SOUTHWARK, DIOCESE OF. – City and diocese in England. It has a population of 5,083,495 (1931 census), of whom about 280,000 are Catholics (1950), distributed in 238 parishes, served by 418 diocesan priests, in addition to 36 temporarily from outside and 338 regular clergy. It has 288 public churches, 152 private and institutional churches, 49 male and 160 female religious communities, and 275 schools. The diocesan seminary is at Wonersh, Surrey; the Training College is at Mark Cross. In 1950 there were 1,246 conversions, 9,177 infant baptisms, and 3,568 marriages (including mixed ones).
The diocese, created by Pope Pius IX in 1850, comprises London south of the Thames, whose principal borough is Southwark, and the counties of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex. Previously it also included the counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, and the Channel Islands, which were removed in 1882 to form the new Diocese of Portsmouth. The patrons of the diocese are the Immaculate Conception, St. Thomas of Canterbury, martyr, and St. Augustine, Apostle of England. The episcopal see is in Southwark, whose Gothic cathedral, designed by Pugin and dedicated to St. George (1848), was damaged by bombs in 1941, but it is hoped it will be restored.
Southwark comprises the ancient dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester, and Chichester, with a large part of Winchester. From 1688 to 1850 it formed part of the London District or Apostolic Vicariate. It is rich in historical memories. St. Augustine landed at Richborough (Kent) in 597, converted King Ethelbert, founded the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury (597) and the episcopal see of Rochester (604). St. Wilfrid evangelized the Kingdom of Sussex in 681–86 and founded the episcopal see of Selsey, transferred to Chichester in 1075. St. Simon Stock was born at Aylesford (Kent) about 1165; from him comes the Carmelite scapular. Southwark includes all the glorious history of Canterbury from its first archbishop, St. Augustine, to Cardinal Reginald Pole (1554–58), the martyrs St. Elphege (1012) and St. Thomas (1170); St. John Fisher, martyred by Henry VIII in 1535, was Bishop of Rochester (1504–35); St. Edmund ruled Canterbury (1234–40), and St. Richard of Chichester (1245–53).
Many notable ancient churches (now Anglican) are found in its territory, e.g., the cathedrals of Canterbury, Rochester, and Chichester, the churches of Shoreham, Sompting, Worth, Rye, Winchelsea, Barfreston, and St. Martin’s in Canterbury, where Queen Bertha, the Christian wife of King Ethelbert, heard Mass before the arrival of St. Augustine, and others. Notable abbey ruins are found at Battle, Bayham, Lewes, Boxley, Waverley, Dover, Canterbury, and elsewhere. The convent chapel at Mayfield, Sussex, and a 14th-century episcopal palace hall are also noteworthy. Among modern churches are those of Arundel, Parkminster, Ramsgate, Wimbledon, Caterham, and Horsham.
Southwark gave the following martyrs to the Church: St. John Fisher (1535), the Blesseds John Stone, O.S.A. (1538), John Rugg (1539), David Gonson (1541), John Felton (1570), Thomas Felton (his son) and Edward Shelley (1588), Thomas Garnet (1608), and the Venerables Thomas Cort and Thomas Belchiam, Franciscans of Greenwich (1538), Thomas Pilchard (1587), Edmund Duke (1590), Roger Filcock (1601), George Gervase (1608), Thomas Bullaker (1642). Among confessors are to be noted the families of Roper (especially William Roper, son-in-law of St. Thomas More), Caryl, Hawkins, Gage, Weston, and others. West Grinstead, Battle, and Sutton Place were refuges for the faithful; the first has a continuous history of Catholic mission. Thomas Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, the last Catholic bishop of England, was born in Kent and died in Rome in 1585. Sir Thomas Hawkins translated Nicolas Caussin’s *Cours Sainte* (*The Holy Court*) in 1650. John Caryl, nephew of the Earl of Caryl, was a friend of the poet Pope. Richard Challoner, the most devoted Apostolic Vicar of the London District (1758–81), was born at Lewes in 1691.
In 1883 the Carthusians founded Parkminster, the largest Carthusian monastery in the world. In 1949 the Carmelites returned, reoccupied, and restored Aylesford, an event comparable to the revival of Buckfast Abbey in Devonshire.
ARCHAEOLOGY. – Since 1950, excavations have uncovered a Roman villa at Lullington Park, near Eynsford. This villa, dating from about the end of the 4th century, was destroyed by fire, and the first floor collapsed into the cellar below. Among the remains of this first floor were found two marble busts, fragments of walls and roof, and a quantity of painted plaster.
After three years of work, the 6,000–7,000 pieces of plaster have been reassembled by C. D. P. Nicholson and studied by Prof. J. Toynbee, giving an idea of the paintings. It is supposed that these fragments belonged to two decorated rooms, one larger and one smaller, probably intended for worship. Coins of the emperors Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius, and Valentinian were found. Prof. J. Toynbee has recently described the villa as one of the largest and most sumptuous yet discovered in England. The religious character of the two rooms has not yet been definitively proven, but their Christian nature is evidenced by the depiction of an orant figure and two Constantinian monograms. Toynbee suggests that the larger room, immediately above the cellar, may have been an oratory or domestic chapel. Oriented east–west, it was 7 m wide (its length has not yet been determined), and a door in the western part of the north wall connected the larger room with the smaller one, which is thought to have served as an antechamber for catechumens. On the western wall of the larger room there was a row of six painted figures (only five have so far been recovered), interspersed with columns. The figures wear colorful garments adorned with pearls, with wide sleeves fastened at the wrist.
Though these paintings represent only part of the total decoration of the two rooms, they are undoubtedly the finest examples yet discovered in England from the Roman period, while the orant figure and the monograms provide splendid confirmation of the spread of Christianity in Britain.