45 Squared 43) WINCHESTER SQUARE, SE1
Borough of Southwark, 20m×20m
I've visited several very new squares for this feature but where is London's oldest? It might be here.
Winchester Palace was built on the south bank of the Thames, just west of Southwark Cathedral, so that the Bishop of Winchester had a comfy base when he came to London. An early incumbent was Henry of Blois, the brother of King Stephen, who held the bishopric for over 40 years in the 12th century. A magnificentpalace grew up around the original Great Hall, with subsequent clerics adding bedrooms, wine cellars, a brew-house, butchery, tennis court, bowling alley and pleasure gardens. A famous illustration from 1647 shows a chimneyed complex with two courtyards. The bishop also oversaw the Liberty of the Clink, an independent neighbourhood with its own brothels, theatres and infamous prison.
Alas the remains of the episcopal residence were mostly destroyed by fire in 1814 and the Blitz did it no favours either, so all that remains is the shell of the Great Hall and a rather splendid rose window. Passing tourists are often pleasantly surprised.
Winchester Square, meanwhile, hides generally unnnoticed on the other side of an intrusive postmodern office block. It looks little more than a cobbled car park, a dead end for deliveries, but this is no random backyard. Because it turns out Winchester Square exists on the not-quite square footprint of Winchester Palace's original inner courtyard, and that's why it might just be the oldest square in London.
The oldest thing here (other than the shape) might be the brick warehouse on the south side. Alternatively it might be the granite setts underfoot, which go on and on and might be the most extensive cobbly surface in London. Or more likely it's the cast-iron bollard in the corner, repurposed from a cannon and inscribed 'Wardens of S. Saviours 1827', which dates back to when this was a grimy alleyway leading down to St Mary Overy Dock. Other than that it's depressingly modern throughout... a lot of back doors, a lot of bins and the occasional discarded Lime bike.
I walked round the perimeter and it's not nice. The north side has a locked undercroft where forgotten hardware is stored, accessed via a keypad, also a pile of binbags and flattened cardboard boxes wrapped in yellow tape. The west side has smeared windows, a cluttered bin store and the fire exit from a Italian restaurant. The east side has a Basingstoke-style office block and a blue-clad apartment block called Tennis Court on the site of the bishop's tennis court. And the south side has yet more bin bags and the most authentic windows, having originally been one of London's two fruit auction houses. Its owners J.O. Sims were once fined £75,000 for excavating their basement without scheduled monument consent, an offence which came to light when a passer-by noticed material of archaeological interest being carried out to a skip.
The best known tenant here is Hawksmoor, the premium steak restaurant, who moved into the converted fruit warehouse in 2016. Patrons enter at the front on Winchester Walk and order £57 rib-eye with a £7 side of chips, or perhaps a renowned Sunday roast for under thirty quid. As feasts go it's decent but a mere echo of the grand banquets once held here in the bishop's palace, for example at the wedding of King James I of Scotland to Joan Beaufort in 1424. Meanwhile Hawksmoor's uncooked flesh gets delivered round the back in Winchester Square, which continues on its long decline from prestigious noble courtyard to somewhere all the rubbish gets chucked out after service. Ancient, but no longer distinguished.
