From: Estate_Lives
As you can see from this early map of the Lambeth area, the land now occupied by the estate (West/South of the Oval) was purely open country – not even partitioned into fields, as the land further West appears to be. Interestingly, even though we have the shape of the Oval in place it is named as ‘Poplar Grove’. Devonshire Place has since become Harleyford Road and Montford Place has supplanted Montfort Street. Clayton Street and Bowling Green Street have both survived.