Borough Road

Borough Road was created as part of the planning and road improvements associated with the completion of Westminster Bridge in 1750, to provide access to Southwark from the north-west 'West End' without having to travel through the City of London. The street emerged not from medieval lanes, but from 18th-century vision—a deliberate cut through what had been St George's Fields, a flat and swampy area south of the river. It was infrastructure for a modernising city, but the land had to be drained and built first.

1817

The British and Foreign School, Borough Road - 1817

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

2007

Borough Road, SE1

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

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Historical image not found

Today

Shops on Borough Road, Southwark

Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0

Today, the campus of London South Bank University lies to the south between St George's Circus and the junction with Southwark Bridge Road, with the main entrance on Borough Road and the building where this entrance is located known as the Borough Road Building, at 103 Borough Road. Walk the street now and you see brick university blocks, the railway viaduct overhead, the bustle of students. But the name—the Borough—carries memory of something older and deeper than the street itself.

The area at the southern end of London Bridge was named as 'Southwarke borow' in 1559 and the 'borough of Southwarke' in 1603, with 'borough' meaning 'suburb of a city outside the wall'. Borough Road did not exist in those years—it was St George's Fields, a marshy open space—but when the street was built around 1750, it inherited the name of the district it served and crossed. The word derives from Old English burgh, a fortified settlement, and by medieval times 'the Borough' had become Southwark's formal identity.

Unlike most London street names that commemorate individuals or landmarks, Borough Road is purely geographical. It is the street that leads to the Borough, takes people to the Borough, belongs to the Borough. The name carries no specific person, no date, no story of a building or business—just the sense of a place that has been important enough to name itself, and to keep that name even when the street changed everything around it.

Borough Road emerged from necessity. Blackfriars Road, Borough Road and other boulevards leading to St George's Circus were laid over the waste of St George's Fields with the confident sweep of a town planner's vision. The fields had been drained at last, and by the 1790s, development could begin. But this new Georgian street remained pastoral, quiet, open—a very different place from the crowded Borough High Street to the north.

But it was Lancaster's school that defined the street. In 1798, Lancaster founded a free elementary school with support from his father, and went on to start in Borough Road, Southwark a free school using a variant of the monitorial system. The monitorial system was revolutionary: older pupils taught younger ones, allowing one teacher to educate hundreds of children with minimal cost. Lancaster's 1803 book brought him positive publicity, and the Borough Road school numerous visitors. The school called itself the Royal Free School, and Lancaster was granted an audience with George III in 1805.

When Borough Road College moved to Isleworth in 1889, much later in 1975 it merged with Maria Grey Training College to form the West London Institute of Higher Education, which then became the Osterley Campus of Brunel University from 1995 to 2006. Meanwhile, the Polytechnic became the university. Education remained the constant, even as institutions came and went.

The Borough Road Gallery features paintings by David Bomberg and the Borough Group. In 2009, the University received a gift of a collection of works by Bomberg. The street itself became the subject of artistic attention in the mid-20th century, when Bomberg was the leading artist of the Borough Group during the 1940s and 1950s. For a street defined by institutions and learning, it also became a muse.

The London School of Musical Theatre is based at 83 Borough Road. The street remains a stage for artistic voices, from painters to musicians, continuing a tradition that began with Lancaster's belief that education itself is an art. The Baptists have chapels in Borough Road and Maze Pond. Dissent, faith, and learning have always shared this street.

Joseph Lancaster (1778–1838) was an English Quaker and public education innovator, born in Southwark, south London. He was not alone. His supporters included the support of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and two royal dukes, Kent and Strathearn and Sussex. The street attracted reformers, teachers, and philanthropists who believed in education as moral action. A bust of Joseph Lancaster, given by the Victorian philanthropist John Passmore Edwards, remains at the university.

The painter David Bomberg taught at London South Bank University when it was known as Borough Polytechnic. Across a century and a half, the street remained a place where individuals could shape how people learned—first through Lancaster's monitorial schools, later through art and institutional innovation. Few streets carry the imprint of so many teachers.

South Bank Polytechnic attained university status as South Bank University in 1992, before adopting its current name London South Bank University in 2003. The rise in status reflected a broader transformation in how Britain valued its newer educational institutions. Polytechnics, once seen as second-tier, became universities in their own right. Borough Road's institution grew with London, expanded with student numbers, and adjusted to a changing city.

The viaduct overhead carries the railway to Blackfriars station at the junction where there had been Borough Road Station. The street remembers multiple eras: the 18th-century road, the 19th-century school, the 20th-century polytechnic, the 21st-century university. Each generation remade it without erasing what came before.

Borough Road today is a working street, lived in by students, staff, and visitors who come for courses, classes, and exhibitions. The campus buildings are modern brick and glass, mixed in with Victorian terraces and Georgian survivors. It is not a heritage street frozen in time—it is a living street that keeps changing while remembering what it was. The university bookshop, the student union, the cafés, and the galleries make it busy in term time. In summer, it quiets considerably.

Walk it on a morning and you see the viaduct's shadow on the pavement, the steady flow of students between buildings, the bike racks outside entrances. You hear languages from across the world—the street's international character reflecting both Lancaster's ambition (his schools spread worldwide) and modern student diversity. If you walk slowly, you might notice a plaque, a name carved in stone, or a reference to someone who mattered here. The street is patient about its own story.