London Borough of Southwark

Southwark is the oldest part of south London. An urban area to the south of the bridge was first developed in the Roman period, but subsequently abandoned. The name Southwark dates from the establishment of a defensive position in the area by King Alfred in the 9th century. The London Borough of Southwark was formed in 1965 from the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, and the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey.

The borough borders the City of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to the north (the River Thames forming the boundary), the London Borough of Lambeth to the west and the London Borough of Lewisham to the east. To the south the borough tapers giving a brief border with the London Borough of Bromley.

The northwest part of the borough is part of Central London and is densely developed. To the east, the Rotherhithe peninsula has lower-density modern housing and open space formed around the former docks. The southern part of Southwark includes the Victorian suburbs of Camberwell, Peckham and Nunhead, and the prosperous "village" of Dulwich with some very large houses forms the far south of the borough.

Population pyramid of the Borough of Southwark

At the 2001 census Southwark had a population of 244,866. Southwark was ethnically 63% white, 16% black African and 8% black Caribbean. By 2018 the population was 317,256, with 53% white, 16% black African and 6% black Caribbean. 31% of householders were owner–occupiers.

The area is the home of many Nigerian (Peckham is largely regarded as the heart of London's Nigerian community), Jamaican, South African, South American, Polish, and French immigrants.

Ethnicity

Ethnic Group	Year
	1981 estimations[8]		1991[9]		2001[10]		2011[11]		2021[12]
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
White: Total	172,175	83.5%	165,155	75.6%	154,316	63.04%	156,349	54.09%	158,220	51.5%
White: British	–	–	–	–	127,752	52.2%	114,534	39.7%	109,253	35.5%
White: Irish	–	–	–	–	7,674	3.1%	6,222	2.1%	6,024	2.0%
White: Gypsy or Irish Traveller	–	–	–	–	–	–	263	0.09%	156	0.1%
White: Roma	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	1,579	0.5%
White: Other	–	–	–	–	18,890	7.7%	35,330	12.2%	41,208	13.4%
Asian or Asian British: Total	–	–	10,922	5%	14,443	5.9%	27,574	9.3%	30,540	9.9%
Asian or Asian British: Indian	–	–	2,621		3,655	1.5%	5,819	2.1%	6,145	2.0%
Asian or Asian British: Pakistani	–	–	775		1,118	0.5%	1,623	0.5%	2,006	0.7%
Asian or Asian British: Bangladeshi	–	–	2,165		3,642	1.5%	3,912	1.3%	5,547	1.8%
Asian or Asian British: Chinese	–	–	2,796		4,492	1.8%	8,074	2.8%	8,405	2.7%
Asian or Asian British: Other Asian	–	–	2,565		1,536	0.6%	7,764	2.6%	8,437	2.7%
Black or Black British: Total	–	–	38,801	17.8%	63,416	25.9%	77,511	26.8%	77,299	25.1%
Black or Black British: African	–	–	15,713		39,349	16.1%	47,413	16.4%	48,320	15.7%
Black or Black British: Caribbean	–	–	18,218		19,555	8.0%	17,974	6.2%	18,156	5.9%
Black or Black British: Other Black	–	–	4,870		4,512	1.8%	12,124	4.2%	10,823	3.5%
Mixed or British Mixed: Total	–	–	–	–	9,146	3.7%	17,778	5.94%	22,151	7.2%
Mixed: White and Black Caribbean	–	–	–	–	3,350	1.4%	5,677	1.9%	6,401	2.1%
Mixed: White and Black African	–	–	–	–	1,954	0.8%	3,687	1.2%	3,569	1.2%
Mixed: White and Asian	–	–	–	–	1,343	0.5%	3,003	1.4%	4,653	1.5%
Mixed: Other Mixed	–	–	–	–	2,499	1.0%	5,411	1.8%	7,528	2.4%
Other: Total	–	–	3,663	1.7%	3,545	1.4%	9,453	3.2%	19,430	6.3%
Other: Arab	–	–	–	–	–	–	2,440	0.8%	3,123	1.0%
Other: Any other ethnic group	–	–	3,663	1.7%	3,545	1.4%	7,013	2.1%	16,307	5.3%
Ethnic minority: Total	33,990	16.5%	53,386	24.5%	90,550	36.98%	131,934	45.91%	149,420	48.5%
Total	206,165	100%	218,541	100%	244,866	100.00%	288,283	100.00%	307,640	100%

Extract from London's relief map showing how relief, the Norwood Ridge covers the south of the Borough overspills with crests to all other three sides and is the main feature for many miles.

