This is a digitised copy of the book “London – South of the Thames” by Sir Walter Besant
Published in London by Adam & Charles Black (1912)
This is in its raw form. Sections will be improved manually on this blog as time goes on.
CHAPTER II
SOUTHWARK
Let us take the piece of land enclosed by the course of the river between Wandsworth and Blackheath, and by a line drawn from one to the other. This line will be parallel to and will run very near the line of low cliffs which formerly rose up here, the boundary and the southern limit of the vast marsh included by the river.
This marsh was submerged at every high tide ; it was overgrown with coarse herbage and with reeds ; it was the home of countless wild-fowl ; at low water many streams passed through it, such as the Wandle, the Falcon, the Effra, and the Ravensbourne, to give them their more modern names.
It was dotted with little islets, afterwards known as Kennington, Battersea, Rotherhithe, Lambeth, Bermondsey, Newington. Some of these islets were permanent, being slight elevations of two or three feet above the level of the high tide ; others were collections of branches, leaves, and mud formed at one flow and swept away at another.
On this marsh there were no trees, no flowers, no grass, nothing but the coarsest reeds and sedge ; the wild creatures of the forest were afraid of it ; no man could live in its pestilential air.
About a mile or so inland, more or less, the land began to rise. It rose on the south, as on the north, by a low, steep cliff, the foot of which was being constantly washed away; the site of the rising ground is marked to-day by the names of Battersea Rise, Clapham Rise, and Brixton Rise ; a reference to the Ordnance Survey map will show the former elevation by the change of level.
On the higher ground the character of the country was completely altered. There were no marshes ; the land was completely flat, and for a large part a wild heath. This heath became in after-years planted and cultivated and built over, with patches of waste and common land dotted over its surface.
A distinguishing feature of South London was the splendid succession of commons.There were then no railways or stage-coaches by which one could get to them. The only way was to walk or to ride.
The broad commons near at hand—say of Kennington, Clapham, and Wandsworth—were enough for some, but to those who pushed out farther afield there were the Surrey hills with places like Penge, which were a dream of beauty.
Living men can remember the hanging woods of Penge, when as yet there were no houses at all to interfere with them or to break the steep slope of foliage—yet already had Penge Common, which stood on the hill, been sacrificed. It was doomed in 1820, when Hone visited it and found it a ” cathedral of warbling birds.” The beauty of South London has gone ; no one wandering about the streets of Penge would understand what it was fifty years ago. Let it be noted in this new Survey of London as one of the things which have passed away and can never return.
Turning now more particularly to Southwark we find that in the latter part of the eighteenth century many changes took place. The romantic collection of buildings that stood on London Bridge were pulled down, robbing the famous mediaeval structure of the greater part of its venerable associations and picturesqueness.
Guy’s Hospital added another asylum for the sick ; Bankside was deserted by the show folk. It was connected with Maiden Lane by several small streets, and was occupied by people carrying on trades which required plenty of space for storage and works.
The construction of Blackfriars Bridge and its new road caused buildings to be put up above Gravel Lane. Paris Gardens had disappeared.
St. George’s Fields were laid out as a kind of path traversed by four roads, and streams ran across these fields and were crossed by bridges ; the King’s Bench Prison had been removed from its former position in the east side of High Street to a large area on the other side, below St. George’s Church.
The pretended sanctuary of the Mint had been abolished.
Thrale’s Brewery stood upon part of th site now occupied by Barclay and Perkins’ great house. The Fair, which had been for three hundred years a gathering-place of all the villainy and immorality of London and the country round, was suppressed in 1763 ; there were no more theatres, no more bear-baiting or bull-baiting—yet these sports survived.
As regards the people they still lived in their old places, namely, on either side of the High Street with branches such as Tooley Street, Bermondsey Lane, Meadow Lane, and Gravel Lane.
They consisted for the greater part of the working classes ; they lived in tenements, in courts, in lanes, without pavement, light, or water. Some of these places still linger and can be seen, though light and water have found their way into them.
The people below Bridge were chiefly employed in the dyeing, glass-making, brewing, and other industries of the place ; some, however, belonged to the wharves and river service ; on the west of the Bridge was a colony of Bridge fishermen. Of gentlefolk there were few indeed. Though the players and the theatres had left the Borough it was still regarded as a place of entertainment.
The pleasure gardens of South London were many and attractive. Among them were the famous Cuper’s Gardens, now the site of Waterloo Station and the Waterloo Bridge Road. They were suppressed in 1753.
There were also the Temple of Flora ; the Dog and Duck ; the Rotherhithe Gardens and many more.
The presence of two great medical schools gave the Borough a large number of resident medical students, by whom some of the pleasure gardens at least were largely supported.
Southwark has become South London. From Greenwich to Wandsworth there now stretches one vast crowded town branching- out southwards in all directions, so that Clapham is a town, and Wimbledon, Norwood, Forest Hill, Blackheath are all great towns. The population of this huge place is close upon two millions ; as might have been expected, since there is no corporation to bind them together, these towns are rapidly becoming separate and individual, each with its own interests apart.
Hitherto, they have been contented to look to West London for their amusements and their art. This is now being changed. Theatres are springing up in these suburbs.
Polytechnics for the lads, schools of art and music, University extension centres, High schools. It has even been proposed to separate them altogether by creating municipalities everywhere. This proposal aims at nothing short of the destruction of London. I have shown, elsewhere, that the true change should be development and not destruction—we must preserve the Lord Mayor, but we must give him greater dignity by making him first and chief of the mayors of federated Boroughs all around him.
Southwark proper, with the river-side parishes, has retained the character which it acquired after the dissolution of the Religious Houses. It is the home of the working classes; the City of Tenements ; the erection of huge barracks for these classes assures them commodious, clean, sanitary housing. The buildings are hideous—the monotony of the surroundings is dreadful ; yet we must accept these drawbacks in consideration of the advantages gained. It is computed that three hundred thousand people live in these buildings.
Another change may be noted in this City of Transformations. Southwark, which was formerly a place without industries, has now become the centre of a vast number of industries. Wharves and bonded warehouses occupy the river bank.
Behind them we find distilleries, breweries, glassworks, manufactories of pins and dogs’ food, dye works, coopers, oil and colour works, fur and hide works, tanneries, mustard mills, curriers, vinegar works, hats, tin and zinc works, flour mills, wool, glue and size works, rope-yards, brass foundries, and many more. These works employ a vast number of hands ; it can no longer be said that the people of Southwark cross the river to get at their work—they find it on the spot.
The place has, at this moment, a bad name for disorderly youth. I believe that the true reason is that the young men have nothing to do in the evenings. They loaf about the streets ; and for lack of anything to occupy their minds they take naturally to mischief. There are certain ” settlements ” among them ; if the workers in these settlements succeed in getting these lads into their clubs we shall hear no more of the ” Hooligan.”
