The Walworth Clinic

This former Public Health Centre was built in 1936-37 to designs by Percy Smart, Borough Engineer for the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark. The interior has been considerably altered since construction.

The building exemplifies the Moderne style, constructed in red brick with artificial stone dressings and a flat asphalt-covered roof. The windows were originally steel-framed but have been replaced with uPVC, though the replacements respect the original glazing bar patterns.

The building stands three storeys tall, with a single-storey section projecting forward on the Walworth Road elevation. This features a central doorway, originally sheltered by a semi-circular canopy, set within a classical stone surround. Above the door, a plaque bears a powerful maxim: 'The health of the people is the highest law', quoting Cicero's De Legibus 'Salus populi suprema est lex'. The windows at this level have subtly stepped-back brick reveals, plain sills, and curving artificial stone lintels with fluting, topped by blind brick panels. The artificial stone coping incorporates inbuilt planters, allowing greenery along the parapet.

The upper storeys are set back, with the windows of each floor recessed in distinct planes. The central bay features a fluted artificial stone centrepiece crowned by a projecting, decorated, curved cornice bearing a date-stone. Between the windows hangs the borough coat of arms. A photograph from the building's opening shows it originally had an artificial stone parapet. This was presumably damaged during the Second World War and has been rebuilt in brick, somewhat undermining the massing of the original design. The new brick parapet rises slightly higher above the central bay and supports a statuary group (sculptor unknown) comprising a woman holding a rod of Aesculapius and three children at various stages of childhood. Though the nude figures are allegorical—the rod of Aesculapius being an ancient symbol of medicine and healing—the children have contemporary hairstyles and one holds a doll, adding realism and poignancy.

The return elevation to Larcom Street comprises a three-storey section followed by a slightly advancing stair tower, beyond which extends an additional three-storey range set slightly back to follow the street's orientation. Two entrances open onto Larcom Street: one retains its original ramp for mothers with prams accessing the main clinic and preserves its original double doors; the other, at the base of the stair tower serving the offices, retains its semi-circular canopy. The tall, square stair tower features a long vertical window and a fluted artificial stone centrepiece matching the façade design, bearing the date 1937. Elsewhere, windows are arranged in long horizontal rows, the central openings having continuous stone lintels. The rear elevation, invisible from the street, was always utilitarian in character and now has modern fire escapes.

The building is bounded by dwarf walls of artificial stone and cast iron railings.

The interior has been considerably altered, and the building's special interest resides primarily in its exterior. Nevertheless, some original features survive, particularly in the clinic areas. The vestibule and waiting room area retains original tile wall-cladding, though now painted over, with a fluted cornice. Original features also include parquet flooring, some original panelled doors, terrazzo steps from the main entrance, ceiling mouldings, skylights, and a handsome wood plaque recording the Centre's opening ceremony in 1937.

In the office areas, surviving features include a terrazzo stairwell with central lift cage and glazed tiles to dado level in cream, green and black; further tiles in some corridors; full-height tiling to two or three smaller rooms, presumably the original sterilising rooms mentioned in the South London Press article; some timber and glass double doors to the corridors; panelled doors and architraves in some upper floor corridors; and one set of timber cubicle partitions.

The former Public Health Centre at Southwark was one of a series of pioneering health centres built at the end of the 1930s, in advance of the 1946 National Health Services Act which made their construction a duty of health authorities. Its foundation stone was laid on 11 July 1936 and the building opened on 25 September 1937.

The new building brought all the borough's health services under one roof and included a solarium for exposing children to artificial sunlight, a tuberculosis clinic, X-ray department, maternity and child welfare centre, dentist clinic, and the offices of the Medical Officer for Health and the Public Analyst, the latter complete with chemical and bacterial laboratory for testing foodstuffs. There was also a special clinic 'for women from 45 years of age who are subject to illness and disease peculiar to this age group'. With the opening of the health centre, Southwark became 'the first borough to have the whole of its health services in one building', it was claimed by the Borough Medical Officer, although a similar centre had opened in nearby Bermondsey a year earlier.

The new health centre featured in several press articles in local newspapers, and also in the Times and the Daily Telegraph. The medical journal The Lancet commented that 'the borough council have wisely decided that the building shall have a pleasing appearance and by the brightness of its interiors give a cheery welcome, so that the inhabitants may be encouraged to make full use of an institution devoted to the improvement of their health'.

When the building opened in 1937, the South London Press described the functions of the various parts of the Public Health Centre. The ground floor served as a dispensary, maternity clinic, doctor's surgery, dentist's clinic, X-ray room, and solarium; the first floor as offices of the Public Health Department; the second floor as offices and laboratories for the Public Analyst and his staff; the basement contained records and storage space, a nurses' room and a Health Education Department room for showing public information films. Little survives in the fabric to indicate these former functions, though these would not necessarily have required particular fittings or spatial arrangements. Photographs from the programme for the building's opening ceremony show a series of laboratories and clinics with tiled walls and parquet floors, most of which have since been removed.

The Walworth Clinic has group value with neighbouring municipal buildings: the former Town Hall of 1864-65 and Newington Library of 1892-1893, both also listed at Grade II.