About the site
The Royal Street development site is 5.5 acres of land and buildings either side of Royal Street and Upper Marsh in London’s SE1.
It is located directly opposite St Thomas’ Hospital on the South Bank, in the north of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is bordered by Archbishop’s Park to the south, Carlisle Lane and the railway viaduct to the east, and Lambeth Palace Road to the west.
With its close proximity to St Thomas’ Hospital and King’s College London’s university health campus, the site is ideally placed for delivering lab spaces for cutting edge MedTech firms.
The site is currently occupied by offices (Becket House), short term private rented apartments (Stangate and Canterbury House), and some meanwhile uses of the Old Paradise Yard workspace and the Oasis Farm.
There are lots of opportunities to greatly improve the existing public realm and provide connectivity between the site and Archbishop’s Park and the surrounding neighbourhoods. There are also some exciting possibilities to help Royal Street become the connection between the hustle and bustle of Lower Marsh through to the St Thomas’ Hospital campus.
History of the site
Royal Street and the surrounding area have a wealth of history, with the nearby bank of the river (originally known as Stangate Stairs) previously used for barge building and playing an important role in linking Lambeth to Westminster before the first bridge was completed in 1750. Much of the local riverside area remained as marsh land until 1871, when St Thomas’ Hospital moved to a new building on the bank of the Thames. Terraced housing also characterised the area until World War II when, like other parts of London, Royal Street suffered bomb damage during the Blitz. It has gradually been re-developed with the buildings we see now, including a revised road layout to facilitate the hospital expansion.
