CHAPTER 10: THE MANOR OF WALWORTH AND THE PARISH OF ST. MARY NEWINGTON
Since the 13th century the phrases "the manor of Walworth" and
"the parish of St. Mary, Newington," have both been in use to describe the
south-western part of what is now the metropolitan borough of Southwark.
The name Walworth (Wealawyr` as it occurs in 1006) (ref. 224) is Saxon in
origin and means "farm of the serfs or Britons or where such worked." (ref. 225)
The manor was granted to the Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, in 1052 by Hitard, jester to Edmund Ironside. Domesday Book
states that in the time of Edward the Confessor, when it was assessed for
5 hides, it was appropriated for the clothing of the monks. In 1086 it was
held by Bainard of the Archbishop of Canterbury and assessed for 3½ hides;
it had one plough "in demesne" and "14 villeins and 5 bordars with 3
ploughs" and a church and 8 acres of meadow. (ref. 191)
The earliest record of Newington, Surrey, occurs in the Book of
Fees, (ref. 226) which mentions that in 1212 Roger de Susexx' held the church of
"Niwetun" of the gift of the Archbishop.
Walworth and Newington are marked as separate hamlets on the plan of
1681 (Plate 49), and they continued as such well into the 18th century. (fn. a) For as
long as the manorial organization functioned Newington remained a tithing of
Walworth manor, while from the 13th century onward the manor of Walworth
constituted the parish of St. Mary, Newington. It seems probable that the "vill"
of Newington ("the new farm") (ref. 225) grew up about the year 1200, and that its
growth was connected with the building of a new residence for the Archbishop
of Canterbury (Lambeth Palace) in his newly-acquired manor of Lambeth, for
this must greatly have increased the importance of the old road across Lambeth
Marsh and Southwark Field (St. George's Road) which joined the road to London Bridge near Newington Church, at what is now the Elephant and Castle.
Walworth Manor, as portrayed on the plan of 1681 (Plate 49), (fn. b) can
have changed little since the Middle Ages. (fn. c) The administration of church
manors was notoriously conservative and the strips in the common field,
the rights of common on the marshy ground of Lorrimore and Walworth
Commons, the manor house, the pound, the cottages spread on either side
of the road to Camberwell, which bisected the manor, and the fields and
closes with the rents and services by which they were held can be traced
from century to century with little variation. Except for a gradual increase
in the amount of traffic down the Walworth Road, the district was very
little affected by its proximity to London until the middle of the 18th century.
It was famous for its peaches (ref. 108) and its gardens. In 1792 James Maddock,
florist, of Walworth, in whose garden William Curtis saw single and double
varieties of Narcissus Tenuior growing for the first time in England, (ref. 229)
published The Florists' Directory; or Treatise on the Culture of Flowers, and at
about the same time John Abercrombie, who is described as a gardener of
Newington, published a book on flowers which included an account of the
then newly-introduced chrysanthemum. (ref. 230)
The formation of new roads after 1754 brought new life and an impetus to build, and in 1774 Henry Penton, the third of that name to hold a
lease of the manor house and surrounding fields, (fn. a) with the Dean and Chapter
of Canterbury and Thomas Brandon, gardener, lessee of the property known
as the 35 acres (see below), obtained permission by Act of Parliament (ref. 233) to let
land within the manor on building leases for 99 years. (fn. b) Penton was engaged
at this time in the development of Pentonville on land which he owned in
Clerkenwell. In 1773 he obtained permission from the Dean and Chapter
to dig brick and tile earth in Newington, (ref. 234) but he probably did not take
much active part in the detailed planning of building development there,
since he granted building leases of much of his Newington property to Thomas
Brandon, Thomas Clutton, William Austin, and others. His name, however,
survives in Penton Place, one of the first streets to be developed.
