Why Waterloo?

The convoluted story of how Britain’s busiest station got named.
ko-fi.com/jago...
/ jagohazzard

[@fiddley]

You didn't complete the series: The area took its name from the station which took its name from the bridge which took its name from the battle..... which took its name from the area which took its name from the Flemish for Watery Marsh, so it fits after all!

[@smallstudiodesign]

You should’ve squeezed in the infamous ABBA song in there somehow ...😂

[@iaincumming982]

@@smallstudiodesign - ABBA managed to work in souvendre/ surrender into the first line without being cancelled! I blame it on the blonde one!

[@Albanwinter]

"As long as I gaze on Lambeth Marsh Sunset, I am in paradise..." Oh no! I think not! Hahaha

[@ShedTV]

Ray Davies claims the original title was 'Liverpool Sunset'.

[@de-fault_de-fault]

Swampy and unpleasant not unlike a boys’ changing room is the evening time, but Lambeth Marsh sunset’s fine

[@Larry]

But... What is the ABBA song names after?

[@1973Washu]

It is an epic song about how they became trapped on the lavatory.

[@davidsirett5560]

as a fan of Pink Floyd i think there should be an inflatable pig permanently flying over Battersea power station.

[@WardyLion]

Gets my vote!

[@peabody1976]

Imagine being named Lambeth Marsh which fits better with the borough, but the commemorating a battle lent its name to the bridge and thus the station. It looks like they win when they lose!

[@Atomsk102]

So, is the Lambeth Marsh a slightly more military version of the Lambeth Walk?

[@sewing9434]

Lower Marsh should be famous for an important reason: Ian Allan's London store was located there! I made a deliberate pilgrimage to it from Waterloo Station, on my one and only trip to the UK. ...But then, after all that, as a bonus, you also tell us viewers that the same person who designed the Battersea power station also designed the iconic red telephone box!? Amazing... Please keep up the good work!

[@georgebirchall4281]

He also designed Liverpool Anglican Cathedral.

[@lawrencelewis2592]

Ian Allan's is still there- I've spent a lot of money there for my model train layout.

[@JimCarver-x7q]

Shops closed now

[@neilforbes416]

I guess you got "Strand"-ed at "Waterloo"! Say hello to Ray Davies of The Kinks while you're there but you'll have to wait for evening to do so in the "Waterloo Sunset".

[@ChakatSandwalker]

This is also something I've meant to look up for years but never got around to it. Thanks for the explanation!

[@PtolemyJones]

Waterloo Station was my hub when I got to spend two weeks in London. Clearly not long enough! The tube, oddly enough, didn't get as much use as it should, because there were so many interesting things to see, we tended to walk a lot. London Town was fun though...

[@RedArrow73]

2:47 - Tram rail poking thru?

[@iankemp1131]

A surprising omission from this story is that the original Waterloo Bridge, designed by Sir John Rennie, was regarded as the most architecturally distinguished of all London's bridges, and a big argument arose in the 1930s between those who wanted the bridge replaced and updated/widened (preview of Euston Arch controversy). Ultimately the war decided the issue, as the new bridge was essential for communications.

[@mjrussell414]

There’s some very rude graffiti spray painted on a wall in the video. I’m not easily offended but it did shock me out of my peaceful, enjoying the interesting story reverie. I don’t think Jago noticed it when he was filming background sequences.

[@AcornElectron]

It was the only place in London I really wanted to go to when I went. Have only been to London twice (neither time to visit the queen) and I’m glad I did.

[@Nastyswimmer]

Then there's the town of Morecambe, named after the railway station that was named after the promenade and pier on Morecambe bay, and the town of Windermere that was called Birthwaite until the railway arrived and named its station Windermere after the lake

[@JagoHazzard]

And then Eric Bartholomew names himself after Morecambe...

[@goodwood-rc4nx]

heard somewhere when Winston Churchills coffin was going to be taken to his final resting place it left from waterloo station instead of one better for an easier trip just to annoy Charles de galle

[@Dave_Sisson]

I was always amused that the trains through the channel tunnel used to terminate at Waterloo. I liked to think it was to remind French people who arrived in London just who won the final battle of their 800 year conflict with England. So I was slightly disappointed when they shifted the trains to St Pancras.