To turn now more particularly to the history of Southwark and the river-side.
At some period—no one can so much as make a guess at the date—in order to facilitate the passage of trade by the short route to Dover, a causeway was constructed over the marsh from the Lambeth end of the Thorney Ford across the lower part of St. George’s Fields to the Old Kent Road. The whole trade of the country north of the Thames passed along this causeway over the marsh.
At the Old Kent Road firm ground was reached and the high road to Dover. After many years—one knows not how long—the ships came up to London and a great part of the old trade of Thorney was diverted in that direction.
But some part remained and the causeway continued. Then, perhaps after the coming of the Romans, the connection of London with the Dover road was opened up by a ferry—perhaps more than one—and by another causeway over the marsh ; later on, the Romans built the Bridge ; thus was London connected with the South Country.
The embankment of the river, though it still left the ground marshy, because the little streams coming down from the country were not yet banked in, prevented it from being covered by the high tides and made it possible for cultivation to be carried on here. The embankment and the Bridge causeway also made it possible to build villas and cottages and to live on this side of the river.
The date of the embankment is absolutely unknown. I see no reason why it should be attributed to the Romans when we know that London was a flourishing port when they arrived. I am of opinion, on the other hand, that the causeway from Lambeth to Deptford was the first work of importance ; that this causeway, always low and but a few inches above high tide, was rendered safe and dry by the construction of what was called in after time the Narrow Walls.
These walls were occasionally broken down by the river.
Thus in the year 12S8, Edward L directed John de Metingham and William de Carleton to view and to repair the banks from Lambeth to Greenwich. Again, in the year 1444, Sir John Burcaster was instructed to view the banks then broken and in decay and to repair them by means of forced labour.
It need not be supposed that the causeway stood high above the marsh. A visit to Hackney Marsh will show the nature of the work. The original roadway was probably constructed by driving in piles as close together as possible in two parallel lines, and filling up the space thus formed with earth or gravel—very good gravel was to be found in the heathy ground just to the south—on the top there were perhaps trunks of trees, laid side by side, but of this there is no proof. The whole causeway was not more than two or three feet above the level of the marsh.
When houses began to be built on the partially reclaimed land, they were built on piles driven into the mud, as has been proved by excavation.
A large number of Roman remains have been found in Southwark, indicating a Roman occupation of the site.
These remains are of the kind usually found; they consist of certain tessellated pavements with lamps, vases, and fragments of pottery and a few coins.
Thus in the year 1650 a pavement was found near Winchester House ; in 1819 another was found in St. Thomas’s Street ; and the following year another in front of St. Saviour’s Grammar School.
Roman lamps, with a vase and other sepulchral deposits, were found in King Street at a depth of 16 feet, and when a line of tunnelling was carried from Blackman Street, north of St. George’s to Snow’s Fields in 1S18 and 1819 and again in Duke Street in 1823, numerous Roman antiquities were unearthed.
There was therefore a Roman occupation of the site, and it is also proved that there was a Roman cemetery here.
The pavements are found in the vicinity of the river, showing that the occupation was very limited and the villas were all built close to the causeway. About twenty villas, or the remains of villas, have been found in the Borough.
In the year 1831, in the operations for forming the Southwark approach of the new bridge, there was found in the middle of the Borough High Street a Roman pavement of coarse tesserae, a plain proof that this could not have been the line of road to the Roman trajectus over the Thames.
While on making some alterations (May 1811) in the pavement of the choir of St. Saviour’s Church, stone foundations were discovered crossing the church from north-east to south-west ; and there is known to be a narrow line of tessellated pavement in the churchyard, perhaps the floor of a Roman house, running in the same direction.
Let a line be drawn from Kent Street, a portion of the old Roman Way, across the Borough Market, and it will be seen that the Roman buildings in the suburb of Southwark, in conformity with the road, must have taken a north-westerly direction, which indicates the position of the ferry ; nay, the very point of the Roman trajectus may by this method be determined.
The reader will remember that the new London Bridge was shifted 200 feet west of the old Bridge ; which again was 300 feet west of the first bridge. The old Borough High Street turned much more abruptly to the south-west than the new street.
If the line proposed be actually laid down upon the map it will be seen that the other end comes out at the head of the dock which is called St. Saviour’s Dock.
Now there is very little doubt that this dock is of extreme antiquity. It must have been one end of an ancient ferry ; the traditions of John Awdry and his daughter seem to indicate so much ; the very early foundation of a Religious House on the spot also strengthens this theory.
If, therefore, the suggestion is accepted we have a proof that the Roman trajectus was here ; that the original causeway connecting London with the Dover road is represented by this line ; and that there was a second causeway. Nor do I think that the establishment of the Bridge much interfered with the ferry except for the convenience of goods and merchandise.
It was always quicker, more convenient, and more pleasant, except in very bad weather, to cross the Thames by boat than by bridge. The name of Stoney Street may perhaps be adduced as an illustration of this theory. When we speak of Southwark we must always bear in mind the conditions under which the town began to exist and continued for many centuries—indeed, quite down to the middle of the eighteenth century.
(1) There was no wall or any means of defence, except the marsh which surrounded it and prohibited the approach of an army except along the causeway.
(2) The ground lay low on either side of the causeway, and south of the embankment. Although the tide no longer ebbed and flowed among’ the reeds and islets of the marsh, yet it was covered with small ponds, some of them stagnant, others formed by the many streams which flowed towards the culverts on the embankment, through which at low tide they escaped into the Thames ; until some kind of drainage was attempted, the place caused agues and fevers for any who slept in its white miasma. In other words, not an embankment only, but drainage of some kind, had to be undertaken before life was possible on the marsh.
(3) There were no quays, no shipping, no merchants, no trade on the south side. All merchandise coming up from the south for export at the port of London, all merchandise landed at the port for the south, had to be carried across the river either by the Bridge or by barges.
(4) The crowds of people connected with the trade of London—the porters, carriers, drivers, grooms, and stable-boys, stevedores, lightermen, sailors, foreign and native, the employes of the merchants, their wives, women and children—lived in London itself; they had their taverns and drinking-shops, their sleeping-places and eating-places in London ; all the people employed in providing food and drink and sport lived on the north side. South London had to be a place without trade, without noise, without disturbance of workmen, without broils among the sailors or fights among foreigners,
(5) It stood on the south bank of a river swarming with fish.
(6) The only parts on which houses could be built were along the line of the causeways, or along the line of the embankment.
Under these conditions we should expect that Southwark would become a favourite place of residence. That this was so is proved by the remains of Roman villas already mentioned along the line of the causeway.
