SUTHERLAND SQUARE, WALWORTH

Tucked away behind the busy Walworth Road, Sutherland Square is located within a conservation area that includes several listed buildings. However, very little was known about this particular house, so I was excited to discover that this seemingly unassuming early Victorian terrace in Walworth had a fabulous history to unfold, not only about the house itself but the surrounding area.

Initially, this was a challenging house to research, as not only had the house numbers changed but so had the street names. Each side of the square had been individually named - this part of the square had originally been known as Sutherland Square East. This made going through rate books or directories tricky - I could never be sure that the house I was researching was the right one. But by looking through the Metropolitan Board of Works map from 1868 at the London Metropolitan Archives, I was able to clarify how the numbers had changed and work out exactly which house I was looking at!

“Initially, this was a challenging house to research, as not only had the house numbers changed but so had the street names”

I was able to pinpoint the date of construction to the late 1840s by looking at local maps, but perhaps more interesting was that before the house was built this area of London had been dominated by gardens - more specifically, it was the home of the Walworth Nursery Gardens and the Montpelier Tea Gardens. Also, not far away from Sutherland Square were the Surrey Zoological Gardens, which were once hailed as rivalling Regent's Park. Not only had they been beautiful gardens, but well-known Christian preacher Charles Spurgeon had regularly preached to a capacity crowd of more than 10,000 people in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, until the congregation moved to the newly opened Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861.