Ex-St Thomas's Church is the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret. The other redundant church in public use is Francis Bedford's in Trinity Church Square, as recording studio Henry Wood Hall.

The rebuilt Globe Theatre

Southwark has many literary associations. Charles Dickens set several of his novels in the old borough where he lived as a young man. The site of The Tabard inn (featured in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), the White Hart inn and the George Inn which survives.

The rebuilt Globe Theatre and its exhibition on the Bankside remind us of the area's being the birthplace of classical theatre. There is also the remains of the Rose Theatre. In 2007 the Unicorn Theatre for Children was opened on Tooley Street. The Southwark Playhouse is in Elephant and Castle and the Union Theatre is on Union Street near Southwark station. The Menier Chocolate Factory combines a theatre and exhibition space, whilst the newly opened Bridge Theatre is next to Tower Bridge and City Hall.

The borough hosts the main site of the Imperial War Museum at the south end of Borough High Street.[19]

Peckham Library, designed by Will Alsop won the Stirling Prize for modern architecture. Another architecturally innovative library designed by Piers Gough, Canada Water Library opened in 2011.[20]

South London Gallery between Camberwell and Peckham is split across two buildings on Peckham Road. The Tate Modern is also based at Bankside.[21] MOCA, London, as curated by the artist Michael Petry, and Flat Time House are both contemporary art galleries on Bellenden Road.[22] Dulwich Picture Gallery also is in Dulwich. Bold Tendencies is an annual exhibition space in a former car park on Rye Lane in Peckham which has shown work by Simon Whybray, Jenny Holzer, Derek Jarman, Rene Matić, and Gray Wielebinski.[23][24]

Another museum is the Old Operating Theatre.[25]

One former museum include the Cuming Museum and the Livesey Museum for Children was a free children's museum housed in the former Camberwell Public Library No.1, which was given to the people of Southwark by the industrialist Sir George Livesey. The museum was closed by Southwark council in 2008.[26]

City Hall, taken from the high walkway on Tower Bridge

The northern end of the borough opposite the Square Mile includes the More London and London Bridge City developments accommodating the offices of major professional service firms. Notable such businesses include PricewaterhouseCoopers, Norton Rose, Ernst & Young, Lawrence Graham and Actis.[27] The Greater London Authority is based at City Hall.

The press and publishing industry is also well represented in Southwark; the Financial Times has its head office in Southwark Bridge Road,[28][29] and IPC Magazines in Southwark Street. Campus Living Villages UK also has its head office in the borough.[30]

Some of the old industrial and wharfside heritage remains at the now defunct Surrey Commercial Docks now Surrey Quays, including Greenland Dock and Baltic Quay, where major residential schemes were developed in the 1980s and 1990s. Near Tower Bridge old warehouses have been converted to new mixed uses at Butler's Wharf and Hay's Wharf. Similarly, further west, the Oxo Tower hosts restaurants, shops and housing.

There are major retail concentrations at Surrey Quays, Old Kent Road, Elephant & Castle/Walworth Road and central Peckham.

Southwark is currently home to three Opportunity Areas (areas with capacity for significant economic development) as designated in the Mayor of London's London Plan.[31] These are Elephant and Castle,[32] Canada Water[33] and Old Kent Road.[34]

John Keats Primary School on Rotherhithe New Road opened in 2018

London South Bank University (LSBU) has over 23,000 students and 1,700 staff at its principal Elephant and Castle site. The Chancellor is the entrepreneur newscaster Richard Farleigh.

The University of the Arts London has two of its colleges in the borough – at Elephant and Castle is the London College of Communication and on Peckham Road is the Camberwell College of Arts.