There was no trade or industry carried on here except one. The fisher-folk of the river were very early compelled to go away from the City in order to make room for the service of the Port ; some of them settled along the slopes of the Strand ; they were in course of time turned out by the great houses ; some of them put up their cottages on the southern embankment ; in course of time all of them had their settlement on this side.
And presently, one knows not at what period, Southwark—the Roman name is unknown—became a kind of storehouse. Imports were landed here in readiness to be distributed about the country ; exports were brought here waiting to be taken across the bridge or over the river to the shipping of the Port. And very early in history it became a place for inns, where merchants could stay, as they had formerly stayed in Thorney Island.
There was never any kind of fortification or wall of defence for Southwark; the buildings lay along the embankment and on either side of the causeway. The name of Walworth refers to the Riverwall—the embankment.
In the long period of the Pax Romana the place, from the freshness of the air, which swept up from the sea with every tide, and the fertility of the soil, which was a black humus rescued from the marsh and the tidal deposits of the river, attracted many of the wealthier class who built their villas beside the causeway.
When troubles began the people of Southwark removed within the protection of the walls of London ; when London, towards the close of the fifth century, was finally deserted, the people of Southwark went away with the people of London, and the settlement south of the Thames lay as desolate and forlorn as the city across the river.
Before the Saxon Conquest we get two glimpses of South London. The first of these is the route of Allectus, the usurper, after the battle of Clapham Common in the third century ; the second is the headlong flight of the Britons along the causeway and over London Bridge after the rout of Cregan Ford, A.D. 457.
After the desolation of London silence falls upon Southwark and upon the City.
Presently we see the fisher-folk scared and scattered, stealing timidly back to their huts opposite the grey wall beyond which rises no smoke, from which there is wafted across the river no sound to indicate human life. When the Saxons began to settle in London and ships returned and trade was resumed, Southwark raised her head and rebuilt her houses, or, at least, her cottages.
With the coming of the Danes she was again deserted, being defenceless, and so continued till the Danish troubles were finally concluded. When William the Conqueror rode up along the causeway to the Bridge foot, the place had enjoyed a rest of forty years, time enough for the fishermen to settle again upon the Bank.
The histories tell us that William fired Southwark in order to give the citizens a “taste of his quality,” and with intent to terrify them, we must remember that there was nothing to fire except the thatch of a few huts ; that within the memory of men still living, London had sustained successfully six sieges ; that the City was no more prepared to submit to the Norman than it had been to submit to the Dane.
When the fishermen’s huts were in flames the citizens of London laughed ; when the Norman soldiers withdrew, the fishermen went back to their burnt-out cottages, repaired with a very little trouble the walls of wattle and clay, and laid on a new thatch of reeds and straw. It would be well to remember in reading of this episode that, wherever William’s men-at-arms appeared, the thatch of the cottages took fire with spontaneous combustion.
A collection of various references to Southwark in ancient documents was made by the late Ralph Lindsay, F.S.A. The compilation was conducted principally, it would seem, to show the various ways in which the name is given. Thus, to quote a few forms, Sudur v/irke, Suthe- weorie, Suthweorke, Suthwore, Sedwercke, Sudwurche, Sudworche, Suworc, Suwerk, etc.
South London, Mediaeval, consisted of many manors and liberties, the boundaries of which varied from time to time. Thus there were the Gildable Manor, the Bishop’s Manor, the Great Liberty Manor, the King’s Manor, the Manor of the Maze, the Clink Liberty, the Manor of the Bishop of Winchester, Bermondsey House, the Paris Garden Manor.
There is a rough plan or skeleton of Southwark in the year 1542 which is preserved in the Record Office. This plan was copied by the late Mr. William Rendle, F.R.C.S., for his valuable book on Southwark (1878). It is not a very instructive document, but there are certain facts which come out. The first is the very small extent of the Mayor’s “Liberty” or jurisdiction.
It begins at St. Saviour’s Dock on the west and terminates before Battle Bridge on the east ; on the south it goes no farther than the Church of St. Mary Overies. The Pillory and Cage belonging to the Mayor’s Liberty were put up in the eastern end of this quarter. Those belonging to the King’s Liberty were put up in Long Southwark.
Farther south, for the use of the people, were the Well and the Sink, and, for their amusement, the Bull Ring; on the west of the High Street was the Liberty of the Manor, with the Manor- House, and the House itself St. Thomas’s Hospital stood retired in the fields ; Bermondsey Cross was still standing. Winchester House was there amid its gardens. Here were the three prisons, the Marshalsea, the King’s Bench, and the White Lyon ; here were the three churches of St. Saviour, St. Clave, and St. George ; some twenty taverns are marked on the map.
The most important of the manors, because it became the site of Southwark, was the “Gildable” Manor. This extended from St. Mary Overies Dock in the west to Hays Wharf in the east, and as far south as St. Margaret’s Church.
The first Lord of the Gildable Manor of whom we learn was Earl Godwin.
After the Conquest, Odo, half-brother of William, became the Lord. On his rebellion, William of Warren was rewarded for his loyalty by receiving the Lordship of Southwark, with 300 other manors. He either built or received with the manor house a palace in which he lived, and after him his successors. This William married Gundred, daughter or step-daughter of the Queen.
After her death, her husband was created Earl of Surrey, and the wife of her son was styled Countess of Warren and Surrey.
The Warrens were benefactors to the Church of St. Olave, to the Monastic Piouses of St. Mary Overies and Bermondsey. In the Gildable Manor the King and the Lord each maintained a bailiff; a common box was kept for the tolls ; the King’s bailiff kept the box, but the Lord’s bailiff kept the keys.
The King took two-thirds and the Earl one-third.
In 1327 the citizens of London petitioned the King against certain grievances connected with the Borough. Criminals who had committed felonies, murders, and the like got away across the river into Southwark, where they were safe, because the City could not apprehend them. They therefore begged the King, with the object of putting an end to the scandal, to give them the village of Southwark on a farm or rent. The King granted the petition in a charter which is singularly worded and does not define the powers which it conveys.
Edward, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine; to all to whom these present letters shall come, greeting.