Dean and Chapter of Canterbury
At the beginning of the 19th century various parcels of ground in
the manor were still being leased under the old field names. For example,
in 1801 the Dean and Chapter granted a lease to Richard, William, and
Samuel Brandon, and John Carter, trustees for the three daughters of Thomas
Brandon, of two messuages and 35 acres "one days Work one Perch and
half a Perch of Land and Meadow in Newington" including "Larks Land,"
"the Pightel," "Stewson" (Stewfen), (fn. c) "Flax Crofts," "Bramble Shot," etc., (ref. 235)
while the ownerships given of the lands on which they bounded harked back
to the 16th century. It is not surprising, therefore, that as houses and streets
began to replace fields and gardens, the ownerships became confused.
In 1789 Thomas Brandon and his brother Samuel were granted a
lease in common of the property previously held by Penton (ref. 236) and they
jointly purchased freehold land in the manor as well. Thomas died in 1796,
leaving his estate in trust for his three daughters and their heirs, (ref. 237) and
Samuel, who died in 1818, also left his estate to trustees, but remained
"intestate as regards one ninth of his property." (ref. 238) The position was further
complicated by a number of mortgages and exchanges and the purchase by
Samuel of other leasehold property. In 1805 an Act had been passed "for
confirming certain Building Leases of Lands in Walworth," which stated
that some land had already slipped out of the hands of the Dean and Chapter
"so that the Possession thereof, if recoverable," could not be recovered
"without a Multiplicity of vexatious Suits." (ref. 239) The Act attempted, unsuccessfully, to clarify the situation on the basis of the status quo. Further Acts in
1811 (ref. 237) (relating to the Brandon property) and 1849 (ref. 240) (relating to the Clutton
property) were followed by a long series of Chancery suits culminating in an
Act of Parliament in 1860 (ref. 241) which partitioned the part of the Brandon estate
held in common between the heirs of Thomas and the heirs of Samuel
Brandon. By this time more than 100 beneficiaries were involved. By means
of two exchanges of property carried out in 1866 and 1876 all the rights of
the Church Commissioners in the moiety of the Walworth Manor Estate
held by the heirs of Samuel Brandon were extinguished.
The leases of the second moiety of the manor and also of the 35 acre
estate to the heirs of Thomas Brandon were renewed from time to time, but
after 1900 were gradually allowed to lapse as the under-leases fell in. After
1941 the trustees surrendered their remaining interest in the estate to enable
the Commissioners to repair the extensive damage done to the houses there
by enemy action. (ref. 242)
Maps of the 1780's depict Walworth as a pleasant country neighbourhood with a few newly-formed roads stretching across the gardens and fields.
On the Penton and Brandon property west of Walworth Road, Manor Row
(now Place), Penton Place, and Amelia Row (now Street) were the first to be
laid out, but the original 18th century houses were pulled down and replaced
by blocks of dwellings and three-storey terraced houses in the 1880's and
90's. (fn. a) A terrace of plain two-storey brick houses built at the beginning of the
19th century, survive on the east side (Nos. 59–75) of Crampton Street
(formerly Francis Street). They are linked by a band at the upper floor level,
but all the cornices have been removed.
David Hughson, in 1808, described Walworth Road as "lined by
elegant mansions." A few of these are left at Nos. 104–114 (formerly
Marlborough Place) and Nos. 140–152 on the west side—three-storey, flatfronted houses in stock brick with windows set in the recessed arches typical
of the period. (fn. a) Nos. 140 and 142 are surmounted by a pediment containing
an elliptical plaque of a draped woman holding a garland. Nos. 120 and 122
survived until 1953.
No. 86 Camberwell Road and the buildings forming the entrance to
the yard next to it (Plate 88b) were erected in 1814–15 (as No. 16 Grosvenor
Place) for Messrs. Garland and Fieldwick, masons and builders. The firm
continued to occupy the premises until 1869.
There was little building south of Manor Place before the middle of
the century, though the Montpelier Gardens, the Bee Hive Tea Gardens,
and the Surrey Zoological Gardens attracted large crowds at holiday times.
