Loughborough Road

Loughborough Road was not as badly affected as some streets in the area from German air bombing of London in World War II.

[3] while the Loughborough Road Estate, built by the London County Council between 1953 and 1957, was a mixed density development that included nine blocks, each of eleven storeys.

It remains almost legendary in south London for the Mambo Inn, a club with DJs playing a mix of Afro, Latin and Reggae music to packed crowds.

They included the trick cyclist Jack Lotto (1856-1944), who would become one of the co-founders of the entertainment industry charitable organisation, the Grand Order of Water Rats; Augusta Carolina Rosaline Wingfield, who in the late 1800s performed as “Alphonsine, Queen of the Spiral”; the funambulist, Ella Zuila (1854-1926) and her acrobat husband George Loyal (1848-1920); and Irish-born “blackface” comedian George Le Clerq and his actor wife, Georgina White.

[8] Other residents included the Percy family whose business operations ranged from feather dressing to taxidermy,[9] and Nelly Roberts (1872-1959), an orchid artist who documented early species brought to Britain from around the world by wealthy collectors.