Institute and Bernays Gardens are public amenities in the centre of the old village.

The district increasingly developed into a London suburb during the 20th century, and in the latter half housed the Automobile Association's regional headquarters. Today it is a commuter town with a tube station that is the northern terminus of the Jubilee line, and large green spaces.

Toponymy
The place earliest documented use of the name comes from a charter of 793, when land in Stanmore was granted to St Albans Abbey. The Domesday book of 1086 records the two manors of Stanmore as Stanmere, the name deriving from the Old English stan, 'stony' and mere, 'a pool'. There are outcrops of gravel on the clay soil here and the mere, which gave the manors their name, may have been one of the ponds which still exist. One possible candidate is a pond on Stanmore Common still sometimes known as Caesars Pond after a battle believed to have taken place in the vicinity in 54BC.

Rome
An obelisk on Brockley Hill, in the grounds of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, marks the reputed site of a battle between Julius Caesar's Roman legions and the local Catuvellauni tribe, under Cassivellaunus. This battle is said to have taken place during Caesar's raid in force on Britain, in 54BC. Britain was conquered after Claudius invaded in 43AD; sometime after this the Romans established a local settlement called Sulloniacis.

Origins of the Manors and Parishes of Stanmore
A manor called Stanmore is first recorded in 793 AD, and the Domesday book of 1086 describes pre-existing manors (estates) of Great and Little Stanmore as having changed ownership in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest. These estates were subsequently served by the ancient parishes of Great and Little Stanmore.

Pre-urban
Until the late 19th century, Stanmore was a small rural community. In the Middle Ages, a monastic community of cell of Augustinian Canons was established at Bentley Priory. It was dissolved in 1536 during the dissolution of the monasteries. One of the really old surviving buildings are the Cottrell cottages built c. 1565. It suggests that the medieval population centre in Stanmore was around the present day Broadway, before the developments among Stanmore Hill in the late 18th.

Stately homes
Between 1713 and 1724, the 1st Duke of Chandos built Cannons house in Little Stanmore. Shortly after, in 1729 Andrew Drummond, the founder of the Drummonds Bank and Jacobite sympathiser, purchased Stanmore House and the Stanmore Park estate as his country residence. A new mansion was built for Andrew Drummond at Stanmore Park in 1763: it was designed in neo Palladian style by John Vardy and Sir William Chambers. Zoffany painted the Drummond family in the grounds. The Drummonds leased Stanmore House to the Countess of Aylesford (in 1815) and later to Lord Castlereagh. The Marquess of Abercorn acquired the estate, along with Bentley Priory, in 1839. In 1848, Stanmore House was sold again to George Glyn, 1st Baron Wolverton. The house was later used as a boys' preparatory school. It was demolished in 1938 and the site was taken over by the Royal Auxiliary Air Force as the headquarters of Balloon Command. The history of the area is reflected in street names, such as Lady Aylesford Avenue and Abercorn Road. RAF Stanmore Park closed in 1997 and is now a housing estate.

The wealthy businessman James Duberley commissioned Sir John Soane to design a large mansion house north of the original Bentley Priory in 1775. This house was added to throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by various owners. It was significantly extended in 1788, again by Sir John Soane, for John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn. The Priory was the final home of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, queen consort of William IV, before her death there in 1849. In 1882 Bentley Priory was acquired by the hotel millionaire Frederick Gordon, who turned it into a country house hotel for wealthy guests.

The opera librettist W. S. Gilbert (of the Gilbert and Sullivan duo) lived at Grim's Dyke, a country house located between Stanmore and Harrow Weald. In 1911, Gilbert drowned in the pond at Grim's Dyke. He was cremated at Golders Green and his ashes buried at the churchyard of St. John's Church, Stanmore.

Urbanisation
The railways first reached Stanmore in 1890 when Frederick Gordon opened the Stanmore branch line to improve access to Bentley, in the hope of attracting more affluent customers. Great Stanmore Parish Council stipulated that Gordon's new station building should be of the highest quality, and so Stanmore station (later renamed Stanmore Village) was designed to resemble a small English church, complete with a spire and gargoyles. Trains were run by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). Gordon also purchased land near the station and laid out a wide avenue—named Gordon Avenue—lined with new superior houses, in the hope of attracting wealthy Londoners to come to live in the country and commute into the city on his new railway. Despite his efforts, Gordon's business ventures at Stanmore were not successful, and in 1899 he sold the railway to the LNWR. Gordon died in 1904 at his Hotel Metropole in Cannes. His body was brought back to Stanmore and buried in the family grave at the church of St. John's Church.

In the early years of the 20th century, as the population of London grew, Stanmore was affected by increasing urbanisation and the small rural village was rapidly becoming a suburb of London. In December 1932 the Metropolitan Railway (MR) opened a new electric railway with a station at (now the London Underground station on the Jubilee line). This rapid, direct route into London presented strong competition for Gordon's old railway (by now run by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS)), especially as branch line passengers had to change trains at Harrow & Wealdstone for London services. After years of decline, Stanmore Village station was closed by British Railways in 1952.

The war and afterwards
During World War II, Stanmore played an important role. Stanmore had an outstation from the Bletchley Park codebreaking establishment, where some of the Bombes used to decode German Enigma messages were housed. Bentley Priory was taken over by the RAF, and in 1940 the Battle of Britain was controlled from RAF Bentley Priory. RAF Bentley Priory closed in 2009.

In the 1950s the Automobile Association built and opened a four-storey office building on The Broadway which eventually became the AA regional headquarters for London and the South East. A major employer in Stanmore, the centre once handled up to 3,000 calls a day. In 1986 the AA moved a few hundred yards to a new building on The Broadway. The abandoned building eventually became derelict and a target for vandalism, graffiti and the dumping of rubbish. There were plans to build a shopping centre at the site, but they did not go ahead, leaving the building abandoned for several years with its windows broken before it was demolished in 1993. The site lay empty for several years before Sainsbury's secured its development of a supermarket here, opening at the end of 1999.

Bernays Memorial Institute survived demolition and was restored during a period of 18 years until 2009. However, the AA call operating centre closed in 1997 when it moved its base to Basingstoke, and in January 1999 it was announced that the breakdown centre would close with the loss of 140 jobs, ending the firm's long association with Stanmore. After being sold by the AA the building was used by Carpetright and as offices.

Parish church
The first parish church was the 14th-century St Mary's, built on the site of a wooden Saxon church, which itself may have been built on the site of a Roman compitum shrine. It has now completely disappeared; one tomb survives in a back garden.

This building was replaced by a new one built in the current churchyard, consecrated in 1632 and dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. Built of brick and consecrated by Archbishop Laud, it is one of the relatively small number of churches built in Britain between the medieval period and the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, this church had become considered outdated and unsafe. After its replacement, its roof was pulled off and it became a ruin.

A new church was constructed in the Gothic Revival style from 1849 to 1850. Queen Adelaide's last public appearance was to lay the foundation stone of the new church. She gave the font and when the church was completed after her death, the east window was dedicated to her memory.

Stanmore Hall
Built in the 1840s, Stanmore Hall is a Grade II* listed building built as a gothic castle. Located on Wood Lane near the top of Stanmore Hill, Stanmore Hall was developed by Matthew John Rhodes and was owned by balloonist Robert Hollond and his wife Ellen Hollond, who lived for the rest of their lives at the residence. The interiors were redesigned by William Morris later that century. William Knox D'Arcy resided at the Hall, where he died in 1917. One of the pioneers of the oil exploration business, D'Arcy's funeral was attended by dignitaries and celebrities, carrying his coffin from the hall through the village to St John the Evangelist for service.

After D'Arcy's death Stanmore Hall was sold and no longer used as a family home. During the Second World War it was used by Allied Expeditionary Air Force, and after the war until 1971 it was a nurse's home for the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital.

Stanmore Hall has been used as a filming location, such as the British films Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Nothing but the Night, 1960s series The Avengers and later ITV's The Professionals.

Following neglect, the structure of the building deteriorated, and it received damage by a fire in 1979. Eventually in 1998 the Hall was converted into separate luxury dwellings by a developer.

Modern Stanmore
Many of Stanmore's residents commute to jobs in central London, contributing to the affluent character of the area.

