No. 31 Newington, Surrey, Volunteer

Newington is a district of South London, just south of the River Thames, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It was an ancient parish and the site of the early administration of the county of Surrey. The area remained as a farming village with a low level of population until the second half of the 18th century. In William Shakespeare‘s time, there was a theatre called Newington Butts. Newington gained in importance with the creation of the Westminster Bridge in 1750 and the associated improvements of London Bridge which required a series of new roads across St George’s Fields to interconnect the routes from them and allow traffic from the Georgian West End to travel south and to Southwark without transiting through the City. These roads converged at a junction where there was a blacksmith’s forge and inn called Elephant and Castle which then became a name to signify the area. New roads brought development opportunities. The local landowner, Henry Penton (Member of Parliament (MP) for Winchester), started to sell some of his farmland. The 19th century brought more dense speculative house building, and some philanthropic provision too. The Trinity House Newington Estate, laid out on property the institution was left in the seventeenth century, became a high class residential district which is still largely in existence.