South Bank

South Bank, loosely defined area along the south bank of the River Thames in the London borough of Lambeth. It is bordered to the east by Bankside and extends approximately from Blackfriars Bridge (east) to Westminster Bridge (southwest). South Bank is home to a major arts complex—South Bank Centre—that includes Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, and the Hayward Gallery.

Royal Festival Hall (1951) is used for concerts, recitals, and dance performances and is the home of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Its seating capacity is more than 3,000 for some types of performances. The Queen Elizabeth Hall, which seats about 1,000, and the smaller Purcell Room were opened in 1967. The Hayward Gallery (1968) hosts a variety of art exhibitions in both indoor and outdoor settings. The Poetry Library, with its 77-seat Voice Box for literary readings, also opened there in 1988.

Also part of the complex are the National Theatre building (1976), home of the Royal National Theatre; and the National Film Theatre (1957), which grew out of the Festival of Britain (1951) and is the home of the London Film Festival. The Jubilee Gardens, London Eye (a type of enormous Ferris wheel), and London Aquarium are just to the south. Also noteworthy are the Imperial War Museum (once the home of the Bethlem Royal Hospital for the Insane) and Hercules Road, named for the Hercules Buildings, a group of Georgian houses developed by trick rider and theatrical manager Philip Astley and named by him for his circus’s strong-man act. One of the first residents of the development was the poet and mystic William Blake, who counted his seven years in Lambeth as among his most productive and prosperous.

For centuries the riverside district was dominated by industrial plants and warehouses, but the aerial bombings that targeted Waterloo Station and other buildings of London in World War II ruined the area. With the preparations for the Festival of Britain (1951), which was devised as an economic stimulus to London, South Bank was transformed into a leading arts and cultural centre.