Shopping and hospitality
Central Stanmore includes a range of shops, pubs and restaurants from small independent businesses to large chains.

Open spaces
Stanmore Park is at the foot of Stanmore Hill and right next to the local library. Bentley Priory Nature Reserve, Stanmore Common and Stanmore Country Park are larger parks and nature reserves. Travel and excursion to these places and other attractions such as the Bernays Gardens are promoted by the Stanmore Tourist Board.

Further south is Stanmore Marsh. These 4 ha of wetlands with grassland and woodland ran dry before a restoration project was completed in 2017. Here a tributary of the Stanburn Brook becomes the Edgware Brook when it leaves the marsh travelling east towards Edgware.

Sports clubs
On the border with Bushey is Stanmore Cricket Club, one of the oldest in the Middlesex county championship league, which celebrated 150 years in 2003. The club has nurtured two famous cricketers who have played tests for England in the last two decades: Angus Fraser and Mark Ramprakash.

Schools
Stanmore is home to Avanti House Primary and Secondary Schools, Park High School, Bentley Wood High School, Stanmore College and the North London Collegiate School.

Health
The suburb also hosts the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital – known as RNOH – which is famed for its spinal unit and paediatric/young adult hip unit.

Demography
The population of the London Borough of Harrow ward (Stanmore Park) was 11,229 at the 2011 Census. The Canons ward which covers Stanmore railway station and eastern areas had a population of 12,471 at the same census.

Stanmore has Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, and Jewish communities, including its local synagogue, Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue on London Road (which has one of the largest memberships of any single synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the UK behind Borehamwood), an Islamic centre, KSIMC of London (Hujjat) and a new Hindu temple on Wood Lane.

The 2011 census showed that in Stanmore Park ward, 56% of the population was white (47% British, 7% Other, 2% Irish) and 20% Indian. 31% was Christian, 22% Jewish, 15% Hindu and 11% Muslim. Canons ward (covering eastern areas) was 52% white (40% British, 10% Other, 2% Irish) and 24% Indian. 26% was Christian, 25% Jewish, 18% Hindu and 11% Muslim.

Notable residents

 * Queen Adelaide (1792–1849), queen consort of William IV, lived at Bentley Priory, Stanmore from 1848 until her death.
 * George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Peelite Prime Minister (in office December 1852 – February 1855) was raised and is buried in Stanmore
 * Frederick Gordon, hotel millionaire and builder of the first Stanmore railway
 * W. S. Gilbert, English dramatist, librettist and illustrator; lived at Grim's Dyke and died in the lake there. His ashes are buried in Stanmore.
 * Robert and Ellen Hollond lived here. He was a balloonist and MP, and she founded London's first créche.
 * Clement Attlee, Labour Prime Minister in the first post-war government, lived in a large villa "Heywood", later replaced by mid-rise apartments.
 * Chaz Jankel, singer and multi-instrumentalist, was born in Stanmore.
 * Billy Idol, rock musician, was born in Stanmore.
 * Mary Cholmondeley, Lady Delamere, heiress, born in Stanmore.
 * Dave Bassett, football coach, was born in Stanmore.
 * Clive Anderson, radio and television presenter, was born in Stanmore.
 * Peter Van Hooke, drummer, grew up in Stanmore.
 * Linda Hayden, actress, was born in Stanmore.
 * Anthony Horowitz, screenwriter and author, was born in Stanmore.
 * Cyril Shaps, actor, lived in Stanmore.
 * Laurie Johnson, bandleader and composer, lived in Stanmore between 1962 and 2015.
 * Roger Moore, actor, famous for his role as Simon Templar in The Saint and later as James Bond lived in Stanmore.
 * Patricia Medina, actress, lived in Stanmore.
 * Richard Greene, actor, most notable for his role as Robin Hood, lived in Stanmore when he was married to Patricia Medina.
 * Theo Walcott, footballer, was born in Stanmore.
 * William Knox D'Arcy lived at Stanmore Hall and died there.
 * Keith Vaz, MP, (Lab) and his family lived in Stanmore (2005–2016).
 * Olly Mann, co-host of cult podcast Answer Me This!, grew up in Stanmore.
 * James Bord, professional poker player
 * Bacary Sagna, footballer, lived in Stanmore until 2014 while at Arsenal FC.
 * Jay Foreman, musical comedian, grew up in Stanmore.
 * Beardyman (Darren Foreman), performer and musician, grew up in Stanmore.
 * Matt Lucas, performer and comedian, was born in Central London but grew up in Stanmore.
 * Alexis Sánchez, footballer, lived in Stanmore while playing for Arsenal F.C.
 * Nikki Grahame, television personality and model, lived in Stanmore.
 * Dolly Alderton, author, grew up in Stanmore.

Road
The A410 (London Road/The Broadway/Church Road/Uxbridge Road) runs east–west across Stanmore. To the west it goes towards Harrow Weald and Hatch End. To the east it meets the A5 (Brockley Hill and Stonegrove) at Canons Corner roundabout providing a connection to the M1 motorway and Central London. A short distance east of that is a junction for the A41 trunk road. Marsh Lane and Honeypot Lane travel south towards Queensbury while Stanmore Hill/The Common travels towards Bushey Heath and on to Watford.

Nearby places

 * Elstree
 * Borehamwood
 * Edgware
 * Bushey
 * Watford
 * Harrow Weald
 * Belmont

Tube/Trains
Stanmore is the northern terminus of the Jubilee line, giving the area direct London Underground access to Central London. The Stanmore branch line to Harrow & Wealdstone station closed in 1964.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Stanmore


text:
Wood Green

Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a major commercial district of north London.

Formerly lying within the western part of Tottenham and within the county of Middlesex, it became part of both Haringey and Greater London in 1965. Wood Green lies directly to the east of Alexandra Palace. It is 6.5 mi from Charing Cross in central London.

Toponymy
The name Wood Green derives from ‘Woodlegh’ or 'Woodlea', a Saxon word meaning open ground near a wood, which in this case relates to an opening in Tottenham Wood, an extensive area of woodland which formerly covered most of this area and westward to Muswell Hill. The earliest surviving written record of ‘Woodlegh’ is a reference in documentation dating from 1256, which relates to a grant for Ducketts Manor, (a sub-manor of Tottenham) which used to be located just to the east of the present-day Wood Green High Road, roughly opposite the junction of Alexandra Road and the High Road.

History
Records suggest that settlement around Wood Green did not start till after the Norman Conquest. There is some limited evidence of Roman presence in the Wood Green area but none of any Saxon settlement. However, from the latter part of the 14th century, a number of estates developed around Wood Green. This included the Manor of Ducketts and a handful of smaller estates.

In the early Seventeenth Century, the lord of Tottenham Manor, the Earl of Dorset, conducted a major survey of his land. It showed that Wood Green, at the time roughly the Western half of Tottenham, had only sixteen houses and 50 inhabitants. At around the same time as the Dorset Survey, the New River was constructed through Wood Green. Winding through the area, the river looped across Chitts Hill and then passed along the northern side of Wood Green Common before turning south. The proximity of Wood Green to the new watercourse enhanced the area's reputation and between the 17th and early 19th Century, several large properties were constructed in the area, initially as country retreats for wealthy Londoners. Such dwellings included Cherson House, Wood Green Cottage, Moat Cottage and the Grange, all of which were situated on the fringes of Wood Green Common and dated from the 17th Century. Later, Wood Green House (c. 1780), Chitts Hill House (c. 1805) and Bounds Green House were constructed at the perimeter of the common. Despite the development of these dwellings, by 1798 the population of Wood Green stood at just 100 inhabitants and remained scattered. It was centred at this period on Wood Green Common. At the same time as the population was growing so was the traffic along Green Lanes. As a result, Wood Green's first inn and recognisable business appeared. In 1770 George Chesser established a blacksmith's shop on the corner of Green Lanes and Lordship Lane (later known as Spouter's Corner). In 1781, the Three Jolly Butchers coaching inn was opened on the west side of Green Lanes between Lordship Lane and Bounds Green Road.

