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The estate comprises nine brick-built blocks of flats on each side of Kinglake Street, east of the better-known Aylesbury Estate. Kinglake Estate first appears, complete, on an OS map of 1951, suggesting that it was begun during the late 1940s – among the earliest post-war public housing in London.

A map of 1851 shows most of the local streets in place but not always with their modern names. A map of 1875 shows the area consisting of small terrace houses with rear yards or gardens. It is all Newington. York Road has become the modern Bagshot Street. The main artery is Alvey Street running northwest, not the Old Kent Road to the east. On the 1895 map a school has appeared in Surrey Square and King Road has become Kinglake Street. There is little change up to 1938.

By 1951 the big church on Aldridge Street has gone. The whole area is shown as Walworth, a name earlier applied to the small neighbourhood centred on the Walworth Road. Up to 1966 there was still a great deal of terraced housing. Not until the map of 1974-5 does the Aylesbury Estate appear to the west. Surrey Square Park is shown in 1995 where there had been a small group of houses.

The blocks in the Kinglake Estate take the names of places in Kent. They are, on the north side from the east: Swanley House, Hadlow House, Barham House, Bethersden House, Southborough House and Tenterden House. On the south side, from the east they are: Amery House, Keston House and Faversham House. It is remarkable that while the Aylesbury Estate, built 1963-1977, is undergoing regeneration for the next few years, these monumental post-war blocks are still standing and still occupied.

Further south in Walworth than the Heygate Estate, the Aylesbury was an even more ambitious scale of urban redevelopment. Its many long medium-rise blocks, constructed from 1963 to 1977 were intended to house 10,000 people in an area of around 28 hectares. They replaced streets of mainly 19th century low-rise housing. Designed by Hans Peter Trenton, the design philosophy of the estate was to keep housing above ground level, with raised walkways connecting the buildings and only cars and services at ground level.

By 1990 problems of crime, anti-social behaviour and a failed district heating system made the estate an undesirable place to live. In 2005 it was decided to redevelop the area again with a mix of up to 50% "affordable" housing. The reconstruction will take about 20 years.

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