Believe it or not, until the 1960s, Stockwell was a little rural village.

Adjacent to Stockwell station is a deep-level aid-raid shelter, constructed during the Second World War and able to accommodate 1,600 people. Its ground-level structure is now decorated as a war memorial.

Vincent Van Gogh briefly lived in Stockwell, when working as an apprentice to an art dealer. In 1873 and aged 20, he fell in love with his landlady’s daughter, but she didn’t feel the same way about him, causing him to leave Stockwell.