During the early decades of the 19th Century, the number of inhabitants in the area began to increase significantly. By the middle of the nineteenth century the population had increased to 400 and the centre of Wood Green's gravity had moved north and east with most development taking place in a triangle directly north of St Michael's Church. By the time of the publication of the 1869 Ordnance Survey map, Clarence Road, Truro Road, Nightingale Road, Finsbury Road and Commerce Road were all laid out and were becoming increasingly built up.

The opening of the Great Northern Railway Line station at Wood Green in 1859 encouraged further development. By the end of the nineteenth century, much of Wood Green had been built up. What remained was built over during the first part of the twentieth century.

The Victorian development was both residential and commercial in nature. Wood Green's industrial development was centred on the area bounded by Wood Green Common, the Great Northern Railway, Turnpike Lane and the High Street. Amongst the first companies to arrive in the early 1860s was E Welch & Co Tobacco Manufacturer. Then in short order came the Hornsey Steam Laundry, Henry A. Ivory & Co Piano Manufacturers and Davis and Timmins Screw Factory. In 1880, Barratts arrived and grew to be one of the biggest confectionery manufacturers of the twentieth century.

As Wood Green's population grew, so did its high street. The earliest retail developments had been in Commercial Road and Finsbury Road during the 1860s. However, by the early 1880s retail activity was clearly shifting to the High Road. At first, it focussed on the area between White Hart Lane and Truro Road. As the population grew, retail growth south of Lordship Lane began to exceed that north of it and by the end of the first decade of the twentieth Wood Green, High Street had become a popular shopping centre for North London. By 1976 Wood Green was the largest shopping centre in north London with a turnover of more than £20m.

With the reorganisation of local government in the 1960s, Haringey Council was formed from the former boroughs of Wood Green, Hornsey and Tottenham. The new unified administration wanted to reinvent Wood Green as a ‘Heart for Haringey’. It was one of a number of new suburban centres intended to counteract the pull of Central London. The Shopping City was constructed between 1976 and 1981.

Governance history
Up to the nineteenth century, Wood Green came under the governance of the Manor and Parish of Tottenham. Tottenham developed from a parish in Middlesex into an Urban sanitary district in 1875, after a local board of health had been established in 1850.

In 1888, the Municipal Borough of Wood Green was created as an urban district, and later a municipal borough, of Middlesex. In 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, the Municipal Borough of Wood Green was abolished and its area merged with that of the Municipal Borough of Tottenham and the Municipal Borough of Hornsey to form the present-day London Borough of Haringey.

The constituency of Wood Green was created in 1918 and existed until 1983 when it was split. Some of the constituency was transferred to the neighbouring seat of Tottenham, but most was merged with the Hornsey parliamentary constituency to form the Hornsey and Wood Green parliamentary constituency. Since 2015, the seat has been represented in the House of Commons by the Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) Catherine West.

Post-war
In mid century, Wood Green was known locally as the "Golden Mile of North London". Some shops and buildings were demolished in the 1960s and buildings were cleared to construct Shopping City, now known as The Mall Wood Green, which is one of London's major shopping centres.

Entertainment history
The Alexandra Palace, which is within Wood Green parish, played a leading role in the development of public service television. It is now an events and entertainment venue hosting exhibitions, concerts and sporting events.

Wood Green also played its part in the history of commercial television in the UK. In 1955, with the opening of Lew Grade's London weekend franchise Associated Television (ATV), the Wood Green Empire in Lymington Avenue was home to variety programmes on Independent Television (ITV); one of which was The Arthur Haynes Show, starring the host himself and his straight man Nicholas Parsons. Only the frontage of The Wood Green Empire survives. It is now a branch of the Halifax.

The now-demolished bus depot at Wood Green was used for location filming by London Weekend Television for their 1970s situation comedy On The Buses.

21st century
As of 2018, Wood Green is the focus of two major regeneration programmes by the London Borough of Haringey. The Haringey Heartlands initiative covers an area to the west of the town centre, including the former Clarendon Gas Works, Olympia Trading Estate and land on Western Road. The programme aims to transform the area into a mixed sub-neighbourhood, with 1,700 homes, along with retail and office space. There are also plans for new public open space including a 'civic boulevard' linking the east and west of Wood Green and a public square for events and activities.

The wider area of Wood Green is the focus of a second significant regeneration plan entering the final stages of consultation in early 2018. The Wood Green Area Action plan would see the transformation of Wood Green Town Centre with the creation of 6,400 new homes, 4,000 new jobs and a redeveloped town centre with a significant amount of high-rise building.

Blue House Yard is a redevelopment of a former car park including creative work and retail space, a public square for markets and events.

Wood Green is also one of the suggested stations on the new Crossrail 2 transport development.

Geography
Wood Green stretches from Turnpike Lane in the south to the borough boundary in the north. Its eastern and western boundaries have changed over time and today people have varying senses of what exactly is included in Wood Green. One definition sees the western boundary as formed by the Great Northern Railway Line. Others argue that Alexandra Park is still within Wood Green's boundaries. Less contentious is the eastern boundary. A common definition would roughly describe it by a line running from the southwestern corner of Tottenhall Park, to the junction of The Roundway and Lordship Lane, then along Downhills Way as far as Belmont Avenue. This part of the boundary is completed by a line running in a northwesterly direction as far as Westbury Avenue.

The area rises from 66 ft (20 m) to 98 ft (30 m) above sea level.

Locale
The shopping area and residential areas of Wood Green all offer quite different identities. The area to the west of the High Road, near Alexandra Palace, was developed as a mainly middle-class residential area, whereas the area to the east, towards Tottenham, mainly comprises smaller dwellings that were either built for railway workers in the 19th century or as social housing in the 20th. The High Road and the shopping mall host a variety of shops. There are regeneration plans approved for the old Marks and Spencer, and BHS buildings. There are a number of new restaurants which have opened along the High Road in recent years. Behind the High Road, Wood Green's streets include a high proportion of attractive high-quality Victorian houses. To the north and west of the tube station, a large number of green spaces weave through the streets and a number of larger open green areas remain.

Haringey Civic Centre on Wood Green High Road is the official seat of the London Borough of Haringey and contains the council chambers. It was opened in 1958 and is a listed building.

Demography
Wood Green does not fit neatly into wards. However, a significant part of the area is contained within the Noel Park and Woodside wards. The population of those wards is given as 28,453 in the 2011 Census. The same census reports that white groups make up 55% of the population of Noel Park ward. The figures for the Woodside ward are 30% White Other, 23% White British, 14% Asian, 8% Black African, 6% Black Caribbean, 3% Black Other, 3% White Irish, 1% Arab and other ethnic groups.

Economy
Wood Green is a busy urban activity centre with a sizeable shopping area with two cinemas, bars, nightclubs, numerous restaurants and cafes and a shopping area, The Mall, close to the tube station. The High Road, the main shopping spine, stretches from the Wood Green tube station to the next stop on the Piccadilly line, Turnpike Lane, and is lined with shops along its route. It joins with Green Lanes at both its northern and southern ends.

As of 2012, Wood Green has 120757 sqm of total town centre floorspace.

The Chocolate Factory was set up by Haringey Arts Council in 1996 to develop artists' studios and now has a second building. The project houses 200 local artists, music, film and multimedia studios, photographic studios, and several performing arts organisations.

Green Spaces

 * Alexandra Park
 * Avenue Gardens (Station Road/Park Avenue)
 * Barratt Gardens (Station Road/Mayes Road)
 * Caxton Gardens (Station Road/Mayes Road)
 * Chapmans Green (Lordship Lane/Perth Road)
 * Cranbrook Park (Cranbrook Park/St Alban's Crescent)
 * Crescent Gardens (High Road/Stuart Crescent)
 * Finsbury Gardens (Finsbury Road)
 * King George VI Memorial Garden (High Road/Stuart Crescent)
 * Nightingale Gardens (Bounds Green Road)
 * Riversdale Gardens (White Hart Lane/Newnham Road)
 * Russell Park (Russell Avenue)
 * Trinity Gardens (Bounds Green Road)
 * White Hart Lane Recreation Ground (White Hart Lane)
 * Wood Green Common (Station Road)
 * Woodside Park (High Road)

London Underground
Wood Green tube station is at the northern end of Wood Green High Road and Turnpike Lane tube station at its southern. Both are on the Piccadilly line.

