London – South of the Thames: Chapter VI

This is a digitised copy of the book London – South of the Thames by Sir Walter Besant

Published in London by Adam & Charles Black (1912)

This is in its raw form. Sections will be improved manually on this blog as time goes on.

CHAPTER VI
NEWINGTON

Newington is not mentioned in the Conqueror’s Survey, but a church at Walworth is noticed, whence it seems probable that at the rebuilding of that church upon a new site it was surrounded with houses which obtained the appellation of Neweton, as it is called in all the most ancient records. It was afterwards spelled Newenton and Newington. The first record of the name Neweton occurs in the Testa de Nevil of the time of Henry III. —the first half of the thirteenth century. To distinguish the parish from Stoke Newington, it is generally spoken of as Newington Butts, the additional name, without doubt, coming from the ” butts ” placed there for archers, though some writers say it is named after the family of Butts of Norfolk, who owned an estate here.

In Henry VIII. ‘s reign such practice places were set up in the fields round London by authority, but were destroyed later by enclosure, and again restored in
the reigns of James I. and his son Charles. In the adjoining parish of Lambeth, Princes Street was formerly known as Lambeth Butts. The earliest mention of the
district as Newington Butts occurs in the register of Archbishop Pope at Lambeth under date of 158S. Although some distance from London, the plague of 1625 was very severe at Newington, 405 persons dying from it in July and August. The parish was said to contain about 1800 houses in 1792, and is now closely built over from Tabard Street on the north to Avenue Road on the south, and for such a dense population has only two public open spaces. Leaving St. George’s Church by Long
Lane, Tabard Street—a reminder of the old Borough Inn—is immediately on the right.

A narrow dirty street closely packed with small manufacturers, it is full of brush, firewood, and basket makers, with a few second-hand general shops between. A large engineering works stands on the south side, and the space through to Great Dover Street is full of little close alleys with stables in profusion. Great Dover Street, the old Dover Road— cut through at the beginning of the century—a broad, clean street, leading to the Old Kent Road, has shops and tradesmen on both sides with here and there a short terrace of a few dwelling-houses. At the corner of Swan Street is the old Surrey Dispensary, founded in 1777, and back from here to Trinity Street are quiet streets with manufactories dotted here and there. Trinity Street, a broad clean street of large houses, contains in the Square, Trinity Church, erected in 1823-1824, on ground given by the Corporation of Trinity House, which owns considerable property near here —a large edifice of brick with stone dressings, with a high portico and on the lawn a statue of Alfred the Great, now very dilapidated. Falmouth Road divides the district, and is composed of small houses, save at the lower end, where a block of tall dwellings faces the new Welsh Church. East of Falmouth Road all the streets are of much the same style of two-story houses, cleanly kept, standing closely together in short turnings that interlace everywhere. In Daverell Street is the Mission Church of St. Andrew and in Harper Street a large Board School. In Warner Street all the houses are marked with the arms of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, for on this ground stood the ” Lock,” and close to the south ran the old trench of King Canute which, on its way from Rotherhithe to Chelsea Reach, crossed the Deptford Road a little to the south-east of the Hospital at the lower end of Kent Street (Tabard Street, which formerly came as far as the corner of Bermondsey New Road), and, proceeding to Newington Butts, intersected the road a little south of the Turnpike (at the Elephant and Castle).

In Lawson Street is a block of artisans’ dwellings, and in Upper Bland Street still remains a vestige of old Newington —tiny little cottages standing well back from the road in gardens shaded by magnificent trees. To the west of Falmouth Road the principal thoroughfare is Union Road, better known by its former title of Horsemonger Lane. To the north is Union Square, with the large Lazenby Stables behind it, and opposite is Rockingham Road, full of small houses.

At the corner of Bath Street, overlooking the old gaol enclosure, is a tall Board School. Horsemonger Lane Gaol and Sessions House were begun in 1791 and completed in 1799, and occupied 32- acres of ground previously devoted to market gardening. In 1808 more ground was purchased to make an approach, but the buildings were demolished in 1878. It was formerly a place of execution for Surrey criminals, but most of the site is on the Newington Recreation Ground. The old outer prison walls still stand and enclose an asphalted gymnasium playground and bandstand. The London County Council has an office for testing weights and measures, with some other new buildings on a corner of the property, whilst opposite, in striking contrast, stands a row of very old, low, red-tiled cottages. The Sessions House now stands on the east side of Newington Causeway, on part of the old gaol grounds. Behind the old prison site is a nest of little streets running through to the New Kent Road, small and dirty, with stables everywhere and shadowed by the arches of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, which has a large coal-yard in Rockingham Street. JMany small trades are located in these by-streets with a sprinkling of builders’ yards and small shops. The New Kent Road east to the Church of St. Matthew at Falmouth Road is given over to trade, with houses standing back in gardens, and County Terrace with an open grass plot in front, to Warner Street. Borough High Street is lined with shops, which gradually increase in size along Newington Causeway to the south-east corner, where the great furnishing establishment of Tarn is situated.

