Colombo Street, just south of Christ Church in Blackfriars Road, was at first called Green Walk before it became Collingwood Street. Green Walk, led from the Thames, past Christ Church to a ’tenter ground’ - an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth.

Christ Church had been a new parish formed in 1671 from St Saviour’s, Southwark. The area did not develop until after the building of Blackfriars Bridge and its approach roads during the 1790s. The surrounding marshy ground was drained at the same time.

These cottages of Colombo Street/Collingwood Street were shown on the John Roque map of 1745. The cottages were probably built in the late-seventeenth century and would have been occupied by tradesmen and artisans. They were demolished in 1948 after suffering wartime bomb damage.