Railway
Alexandra Palace (named Wood Green until 1982) is on the East Coast Main Line. It has services in to Kings Cross and Moorgate and out to Hertford and Welwyn Garden City. Bowes Park serves the Hertford Loop Line branch of the East Coast Main Line.

Buses
London Buses routes 29, 67, 121, 123 (24-hour operation, weekends), 141, 144, 184, 221, 230, 232, 243 (24-hour operation), 329, N29, N91, W3 and W4 serve the area.

Public services
Wood Green Crown Court is on Lordship Lane.

Education
Schools include:

Primary

 * Belmont Primary
 * Noel Park Primary
 * Alexandra Primary
 * Earlham Primary
 * Lordship Lane Primary
 * Nightingale Primary
 * St Michael's C of E Primary
 * St Paul's RC Primary
 * Rhodes Avenue

Secondary

 * Heartlands High School
 * Alexandra Park School
 * St Thomas More Catholic School
 * Woodside High School

Drama

 * Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts

Places of Worship
St Michael's Church of England Church was built in 1844 and became an independent parish in 1866.

St Paul's Roman Catholic Church was first founded in Station Road in 1882, and was rebuilt in 1971.

St Mary's Greek Orthodox Church, Wood Green also known as The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God.

Wood Green Fatih Mosque is on Caxton Road, sharing premises with Haringey Council of Asian People.

Sport
There are a number of sports facilities in the local area. Indoor and outdoor tennis, all-weather football, an athletics track and gym are available at New River Stadium. The local parks offer a variety of options for running and other sports, and many also have tennis courts. There are various gyms in the Wood Green area.

London Skolars is a semi-professional rugby league team that compete in the Kingstone Press League 1 based at New River Stadium in Wood Green. They annually hold the Middlesex 9s rugby league tournament which also takes place at the New River Stadium.

Notable appearances

 * Nick Hornby's book, High Fidelity
 * Razorlight' s song "Los Angeles Waltz"
 * Mark Knopfler's song "Junkie Doll"
 * Pablo Gad's song "Black Before Creation"
 * Sway DaSafo's song "Up Your Speed"
 * Juan Maria Solare's composition "Woodgreen Walk" for Horn and Cello, 2011
 * Chris Barber jazz night at the Fisherman's Arms, captured in the film Mamma Don't Allow (1956)

title: Wood Green


text:
Sebastopol, California

Sebastopol is a city in Sonoma County, in California with a recorded population of 7,521, per the 2020 U.S. Census.

Sebastopol was once primarily a plum- and apple-growing region. Today, wine grapes are the predominant agriculture crop, and nearly all lands once used for orchards are now vineyards. The creation of The Barlow, a $23.5 million mall on a floodplain at the edge of town, converting old agriculture warehouses into a trendy marketplace for fine dining, tasting rooms, and art, has made Sebastopol a popular Wine Country destination.

Famous horticulturist Luther Burbank had gardens in this region. The city hosts an annual Apple Blossom Festival in April and is home to the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival.

History
The area's first known inhabitants were the native Coast Miwok and Pomo peoples. The town currently sits atop multiple village sites. The town of Sebastopol formed in the 1850s with a U.S. Post Office and as a small trade center for the farmers of the surrounding agricultural region. As California's population swelled after the westward migration and the California Gold Rush of 1848–1855, more and more settlers drifted into the fertile California valleys north of San Francisco to try their hand at farming.

There is some debate as to how the name "Sebastopol" came into use in Sonoma County. At one time, four other California towns were also named Sebastopol:

 * one in Napa County, renamed Yountville
 * one in Tulare County
 * one in Sacramento County
 * one in Nevada County

The town in Sonoma County originally had the name Pinegrove; the name change (according to rumor) had something to do with a bar fight in the late 1850s, which was compared by a bystander to the long British siege of the seaport of Sevastopol (1854–1855) during the Crimean War of 1853–1856. The original name survives in the name of the Pine Grove General Store downtown.

Sebastopol became known as the "Gravenstein Apple Capital of the World". The apple industry brought a steady rural prosperity to the town. In 1890 the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad connected Sebastopol to the national rail network. The town was incorporated in 1902, with schools, churches, hotels, canneries, mills, wineries, and an opera house to its credit. The 1906 earthquake reduced most of these early buildings to rubble (Sebastopol is only seven miles from the city of Santa Rosa, the worst-hit town in the 1906 earthquake), but as elsewhere in the county, the town was rebuilt.

In the second half of the 20th century, the apple industry struggled to compete with other apple-producing regions and gradually declined in economic significance. With greater personal mobility and the rise of larger shopping centers in other Sonoma County communities, many residents now often commute to work and shop in the neighboring towns of Rohnert Park or Santa Rosa, while Sebastopol maintains its small-town charm.

It is often incorrectly claimed that Sebastopol was the last town in Northern California to have working railroad trains on Main Street. The tracks were removed in the late 1980s. Passenger service had ceased in the 1930s, and regular freight service ended in the late 1970s. This was documented by Analy High School students in a 1979 video Our Train Down Main: a History of the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad. The canneries and apple-processing plant are gone from downtown, and vineyards and housing developments have replaced many apple orchards, reducing the demand for freight service.

It is often also incorrectly stated that the tracks were removed in the 1990s when the downtown area was redesigned with two one-way streets to enhance traffic along Gravenstein Highway (Route 116). Main Street and Petaluma Avenue were actually designated one-way streets in 1985 in an attempt to deal with the town's perennial traffic problem. the old train station houses the Western County Museum.

Geography

Sebastopol's elevation is 65 to 250 ft above sea level. Its downtown is at the intersection of State Route 12 and State Route 116 (Gravenstein Highway), approximately 9 mi west of U.S. Route 101.

Sebastopol is situated on the edge of the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which is fed by Santa Rosa Creek and other tributaries, including three minor tributaries within the city limits – Zimpher Creek, Calder Creek and Witter Creek. The Laguna is a wetland area that is home to many species of wildlife and vegetation and divides the town from neighboring Santa Rosa. Nearly every winter the Laguna floods, cutting off State Route 12, and often flooding the low-lying businesses and homes on the eastern side of Sebastopol. The Pitkin Marsh lily and White sedge are two rare species of plants that are found in the vicinity of Sebastopol.

The city has a total area of 1.9 sqmi, all land.

2020
The 2020 United States Census reported that Sebastopol had a population of 7,521. The population density was 3,996.3 PD/sqmi. The racial makeup of Sebastopol was 80.8% White (74.9% White, not Hispanic or Latino), 3.8% Asian, 1.7% African American, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 0.0% Native American and 7.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 12.7%.

2010
The 2010 United States Census reported that Sebastopol had a population of 7,379. The population density was 3,982.4 PD/sqmi. The racial makeup of Sebastopol was 6,509 (88.2%) White, 72 (1.0%) African American, 60 (0.8%) Native American, 120 (1.6%) Asian, 19 (0.3%) Pacific Islander, 298 (4.0%) from other races, and 301 (4.1%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 885 persons (12.0%).

The Census reported that 98.3% of the population lived in households and 1.7% were institutionalized.

There were 3,276 households, out of which 902 (27.5%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 1,220 (37.2%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 478 (14.6%) had a female householder with no husband present, 156 (4.8%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 206 (6.3%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 52 (1.6%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 1,132 households (34.6%) were made up of individuals, and 498 (15.2%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.21. There were 1,854 families (56.6% of all households); the average family size was 2.82.

The population was spread out, with 1,515 people (20.5%) under the age of 18, 471 people (6.4%) aged 18 to 24, 1,587 people (21.5%) aged 25 to 44, 2,525 people (34.2%) aged 45 to 64, and 1,281 people (17.4%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 46.1 years. For every 100 females, there were 79.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 76.7 males.

There were 3,465 housing units, with an average density of 1,870.0 /sqmi, of which 52.9% were owner-occupied and 47.1% were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.7%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.2%. 53.7% of the population lived in owner-occupied housing units and 44.5% lived in rental housing units.

The median income for a household in the city was $60,322 (+29.9% from 2000), and the median income for a family was $74,020 (+32.7% from 2000). The median per capita income for the city was $29,470 (+28.8% from 2000). For comparison, statewide California median per capita income in the 2010 Census was $27,885 (+22.8% from 2000).