Know ye, that whereas our well-beloved, the citizens of the City of London, by their petition exhibited before us and our council, in our present parliament at Westminster assembled, have given us to understand, that felons, thieves, and other malefactors, and disturbers of the peace, who, in the said city and elsewhere, have committed manslaughters, robberies, and divers other felonies, privily departing from the said City, after those felonies committed, into the village of Southwark, where they cannot be attached by the ministers of the said City, and there are openly received : and so for default of due punishment are more bold to commit such felonies ; and they have beseeched us, that, for the confirmation of our peace within the said City, bridling the naughtiness of the said malefactors, we would grant unto them the said village, to have to them, their heirs and successors, for ever, for the farm and rent thereof yearly due to us, to be yearly paid at our exchequer : We, having consideration to the premises, with the assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and commonalty, being in our present parliament aforesaid, have granted, for us and our heirs, to the said citizens, the said village of Southwark, with the appurtenances, to have and to hold, to them and their heirs and successors, citizens of the same city, of us and our heirs for ever, to pay to us by the year, at the exchequer of us and our heirs for ever, at the accustomed times, the farms thereof due and accustomed : In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patents.
Witness myself at Westminster, the sixth day of March, in the first year of our reign.
The City, apparently, had the right of apprehending criminals in its own small manor ; but the Mayor could not try them in his own court. For more than a hundred years there were constant attempts on the part of the City to extend its powers, and on the part of the folk in Southwark to withstand these encroachments.
I do not suppose that the Southwark people desired to favour the escape of criminals ; but they did not desire to be under the rule of the City. When the successor of the Warrens, the Earl of Arundel, was attainted in 1397, the Lordship of the Manor fell to the Crown : the King appointed his own Bailiff, and evidently intended to keep his rights over the place.
As for the criminals, the broad flat land lying between Battersea and Deptford was exactly the place for a fugitive to conceal himself. It was intersected with ditches and streams ; it was covered over with woods ; there were few inhabitants ; whether the City got the control or not, criminals would continue to escape. Perhaps, also, the philosophers of the period might argue that, after all, it was the best thing possible for the criminals to run away and hide ; if they only kept away it was the best economy from every point of view.
In 1377 the citizens petitioned the king for the right of punishing all misdemeanours in Southwark. The King refused on the ground that the permission would do wrong to others. Again they petitioned the King, this time Richard II., with the same result. They desired that the King’s Marshal, whose prison, the Marshalsea, was within their courts, should not interfere with their manor. They wanted the magistracy, as well as the bailiwick of Southwaik.
Henry IV, in the seventh year of his reign, granted the City extended powers.
They might arrest malefactors in Southwark and try them in Newgate—not, however, in Southwark itself This was a concession. But it was not what they wanted. The year after this the Southwark people themselves petitioned the King that, being part of the County of Surrey, they might be kept free of the jurisdiction of the City.
All these petitions and grants show great hesitation on the part of the King as to conferring new or extended powers upon the City of London.
Nearly a hundred years afterwards, Edward VI. granted a much wider charter to the City. The Mayor and Corporation, as recited by the charter, had bought out all the King’s rights, except his house and Park, called Suffolk House. This place consisted of certain houses, half a dozen in number, formerly belonging to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and various pieces of ground, fifteen acres in Newington, two acres in the parish of St. George, “in the dunghill,” thirtv-nine acres and three rods in St. Georee’s Fields. The King- eives to the City ” all that our lordship and manor of Southwark with their rights, members, appurtenances late pertaining to the Monarchy of Bermondsey.”
Furthermore he gave to the City all the rights, members, and appurtenances late parcel of the possession of the Archbishop and Archbishops of Canterbury. Then comes a long list of yearly rents and “services.” There were twenty-six of these yearly rents. The charter next declares that in consideration of the sum of 500 marks the City is to have the same powers over all the Borough or Town of Southwark that it formerly had over the Gildable Manor ; it enumerates the parishes of St. Saviour’s, St. Olave’s, St. George Newington, Kentish Street, and Blackman Street.
The Borough was to be under the City ; criminals of Southwark were to be tried at the Old Bailey ; civil cases of Southwark were to be heard” in the City. But nothing was to be done to the prejudice of the Marshal. There were, therefore, exceptions. Besides Suffolk House and Park, the King excepted the prisons of the King’s Bench and the Marshalsea. In consequence of this charter, the City resolved on creating an additional alderman, that of the Bridge Without. It is a remarkable circumstance that the people of the Borough have never had the right of electing their alderman.
He has always been elected by the Mayor and Aldermen.
None of these three charters gave the City the right of holding separate sessions in Southwark apart from the Justices of the County of Surrey. The question was raised in the year 1663 : “Are the inhabitants of Southwark subject to the Lord Mayor, etc., or to the Surrey Justices, or to both?” The answer given was that ” the City had no government other than a Warden of a Company or Alderman of a Ward had, and not as Justices of the Peace. So it is very unlikely that the ancient Borough, having Burgesses chosen in Surrey by indenture to the Sheriff of Surrey to the parliament, should be reputed to be suburbs to, and a subject member of, the City, being as ancient as London itself” They further say, “as the City had grant of fines, it would be repugnant to reason for them to be judges and set fines in their own case.”
One may point out that the inns of Southwark were the rendezvous of many pilgrimages. Those who were going to Palestine, those going to Rocamadour, to Compostela, to Rome, assembled here and started on their way to take ship at Dover or Southampton. Here, as we know full well, assembled parties who rode together to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket ; here those smaller parties who went on foot to the Virgin of Greenwich or the Holy Rood of Bermondsey.
Of the part played by Southwark in the Marian persecution further mention is made in another place. The Bishop of Winchester and the Commission appointed by Cardinal Pole sat in St. Mary Overies four times, having before them Bishop Hooper, Rogers, and nine others, all of whom suffered martyrdom by fire.
One poor wretch was brought into the church to be the subject of a sermon before being taken to the stake.
On May 28, 1557, three nameless men were burned in Newington, just south of St. George’s Church ; on the iSth day of June following two more were taken out to the same place and burned for the same crime. It is enough to show that in Southwark, as everywhere else, the persecutions had the effect of connecting the Roman Catholic religion in the minds of the people with a pitiless Priest-Judge, a relentless Church, and the most cruel of deaths.
The extent of Southwark in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was very limited.
It was supposed to cover the southern part of the Bridge, namely, as far as the drawbridge, which lay upon the seventh of the arches, until the seventeenth century, when it got out of repair.
On the embankment there stood, to left and right, a line of small houses with a few great houses; along the High Street there were houses as far as St. George’s Church.
Many of these houses were palaces; among them were the town houses of St. Augustine’s, Battle, Waverley, St. Swithin and Hyde Abbeys, and Lewes Priory; of the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester; of the Brandons; of Sir John Fastolf ; there were Bermondsey Abbey and St. Mary Overies and St. Thomas’s Hospital ; there were the Marshalsea Prison, the King’s Bench Prison, and the White Lyon ; there were the parish churches of St. Margaret, St. George and St. Olave ; there were a great number of inns – some for the convenience of pilgrims to Bermondsey Rood, but more for the entertainment of merchants and travellers from the south.