This road has seen other sights, for in the reign of Henry VIII., says Stows Chronicle, “whilst the Church was under the government of Archbishop Cranmer—the 29th of April 1540 —one named Maundeneld, another named Colens, and one other, were examined in St. Margaret’s Church (Southwark) and were condemned for Anabaptists and were on the 3rd of May brent in the highway beyond Southwark towards Newenton.”

The block opposite is very busy, and includes Elephant and Castle Station, a theatre, a horse and carriage repository, a sales yard, stables and omnibus yards, restaurants and taverns. Some of the chief roads south of the Thames converge at this point, and trams and omnibuses passing in every direction with streams of foot passengers make the place a scene of continuous if drab and mud-bespattered activity.

The place is named from the famous old coaching inn that formerly stood at the junction of Walworth Road and Newington Butts, which had the crest of the Cutlers’ Company for its sign. To-day an insignificant house, it will shortly be pulled down to make way for another of the great flaring public-houses now so general.

An old turnpike gate barred Newington Causeway from the site of Tarn’s establishment to the London Road, and here—about fifty feet south of the turnpike —was the entrance, under a large gateway, to the private road from Lambeth to Greenwich, “always used by the kings of England,” says Maitland, “ever since the
erection of a royal mansion at Greenwich.”

It was near this place at the beginning of the century that Joanna Southcott set up a meeting-place for her deluded followers, and probably very near to the site
of the present Elephant and Castle Theatre that a former playhouse of the seventeenth century stood, much frequented by the citizens in summer, and in which the
servants of the Lord Admiral (Howard) and Lord Chamberlain performed. In Shakespeare’s time the theatre was also occasionally used by the players from the
“Globe ” at Bankside (Malone’s History of the Stage).

In Draper Street are the Drapers’ Almshouses built by John Walter in 1651 and rebuilt by the parish in 1778, a square of quiet little tenements looking out on a
tiny grass plot, and surrounded by noisy, busy streets. Behind the houses run little badly kept alleys of the poorest cottages tenanted by hawkers and casual labourers.

Southwards from the Elephant and Castle the Walworth Road is the eastern line of the parish. It is a busy road lined on the west side with shops as far as Beresford
Street, where the dwelling-houses still remain unconverted to trade purposes, with Walworth Wesleyan Chapel, built in 18 13, at Princes Street and a large music hall adjacent. Manor Place and Road recall the old manor of Walworth on the demesne of which stood for many years the Surrey Gardens. These Gardens covered some fifteen acres, of which three were covered by a lake and originally started as a menagerie when the Exeter Change was closed. Afterwards they were given over to panoramas and scenic representations, and finally to music and dancing. A large music hall to accommodate 12,000 persons was erected, which was afterwards used as a hospital during the rebuilding of St. Thomas’s, and also by the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon for a short time for religious services. It was here that, on the occasion of his first service in October 1856, seven lives were lost in a panic from a false alarm of fire. The ground covered by the Gardens from Penton Place to New Street is now covered with streets of good houses uniformly built in 1891 to commemorate the Services held by Mr. Spurgeon. At the corner of Manor Road is the Alexander Institute with a gymnasium and library. In Penrose Street are the offices and shops of the London Street Tramways Company, the rest of the neighbourhood being composed of two-story dwellings of a commonplace and depressing type.

Crampton Street is lined with tall new tenements with the unfinished public baths and washhouses in Manor Place. All this district is new, tall flat houses taking the place of small rows of houses, and in Amelia Street some of the same class of buildings are in course of erection. In Iliffe Street, also full of new houses, is a Board
School overlooking some old-fashioned streets leading to Kennington Park Road.

Farther south, Lorrimore Square, with the Church of St. Paul, consecrated in 1856, and the vicarage in the Square, and Lorrimore Road, a broad street of small houses, take their name from the old Lorimoor, or lower moor—sixteen acres of land and three of water—on which they are built. In 1770 an act was passed extinguishing the rights of Common, and the ground was vested in the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury as lords of the manor in lieu of their rights in Walworth Common. 