2000
As of the census of 2000, there were 7,774 people, 3,250 households, and 1,953 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,139 /mi2. There were 3,321 housing units at an average density of 1,768 /mi2. The racial makeup of the city was 89.85% White, 0.66% African American, 0.78% Native American, 1.52% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 3.86% from other races, and 3.23% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.26% of the population.

There were 3,250 households, out of which 31.8% included children under the age of 18 in the house, 41.5% were married couples living together, 14.2% were led by a female householder with no husband present, and 39.9% were other living arrangements. 31.8% of all households were made up of a single individual and 14.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.95.

For the most part the population is spread out across the age groups, although the young adult population is drastically lower than the other groups, indicating that most young people leave, at least temporarily. The reasons for this are probably a combination of the high cost of living and the lack of other young adults. The percent distribution on the 2000 census by age was as follows: 23.6% under the age of 18, 7.4% from 18 to 24, 25.0% from 25 to 44, 27.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years.

For every 100 females, there were 81.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 75.3 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $46,436, and the median income for a family was $55,792. Males had a median income of $40,538 versus $32,399 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,881. About 4.7% of families and 6.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.7% of those under age 18 and 6.0% of those age 65 or over.

Arts and culture
Places of interest in Sebastopol include:
 * Sebastopol Center for the Arts
 * Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Experiment Farm
 * Guayaki Sustainable Rainforest Products world headquarters
 * The historic Hogan Building: This was the Power House for the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad, an electric railway. The first cars were run on the line in 1904, and the later named Hogan Building, built of stone from a local quarry, is one of the few in the area that made it through the 1906 earthquake.
 * West County Museum, operated by the Western Sonoma County Historical Society in the former Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad passenger depot
 * George A. Strout House
 * Ives Park, summer home of the Sonoma County Repertory Theater
 * Ragle Ranch Regional Park
 * Joe Rodota Trail
 * West County Trail
 * Laguna de Santa Rosa
 * Sebastopol Community Cultural Center
 * The Barlow, an outdoor mall east of town, built on the floodplain of the Laguna de Santa Rosa

Local
The city council consists of five members, each serving four-year terms. The city's laws are enforced by the Sebastopol Police Department. City council races are not partisan, so each member does not officially represent any party, however since 2000 there has been a decent amount of attention given to the individual party membership of city council members in Sebastopol. This happened because in 2000, with the election of Craig Litwin and Sam Spooner to the city council, the town had a Green Party majority—or would have, if city council races were partisan. This was only the second time this had ever happened in California, the first being the town of Arcata, California in 1996.

Sebastopol tends to support environmental policies: Earlier, in 1986, the residents approved an initiative declaring Sebastopol a "Nuclear Free Zone", The town does not use pesticides in city landscaping, and several years back, when the police needed a new vehicle, the city council voted to purchase a hybrid instead of a standard police car.

Current issues facing the city include a high cost of living and ongoing difficulties with traffic (the town has two highways going through downtown).

The current city council members (as of December 2020) are:

 * Una Glass, Mayor
 * Sarah Glade Gurney, Vice Mayor
 * Neysa Hinton
 * Diana Rich
 * Patrick Slayter

A former Mayor, Robert Jacob, who was selected by the city council in December 2013, was the owner of two medical marijuana dispensaries in Sonoma Count. He was reported to be the first American mayor to be involved in the industry.

State and federal
In the California State Legislature, Sebastopol is in, and California's 2nd State Senate district, represented by Mike McGuire.

Federally, Sebastopol is in.

According to the California Secretary of State, as of February 10, 2019, Sebastopol has 5,285 registered voters. Of those, 3,346 (63.3%) are registered Democrats, 518 (9.8%) are registered Republicans, and 1,137 (21.5%) have declined to state a political party.

Law enforcement
The Sebastopol Police Department serves the city. It currently employs 31 sworn and non sworn personnel, and 25 volunteers. The department was founded in the early 1900s. The divisions of the department are administration, watch commanders, patrol officers, dispatchers, reserve officers, community service volunteers and explorers.

Education
Sebastopol Union operates two elementary schools: Parkside (K-4) and Brook Haven (5–8).

Sebastopol Charter, a K-8 public charter school, had the highest percentage (58%) of kindergarten students with medical exemptions to vaccines in California as of the summer of 2018.

Notable people

 * Luther Burbank, horticulturist who established an 18 acre Gold Ridge Environmental Farm in the township in the late 19th century
 * Les Claypool, bassist/vocalist of the band Primus
 * Peter Coyote, narrator/author/actor
 * Peter D'Amato, author
 * Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead
 * Nina Gerber, guitarist
 * Leah Glenn, visual artist
 * Schuyler Grant, actress of the 1985 adaptation of Anne of Green Gables
 * Nick Gravenites, singer/songwriter
 * Kitaro, Japanese New Age recording artist
 * Peter Krause, actor
 * J.Lately, rapper
 * Luke Lamperti, racing cyclist
 * Willard Libby, inventor of carbon dating, went to Analy High School
 * Megan McDonald, an American children's literature author of more than 25 books including the Judy Moody & Stink Moody series
 * Terence McKenna, ethnobotanist
 * John Mitzewich, chef and YouTube host
 * Matt Nix, showrunner for Burn Notice
 * Johnny Otis, rhythm and blues pioneer
 * Justin Raimondo, author
 * Francine Rivers, novelist
 * Mario Savio, freedom activist
 * Dave Schools, bassist of the band Widespread Panic
 * Charles M. Schulz, cartoonist and creator of Peanuts
 * Smoov-E, rapper
 * Mary Lou Spiess, polio survivor, disability rights advocate and pioneer of disabled fashion
 * Rider Strong, actor
 * Karen Valentine, actress of the television show Room 222
 * Obie Scott Wade, screenwriter and creator of SheZow, went to Analy High School
 * Tom Waits, singer/songwriter/musician
 * Guy Wilson, actor
 * Kate Wolf, singer/songwriter

Sister cities

 * 🇺🇦 Chyhyryn, Ukraine
 * 🇯🇵 Takeo, Japan

title: Sebastopol, California


text:
Stepney

Stepney is an area in London, England located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in East London and part of the East End. Stepney is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name applied to a much larger manor and parish. Stepney Green is a remnant of a larger area of Common Land formerly known as Mile End Green.

The area was built up rapidly in the 19th century, mainly to accommodate immigrant workers and displaced London poor, and developed a reputation for poverty, overcrowding, violence and political dissent. It was severely damaged during the Blitz, with over a third of housing totally destroyed; and then, in the 1960s, slum clearance and development replaced most residential streets with tower blocks and modern housing estates. Some Georgian architecture and Victorian era terraced housing survive in patches: for example Arbour Square, the eastern side of Stepney Green, and the streets around Matlock Street.

Toponymy
The first surviving record of the place name is from around 1000 AD as Stybbanhyð, "Stybba's hyð"; hyð developed into hithe (meaning landing-place) in modern English, so "Stybba's landing-place". The parish of Stebbing in Essex also appears to have taken its name from an individual called Stybba. The hithe itself is thought to have been at Ratcliff, just under 1/2 mi south of St Dunstan's Church.

Changing scope
Historically, Stepney was a very large manor and Ancient Parish which covered most of what would become the East End. From 1900 to 1965 the place-name was applied to the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, which in 1965 became the south-west part of the new London Borough of Tower Hamlets which currently administers the area. There is currently a Stepney episcopal area in the Anglican Diocese of London, which covers the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets, and has its own suffragan bishop.

The area of Stepney has had no local government definition since 1965, but is used to refer to the whole former parish and also to a relatively small area within it.

Manor and ancient parish
For hundreds of years the term Stepney referred to the Manor and Ancient Parish of Stepney, with the first contemporary record of the Manor around the year 1000. The Manor covered an area stretching from the eastern edge of the City of London to the Lea and from Stamford Hill down to the Thames; in this way covering an area equivalent to the modern borough of Tower Hamlets, as well as the district of Hackney (in the wider modern borough of the same name).

The origins of the Manor (and Vill) are not known, but its large size, relatively rich soils and position so close to the walls of London have led to suggestions that the manor was the foundation grant of land made to the Bishop of London to support the creation of the new diocese of London (the East Saxon see) at the time of the establishment of St Paul's Cathedral in 604 AD.