Between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries Southwark was the chosen place of residence for ecclesiastical dignitaries on their visits to London. I propose in the course of a perambulation—we have not far to go—to take these town houses in succession together with those of one or two laymen who also loved the quiet of Southwark.
Let us begin at the Bridge foot turning to the east.
St. Olave’s Church is an historical monument of the highest interest. Its dedication proclaims its antiquity. The fact that there were four churches in and about London dedicated to St. Olave or St. Olaf, the Danish king and martyr, shows that these churches were all built and dedicated during the brief period in which Olaf and his life were remembered by the citizens of London. This period certainly came to an end with the Norman Conquest.
St. Olave’s, Southwark, was built with the design of furnishing the south end of London Bridge with a protecting saint.
The north end was protected by St. Botolph in his church close to the Bridge Gate. The position occupied by St. Olave’s with respect to the earlier and the second London Bridge was different because of the change in the situation of the bridge. To the first it stood in the west, to the second it stood in the east. On the north side, what St. Botolph’s was for the earlier bridge, St. Magnus became for the second.
If, after passing St. Olave’s Church, the curious traveller turns to the left, he will find himself in a very strange artificial canyon. It is narrow; it has lofty warehouses on either side ; high bridges cross the street at intervals connecting the warehouses ; there are occasional lanes leading to river stairs ; there are open gates leading through dark rooms filled with goods to the wharf upon the river.
From these wharves are obtained the best view of the Tower, of the Tower Bridge, of London Bridge and of the shipping in the Pool. It is worth while to walk along this street which is like walking at the bottom of a long grave, in order to get these views.
But it is interesting from another point of view, namely, the consideration of its former aspect in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Close to the foot of the second bridge, on the east of it, stood St. Olave’s Church and churchyard, the latter not sloping down to the water, but protected by the embankment ; next to the church came a quay built in the year 1330; next to the quay stood the house called the Abbot’s Inn of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, conveyed to that house by the Earl of Warren and Surrey in 1281 at a rent of 5s.
After the Dissolution the place was converted into tenements called Sentlegar House or St. Leger House.
Next to the Abbot’s Inn was the Bridge House where were stored the materials necessary for the repairs of London Bridge. Riley has preserved for us an inventory of the stores taken in 1350. It includes “400 great pieces of oak timber,” worth 100 marks, and quantities of other woodwork, Portland stone, ragstone, chalk, and barrels of pitch. There were also all sorts of nails, iron for piles, a pile-driver, and many other implements and tools.
The Bridge House was also used as a storehouse for corn in case of famine.
It was provided with ovens, six large and four smaller ones ; a brewhouse was added so that the poor should have bread and beer at the lowest price jjossible. This was a device of the sixteenth century. But they had not anticipated that the wheat might grow musty, which in fact happened. Granaries were, however, maintained here until well into the seventeenth century.
Howell mentions the vast quantity of corn kept in the Bridge House.
In 1802 certain old granaries in Tooley Street were taken down. They had been built at the charge of the trustees of the Bridge House. Probably all three buildings went under the name of the Bridge House granaries.
At the Bridge House stairs in 1589 was landed a certain pirate named Strangways with fourscore of his men. They were put on shore loaded with irons, and taken to the King’s Bench and the Marshalsea Prison. Here they lay for six weeks.
They were then tried before the Admiralty Court in the Town Hall, Southwark, and were all condemned. The sentence in such cases was death by drowning ; the criminal of the sea was tied to a post, and at the tide was drowned by the rising of the water, a death made horrible by long anticipation. Three pirates were taken to the Tower, there to await the day of execution, which was fixed for the 4th of October.
On that day, however, they learned that they were reprieved during the Queen’s pleasure, and, probably accepting the choice offered them, were taken on board the Queen’s ships. Their captain, for one, did good service and was killed, valiantly fighting, four years later.
Opposite St. Olave’s Church was the Priory of Lewes’ House or Inn. Strype says that there was formerly a house on the south side of Tooley Street built of stone with arched gates which belonged to the Prior of Lewes in Sussex, and was his lodoringf when he came to town. ” It is now”—1720 —”a common hostelry for travellers and hath to sign the Walnut Tree.” Thirty years later Maitland says ” the chapel, consisting of two aisles still remaining at the upper end of Walnut Tree Alley, is converted into a cider cellar or warehouse, and by the earth’s being greatly raised in this neighbourhood it is at present under ground, and the Gothic building a little westward of the same (at present a wine vault belonging to the King’s Head Tavern) , under the school house, a small chapel, I take to have been part of the same Prior’s house.”
The Priory of Lewes in Sussex was founded by William de Warren, Earl of Surrey, and Gundreda his wife, for the benefit of their own souls first, those of King William and Queen Matilda next. They gave many lands to this House, and among others the meadow opposite St. Olave’s Church in which the Prior of Lewes built his town house.
Before the construction of London Bridge station and its broad approach there were certain narrow courts leading out of Tooley Street where it was joined by Duke Street.
These were called Churchyard Alley and Walnut Tree Court. They led into a small court not even laid down in Strype’s map of 1720. The court contained Queen Elizabeth’s School, then newly built. It also contained a most remarkable and interesting fragment of the Ancient Inn, which has been swallowed up, or swept away, by the terminus and its buildings. Wilkinson figures and describes the ground plan, the position, and the elevation. He calls it an oratory. It was, however, probably the crypt.
A small area or district occupied this part of Southwark. It was called the Berghene or the Borgyney, or, later, Little Burgundy—one remembers Petty France and Petty Wales.
Rendle is of opinion that it was a liberty. It is mentioned in deeds, more than once ; Robert Carey (1545) obtained a grant of ” Petty Burgen ” in the parish of St. Olave, Southwark.
The name of Battle Bridge preserves the memory of the Abbot of Battle’s Inn, which stood on the river-bank. Hay’s Wharf and Dock now cover the site. The ” Bridge ” crossed a stream at its mouth ; one of the many streams which ran into the Thames on the south side ; there was a water-mill over the stream. On the opposite side of the street were the gardens belonging to this inn, called, long after the inn was demolished, the Maze. These gardens, however, had fallen into private hands long before the Dissolution.
At Bridge Foot we find facing us on the west the Priory ot St. Mary Overies, with its venerable and beautiful church. The Precinct of the Priory extended from the river on the north to the churchyard on the south, and from the dock on the west to the High Street in the east.
The religious life of Southwark included several gilds ; these were the Society of Jesus at St. Olave’s Church, the Gild of Our Lady of St. Margaret’s, the Gild of the Assumption, and a Gild of Brethren and Sisters at St. George’s. I have spoken of the gilds of London generally in another place. These gilds were of the same character. As for their kind of worship, it is laid down in these rules (Rendle, p. 243) :
The object of the gilds was first and above all the safety of the soul after death ; next various special objects as education, for one ; to receive the souls of the departed as continuing members of the gild ; to give the burial service when any members died ; to feast together in brotherly love ; to look after their sick and to maintain the old. There were also fraternities which were more distinctively religious in their aims.
