Millbank, London
Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster. Millbank is known as the location of major government offices, the Millbank Tower and prominent art institutions such as Tate Britain and the Chelsea College of Art and Design.
The area derives its name from a watermill owned by Westminster Abbey that once stood at a site close to present day College Green.Norden's survey, taken during the reign of Elizabeth I in 1573, records the existence of such a mill although much of the area that comprises Millbank today, was referred to by Samuel Pepys and others as Tothill Fields. Described as a place of plague pits and a "low, marshy locality" suitable for shooting snipe in the nearby "bogs and quagmires."
After Cromwell's victory at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, some 4,000 defeated Royalists were imprisoned at Tothill Fields prior to being sold as slaves to merchants trading with Africa and the West Indies. Facilities at the prison camp on the marshy ground were so poor that 1,200 prisoners were recorded as having died in the primitive conditions.
Prior to the development of Millbank Prison in 1816, the area was sparsely covered with residential houses, but did feature a distillery by the river owned by a Mr. Hodge and numerous small almshouses, bridewells and pest houses for the poor, criminally inclined and sick. Baltic Wharf, a site just to the north of Vauxhall Bridge, was for much of the 19th century the location of a Henry Castle & Son, a ship breaking and timber merchant. Numerous wooden ships of the line of the Royal Navy were dismantled at this location, their ornate figureheads often displayed on the gates and perimeter of the yard walls.
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