11th June, 6.30-8:30pm, Southwark Gateway Needle, 1 Tooley St, London SE1 2PF

Often overlooked, Tooley Street offers a parade of, perhaps, the most important ensemble of historic buildings in Southwark. Anchored at the west end by Southwark Cathedral, this tour features the remains of the Regency London Bridge and the restored Edwardian Baroque Findlater’s Corner. We will see Harry Goodhart Rendel’s sensational early-modern St Olaf’s House, wander through the 19th century Hay’s Dock to Aston Webb’s fabulous Free Arts & Crafts style former Board’s Distillery, now flats.

For this walk the architecture along Tooley Street serves as a kind of silent witness to history. The buildings can be seen as holding the voices of the people who lived, worked, and passed through the area over centuries—dock workers, merchants, architects, and ordinary Londoners. Each structure, whether preserved or repurposed, can be interpreted as telling its own story.

The re-used Tooley Street Fire Station reminds of the catastrophic 1861 Tooley Street Fire. At the eastern end of Tooley Street we will celebrate the gorgeous Queen Anne Style St. Olaves Grammar School recently re-imagined as the Lalit Hotel. There we will see several fine Renaissance Revival interiors designed by the important late Victorian architect E. W. Mountford with fine architectural sculpture by Paul Raphael Montford RA.

This tour is a must for enthusiasts of London’s late Victorian and early 20th century architecture, brilliantly revived for the 21st century!

Meeting point: Southwark Gateway Needle (1 Tooley St, London SE1 2PF)

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This event is part of the The London Festival of Architecture (LFA).

With activity happening across London, the Festival will once again be platform for conversation, testing new ideas, promoting emerging talent, helping shift us towards a more equitable, sustainable city.

All Festival activity for 2025 focuses on the theme of ‘Voices’. You can find some thoughts from the team and LFA2025 Curation Panel below, and explore the LFA2025 programme here.