[@mr51406]

French tourists are bemused by the number of towns in Canada with main streets named Wellington. Even in Quebec! And the most important street of all: Wellington St, Ottawa, passes in front of Parliament Hill. (But revolutionary, godless Napoleon was not popular with French Canadians then.)

[@allangibson8494]

Professr Frank In Australia we have a Napoleon Rd that terminates at Wellington Rd...

[@geoffreyhobbs1548]

@@Dave_Sisson And I would have to allow at least another hour to get to the Eurostar terminal.

[@iankemp1131]

Indeed, I think the story is that Churchill had a hand in the planning of his own funeral (from 1953 onwards). He was given a state funeral at St Paul's but chose to be buried in Bladon churchyard next to Blenheim Palace. Hence the funeral train from Waterloo via Reading, for which they ensured that Bulleid Pacific "Sir Winston Churchill" was rostered. My father made a tape recording of the BBC radio broadcast of it leaving Waterloo.

[@1258-Eckhart]

With a view to the marshes, they could have taken a leaf out of Belfast's book and called it Bogside Station, which would have had the advantage of enabling exactly the same schoolboy jokes as with the current name.

[@paintedpilgrim]

I think you may mean Derry/Londonderry and the areas within commonly called Bogside and Waterside, Waterside was also the designation to the current station when the city had multiple stations.

[@RichardWatt]

My wife is Russian and she's a fan of the Duke of Wellington - I wonder why that would be? ;)

[@Ribeirasacra]

I love these little snippets. However, I now have one , possible (unanswerable) question. At 0:57 and 2:41 there is a man fighting with one of those advertising flags........ Why? 🤔

[@ianthomson9363]

Everyone should have a hobby.

[@JonathanEllis12]

I think it would've been called Lambeth Marsh still it maybe just Lambeth North and the current Lambeth would be Lambeth South. Though this would lead to a great question as to what the current Lambeth North Station would be called in this alternative future

[@dambrooks7578]

Lambeth Other, maybe...?

[@raphaelnikolaus0486]

Strand South (or Strand South Bank) :P

[@montedaestrada3563]

Interesting but incomplete for someone who, almost, remembers so much development of the area.

[@MrGreatplum]

Excellent - I always liked how when the channel tunnel first opened, trains would lead to Waterloo from France - seemed apt!

[@psammiad]

Waterloo is really North Lambeth, so without Waterloo it would probably have been called that. Or Lambeth Marsh - there's a Hackney Marsh still, after al, which isn't a marsh today. Waterloo, and the original town in Belgium, means "clearing in a marsh", which is appropriate!

[@JagoHazzard]

I wish I’d known that when I made the video! That’s very serendipitous.

[@glitch4465]

It would just be called "Lambeth", just like neighbouring "Southwark".

[@street-level]

"Michael Faraday conducted experiments into electromagnetism there." Quite.

[@HSMiyamoto]

Given the names of the dozen or so London termini, LSWR would have probably called it either "Lambeth" or "Strand Road." The only problem with "Lambeth" is that it was associated with lower class people than LSWR would wish to associate itself. However, "Kings Cross," "Euston Square," and "Paddington" were also once areas associated with vice and crime, and they got along all right regardless.

[@pacificostudios]

Given the reputation of Lambeth in the 19th century, the LSWR would have wanted to call their terminus anything else. However, given the history of other "temporary" stations of the time, like Nine Elms and Camden, it probably would have been initially named Lambeth. Perhaps the station would have rehabilitated Lambeth as a name, the way Kings Cross and Paddington -- originally a canal basin -- went upmarket after the railways came.

[@1963TOMB]

Prior to Waterloo being constructed the terminus for the line was at Nine Elms, somewhere in the area of the New Covent Garden Market with sidings and Depot running up behind the recent Sainsburys/Nine Elms Point development

[@1963TOMB]

@@chriszanf Wow: this is amazing! Prior to lockdown I worked at Battersea Power station and stayed during the week in a flat overlooking the new Northern Line Nine Elms tube station so I'm familiar with the whole area. I never knew that the power station at some time only had three chimneys! It also seems to me ironic that the new US embassy is built on the site of an old brewery!