There was the Fraternity of the Virgin ; of St. Anne ; of St. Clement ; of St. Barbara.
The custom of sanctuary obtained here until it was put down by the Act of George I. in 1724. Montague Close was the first sanctuary after the Dissolution.
This in fact was only continuing the former sanctuary of St. Mary Overies.
The Mint was another.
Thomas Powell in a book on the Mystery of Lending and Borrowing (1625) says : ” I return to my waterman attending all the while, who is to set me over to Southwark and land me at an excellent hold indeed, commonly called Montague Close, sometime the site of the monastery of St. Saviour’s near the Bright.”
And in 1656 one John Smith, gentleman, writes “from my chamber in Montague Close, Southwark.”
St. Thomas’s Hospital was a sanctuary until the Dissolution. So too was St. George’s. Stow tells a singular story of the sanctuary of St. George’s. In the year 1328 there was living in the parish of St. Mary Matfelon a certain widow woman. She was apparently no longer young ; for a long time she had ” cherished and brought up of alms ” a certain Frenchman, a Breton born.
This villain rewarded his benefactor’s kindness by murdering her one night and carrying off whatever jewels and money he could find. He was, however, found to be in hiding in Southwark, and so hotly was he pressed that he was forced to take sanctuary in St. George’s Church. It is uncertain what would have happened next.
The church would shelter him, but would it feed him ? I think not. However, the murderer speedily let it be known that he was willing to abjure the realm. That is to say, he was ready to put on sackcloth, to confess his crime publicly, to swear that he would leave the realm, and taking a cross in his hand, as a token of what he was, to repair to the appointed port and there take ship for France or the Low Countries.
What he was to do when he got there, how he was to live, is not intelligible.
This poor wretch never had the chance of solving the difficulty, for while he was being conducted either to the common or to the parish, where the murder was committed, the women of the place covered him with mud and filth, and presently slew him out of hand.
Concerning the churches of Southwark, the first and most important is that of St. Saviour’s, formerly St. Mary Overies. This church belonged to the Priory of St. Mary Overies, already noticed in Mediaeval London. Although the greater part, including the nave, is newly built, the building is in some respects one of the most venerable and most precious specimens of church architecture in London. The old nave was taken down, being in a ruinous condition, about the year 1S30, and a new nave, quite out of place and of the poorest possible design, was erected in its place. This has now been happily removed, and the newly-built nave is as far as possible an e.xact facsimile of the ancient edifice. The chancel and transepts are ancient; the altar screen was erected by Fox, Bishop of Winchester, in 1528; the Lady Chapel has been restored ; the chapel at the east end of the Lady Chapel has been removed. Among the persons of note buried in this church are John Gower the poet—his tomb is in the nave ; Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester ; Edmund Shakespeare, brother to the poet; John Fletcher; Philip Henslow; and many others. In the Lady Chapel was held the court which tried and condemned the Marian Martyrs.
On the east of St. Saviour’s there lies now a collection of mean streets called Winchester Street, Little Winchester Street, Winchester Yard, Clink Street, and Staver’s Wharf. This place, which was afterwards called the Liberty of the Clink, was the site of two Episcopal palaces which stood side by side, that of Winchester and Rochester. The street called Clink, one of the narrowest of the Southwark Lanes, was formerly a garden path or walk overlooking the river; it is now a dark and narrow street with tall warehouses on either side. The last house on the north is on the site of the old Clink Prison.
Winchester House with its Gardens extended from the river south as far as Winchester Street. It was one of the finest houses of London. It contained ten courts and looked out upon a park of sixty or seventy acres. The house was built by Bishop Gifford in 1107. At one time the house was turned into a prison.
Sir Francis Dodington and Sir Kenelm Digby were prisoners here in 1642.
In 1651 the house and park were sold to one Thomas Wallen. In 1660 the place reverted to the see. Charles II. granted Bishop Morley leave to lease out the property.
Rochester House was neither so important nor so interesting. It was called the House of St. Swithin or the Inn of St. Swithin’s Priory until 1543. Like its large neighbour, Rochester House was in course of time built over by tenements and small houses. Its site is now for the greater part covered by the Borough Market.
Somewhere in the same neighbourhood was the Inn or Town House of the Abbot of Waverley.
Beyond the Clink: stood Bankside and beyond Bankside were the Paris Gardens. These two statements mean a great deal. They mean that beyond the palaces of the two bishops and the House of St. Mary Overies the character of Southwark changed suddenly from one of dignity and ecclesiastical state to the lowest depth of debauchery and licentiousness. For on Bankside stood the famous “stews,” or licensed houses filled with “Flanders Froes,” and open all day loner to the profligates of the City and Westminster who came across by boat. And the Gardens were the resort of the ” sporting class,” always large in London. They came here for bull and bear baiting and every kind of sport. Henslowe and Alleyn, the players, were Masters of Paris Gardens in the time of James the First. They erected a theatre here—the “Swan.” The character of the Gardens fell very low.
In 1632 it is stated that no one goes to them except “the swaggering Roarer, the cunning Cheater, the swearing Drunkard, and the bloody Butcher.” This side of Southwark became the site of the new theatres and the home of the players. The Globe, Rose, Bear-garden and Hope Theatres were here, and here lived Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Alleyn, Henslowe, and many other actors. The place, though the “stews” no longer existed, was of evil repute; it was the chief place of entertainment in London, and as such was filled with the people who always flock together where shows, dances, singing and mumming are going on.
Soon after the Dissolution we find that the dignified or aristocratic side of Southwark has lost its character, and that the place is filled with craftsmen living in squalid tenements. There were as yet no industries in Southwark to account for the appearance of a large industrial population.
In the fourteenth century the two or three streets which constituted Southwark—the High Street, Tooley Street, and Bermondsey Lane—were filled, as we have seen, with the town houses of bishops, abbots, and priors ; there was a noble monastery ; there were one or two houses or palaces of nobles ; there were many inns, where lodged merchants, and many taverns, especially in Bermondsey Lane, for the entertainment of pilgrims. The streets showed the character of the population. They were filled with men in the livery of the tenants of these great houses ; with ecclesiastics, secretaries, notaries, bailiffs, and men-at-arms ; but there was no noise as of a thousand factories, no clamour of voices ; except upon the Bankside which was out of sight, hidden away behind St. Mary Overies and Winchester House, with its licensed wickedness and its legalised riot, with its bear-garden and its biill-baiting, its mummers, its jugglers, its tumblers, and its dancers, a quiet which belonged to a suburb of such eminent respectability. It was to Bankside, not to High Street or to Tooley Street, that the criminal who fled from London and from justice betook himself.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century all this was changed. Why ? We have already seen the reason ; because the Mayor and the Corporation of London—and with them the Queen and the Houses of Parliament—set their faces steadily against building new streets. They were afraid of the increase of London.
