Southwark Street was a new street built by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1865.

It was built to improve east - west communication from London Bridge to Black-friars Bridge, and to provide a route for a new main sewer.

Southwark Street and the new properties built along it enhanced the industrial focus of the area, but its construction and the building of the railway extensions from London Bridge to Cannon Street and Charing Cross made many thousands homeless.

The sewer was part of the London wide system under construction at that time, and the elaborate lamp post seen here doubled as a vent pipe.

Engraving published in the Illustrated London News, 18th December 1865.