Contrary to what has usually been asserted, the "New English" that became a near-orthodoxy in the later 1960s and '70s had its essential origins in the apparently less promising setting of the later 1950s. Current research into English teaching in three postwar London secondary schools is revealing that in at least one working-class school in Southwark the pupils' experience of their urban environment came in a quite new way to constitute the matter for talking and writing in English lessons. The vigorous reconstruction of English that took place in Walworth School was one fruit of the London County Council's idealistic creation in 1946 of five "experimental comprehensive schools". The article argues for the historic significance of the local and environmental focus of English at Walworth between 1956 and 1963. (Contains 3 figures and 58 footnotes.)