The largest university teaching hospital in Europe King's College London is at the Guy's Hospital site, merging the teaching activities of the Guy's, St Thomas' and King's College Hospitals here. St Thomas' was founded in the mid-12th Century in the borough and parts of it remain at St Thomas Street; Guy's was founded opposite this in 1725. The Salvation Army maintains the William Booth Memorial Training College at Denmark Hill.

Founded in 1945, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts moved to Peckham in 2018.[35][36]

Southwark has a wide variety of housing, including council housing, such as the post-Blitz Aylesbury Estate and the Heygate Estate to provide homes to low-income residents. The aforementioned estates have been turned over to local housing associations to demolish and redevelop as mixed-tenure developments. Southwark Council and the Greater London Authority have invested tens of millions of pounds in supporting the respective housing associations complete these projects, which in both cases will lead to a large increase in the number of properties on the sites, with an almost equal reduction in the amount of social housing: the Aylesbury Estate originally housed 2,403 properties at social rent while post-development there will be 1,323 for social rent and 1,733 for private sale, meanwhile the Heygate Estate had 1,214 properties before demolition, most of which were leased at social rent, while the final plans for the development will see 2,530 homes of which 500 will be social housing.[37][38][39]

Southwark's local residents' returns recorded in 2011 that its rented sector comprised 53.4% of its housing, marginally below the highest in England, which was recorded by Camden, at 53.5%. In neighbouring Lambeth this figure was 47.3% and in neighbouring Croydon the figure was 29.7%.

Southwark had the greatest proportion of social housing in England, 43.7% (31.2% owned by the council itself with the other social housing in the hands of housing associations), at the time of the 2011 census.[40] Tenant management organisations benefit many apartment blocks. The council set much housing policy among Housing Association blocks to allocate homes based on need and a rent that residents can afford, based on means testing, via headlease and/or by the Housing List. In many blocks a mixture of social, shared-ownership and private sector housing exists, particularly in those where the right to buy has been exercised and in newer developments.[41]

The old Southwark borough hosted many Courts and Prisons of Royal Prerogative, the Marshalsea and King's Bench. As well as the manorial and borough courts, magistrates met until the 20th century at the Surrey Sessions House which had its own jail for the punitive aspect of its work. The Inner London Sessions House (or now Crown Court) on Newington Causeway descends from these. The Southwark Coroner's Court in Tennis Street dates back to the charter of 1550. In 1964 Southwark Crown Court was opened at English Grounds near London Bridge. Since 1994 the Crown Court for west London Boroughs, was rehoused from Knightsbridge to Southwark as Blackfriars Crown Court. When the decision was taken to separate the judiciary and legislature, in 2007, by transforming the House of Lords Judicial Committee of Law Lords into the Supreme Court took over the court occupying the Middlesex Guildhall, whose City of Westminster judges transferred to Southwark Crown Court, hence the senior judge holds the honorific title of the Recorder of Westminster. Southwark's local magistrates sit at two courts in the borough, Tower Bridge and Camberwell Green Magistrates Courts.

The concentration of major courts, which are unlawful to film save for sentencing with judicial permission, enables their media coverage: Southwark has seven jurisdictions, six of which are London's criminal courts and which commonly receive offences committed in public office or in businesses based in Westminster and several other London boroughs.

The London Borough of Southwark has the following sport clubs:

• EFL Championship club Millwall F.C. who play at the New Den.
• Non-League football club Dulwich Hamlet F.C. who play at Champion Hill.
• Non-League football clubs Fisher F.C. & Bermondsey Town F.C. play at St Paul's Sports Ground, Rotherhithe.
• Independent Football Academy, Ballers Academy who train and play at St Paul's Sports Ground and The Docklands Settlement in Rotherhithe & Harris Academy in Bermondsey.

London Borough of Southwark Blue Plaque awarded to famous motorcycle designer Edward Turner unveiled in 2009 at his former residence, 8 Philip Walk, Peckham, London SE15

In 2003, the London Borough of Southwark started a blue plaque scheme for the commemoration of notable residents notably including living people in the awards.[49] The London Borough of Southwark awards Blue Plaques through popular vote following public nomination. Unlike the English Heritage scheme, the original building is not necessary for nomination.

The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Borough of Southwark.

• Southwark News (local newspaper)

• Southwark Council website
• Historic Southwark