Hillington Street and Beresford Street, with streets through to the Walworth Road, are liberally laid out and clean, with the same straight rows of two-story
houses. Past the Board School at the corner of Avenue Road is Grosvenor Park, a quiet neighbourhood convenient to Walworth Road Station, the majority of the houses renting apartments. The Church of All Souls, built in 1871, faces Grosvenor Street. Avenue Road, the southern boundary, contains several blocks of dwellings which in this neighbourhood hardly warrant their title of ” mansions,” with small rows of houses and shops to Farmer’s Road. Only built up on the eastern side, this Farmer’s Lane—the old footway to Camberwell from Kennington Common—is dirty and the home of labourers and workmen. Behind it the streets are also small, with the same two -story houses, poor people, and crowds of children.

Facing Kennington Park is the new red-brick church of St. Agnes, with schools and vicarage attached—and a Mission Hall in Cook’s Road—with good houses adjoining it and in South Place. The streets between South Place and New Street are short, with the same small houses well kept. Kennington Park Road from the Park to Penton Place is composed of good, substantial residences, with Kennington Station of the Electric Railway at New Street and the Parish Church of St. Mary a little beyond. This church takes the place of the one formerly standing in Newington Butts, pulled down in 1876 for the purpose of straightening the roadway. The northern end of the road is given over to trade and is closely lined with shops. Behind the “Butts” to the west the streets are broad and clean, with good houses peopled by workers in the city, which is very easy of access from here. Brook Street leads into the old churchyard of St. Mary’s, now converted into a public garden, beautifully laid out, with the red-brick Church of St. Gabriel, erected in 1874 as a chapel-of-ease to St. Mary’s, standing in the northwest corner. The Church of St. Mary, prior to its removal to Kennington Park Road, stood on the eastern side of this garden, and on the site of older church buildings. Thesite was probably that of the church mentioned in Domesday Book in connection with Walworth, and since the Norman Conquest its position, according to Dr. H. C.  , has never changed. In 1292 a church is spoken of as being at Newington, and in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Register in 13 13 the parish is called “Newington juxta London. ‘ St. IMary’s stood so close to the roadway and caused such an awkward bend in the street that its removal was sanctioned in 1575, when all the remains in the churchyard were transferred to a specially built vault. Several old houses adjacent were also pulled down to further the improvement scheme. On the site stands a clock tower, 100 feet high, built in 1S77 through the liberality of

THE OLD ST. MARY’s CHURCH, NEWINGTON, DESTROYED IN 1875-1876 The architect was F. Hurlbatt.

Mr. Robert Faulconer, whose name appears on an Inscription. On the south side of the churchyard is the Wilberforce Mission, and a large model lodging-house in course of construction. On the north side there formerly stood the parsonage of St. Mary’s, mentioned by Lyson, who says, ” being built of wood, [it] appears to be very ancient [in 1792] and is surrounded by a moat which has four bridges.” It is hard to imagine such picturesqueness in this portion of London now lacking every element of external attractiveness. As already mentioned elsewhere, this district was formerly intersected everywhere by small water-channels, and to reach the old Queen’s Head Tea Gardens which stood on the site of the National Schoolroom, it was necessary to cross some of them. Stow mentions that in 1555 the floods were so great on the Lambeth side that foot-passengers were carried by boat from St. Mary’s Church to the Pinfold near St. George’s in Southwark, and Maitland says that on the west side of Hunts’ or the Fishmongers’ Ahnshouses is “a moorish ground with a small watercourse denominated the river Tygris, which is part of Canute’s Trench.” In 1823, when the road here was dug up, piles and posts were discovered with mooring rings attached. According to the old inhabitants, it was possible for boats in the eighteenth century to come up to the church.

It appears to have been built un an artificially raised site, and the architecture suggests the middle of the seventeenth century which continued till 1551 when the Proctor, William Cleybrooke, being dispossessed of his house, obtained a licence to beg.

Adjoining the schools is the Metropolitan Tabernacle, popularly known as ” Spurgeon’s Tabernacle,” opened in 1861. Six thousand persons can easily be accommodated in the auditorium, and in the building are also a lecture hall, school and class rooms, three vestries, and other rooms. It was built for the great C. H. Spurgeon, who preached here till his death in 1891. His son succeeded him as pastor. The building occupies a portion of the site of the old Almshouses of the
Fishmongers Company which were removed to Wandsworth.