Surrey Square is by far Walworth's greatest surviving legacy of the Georgian period. It was built by the architect Michael Searles in 1793 to 1794.

Searles was surveyor to the West Estate and also built his own house in the Old Kent Road (No.155) and, far grander than Surrey Square, a Paragon at the junction of Old and New Kent Roads.

Surrey Square was never completed as a square. 

The Paragon was very similar to his other surviving one at Blackheath.