On the east side of Walworth Road, Prospect Row, (fn. b) Albion Place
and Union Row (now renamed Deacon Street, Heygate Street, and Gurney
Street) and East Street were laid out by 1780. Two or three of the original
houses built along these roads between 1780 and 1800 remain, though in a
very dilapidated state, e.g., No. 85, Gurney Street, and No. 226 East Street
(formerly No. 25 Apollo Buildings South) (Plate 61). (fn. c)
After 1820 building proceeded apace, but as late as 1853, when
Harriet Beecher Stowe stayed with the Rev. Thomas Binney at Rose Cottage
on the site of the present Town Hall, (fn. d) she found it a "charming retreat" with
a view from the windows of sheep and lambs grazing in a meadow. (ref. 246)
When development took place, it usually followed the shape of the
old field boundaries. Several groups of streets were built under the auspices
of the Brandon Trustees and the Dean and Chapter about 1850, but, with
one or two exceptions, little attempt was made to plan either the relationships
of these groups with one another or of roads within the groups. By 1880 the
whole area was closely packed with streets of working-class houses. Shops
and sheds were built over the gardens allowed by an earlier and more generous
age, and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, running parallel to the
Walworth Road up to the Elephant and Castle Station, added to the jumble
of bricks and mortar which Walworth had then become.
Much of the land is now being purchased from the Church Commissioners by the London County Council for redevelopment.
Newington Butts
A study of the very voluminous records relating to Newington has
revealed no reference to the existence of archery butts there, and it seems
probable that the name "Newington Butts" has reference not to the practice
of archery, but to the shape of the triangle of land between the roads there.
There are a number of instances from Surrey and other parts of the country
to the use of the word "butts" for odd corners or ends of land. (ref. 225) The first
reference to Newington Butts which has been found occurs in 1512. (ref. 247)
Figure 24:
No. 122 Walworth Road
The triangle of ground between the roads, known in the 17th and
18th centuries as the Three Falcons, was copyhold of the Manor of Walworth.
In 1802, Thomas Hardwick reported to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury
that the estate consisted of a number of small tenements all of which were
in bad condition. The present Nos. 85–91, 113 and 119 on the east side of
Newington Butts date from the early part of the 19th century, and were
probably built for Samuel Brandon who was granted a lease of the ground in
1816. (ref. 248) Nos. 85 and 87 have canted bays through their entire height and
the entrance door to No. 89 has a patterned fanlight and fluted columns
and transom, but otherwise the buildings are of little architectural interest.
Newington lay outside the jurisdiction of the City of London and,
on several occasions between 1580 and 1595, the players—Lord Strange's
men and perhaps others—took advantage of this fact to perform plays at
Newington Butts during hot weather when performances were forbidden in
and near the City for fear of the spread of infection. The playhouse at
Newington was built by a Richard Hickes, one of the Queen's Yeomen of
the Guard, (ref. 249) at some date between 1566, when he had a lease of ground
there from the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, and 1580, when the playhouse is first mentioned. It was demolished before October, 1599, when
there is an entry in the sewer records concerning "the sewer leadinge from
the houses where the old playehouse did stand att Newington." (ref. 126) The site
of the playhouse can be traced through subsequent leases granted by the
Dean and Chapter: it was on the plot marked W in the 1681 plan (Plate 49),
not in the road now known as Newington Butts, but on the east side of
Walworth Road near its junction with New Kent Road, where the Reliance
Building now stands.
The Manor House
No representation of the old manor house of Walworth is known to
exist, but Plate 59b reproduces a mid-19th century photograph of the
manor house built by Thomas Clutton in 1786 on the site of the old one. (ref. 250)
Clutton had a sub-lease of the manor house with the garden, home field, and
rick yard. He formed Canterbury Place, now a section of Penton Place,
on part of the grounds, and in 1808 the property was let to Roger Smith,
described as "of Newgate Street, haberdasher," (ref. 251) who lived in the house
until his death in 1816. Edward Cross took over the house in 1831 and used
it in connection with the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens. For a period
in 1847–48 it was the meeting-place of the short-lived Royal Surrey Club, (fn. a)
but by 1850 it had been turned into a public house. The leasehold interest
in the Manor House, then a tavern and tea gardens, again changed hands
in 1856. (ref. 252) The Manor House was pulled down and dwellings were
erected on the site by Frederick Sutton and John Dudley, builders, of the
New Kent Road, under a building lease granted to them by the Dean and
Chapter in 1878. (ref. 253)
Lorrimore Common and the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens
Lorrimore (Latamore or Lower Moor) Common, the smaller of the
two commons of the manor of Walworth, was about 19 acres in extent, three
of which were under water. (ref. 239) It comprised roughly the area between Suffield
Road on the north, Lorrimore Road on the south, Penrose Street, and
Borrett Road on the east, and Chapter Road and Delverton Road on the west.
