Rotherhithe

Coordinates: 51°29′56″N 0°02′33″W / 51.4989°N 0.0426°W / 51.4989; -0.0426

Rotherhithe (/ˈrɒðərhaɪð/) is a residential district in southeast London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is located on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping and the Isle of Dogs on the north bank, and is a part of the Docklands area. It borders Bermondsey to the west and Deptford to the south east.

Rotherhithe has a long history as a port, with many shipyards from Elizabethan times until the early 20th century and with working docks until the 1970s. In the 1980s the area along the river was redeveloped as upmarket housing, through a mix of warehouse conversions and new-build developments. Following the arrival of the Jubilee line in 1999 (giving quick connections to the West End and to Canary Wharf) and the London Overground in 2010 (providing a quick route to the City of London), the rest of Rotherhithe is now a rapidly gentrifying residential and commuter area, with current regeneration progressing well around Downtown Road/Rotherhithe Street area and most quickly around Deal Porter Square at Canada Water, where a new town centre with restaurant and retail units as well as new residential developments is emerging around the existing freshwater dock and transport hub.

Rotherhithe (UK Parliament constituency)

Rotherhithe was a parliamentary constituency centred on the Rotherhithe district of South London. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

The constituency was created for the 1885 general election, and abolished for the 1950 general election when it became part of the revived Bermondsey constituency.

Boundaries

1918-1950: The Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey wards of St John, St Olave, Bermondsey five and six, and Rotherhithe one, two and three.

Members of Parliament

Election results

Election in the 1910s

Election in the 1920s

Election in the 1930s

Election in the 1940s

In Fiction

The constituency is portrayed in an episode (A Place in the World) of TV drama series Upstairs, Downstairs as the safe Docklands Labour seat of "Rotherhithe East" that is unsuccessfully contested by James Bellamy for the Conservatives in a by-election in 1920. Location scenes were actually shot in Rotherhithe in January 1975 during the making of the episode. (In real life through 1920 Rotherhithe was a Conservative seat.)