Sir John Soane in Walworth

Walworth (Saxon: Wealawyr, 1006) and Newington (Niwetun, 1212) were once separate hamlets along the road leading south from London Bridge. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the area was noted for its public gardens and commercial small-holdings, especially those cultivating fruit and flowers. The population of the district was – surprisingly – very little affected by its proximity to London until the early nineteenth century,

Location of St Peter’s Walworth, London SE17

Map (2017) showing the location of St Peter’s Walworth

John Fairburn’s 1802 Map of London, showing Wllworth

Late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century maps depict Walworth as a pleasant country neighbourhood with a few newly-formed roads stretching across the gardens and fields. However, the formation of these new roads after 1754 brought an impetus to build well-to-do housing, and in 1808 the Walworth Road was described as being lined with elegant mansions. Between 1800 and 1820 the population of Newington increased from 14,847 to 44,526, although as late as 1853 when the author Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) lived there she found it a “charming retreat” with a view from the windows of sheep and lambs grazing in a meadow.

John Smith House at 144-152 Walworth Rd, c.2015

Richard Cuming ‘A view at Walworth’ (1779)

New Kent Road, Walworth, c.1905

But steadily throughout nineteenth century many of the area’s genteel Georgian-/Regency-era houses were pulled down and replaced by dense blocks of dwellings and three-storey terraced houses. By the end of the centiry the whole area was closely packed with streets of working-class houses, shops and industry.

Amelia Street, Walworth c.1978

Villa Street, Walworth, c.19o7

Large-scale post-war public-sector regeneration of housing resulted in the demolition of much of the earlier developments, replacing them with modernist estates of public housing, which in turn are now being replaced by estates of new private sector housing.

Aylesbury Estate, c.1997

A promotional image for ‘Elephant Park” (under construction 2017), which replaces the former public housing once provided by the Aylesbury Estate

In 1820, faced with a rapidly expanding population, the authorities sanctioned the creation of St Peter’s church (opened 1825) to the design of Sir John Soane (1753–1837), his first church, and it remains his most complete surviving church building. The parish is a thriving community and the building stands in excellent condition.

St Peter’s Walworth (1825), c.2014

St Peter’s Walworth, church plate, c.1952

St Peter’s Walworth (1825), staircase to west gallery, c.2014

St Peter’s Walworth (1825) c.2014

St Peter’s Church, Liverpool Gardens, Walworth, c.1905

St Peter’s Walworth (1825), c.2014

St Peter’s Walworth, (1825) c.2015

The west-gallery pipe-organ facade and gilded pipes belong to the first instrument (1824/5) installed in the west gallery, made by the London firm of Henry Cephas (H. C.) Lincoln (fl.1810-55). The original organ no longer exists. The current instrument by the firm of Harrison of Durham was moved here in 2010 from the chapel of Whitelands College, Putney, where it had first been installed, in 1949.