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Elephant Square

Buildings and structures in the London Borough of SouthwarkLondon stubs
Elephant and Castle remodelling, east side, Newington, south London (geograph 5269733)
Elephant and Castle remodelling, east side, Newington, south London (geograph 5269733)

Elephant Square is a public space in Elephant and Castle, London. The square was created by Transport for London (TfL) as part of work to reconfigure the local road layout. By removing the road on the east side of the area's northern roundabout, TfL joined a former traffic island to the site of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre. The new square forms one part of the regeneration programme underway in the district which includes plans for a new town centre.The square is located at one of the most famous junctions in London, home to the Elephant and Castle pub after which the area takes its name. The 2015 redesign created consternation amongst road users for whom the roundabout had been a regular part of their daily commute.At the heart of the square is the Michael Faraday Memorial, a local landmark in the form of a large stainless steel box named in honour of Michael Faraday (who was born nearby). It contains an electrical substation for the Northern line of the London Underground.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Elephant Square (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Elephant Square
Newington Butts, London Elephant and Castle (London Borough of Southwark)

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N 51.4952 ° E -0.1005 °
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Elephant & Castle - Northern Line - Southbound - Platform 2

Newington Butts
SE1 6SQ London, Elephant and Castle (London Borough of Southwark)
England, United Kingdom
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Elephant and Castle remodelling, east side, Newington, south London (geograph 5269733)
Elephant and Castle remodelling, east side, Newington, south London (geograph 5269733)
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Elephant and Castle
Elephant and Castle

The Elephant and Castle is an area around a major road junction in London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. The name also informally refers to much of Walworth and Newington, due to the proximity of the London Underground station of the same name. The name is derived from a local coaching inn. In the first half of the 20th century, because of its vitality, the area was known as "the Piccadilly of South London". In more recent years is now viewed as a part of central London given its location in Zone 1 on the London Underground. "The Elephant", as locally abbreviated, consists of major traffic junctions connected by a short road called Elephant and Castle, the nascent part of the A3. Traffic runs to and from Kent along the A2 (New Kent Road and Old Kent Road), much of the south of England on the A3, to the West End via St George's Road, and to the City of London via London Road and Newington Causeway at the northern junction. Newington Butts and Walworth Road adjoin the southern junction. The whole junction forms part of the London Inner Ring Road and part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone. The subterranean River Neckinger, which originates from the Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park area, flows east directly under the area towards St Saviour's Dock where it enters the Thames. The area was significantly remodelled in the 1960s as part of the post-war reconstruction. A new and major wave of redevelopment was initiated in the late 2000s with the demolition of the brutalist Heygate Estate. The various phases of the project are due to last until the late 2020s. The demolition of the shopping centre and The Coronet started in early 2021. The Elephant has two linked London Underground stations, on the Northern and Bakerloo lines, and a National Rail station served by limited Southeastern services and Thameslink suburban loop line services to Mitcham, Sutton and Wimbledon, and services to Kentish Town and St.Albans to Orpington or Sevenoaks via Catford.

Metro Central Heights
Metro Central Heights

Metro Central Heights is a group of residential buildings in Walworth in the London Borough of Southwark. It was originally known as Alexander Fleming House, a multi-storey office complex designed by Hungarian-born modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger and constructed in the early 1960s for Arnold Lee of Imry Properties. The design was favoured both by the property developer Imry and by the London County Council as it promised the largest amount of lettable space and therefore the best financial return for the site. Some 55 m tall at its highest point, the original scheme consisted of three freestanding blocks, two of seven storeys and one of eighteen, grouped around a central piazza. It is located on Newington Causeway on the east side of the busy Elephant and Castle junction in inner south-east London. Ernő Goldfinger proposed three main components of modern architecture, "the permanent structure; the much less permanent services and an even more fleeting component, the human requirements". These applied directly to the development where its eventual use was not known at the time of construction. Therefore, the internal design of the building was made as flexible as possible, providing open decks which could be readily subdivided and services re-routed. The building's original tenant was the Department of Health and Social Security, known as the Ministry of Health at the time, which probably led to its being named Alexander Fleming House, after the discoverer of penicillin. The development became its headquarters, and shortly afterwards Ernő Goldfinger was commissioned to design two additional blocks, D and E. The building received a Civic Trust Award in 1964.The Health Department's headquarters became notorious for sick building syndrome and the DHSS civil servants were moved out in the early 1990s to a new headquarters across the road, first of all to Hannibal House and then Skipton House. The Executive staff moved to new headquarters on Whitehall, Richmond House. The design flexibility served the building well when it was saved from demolition and converted into a residential development and renamed "Metro Central Heights" by St George Plc (a division of Berkeley Group Holdings) in 1997. It was narrowly missed off English Heritage's roll of post-war buildings worthy of listing around the same time. The conversion cured the sick building syndrome, and added a gym and swimming pool to the complex. It now contains some 400 studio to three-bedroom flats which are in constant demand, especially by "young urban professionals" who value Elephant and Castle's proximity to the City and West End. Planning permission was granted on appeal for a further 15-storey block by St George Plc named Vantage Metro Central on what was formerly the development's surface car park in February 2004. This was completed in late 2008. This had originally been the site of both the Odeon cinema, also designed by Ernő Goldfinger but demolished by Imry in 1988, and the huge Trocadero cinema that was cleared for blocks D and E of the development itself. Metro Central Heights became a listed building on 9 July 2013, when the Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey MP accepted English Heritage's recommendation that it should be listed at Grade II.