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The history of the Elephant and Castle

Elephant and Castle has witnessed dramatic changes in recent times. Three hundred years ago the area was sparsely populated.  The villages of Walworth and Newington were set among market-gardens, fields and open marshland.  18th century Walworth was a prosperous suburb, but by Victorian times slums had swallowed up the commons. The 19th century saw an eightfold increase in the population.

Elephant and Castle has always been an important traffic junction and was once known as “the Piccadilly of South London”.  The Roman Stane Street, running up what is now Newington Causeway was joined by highways from Kent, Walworth and Kennington, and later by roads fanning out to London’s new bridges.  In 1641, heavy demand from a constant flow of horse-drawn vehicles let to a blacksmith, John Flaxman, setting up his forge on an island site between the roads. In the middle of the 18th century, the ‘smithy’ became an inn and was renamed the Elephant and Castle.

 The Elephant’s heyday was between about 1880 and the Blitz. Shops lined every approach road to the junction. These included William Tarn and Co, the drapers and department store; Hurlock’s, for children’s clothes; and Rabbits, the shoe shop

 Walworth is mentioned in the Domesday Book as a tiny manor. The land was supposedly granted by King Edmund (934-946) to his jester Hitard.  The notion of “playing the fool” seems to run through the history of the area.  Entertainment and leisure facilities included dance palaces, “penny gaff” theatres, the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall, and The Coronet which opened as the Theatre Royal in 1872. 

Religion and welfare were originally centred on the ancient church of St Mary in Newington. Nearby, a huge Baptist church – the Metropolitan Tabernacle – was built for C. H. Spurgeon, “the prince of preachers”. The Lock Hospital for Lepers was located near Lock Fields, the site of the present-day Heygate Estate. The lepers wore bells around their necks to warn people off.

 Housing ranged from the Drapers Almshouses in Cross Street, to terraces of townhouses in New Kent Road, to some elegant mansions, which still exist in Marlborough Place.

Public transport was introduced with the “horse-bus” in 1829.  The railway to Kent opened in 1862 and tramlines were laid in 1871.  The Northern Line followed in 1890 and the Bakerloo in 1906 – which still has its original station. 

 Devastated during the Blitz, the Elephant was transformed over the next two decades.  The terraced streets were replaced by high density slab-block estates and offices, and the dance hall at the roundabout’s centre was replaced by the Faraday Monument, housing an electricity substation for the Bakerloo line. In the early 1960’s the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre was built which was the first of its kind in Europe at the time.

 The Elephant is now about to undergo another major transformation. The planned £1.5 billion regeneration scheme will transform the area to its former glory, providing one of the most sought after places to live and work in central London.