But the people, who cannot always be persuaded to fall in with the views of their betters, especially where these cause any obstacle to marriage and love-making, went on increasing.
Since there was not room enough in London, they must needs find room elsewhere.
Despite the Mayor and Corporation they filled up St. Katherine’s by the Tower; they spread out to Wapping on the Bank, and to the Bars beyond Aldgate ; they settled along the banks of the Fleet ; and they reached out arms of houses through Fleet Street and the Strand. But the greater number crossed the river and found quarters in Southwark. The story of every one of the great houses of Southwark is the same as that of Winchester House ; they were all pulled down and converted into narrow streets and tenements. The merchants of the City either found the houses too large or they were unwilling to live on the south of the Thames. They bought the places, therefore, one by one, as they came into the market, and then converted them into tenements.
Rose Alley now marks the site of the Rose Play-house, Bear Gardens the Hope ; this and Bear Lane off Southwark Street brings back reminiscences of the cruel sport of bear-baiting, while Pond Yard and Pike Gardens remind us of the gardens in which lay the fish-ponds of the King. On the site are the Phoenix gas works.
All this district is now given over to huge warehouses and busy factories that tower above the narrow dirty streets, crowded with wagons loading and discharging merchandise of every description, but most of the waterside trade is in grain with a large percentage of hops. Clink Street gets its name from the liberty of the Clink, for at one time there was a temporary prison here called by that name, but the original Clink Prison was at the corner of Maid and Gravel Lanes, where Summer Street to-day falls into Gravel Lane. Southward is the borough market for vegetables, which covers a considerable amount of ground between Stoney and Bedale Streets and the old Fowl Lane. It is very noisy from the constant roar of trains on the viaducts above.
The market was originally held in the High Street, but was move into the grounds of Winchester House, and has remained in the same place ever since, the King’s Bench. There were other arrangements made for the accommodation of prisoners and offenders ; the pillory, which was movable and could be set up anywhere, the cage at the foot of the bridge, stocks to lay a sinner by the heels, and whipping-posts in every parish.
The foreshore by the river is lined with all manner of craft discharging and loading various cargoes, old barges being repaired and many more tied up, apparently
for the last time.
The bank is lined with cranes and appliances for unloading, and facing a narrow, miry, badly-paved road a row of warehouses runs along to Southwark Bridge. Park Street, once Maid Lane, lies to the south, and in this street is the enormous brewery of Messrs. Barclay & Perkins. This Brewery covers Globe Alley, the site of the Globe Playhouse and Deadman’s Place burying ground; it sprang from a small concern started about 1690, which was afterwards owned by Mr. Thrale, the friend of Doctor Johnson, who spent a great deal of his time here. In the Gordon Riots of 1780 this establishment narrowly escaped the fate of many other buildings.
On the river-bank, where Bank Street now is, were the stairs belonging to the Bishop of Winchester. Wat Tyler and his rebels burnt them down in 1381 ; they were then under lease to the Lord Mayor of London, William Walworth, who speedily got his revenge and earned a knighthood by slaying Tyler in Smithfield. The part of Park Street leading to Redcross Street was formerly called Deadman’s Place from the great pit made in 1603 for the plague victims, who were carted there and thrown in unceremoniously.
West of the Southwark Bridge Road, which is lined with dwellings and factories, is another crowded district full of narrow streets and lanes, small houses, big blocks of model dwellings, and nearer the river great factories and storehouses.
Bankside is closely lined with foundries, engineering shops, dealers in metals, coke, fire-brick, coal, rags, iron, and iron girders. The great works of the City of London Electric Lighting Corporation, which lights the city, is also here. On the river-side is a high brick building containing the coal-hoisting machinery. All is automatic ; the coal is lifted, conveyed to the furnaces, fed to the fires, and the ashes brought back with hardly any attention whatever, at an immense saving of labour.
To the south, following a fine curve, is Southwark Street, a broad road built up with warehouses and wholesale establishments, and containing at its eastern end the large building of the Hop Exchange, the head-quarters of which trade is in the Borough.
The small streets to the north of this are nearly all composed of old houses, but new and better ones are gradually appearing, and to the east of Great Guilford Street large blocks of dwellings have been erected.
Guilford Street is marked in the old maps as Bandyleg Walk. Summer and Zoar Streets are both poor, with small shops. In the former are St. Peter’s Church and the temporary buildings of St. Saviour’s Grammar School ; here stood the Meeting-House at which John Bunyan is said to have discoursed.
To the south of Southwark Street the neighbourhood is very dingy, dirty, and poor, with some wretched alleys, but the London County Council are proceeding vigorously, and whole blocks have been pulled down. Lavington Street, from Gravel Lane, passes through one such district, and both sides are vacant so far, but the new St. Saviour’s Public Baths and Wash-houses at the eastern end make a good beginning (“or the new buildings soon to follow.
To the south the small turnings like Ewer Street are very dirty and poor, containing a mixture of dwellings and stables. To the west the streets running through to the Blackfriars Road are better. At the corner of Union and Suffolk Streets stands INIr. A’aughan’s Charity for twenty-four widows of the parish, established in 1565.
Union Street, the result of the joining of King and Queen Streets, is a busy thoroughfare full of small shops ; to the south of it is the old district of the Mint, once Alsatia, a refuge for all classes of criminals, who were beyond the jurisdiction of the London authorities. It is now a mass of small streets and filthy alleys, harbouring a floating population leavened by the criminal classes ; it abounds in wretched tenements and common lodging-houses, amongst which the authorities are hard at work preparing for needed improvements. Dividing this district north and south is the Southwark Bridge Road, affording a quicker passage from Newington to the centre of the City than by London Bridge, but shunned by many drivers on account of the steep gradients.
This road contains many good residences, but is poor in places, with many poor shops. The head-quarters of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, an extensive building of red brick, is a welcome touch of efficiency and cleanliness in this dismal neighbourhood. It stands on the site of Finch’s Grotto Gardens, once a well-known resort, which was closed about 1778, when the ground was used as the New Grotto Burial-ground, but owing to defective titles it was closed after a few years, and when, in 1884, the foundations of the present building were put in, the labourers found the site full of human remains laid in regular rows. Since then other excavations near have shown the same rows of bones.