St Dunstan's church is recorded as being founded (or more likely rebuilt ) by Dunstan himself in 952, and as the first church in the manor, will have served the whole of that landholding. The proto-parish of Stepney will therefore have covered the same area as the manor.

Hackney appears to have been an early daughter parish of Stepney; a church at Hackney is first mentioned in 1275 but is likely to have been in place before then. From the 1100s, the development and improvement in enforcement of Canon law made it difficult to form new parishes, so Hackney seems likely to have formed an independent parish in the 12th century, with the district remaining a sub-manor of Stepney.

It was usual for one or more manors to form a parish, but the manor of Stepney's great size meant that this was reversed with two parishes (Stepney and Hackney) serving the single manor of Stepney. For local government purposes, the parish sub-divided into Hamlets.

Manor
The Domesday Book survey of 1086 gives the name as Stibanhede and says that the land was held by the Bishop of London and was 32 hides large, mainly used for ploughing, meadows, woodland for 500 pigs, and 4 mills. The survey recorded 183 households; 74 of villeins who ploughed the land, 57 of cottars who assisted the villeins in return for a hut or cottage and 52 of bordars. This is estimated to have given the manor a total population of around a thousand people.

Bishop William held this land in demesne, in the manor of Stepney, on the day on which King Edward was alive and dead. In the same vill Ranulph Flambard holds 3½ hides of the bishop.

The Bishop of London held many other estates around London, and one of them, heavily wooded Hornsey, was attached to Stepney as a remote exclave for a time (it was common practice for wooded exclaves to be attached to more intensely farmed and densely populated estates in that period). The sub-manor of Hornsey was not part of the original territory of Stepney but was subsequently attached as an administrative convenience, and detached once more around the late 13th century. The earliest record of the district's Manor house, is from 1207, but the Bishop may have had a home in the Manor long before. The house was first known as Bishopswood, and later Bishops Hall or Bonner Hall, and was on a site in Bethnal Green later occupied by the London Chest Hospital. Edward VI passed Stepney to the Wentworth family, and thence to their descendant, the Earl of Cleveland. The Manors of Stepney and Hackney were linked, until they passed into separate ownership in the 1660s.

The system of copyhold, whereby land was leased to tenants for terms as short as seven years, prevailed throughout the manor. This severely limited scope for improvement of the land and new building until the estate was broken up in the 19th century.

Church and parish
St Dunstan's Church was founded (or rebuilt) around 952, by St Dunstan himself when he was Bishop of London, and therefore also Lord of the Manor of Stepney. Many bishops lived in the manor and Dunstan may have done the same. The church was dedicated to Dunstan after he was canonised in 1029, making him the patron saint of Stepney. The bells of the church, cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, appear in the nursery rhyme, Oranges and Lemons

"' 'When will that be'? say the bells of Stepney'"

The church is known as "The Mother Church of the East End" as the very large parish covered most of what would become inner East London, before population growth led to the creation of a large number of daughter parishes. It is also known as "The Church of the High Seas" due to its traditional maritime connections. In 1720 the historian John Strype wrote that Stepney (together with its daughter parishes) should be esteemed a province rather than a parish, due to its large population, area and the diversity of urban, rural and maritime industries.

Stepney formed a large Ancient Parish in the Tower division of the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex. The parish included the hamlets of Mile End Old Town, Mile End New Town, Ratcliff, Wapping-Stepney, Bow, Shadwell, Bethnal Green, Limehouse and Poplar. The Hamlets were territorial sub-divisions (as opposed to small villages), which ultimately became independent daughter parishes.

Ties with Shoreditch
The origin of the neighbouring parish of Shoreditch is obscure, but it primarily served the manors of Hoxton and Haggerston, both manors recorded at Domesday in 1086, together with a part of the Manor of Stepney. The parish church, St Leonard's, Shoreditch, was built on land that was part of the Manor of Stepney.

The manor of Hoxton, or a manor called Hoxton, was in Shoreditch, yet in 1352 is recorded as part of the parish of Hackney. It is not clear if or how these links led to the inclusion of the parish of Shoreditch in the Tower Division.

Customs and obligations
The Manor of Stepney was held by the Bishop of London, but the Constable of the Tower of London had important rights and responsibilities in the area. The Constable had responsibilities for the Thames below the Tower and for the care of parts of the Lea. In return the people of the area helped garrison the Tower. The early origin of these arrangements is obscure and the first surviving record of the military obligation dates from 1554, but is thought to be much older, with varying estimates in the post-Norman medieval period. These arrangements evolved into the creation of the Tower Division, also known as the Tower Hamlets.

The manor was unusual in practising the gavelkind method of inheritance, a custom largely limited to Kent.

St Dunstan's has a long association with the sea, with the parish of Stepney being responsible for registration of British maritime births, marriages and deaths until the 19th century. From the Tudor era onwards, the parish-level was responsible for mitigating the poverty of people born in the area. Stepney's additional responsibility for those born at sea was something of a burden.

This maritime association is remembered in the old rhyme: "'He who sails on the wide sea, is a parishioner of Stepney'"

Break-up of the ancient parish
The rapid growth in population meant that over time the parish was broken up. Hackney is thought to have become independent in the 12th century, Whitechapel in the 14th and Bromley in the 16th. Some sub-divisions for instance those that form Bethnal Green, Bow and Poplar are known to have been based on pre-existing hamlets forming new daughter parishes. Such parish divisions were unusual and required an act of Parliament.

From 1819 the rump of Stepney consisted of three hamlets; Mile End New Town (which was detached from the rest), Ratcliffe and Mile End Old Town (which included St Dunstan's church). This residual parish was 830 acres in extent.

Until 1837, the boundaries of English civil and Church of England ecclesiastical boundaries were identical, but after that the Church of England sub-divided its parishes to suit local needs and circumstances, especially in densely populated areas such as Stepney, and the civil and ecclesiastical boundaries differed from that point on. By 1890 the ancient parish was divided between 67 ecclesiastical parishes (a number later greatly reduced) which had little relation to the civil parish boundaries.

In 1866 the rump civil parish of Stepney came to an end when its three component hamlets (Mile End New Town, Ratcliff and Mile End Old Town) became independent civil parishes.

Urban development
As with most of the East End of London, the contracted area now known as Stepney was sparsely populated until the 19th century, with a population focussed on scattered farms and small hamlets. The urbanisation of the area was driven by the maritime trades along the river, as well as ribbon development along the Mile End Road. Other factors included the development of London's docks and railways, combined with slum clearance, which pushed the displaced poor and various immigrants looking for work into cheap housing being built in the area.

The Trinity Green Almshouses were built in 1695 to provide housing for retired sailors. They are the oldest almshouses in Central London.

Malplaquet House is named after the Battle of Malplaquet, one of the main battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, which took place in France in 1709. However, it is not known whether this naming came from the Jewish widow of the London merchant, who made his living selling war salvage, or from a later resident, the military surgeon Edward Lee. It was home to a variety of small businesses including a bookmaker and a printer, before being occupied in 1910 by the Union of Stepney Ratepayers.

The Leonard Montefiore memorial fountain on Stepney Green is named for a young writer and philanthropist, Leonard Montefiore, who at the time of his death in 1879 was known for his philanthropic work in the East End of London. Montefiore attended Balliol College, Oxford, where his posthumous memoir reports that he was a devotee of John Ruskin. Whilst at Balliol he became a friend of Oscar Wilde, who after Montefiore's death allegedly proposed to his sister Charlotte. He was also influenced by Arnold Toynbee and Benjamin Jowett. Montefiore was chief assistant to Samuel Barnett in his work regarding the extension of Oxford University to London, and was secretary of the Tower Hamlets branch of the Society for the Extension of University Teaching. The Jewish Encyclopedia says "Montefiore was associated with many philanthropic movements, especially with the movement for women's emancipation." Montefiore died at Newport, Rhode Island, aged 27. According to the Women's rights activist Emily Faithfull in her book "Three Visits to America" published in 1884 Montefiore died "While he was visiting the United States, in order to see for himself what could be learned from the political and social condition of the people, must ever be deplored. The world can ill afford to lose men of such deep thought and energetic action." The memorial fountain has the following poem engraved on its side:

"Clear brain and sympathetic heart, A spirit on flame with love for man, Hands quick to labour, slow to part, If any good since time began, A soul can fashion such souls can."