[@TamaMaehe]

There is a Waterloo Station in Wellington, New Zealand, Where I grew up. As a kid I wondered why it was called, waterloo. Of course later on I realised the links, probably after history class 😂

[@ianpatterson6552]

It could have been Le Belle Alliance Station if Blucher had got his way. Incidentally Blucher is now a small village in West Newcastle.

[@peterdawson2645]

On the subject of names, I noticed a street sign for The Cut, London SE1. A cut is of course another name for a canal, so was that what gave that street its name?

[@markhylton4680]

Of all stations Tube stations Waterloo Station is the best As a child always Love Waterloo Station As a man Waterloo Station is the best in the whole wide world

[@garymcguire8529]

My grandfather died while working on Waterloo Bridge in 1941, he was not woman!

[@wiltail]

2:05 gotta love vandalism at the bottom right of the screen with specific words on it

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

I don’t understand something in the video. If the old London Bridge was downstream of Waterloo Bridge, its demolition should not change the water flow at Waterloo Bridge should it? This would only be the case if the old London Bridge had been upstream from Waterloo Bridge. Am I missing something? Do upstream and downstream have swapped meanings in American and British English causing me to be confused?

[@chazzyb8660]

The Thames throughout London is tidal (as far as Twickenham, where it is controlled by locks) so that part of its flow is contrary, with half the flow being eastwards, when the tide is going out, but more water enters the Thames Estuary (flowing up river) than flows down it when the tide is coming in. Confusing. The effect would have been much less pronounced before old London Bridge was knocked down, partly because the old bridge's arches were much closer together, restricting water flow, but more so because the river was much more loosely controlled. It was only when the Embankment was built, basically acting as a culvert that the intensity of the tidal effect became clear. I'm sorry I haven't explained it very well, but hey!

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

@@chazzyb8660 This is going to sound like a lie, but I actually was thinking about this post earlier today. That does seem to be a bit of an unusual situation though I am not a hydrologist so maybe it happens everywhere. At any rate I can vaguely imagine the situation as you described it. This would be worth a video or two on its own if Jago ever feels the inclination. Thanks!

[@terribleatgames-rippedoff]

@@donkeysaurusrex7881 Even if you were to remove the tidal water movement from the equation to simplify how the demolition of a downstream bridge could damage an upstream bridge in an imaginative one-directional river, there would still be potential damage due to the lack of height difference of the river between the bridges. Thus the upstream bridge would be constructed at the time the downstream bridge restricted the water flow in a bigger extent. And once the downstream water-restricting bridge got replaced by a new less restrictive one, more water would flow easily downstreams through the upstream bridge, increasing the rate of erosion and water grinding, effectively damaging the upstream bridge.

[@pixadavid]

You say that if they kept Strand Bridge thery could hardly name an area on the south bank after an area on the North - but isn't that already the case with London Bridge? Besides the bridge itself, there is also an area of the City called 'London Bridge' and a quite seperate and different area south of it called 'London Bridge'

[@geoffreyhansen8543]

Did the French object to the Eurostar terminating at a station named after a battle which they lost?

[@mrbojangles8133]

which is why a London station is named after a town in Belgium 🇧🇪

[@tt-ew7rx]

Waterloo Bridge is the name of a movie and the site where someone was allegedly murdered with an umbrella.

[@malcolmdalrymple1779]

What if Waterloo had not been the terminus? What an architectural flight of fancy that would be.

[@gnhansen29]

As an Australian I've noticed that a lot of London terminals seemed to be based on the edge of the Thames River. Was this the closest they could get to the city of London?

[@iankemp1131]

For the southern ones, the cost of bridging the Thames and demolishing prime property on the north bank was the barrier. For the northern ones, there was a planning decision (presumably back in the 1830s!) that terminals should not be further south than the Marylebone/Euston Road, hence Paddington, Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross. Hence the annoying gap for cross-London travellers ever since.

[@adiebarrett]

I'm taking a risk watching this enthralling series of knockabout knowledge trips. Being rendered unable to hear a Teams Meeting calling me is no laughing matter. Especially when I organised the meeting in the first place. Keep 'em coming Jago - I'll happily watch these post-redundancy!

[@colinmorgan6733]

My Grandad ran a General Provisions shop on Lower Marsh from the 40s through the 50s.

[@maryapatterson]

No mention of the song 'Waterloo' by Abba.....

