The route was created as part of the planning and road improvements associated with the completion of Westminster Bridge in 1750, to provide access to Southwark from the north-west 'West End' without having to travel through the City of London. Southwark Bridge Road crosses Borough Road north-south about halfway along. The railway to Blackfriars station also passes overhead at the junction where there had been Borough Road Station.
The campus of London South Bank University lies to the south between St George's Circus and the junction with Southwark Bridge Road. The main entrance lies on Borough Road and is also LSBU's main address. The building where this entrance is located is known as the Borough Road Building, at 103 Borough Road.
Joseph Lancaster, who founded a universal free school on Borough Road in 1798.
Borough Road has been a site of educational activity for over two centuries. Joseph Lancaster's School was established by the Quaker, Joseph Lancaster, on this road in 1798.[5] It was an early and innovative example of a universal free school, based on the monitorial system, that became known as a British School.
London South Bank University was established on Borough Road as the Borough Polytechnic Institute in 1892, soon after Borough Road College had moved.[7] The associated National School of Bakery was founded two years later in 1894 and is now the oldest bakery school in the world. The Institute expanded and became the Polytechnic of the South Bank (1970), South Bank Polytechnic (1987), attaining university status as South Bank University in 1992, before adopting its current name in 2003. A bust of Joseph Lancaster, given by the Victorian philanthropist John Passmore Edwards, remains at the university.
More recently, the London School of Musical Theatre was founded by Glenn Lee.