In 1883, Jacob P. Adler arrived in London with a troupe of refugee professional actors. He enlisted the help of local amateurs, and the Russian Jewish Operatic Company made their debut at the Beaumont Hall, close to Stepney Green tube station. Within two years they were able to establish their own theatre in Brick Lane.

Stepney Green railway station was opened in 1902 by the Whitechapel and Bow Railway, a joint venture between the District Railway and the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. The station passed to London Underground in 1950.

In the early 20th century, Stepney was one of the most Jewish neighbourhoods in England; it was eventually superseded as such by Stamford Hill.

On 31 July 1987 the Docklands Light Railway, which operated over the old LBR line, commenced operations, with new platforms (platforms 3 and 4) built on the site of the old LBR platforms; at Stepney East which had been renamed Limehouse on 11 May that year.

Governance
The Lord-Lieutenant Ken Olisa is His Majesty's representative for Greater London, including Stepney. He has no political role and holds no office in any political party. The Lord Lieutenancy is purely an honorary titular position. Stepney is in the constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party. London overall has a directly elected executive Mayor of London, currently Sadiq Khan, and the City and East seat in the London Assembly is held by the Labour Party's Unmesh Desai. Tower Hamlets London Borough Council is the local authority and also has a directly elected executive mayor, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs. Stepney has local councillors from three wards, St Dunstan's, Bethnal Green and Stepney Green.

Geography

The Stepney Green Conservation Area was designated in January 1973, covering the area previously known as Mile End Old Town. It is a large Conservation Area with an irregular shape that encloses buildings around Mile End Road, Assembly Passage, Louisa Street and Stepney Green itself. It is an area of exceptional architectural and historic interest, with a character and appearance worthy of protection and enhancement. It is situated just north of the medieval village of Stepney, which was clustered around St. Dunstan's Church.

Stepney Green developed as a street of residential housing off the Mile End Road in the 15th century, and now refers to the area in north Stepney. A brewery was founded in 1738 that developed into Charrington and Co. in 1897. The brewery building, the Anchor Brewery, was on the north side of Mile End Road, opposite Stepney Green; and is now the site of the Anchor Retail Unit, owned by Henderson Global Investors, though the Brewery Offices still remain on the corner of Mile End Road and Cephas Avenue.

Nearest places

 * Bethnal Green
 * Limehouse
 * Mile End
 * Shadwell
 * Whitechapel
 * Bow

Community
The Stepney Community Trust, a community-led charity with a long history of local action, was set up in 1982 as the St Mary's Centre to respond to the severe housing and social deprivation in the area. The name was later changed to Stepney Community Trust.

Stepney City Farm is a city farm which provides a number of community services, such as guided tours, workshops and other activities., was founded in 1979 by Lynne Bennett; at that time it was called Stepping Stones. Local residents, schools, churches and community groups were consulted and wasteland left after a World War II bomb destroyed the Stepney Congregational Church in 1941 was secured for the farm's use.

The Stepney Historical Trust was set up in 1989 to advance the public's education on the history of Stepney and the surrounding areas. It is based in the London Dockers Athletic and Social Club and has installed a series of plaques on sites of historic interest.

Jewish Care was created in 1990 by the merger of two previous charities to care for the community needs cost-effectively. It is based at the Brenner Centre in Raine House.

The City Gateway Women Programmes were established to provide opportunities for local women in Stepney to gain independence, grow in confidence and access employment and develop skills in a supportive community environment.

Demographics
Due to the availability of cheap housing, the East End of London and London Borough of Stepney has been home to various immigrants who have contributed to the culture and history of the area, such as the French Huguenots in the 17th century, the Irish in the 18th century, Ashkenazi Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe towards the end of the 19th century, and the Bangladeshi community settling in the East End from the 1960s onwards. The area still contains a range of immigrants, particularly young Asian families, as well as elderly East Enders, some students, and the beginnings of a young middle class. The 2011 UK Census revealed that 47% of the population was Bengali; the highest percentage of Bengalis in Southern England. White British people comprise just over a quarter of the ward of St. Dunstan's and Stepney Green.

Education
Stepney All Saints School is a Church of England voluntary aided school that was opened in 1710 by Sir John Cass as the Sir John Cass School. It merged with the Redcoat Secondary School in 1966 and took the name of Sir John Cass's Foundation and Red Coat School that year. It took its current name in 2020.

Stepney Green Maths, Computing and Science College is a community school for boys, the curriculum is broad, there is a wide range of extra-curricular activities offered before, during and after school.

Sports
Stepney F.C. is a non-league association football team which currently plays in the Tower Hamlets-based Inner London Football League.

The district's Senrab Street gave its name to Senrab F.C., a youth team now based in Wanstead Flats and notable for producing many future professional players.

Transport

Stepney is connected to the London Underground at Stepney Green tube station on the Hammersmith & City and District lines.

The area overall is covered by London Buses services, mostly west–east by the 25, 205, N25, N205 on Mile End Road and 15, 115, 135 and N550 on Commercial Road, the 309 and 339 via Ben Johnson Road.

An automatic air monitoring site in nearby Mile End recorded a 2017 annual average of 48 μg/m3. Alternative monitoring sites on Mile End Road also failed to meet air quality objectives with a site at the junction with Globe Road recorded 52 μg/m3 as a 2017 average.

Notable people
The English physician Richard Mead, responsible for advances in understanding transmissible diseases, was born in Stepney.

Others born in Stepney are entertainer Des O'Connor, actor Steven Berkoff, playwright Arnold Wesker, gardener Rachel De Thame, television executive Alan Yentob, artist Frank Paton, drummer Kenney Jones, musician and writer Jah Wobble, singer Kenny Lynch and his sister Maxine Daniels, singer Charles Coborn, footballers Ledley King, Ashley Cole, Mark Lazarus, Barry Silkman, and Darren Purse, heavyweight boxer "Bombardier" Billy Wells, former armed robber and businessman Roy Shaw, former British featherweight boxing champion Sammy McCarthy, sportswriter Norman Giller, and Labour politician Wes Streeting.

Clergymen John Sentamu, formerly Bishop of Stepney, and Father Richard Wilson, founder of the Hoppers' Hospitals at Five Oak Green, Kent, lived in the borough at one time.

Actors born in Stepney include Bernard Bresslaw, Terence Stamp, Craig Fairbrass, Jeff Shankley, John Lyons, Eddie Marsan, Ben Onwukwe, Victor McLaglen, Roy Marsden, Ruth Sheen, EastEnders actress Anita Dobson and Nicola Walker.

Musicians Monty Norman (composer of the James Bond Theme) and Lionel Bart (known for creating the book, music and lyrics to the production Oliver!), were also born in Stepney, as was musician Wiley, widely considered to be the founding father of grime music.

British communist Alf Salisbury, who smuggled monetary funds to German anti-fascists during Hitler's rise to power, and fought in both the Battle of Cable Street and for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, was born in Stepney. Later in life he led a successful campaign to convince the BBC and other British news outlets to stop using the term "Mongols" to refer to people with Down Syndrome. For this work he was awarded with special commondations from the Mongolian embassy.

In popular culture
In her 2002 memoir Call the Midwife, Jennifer Worth writes a graphic account of 1950s Stepney at the height of its urban decay describing bombsites, condemned buildings, filth, and rampant prostitution.

In the 1965 Rolling Stones song Play with Fire, it is said an heiress whose wealth has been carried off by her husband “gets her kicks in Stepney, not in Knightsbridge anymore.”

Elton John refers to Stepney in the song "Bitter Fingers" which was written by Elton and Bernie Taupin.

Folk noir duo Ruby Throat released a song called "Forget Me Nots of Stepney" on their 2012 album O' Doubt O' Stars.

Mentioned in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels "Hand made in Italy, hand stolen in Stepney"

title: Stepney


text:
Stockwell

Stockwell is a district located in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. It is situated 2.4 mi south of Charing Cross.