It was enclosed under an Act of 1769 (ref. 254) and granted to Henry Penton as
lessee of the Manor. It was used mainly for grazing until 1831, when
Edward Cross acquired both common and manor house for the menagerie
which he had previously exhibited at Exeter 'Change in the Strand. (ref. 255) The
gardens were laid out to the designs of Henry Phillips, author of Sylva
Florifera, and were highly praised by John Loudon, who compared them
favourably with the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park. Cages for lions,
tigers, etc., were enclosed within a glass house 300 feet in circumference.
Other attractions included panoramas, firework displays, and concerts. A
drawing of the entrance to the gardens by Schnebbelie is reproduced on
Plate 58a.
Figure 25:
Map showing site of Walworth Manor House, etc. Based on the 1871 Ordnance Survey
Towards the middle of the century the gardens began to decline in
popularity and they were sold by auction in 1856. The new proprietor built
the Surrey Music Hall, designed by Horace Jones, on part of the grounds
near the lake (Plate 59a). It held 10,000 people and, beside being used for
concerts, it served as an auditorium for the Rev. Charles Spurgeon, who
continued to draw crowds in spite of the accident, caused by a false alarm
of fire, which occurred on 19th October, 1856, the first time he preached
there (ref. 187) (see p. 104). The Music Hall was burnt down in 1861. It was
rebuilt and, with the Manor House, served as a temporary home for St.
Thomas' Hospital until 1871, when the present hospital on the Albert
Embankment was opened.
An attempt to revive the Royal Surrey Gardens proved a failure, and
in 1872 the 13 acres of "attractive pleasure grounds laid out with great taste
in parterres, lawns, and terraces, adorned with Statuary and Fountains and
interspersed with Gravel Walks, … and … a magnificent lake" was
auctioned. The buildings included the theatre "substantially built of brick,
with stone and compo ornamentation, corner Towers, handsome Balconies
and Corridors," a brick-built bear pit and a new brick building intended for
a menagerie (Plate 58b). (ref. 252) Streets of terraced houses were built over the
whole area within the next two or three years by Sutton and Dudley, as
lessees of Sir Thomas Hare and his trustees. (fn. a) (ref. 256)
Lorrimore Square and Lorrimore Road
St. Paul's, Lorrimore Square, designed by Henry Jarvis in Victorian
Gothic, on ground given by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, was completed and consecrated in 1856. The ground round the square was let in
several lots to three builders, John Marsland of Walworth Road, John Lucas
Allen of Finsbury Square, and John Abbott of Manor Road South, Newington, and the houses in the square were completed at about the same time as the
church (Plate 84b). (ref. 257) The square was built on a close lying to the southwest of Lorrimore Common and not on the common itself.
