Surrey Square is a
garden square in
Walworth in the
London Borough of Southwark. Located just off the
Old Kent Road it was laid out in the 1790s to designs by the
architect Michael Searles
Michael Searles (1750–1813) was an English commercial architect of large houses, particularly in London. His most notable achievement is perhaps The Paragon in Blackheath.
Searles was the son of a Greenwich surveyor, also named Michael Searles ...
, who also oversaw the nearby
Paragon at what is now
Bricklayers Arms. The square takes its name from the county of
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
in which Walworth was traditionally located. When built it would have been semi-rural and designed to provide upmarket housing for the expanding population of the capital. Within two years of the first stone being laid in 1792 it was fully occupied. Amongst notable early residents was the
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
Samuel Palmer who was born there in 1805.
[Campbell-Johnston p.8]
While northern side of the square was filled with
terraced housing, the other three were initially open spaces.
[British History Online]
The manor of Walworth and parish of St. Mary, Newington
Retrieved 27 January 2024. They were slowly filled with individual houses and All Saints Church. The square, already
oblong-shaped came to and less and less resemble a traditional square as more buildings were added to fill up the middle section, part of which is now known as Surrey Square Park.
[ Surrey Square Primary School is located on the northern side.
]
References
Bibliography
* Baxter, Mark & Lock, Darren. ''Walworth Through Time''. Amberley Publishing Limited, 2010.
* Campbell-Johnston, Rachel. ''Mysterious Wisdom: The Life and Work of Samuel Palmer''. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012.
* Cherry, Bridget & Pevsner, Nikolaus. ''London 4: South''. Yale University Press, 2002.
* Fairfield, Sheila. ''The Streets Of London: A Dictionary Of The Names And Their Origins''. Papermac, 1983.
Squares in the London Borough of Southwark
Streets in the London Borough of Southwark
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