Borough High Street - Overview

Overview

Borough High Street continues southwest as Newington Causeway, here co-inciding with ancient Stane Street the Roman road between London and Chichester. Another very important connection is with the Dover Road (the modern A2) which diverges in a south-east direction from Borough High Street at a busy junction of five roads adjacent to Borough tube station as Great Dover Street. The Dover Road mostly follows the alignment of Roman Watling Street, though, here, the original Roman route was along Tabard Street closely parallel with Great Dover Street to the north.

The stretch of Borough High Street south of the junction with Long Lane, Marshalsea Road, and Tabard Street, where stands the ancient church of St George the Martyr, was formerly called 'Blackman Street' after a long resident family there.

The famous Borough Market was once held on the street but has been moved to the west with its main entrance on Southwark Street. Southwark Cathedral, prominent on the west side of the street near London Bridge, can be reached by a small pedestrian bridge and stairs though its postal address is Montague Close.

The earliest recorded name for the street is simply 'The Borough' which was the part between the fork of the street and London Bridge. South of the fork it was called 'St Margaret's Hill'. These names were subsumed in the Tudor period as 'Longe Southwark' (differentiated from 'Short Southwark' now Tooley Street) and by the late Georgian era as simply 'High Street' and the northern section from the junction with Duke Street Hill was renamed 'Wellington Street' to commemorate the Duke of Wellington. From the 1890s the London County Council started to rationalise all metropolitan street names and 'Borough High Street' became the name for the current route.