History

The name Stockwell is likely to have originated from a local well, with "stoc" being Old English for a tree trunk or post. From the thirteenth to the start of the nineteenth century, Stockwell was a rural manor at the edge of London. It included market gardens and John Tradescant's botanical garden – commemorated in Tradescant Road, which was built over it in 1880, and in a memorial outside St Stephen's church. In the nineteenth century it developed as an elegant middle-class suburb. Residents included the artist Arthur Rackham, who was born on South Lambeth Road in 1867, moving with his family to Albert Square when he was 15 years old. Another famed cultural figure who was born in Stockwell in October 1914, was theatre director Joan Littlewood, who has been called the mother of modern theatre.

Its social and architectural fortunes in the twentieth century were more mixed. The area immediately around Stockwell tube station was extensively rebuilt following the Second World War, and the original domed tube station was replaced first in the 1920s, then again with the opening of the Victoria line in 1971.

The area also has much social housing; the main estates are Lansdowne Green, Stockwell Park, Studley, Spurgeon, Mursell and Stockwell Gardens. However, many remnants of the area's nineteenth-century grandeur can be found in the side and back streets of Stockwell, notably in the Stockwell Park Conservation Area, mostly built between 1825 and 1840 and centred on Stockwell Park Road, Stockwell Park Crescent, Durand Gardens, and Albert Square. The only twentieth-century building of significant architectural interest in the area is Stockwell Bus Garage. Before the creation of the County of London in 1889, Stockwell was part of Surrey.

In 1986, Kenneth Erskine, a serial killer dubbed the 'Stockwell Strangler', killed seven elderly victims, three of whom were from Stockwell.

Politics
Stockwell is a ward in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is currently represented by three Labour councillors: Lucy Caldicott, Dr. Mahamed Hashi and Mohamed Jaser. At parliamentary level it is in the Vauxhall constituency, represented by Labour MP Florence Eshalomi.

From 1979 to 1982, future Labour MP and New Labour 'spin doctor' Peter Mandelson was a ward councillor.

Places of interest

 * Stockwell Bus Garage
 * London Deep Level Shelters
 * Stockwell War Memorial Clocktower
 * Jean Charles de Menezes Memorial
 * former Annie McCall Hospital, Jeffries Road
 * Stockwell skateboard park

Schools
There are three schools in Stockwell ward - St Stephen's, Allen Edwards and Stockwell Primary School - and also a campus of Lambeth College. In the Stockwell area (on Clapham Road) there is also Platanos College, a secondary school, Lansdowne School and numerous primary schools including Van Gogh Primary.

Churches
In addition to Anglican and Catholic churches, Afro-Caribbean communities have influenced the expression of Christianity in the area, with a variety of congregations, some sharing churches with more long established Anglican and Catholic congregations. One of the many Afro-Caribbean churches is C.A.C. Stockwell.

Population of Stockwell
Stockwell and neighbouring South Lambeth are home to one of the UK's biggest Portuguese communities, known as 'Little Portugal'. Most of the local Portuguese people originate from Madeira and Lisbon and have established many cafes, restaurants, bakeries, neighbourhood associations and delicatessens. Stockwell is also home to many people of Caribbean and West African origin. They are also well represented in the local population, and cafes, grocers, barbers' shops and salons run by people from these communities are scattered around Stockwell.

Notable former and current residents of Stockwell include David Bowie, John Major, Gary Raymond, Lilian Bayliss, Edward Thomas, Vincent van Gogh (briefly), Violette Szabo, Joanna Lumley, Jerry Dammers, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Roger Moore, Roots Manuva, Adam Buxton, Joe Cornish, Nathaniel Clyne, Dot Rotten, Will Self, former Scottish Labour Party leader Jim Murphy, and footballer Paul Davis, who played for Arsenal.

Stockwell shooting
On 22 July 2005, following the 21 July 2005 London bombings, Stockwell gained notoriety as the scene of the shooting by police of an innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube train.

Nearest places

 * Brixton
 * Vauxhall
 * Kennington
 * Clapham
 * Battersea
 * South Lambeth
 * Camberwell
 * Elephant and Castle

Rail
There are no railway stations in Stockwell. However, the closest is Wandsworth Road Rail Station, on Wandsworth Road.

London Underground
Stockwell tube station is served by the Victoria and Northern London Underground lines.

To the south, the Victoria line terminates one stop away at Brixton. The Northern line terminates in the south at Morden, which provides Stockwell with a direct link to Clapham and South Wimbledon.

To the north, the Victoria line runs through Central London towards Walthamstow Central, stopping at several key stations including Victoria, Oxford Circus, King's Cross St Pancras and Tottenham Hale. The Northern Line carries passengers northwards towards Kennington and Camden Town. Most trains from Stockwell run through the City of London via Elephant & Castle, Bank and Moorgate. Some trains run on the Charing Cross Branch via Waterloo, Charing Cross and Tottenham Court Road. Beyond Camden Town, the Northern line links Stockwell directly to Edgware and High Barnet in north London.

Other nearby stations include Brixton (Victoria line) or Clapham North (Northern line) to the south of Stockwell, and Vauxhall (Victoria line) or Oval (Northern line) to the north.

In 2017, there were 11.7 million entries and exits at Stockwell tube station.

National Rail & London Overground
There is no National Rail station in Stockwell, but several stations can be found in the locale:

 * Some Southeastern services from Victoria call at Brixton railway station, linking Stockwell to Dulwich, Penge, Orpington and destinations in Kent.
 * At Vauxhall, some South Western Railway services from Waterloo carry passengers to south west London, Surrey and Berkshire destinations.
 * London Overground services call at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street to the south of Stockwell on direct journeys between Clapham Junction and Dalston Junction or Highbury & Islington in north London, linking the Stockwell area to Peckham and Shoreditch directly.

Road
Several major roads pass through Stockwell, including:

 * the A23 (Brixton Road) - from the A3 to Brixton, Streatham, the M23 and Gatwick Airport;
 * the A202 (Kennington Oval) - to Vauxhall and Victoria, or Camberwell, Peckham, the A2 and A20 (towards Kent);
 * the A203 (Stockwell Road/South Lambeth Road) - between the A202 and A23;
 * the A2217 (Acre Road);
 * the A3 (Clapham Road) - to Elephant & Castle and the City, the M25, Guildford and Portsmouth;
 * the A3036 (Wandsworth Road).

The A23, A202, A203 and A3 are managed by Transport for London (TfL).

Most other roads are residential.

Pollution
Pollution around Stockwell has been a concern for local health professionals and authorities since the mid-2000s, largely owing to the number of arterial routes in the neighbourhood.

A 2010 study found that, in Stockwell, 7 deaths each year could be attributed to exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5), compared to 139 in the London Borough of Lambeth as a whole in the same year (2008). Road traffic is a primary source of air pollution in Lambeth.

In 2016, Clapham Road south of Stockwell was identified by the local authority as an area of concern when it came to tackling air quality in the Borough, as this section of road is "exceeding EU limits for the gas Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)." Lambeth monitor air quality on Clapham Road in Stockwell using diffusion tubes. Since the introduction of the Oval STN, the pollution in the adjacent part of Clapham Road has got worse.

Buses & coaches
London Buses routes 2, 50, 88, 155, 196, 333, 345, P5, N2 and N155 serve Stockwell.

Some National Express coaches pass through Stockwell, with some services towards Gatwick Airport, Worthing, Bognor Regis and Eastbourne stopping in the area.

Cycling
Cycle Superhighway 7 (CS7) follows Clapham Road through Stockwell, largely on cycle lanes to segregate cyclists from other road traffic. The signed cycle route carries cyclists from Colliers Wood and Tooting Bec in the south, through Stockwell, to Oval, Elephant & Castle and the City of London. The route runs non-stop from Stockwell to all its destinations, but the route is not entirely traffic-free.

Just to the north of Stockwell, Cycle Superhighway 5 (CS5) terminates in a junction with CS7, linking Victoria and Millbank to Stockwell using a cycle track, separating cyclists from other road traffic.

Quietway 5 (Q5) runs on residential streets in the north of Stockwell, offering a slower but quieter signposted route direct to Clapham or Waterloo.

With two Cycle Superhighways in the locale, many junctions in the area are equipped with cycling infrastructure. Santander Cycles, a bike-sharing system in London, operates in Stockwell.

title: Stockwell