History
Newington was a rural village that grew up on the Walworth Road at its junction with the Portsmouth Road, about a mile south of London Bridge. Being outside the jurisdiction of the City of London it became home to activities such as plays that were banned near London during hot weather, for fear of spreading infection.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the triangle of ground between the roads was known as the Three Falcons and was copyhold of the manor of Walworth. In 1791 the leading scientist Michael Faraday was born at Newington Butts. In 1802, Thomas Hardwick reported that the estate consisted of a number of small tenements in bad condition.
In the spring of 2008, St Mary's Churchyard, the green open space on the northern border of Newington Butts, was given a face lift. The largely grassy area now contains a children's playground. Dotted about within the playground and on the grass elsewhere are concrete mounds with rubber (safety) surfaces which were designed to add interest and topography to the developed area. These mounds might recall archery butts but this has been denied by the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Team.
In Cockney rhyming slang 'Newington Butts' means 'guts'.
Read more about this topic: Newington Butts
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)