[@adiebarrett]

I'm taking a risk watching this enthralling series of knockabout knowledge trips. Being rendered unable to hear a Teams Meeting calling me is no laughing matter. Especially when I organised the meeting in the first place. Keep 'em coming Jago - I'll happily watch these post-redundancy!

[@Andrewjg_89]

And don't forget ABBA who made the song "Waterloo". kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZvCanafg9CepJY

[@gnhansen29]

Were the French offended by the Eurostar terminating at Waterloo?

[@JagoHazzard]

I heard that some were, and I even heard it rumoured that some wanted to rename a French station after a battle the English lost. How serious they were, I don’t know. The papers may have been exaggerating.

[@richardtwydell4104]

Of course they would have a much more restricted choice. Assuming it has to be an “away” location as using a location in France would be confusing, though that wouldn’t stop the French, renaming “Gare Du Nord” as “Gare 1066” has a certain style to it.

[@francesconicoletti2547]

Amber Watkins yeah, France doesn’t have much of an history of invading England.

[@faithlesshound5621]

@@francesconicoletti2547 The Kings of France had endless wars with the Dukes of Normandy and the Counts of Anjou (etc), who happened to be Kings of England on the side. Eventually they gained all the lands within the Hexagon, which was all they cared about.

[@francesconicoletti2547]

@@faithlesshound5621 you know French Guyana and New Caledonia are parts of France don’t you ? And the French had to be thrown out of Haiti several times until it stuck. Henry V claims to be the rightful king of France, so do all English kings until the 17th Century.

[@francesconicoletti2547]

I’m reminded of the new Meridian Water development, with it Meridian Water Station. There was much harumphing on another KZbin London train channel on how trendy and corporate the name was. Looked a the map, the place is on Meridian Road. Which runs close to the prime meridian.

[@stefanochiodi8800]

are you a gay wizard?

[@lawrencelewis8105]

Have you ever been to the "Hole in the Wall" pub just outside? It's a run down dump, but what a beer selection!

[@JagoHazzard]

I haven’t yet. I do want to, but then, in lockdown, all pubs looked exciting to me.

[@lawrencelewis8105]

@@JagoHazzard Me too- I am so missing a nice pint it hurts.

[@jajeronymo]

Delightfully instructive video as usual. May I suggest a video on Battersea Power Station? I was last in London in 2013 and am unsure of its current condition. BTW, you made my heart very sad with news of Elephant and Castle Shopping Center demolition. I visited it in that year on my way back from the IWM.

[@ZGryphon]

Like everything else in London these days, it's being renovated into a complex of fancy apartments and shops for rich people.

[@jajeronymo]

@@ZGryphon some of them now duly sanctioned, I should think....

[@colbypupgaming1962]

.....did you literally make a short video about a crossing of the Thames JUST SO you could make that pun?

[@joanclare1873]

Jago hi. Having recently discovered your channel, I've been fascinated by the different seat coverings. is it possible to 'cover' this in one of your clips? Enjoying it all, many thanks for being so entertaining.

[@JagoHazzard]

That’s a fine idea!

[@luxford60]

@@JagoHazzard and how should moquette be pronounced?

[@ianthomson9363]

@@luxford60 Exactly like that.

[@highpath4776]

the road signs to Waterloo are really confusing (at elephant), one would think you would end up near the main entrance of the station, or the roundabout at the bottom of the Bridge for Coin Street, but no, it heads you to the west end of Lower Marsh ( so North Lambeth if you like), past the necropolis railway station entrance, and into Westminster Bridge, If you got lost at one time you could drive around the roundabout encircling the city hall extension, but now you have to go down to lambeth bridge and around the roundabout there (not easy in an artic)

[@neilforbes416]

"Coin Street"? I'll bet they flipped on that one! LOL

[@highpath4776]

@@neilforbes416 Tic tac toe at the OXO tower anyone ?

[@neilforbes416]

@@highpath4776 Don't get too "cross" if you get "nought" takers!

[@darthhammer1475]

I bet there are so many labour voters watching !

[@Rog5446]

It won't be called Waterloo for long because of political correctness. After all, we don't want to offend the French, do we?

[@johnmccallum8512]

Don't we?

[@jamesharmer9293]

We've been offending the French for a thousand years...

[@peterjones3557]

It's a national pastime!