Union Street runs south of, and parallel to, Southwark Street.

Much of the land in this district was owned by the Church of England, originally as the Bishop of Winchester's Estate, later administered by the Church Commissioners. The quality of much of the housing on their land in north Southwark was often very poor. In the late 19th century Octavia Hill undertook to improve this situation and provided cottage style homes, the most famous example of which was in Red Cross Way.

These tenements were built by the Church Commissioners in the late 1890s, the high density approach being very different to that of Octavia Hill.

At the time of this photograph in 1971, north Southwark's population was at its lowest. It had been falling from a peak reached a century earlier. Most of the housing in the area was provided by institutions such as Southwark Borough Council, the Greater London Council, the Corporation of London and the Church Commissioners.