On the south side of Lorrimore Road is St. Wilfred's Roman Catholic
Church designed by Frederick Arthur Walters, and built in 1914. It is a
substantial red brick building with a 60 foot battlemented tower surmounted
by a short spire. (ref. 258)
Newington Crescent
Newington Crescent, between Penton Place and Kennington Park
Road, one of the few parts of Newington not absorbed into the Brandon
Estate, was built in 1834–35. (fn. a) It has no pretensions to distinction either of
design or craftsmanship, yet the glimpse of a garden through the archway at
the turn of the crescent, the simple lines of the elevation and the ironwork
give some pleasure to the eye in an area of grimly utilitarian working-class
dwellings. Henry Jarvis, the architect, was the first occupant of No. 8. (ref. 260)
Figure 26:
Newington Crescent
Walworth Common
The ground on the east of Walworth Road at the southern end of
the manor was open common land until 1769, when it was enclosed so that,
in the words of the Act, it could be let for the benefit of the "numerous and
expensive Poor" with which the parish was burdened. The ground was
vested in trustees, who were empowered to let it on building leases for
99 years and to apply nine-tenths of the income to the relief of the poor, the
remaining tenth being paid to the rector. A workhouse was erected and
Westmoreland Road was laid out along the north side of the common, but
except along the Walworth and Westmoreland Road frontages, there was
little building there until after 1800. Development was not completed until
after the passing of the Walworth Common Inclosure Amendment Act in
1851. (ref. 261)
Surrey Square
In 1766 Jane Driver, wife of Samuel Driver of the parish of St.
George the Martyr, gardener, inherited some freehold land near the Kent
Road from her uncle, Abraham Pursehouse, a well-known Quaker. (ref. 262) For
part of this ground Michael Searles designed a terrace of houses (Plate 56),
built in 1795–96, of which eighteen still survive, the present Nos. 20–54
Surrey Square. A square, or rather an oblong, of open ground was formally
laid out in front of them, but Searles' drawing does not show whether it was
intended to line the other three sides with buildings. Horwood's maps show
two large houses on the west side of the square and one on the east. The
latter was the home of William Driver, son of Jane and Samuel, from 1799
until his death in 1819. He left the house and its furniture to his wife, and
Nos. 14, 5 and 6 (now 44, 26 and 28) in trust for his daughters Mary Ann,
Caroline and Sophia respectively. (ref. 263) No further development took place until
over sixty years later when the erection of All Saints' Church and the neighbouring houses entirely obscured the original configuration of the square.
Nos. 20–54 Surrey Square form the only remaining group of 18th
century domestic buildings in Walworth with any pretension to architectural
quality. The merit of the composition lies in its good proportions and
simplicity of detail, the sole ornament being the fan motif in artificial stone
in the pediment (Plate 57) and in the parapet of the end pavilion. Searles
designed a doorway with a pedimented hood supported by Doric columns
as an additional central feature, but this part of his design was not carried
out (Plate 56).
Residents
Samuel Brandon was the first occupant of one of the houses (the former No. 22, pulled
down in 1884 for Surrey Square School). No. 18 (formerly 1) Surrey Square was the
vicarage of the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Massinger Street, during the second half of the
19th century. The church, which was consecrated in 1843, stood on ground purchased from
the Driver family. (ref. 264) The Rev. John Waddington, minister of Union Street Chapel and the Pilgrim
Church, Southwark, historian and sociologist, lived at No. 34 (formerly 9) Surrey Square in
1856–72. Samuel Palmer, the artist, was born at No. 42 (formerly 13) in 1805. (ref. 25)
Dickens Square
Unlike most parts of the Walworth Manor Estate, Dickens (formerly
Union) Square (fn. a) with the adjacent houses in Harper Road and Ralph Street,
built on the close of 1 ac. 3 r. 15 per. shown on the 1681 plan (Plate 49)
north of Horsemonger Lane, was planned as a unit by the Dean and Chapter
of Canterbury and the Brandon Trustees. The actual work was carried out in
1844 by local builders—John Willson, John James, James Cooper and
Richard Davis, William Broadbent (fn. b) and Robert Davey Miller, James
Seagrave, and George Richard Drinkwater—some of whose initials, together
with D.C.C. (standing for the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury as ground
landlords) are inscribed on stones inset in the groups of houses for which
they were individually responsible. (ref. 265)
The two- and three-storeyed yellow brick terraced houses linked by
cornices and by plain stone bands at first-floor level are in no way remarkable,
and the central grass plot has been concreted over, but the square retains a
quiet if decayed Dickensian aspect in an area now almost entirely given over
to four-, five-, and six-storey blocks of flats. Perhaps its proximity to the
slightly superior houses on the Trinity House Estate (fn. c) has preserved it thus
far, though plans for its redevelopment are now being considered by the
London County Council.