Battersea
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Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, on the south bank of the River Thames. Local landmarks include the disused Battersea Power Station and Clapham Junction railway station.
LGBT history
Battersea Park was notorious as a gay cruising ground in the eighteenth century, and "Battersea'd" meant having a venereal disease, sometimes treated by having a special ointment, known as a "battersea" smeared on the penis.[1]
References
- ↑ "Battersea'd" in Randy P Lunčunas Conner and others, Cassell's Encyclopedia of queer myth, symbol and spirit, 1998, ISBN 0-304-70423-7.
