Editing Elephant and Castle (section)

=== Rise to metropolitan prominence (1750–1900) ===
[[File:Elephant and Castle (1898).png|thumb|The Elephant and Castle Hotel as rebuilt in 1898]]
[[File:DISTRICT(1888) p051 - Elephant and Castle (map).jpg|thumb|right|upright|Street layout in 1888]]
The neighbourhood became urbanised and somewhat commercial after the building of [[Westminster Bridge]] in 1751 and the improvements to [[London Bridge]] in the same period. These required 'by-pass' roads across the south side approaches to each other and also to the main routes to the south and southeast coasts. These road improvements – Great Dover Street, Westminster Bridge, New Kent Road, St George's Road and Borough Road – connect to the older [[Kennington]] and Old Kent Roads to facilitate this traffic. In 1769 the new Blackfriars Bridge was connected to this system at what is now St George's Circus and Blackfriars Road (originally Great Surrey Road) and to the Elephant junction with the new London Road.  As a result of these improvements, the area became a built-up part of the metropolis during the late Georgian and Victorian periods.<ref name="idealhomes">{{cite web |url=http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/southwark/assets/histories/borough |title=Southwark |publisher=ideal-homes.org.uk – A History of South-east London suburbs| access-date=2 May 2014}}</ref><ref name="stgeorgesfields">{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65444 |title=St George's Fields – Enclosure and development |editor=Ida Darlington |publisher=British History Online| access-date=2 May 2014}}</ref>

The railway arrived here in 1863 and the first deep-level tube line, now part of the [[Northern line]]'s City Branch, in 1890. The [[Bakerloo line]] terminus was created in 1906.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/londons-transport-a-history/london-underground |title=London Underground |publisher=Transport for London |website=www.tfl.gov.uk}}</ref> The middle-class and working-class populations increased, the first settling on the major roads, the latter on the streets behind these. The area declined socio-economically in much of the Walworth (south-east) side as work in [[London Docklands]] shifted further east and became more mechanised, and the regional-level railway yard work decreased (see [[Bricklayers Arms railway station]]).

In the 19th century the nationally famed Baptist preacher [[Charles Haddon Spurgeon]] built the [[Metropolitan Tabernacle]] here.<ref name="Richardson2000">{{cite book |author=John Richardson |title=The Annals of London: A Year-by-year Record of a Thousand Years of History |url=https://archive.org/details/annalsoflondonye00rich|url-access=registration |year=2000 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-22795-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/annalsoflondonye00rich/page/285 285]}}</ref>  The building, designed by [[William Willmer Pocock]],<ref name="Richardson2000"/> was finished in 1861 and dedicated on 18 March. It was bombed in the [[bombing of London]] but the portico and basement survived. In 1957 the tabernacle was rebuilt to a new, much smaller design, accommodating surviving original features.

The Theatre Royal was built in 1872 and destroyed by fire only six years later. Renovations were initiated by Jethro Thomas Robinson after the fire, and completed by Frank Matcham, to what became the Elephant and Castle Theatre in 1879. The Theater was converted to an ABC cinema in 1928, and became [[The Coronet]] Cinema in 1981.

During the late 19th century there was a cemetery in the vicinity,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19825878 |title=500 skeletons found at Elephant and Castle building site |date=4 October 2012 |work=BBC News}}</ref> but it was built over during London's rapid expansion. A few gravestones remain in St. Mary's Churchyard. At the north side of the churchyard, the church of St Gabriel's Newington was built in 1874 before being demolished in 1937 on what is now a walkway called St Gabriel Walk.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://stmarynewington.church/top/ |title=A History of the Parish of St. Mary Newington|date=25 February 2021}}</ref>