Walworth (/ˈwɔːlwərθ/WAWL-wərth) is a district ofSouth London, England, within theLondon Borough of Southwark. It adjoinsCamberwell to the south andElephant and Castle to the north, and is 1.9 miles (3.1 km) south-east ofCharing Cross.
Major streets in Walworth include theOld Kent Road,New Kent Road andWalworth Road.
The name Walworth is probably derived fromOld EnglishWealh "Briton" and the suffix-worth "homestead" or "enclosure" and, thus, "British farm".[1]
Walworth appears in theDomesday Book of 1086 asWaleorde. It was held by Bainiard from Archbishop Lanfranc ofCanterbury. Its domesday assets were: 3½hides; one church, fourploughs, 8 acres (32,000 m2) ofmeadow. It rendered £3.[2]
John Smith House is on Walworth Road, and was renamed in memory ofJohn Smith, who was leader of theLabour Party from 1992 up to his sudden death in 1994. A former headquarters of the Labour Party, it was often seen in news reports at election times and in the background as people came and went from meetings of the Labour PartyNational Executive Committee. It was used by theLondon Borough of Southwark as the home for its education department and reopened in July 2012 as ahostel.[3]
St Peter's Church, Walworth, built circa 1825, is an excellent example of theneo-classical style of church built bySir John Soane. It is an indication of the wealth of the middle-class merchants who then lived in the vicinity that they could afford an architect of such prominence.[4]
Manor Place Baths is a former wash house in Manor Place off Walworth Road. It is a grade IIlisted building. The building was renovated byKagyu Samye Dzong, Tibetan Buddhist Centre who obtained a five-year lease in 2005. They opened it as their London centre, calledManor Place Samye Dzong on 17 March 2007. Adjacent is the council's old recycling depot which is now closed and has been replaced by a new facility[5] at 43 Devon Street, off Old Kent Road.[6]
Walworth is also home to thePullens buildings - a mixture of Victorian live/work spaces and yards. Many of the flats are one bedroom, and some of the flats still connect to the Workshops of any of the three yards (Illife Yard, Peacock Yard and one other).[7]
Walworth also used to have a zoo, inRoyal Surrey Gardens, which was visited byQueen Victoria.[8]
Walworth Town Hall, previously the Vestry Hall of St Mary, Newington, became the headquarters of theMetropolitan Borough of Southwark and was renamed "Southwark Town Hall" in 1900.[9] It reverted to the name "Walworth Town Hall" when it ceased to be the local seat of government after the enlargedLondon Borough of Southwark was formed in 1965.[10]
Large amounts of regeneration and gentrification are occurring in Walworth, including the demolition of the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, the newly built Strata tower, the demolition and regeneration of theHeygate andAylesbury Estates, and redevelopment of St Mary's Churchyard as a new park. TheBakerloo Line Extension is proposed with two new stations along Old Kent Road.[11]
The district of Walworth features inCharles Dickens’Great Expectations; Mr Wemmick resides here in a small wooden cottage.[12]Dickens also mentioned Walworth in “Sketches by Boz, The Black Veil”.Walworth is featured in the 2016 novel byStella Duffy,London Lies Beneath, set in 1912.[13] It is also featured in the 2017 filmThe Foreigner, as the restaurant of the protagonist Ngoc Minh Quan is based in this district.[14]
Enda Walsh's 2006 play,The Walworth Farce, is set in a council flat near the Elephant & Castle. A theme of the play is Irish migration and immigration. Walworth had been a centre for Irish immigration since the nineteenth century.[15]
Media related toWalworth, London at Wikimedia Commons
