Walworth

Walworth, Newington and the Elephant & Castle relate to suburban development in two important ways. First there are many good examples of estate developments in the Victorian period and second the Elephant & Castle’s role as a major transport hub was an important stimulus to development across a wide area. Walworth and Newington are co-termini. The former name (it is an ancient one and probably means the farm of the Britons) is usually applied to the manorial context and Newington, which is 13th century in origin, and means the new town, is applied to the parish.

The roads predated the buildings. The building of the New Kent Road, London Road and St George’s Road all in the 1750s created a major east-west axis from the Kent Road to the new Thames bridges and turned the Elephant & Castle into a hub. The Elephant & Castle is first heard of by name at that time; the name no more than a fashionable pub name of the day.

Building started along the main roads. In 1808 The Walworth Road was described as being lined with elegant mansions and there was much building along Kennington Road. The grandest development was by Michael Searles at the junction of the New and Old Kent Roads where he build the Paragon (another on Blackheath survives).

Newington and Walworth are really mid-19th century creations. The Trinity House Estate, splendidly set around Francis Bedford’s classical church of the 1820s, survives largely intact. Much of the development was in the hands of three bodies. The developers Henry Penton (hence the name of the north London district of Pentonville) and Edward Yates built many houses in the later 19th century, while in the early 20th century, the church, which owned much land south of East Street, redeveloped its properties in art and crafts tenement style. Other more commercial tenements were built at Pullen’s Buildings and on Rodney Road.

After World War II the area was badly hit by government planners. Many Victorian homes were replaced with very large housing estates such as the Brandon, the Heygate and, biggest of all, the Aylesbury.