Stockwell is a district located in South London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. It is situated 2.4 miles south of Charing Cross. The name Stockwell is likely to have originated from a local well, with "stoc" being Old English for a tree trunk or post. From the thirteenth to the start of the nineteenth century, Stockwell was a rural manor at the edge of London. It included market gardens and John Tradescant's botanical garden – commemorated in Tradescant Road, which was built over it in 1880, and in a memorial outside St Stephen's church. In the nineteenth century it developed as an elegant middle-class suburb. Residents included the artist Arthur Rackham, who was born on South Lambeth Road in 1867, moving with his family to Albert Square when he was 15 years old. Another famed cultural figure who was born in Stockwell in October 1914, was theatre director Joan Littlewood, who has been called the mother of modern theatre.