Behind these buildings are many poor streets, of which Loman Street marks the site of Loman’s Pond, so called from a pool of water of that name in Winchester Park, which extended as far as this.
In Orange Street is a Board School, also the Church of All-Hallows.
At Mirion Street, opposite a wide vacant triangle in the road, stands the St. Saviour’s Library, erected in 1893.
The corner of Quilp Street is the Evelina Hospital for Children, and behind it is the Workhouse. The Salvage Corps also have a station here facing the Fire Brigade head-quarters. This neighbourhood is very poor, and portions of Mint Street and Lombard Street are populated by very bad types.
North of Suffolk Street is also a very poor district, with dirty streets and small houses. This was formerly Dirty Lane, a singularly appropriate name. At the north-west corner of Friar and Suffolk Streets was formerly Hangman’s Acre, running north to Pocock Street, where was erected about 1773 the new Bridewell. Between Suffolk Street and the Borough Road are the extensive new Queen’s Buildings, erected on the site of the King’s Bench Prison, which was pulled down in 1850.
From the Bridge-foot to Southwark Street it was anciently known as Long Sauthwark, and where Southwark Street now meets it stood the pillory and cage,
The rest of the thoroughfare to Blackman Street was St. Margaret’s Hill, so called from the Church of St. Margaret, which once stood at the triangle to the south of Southwark Street ; this until 1540 was the Parish Church, but after being used as a Court-house, it gradually became ruinous and was removed. This church was given to St. Mary Overies between 1100 and 1135, and the parish included the manor of Paris Garden to the west. The triangle was also used as a market-place, and from here south to the mart was the scene of Southwark Fair, so ably drawn by Hogarth.
The South London fairs were at one time many and important : they were held at Charlton, Greenwich, Deptford, Camberwell, Peckham, Lambeth, Eltham, and at Southwark itself The importance of the mediaeval fair may be understood when we remember that in the villages and the small towns—we do not realise how very small the towns were—there were no shops and no trade except for provisions and drink. The yearly fair provided everything that could not be grown or made at home. Thus, all the really needful things were so grown or made—the beef, mutton, pork, poultry, wild birds, fish, wheat and grain of every kind, butter, cheese, vegetables, honey, and fruit were furnished for the country-house by the farm and garden attached to it. In the same way beer, cider, mead, strong waters, and drinks of all kinds, except foreign wine, were made in the brew-house or the still-room.
And the maids at the spinning-wheel wove the linen and knitted the wool, and with needle and thread turned out most of the clothes. They even made their own pottery. What was wanted more for the simple life ? At first salt, weapons, and implements, especially needles, pins, knives, ploughshares, swords, saws, spear-heads, pots and pans. Then armour was wanted. Then foreign wine, spices, sugar, silks and velvets and rich stuffs, ecclesiastical vestments and vessels, fur robes, ribbons, gloves, paper, ink, books, and all the things that belong to the easier and more luxurious life. Once a year the fair brought these things, and the people from every quarter poured in to buy for the whole year what they wanted or could afford of these luxuries. There was a great deal of barter ; long lines of pack-horses brought wool to the fair ; skins were also brought, and grain, of which England produced more than it consumed.
It is difficult to understand, however, the uses of fairs like those of Westminster, Tower Hill, and Southwark, unless they were, like the St. Bartholomew’s fairs, for the sale of a special branch. The retail shops already existed in the City ; could not the buyer take boat from Westminster—could he not take the ferry from St. Mary Overies—and so get what he wanted in the City?
A possible explanation is that the minor things —the small ” merceries ” and little ” haberdasheries “•—things most necessary, although small—were sold by cry in the streets of London and in the country by our old friend Autolycus, and, in the fifteenth century, at least, by the Friars in their decline ; that one could not always depend upon the pedlar ; that the resident of South London—say one who lived at Newington, Kennington, Clapham, or Brixton—could not depend upon meeting such of the “Cries” of the City as he wanted ; and that it was chiefly for the sale of the smaller things that the general fairs near London were kept up. Another reason was that wherever a concourse of people was expected, there the show-folk would also gather.
The Southwark Fair, called the Lady Fair, was a late foundation, having been established in the year 1642 by a charter of Edward IV., empowering, not the Borough, but the City of London, to hold a fair in Southwark every year on the 7th, 8th, and 9th days of September, with “all the liberties to such fairs appertaining,” including the Court of Pie Powder. It was opened with much ceremony by the Mayor and Aldermen, and it was evidently regarded by the City as a most important concession and privilege when Edward granted the creation of the fair. In the course of time the fair, like all the London fairs, became simply a place of amusement and shows.
Let us turn into the High Street and walk as far as St. George’s Church. This is a very ancient parish church, dating back to the year 11 22 and perhaps farther.
Here are buried Bishop Bonner, and Rushworth, Clerk to the Parliament in the time of Charles I., besides those who died in the Marshalsea and Kine’s Bench Prisons. General Monk was married to Anne Clarges in this church. Opposite was one more Abbot’s town house. It is the Tabard in High Street. In 1304 the Abbot of Hyde purchased two houses in Southwark for which a rent to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Court in Southwark was due. In 1307 the Bishop of Winchester licensed a chapel at the Abbot’s Inn. It was called at the Dissolution “the Tabard, the Abbot’s Place, the Abbot’s Stable-—the garden belonging, and a dung place leading to the ditch go to the Thames.” The Abbot’s Place was therefore separate from the hostelry.
Next to the Warrens the Brandons are the most illustrious family connected with Southwark. They were not an old family, but they belonged, at least, to the rank of gentlemen without which there was no promotion possible except in the Church. The first Brandon of whom one hears was one Thomas, who was Sheriff in 1356.
There was Nicholas, a stockfishmonger (yet he might have been of gentle birth), who died in 1391 ; Thomas, who in 1391 had been living in Bruges; one Edward Brandon received a small bequest of William Burcester, knight, of St. Olave’s, in 1407; in 1467 Edward Brandon was ^Marshal ; in 1485 Sir William Brandon states in a petition that he had been turned out of his office of Marshal by Richard III.; he was reinstated ; his son had fallen as standard-bearer to the King at Bosworth ; his grandson is Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who married Henry’s sister Mary, widow of Louis XH. of France. He was a great favourite with Henry, and was fortunate enough to retain the King’s favour even after the death of his wife.
The matrimonial relations of Charles Brandon are almost as remarkable as those of the King his master. He was first betrothed to one Ann Brown. Instead of marrying her he obtained a dispensation of release, and married one Margaret Mortymer, a widow. He then separated from her, obtained a declaration of invalidity of marriage, and married his first love, by whom he had a daughter.
Meantime there had been passages between him and Margaret of Savoy, the Emperor Maximilian’s daughter. And in addition to this he was endeavouring to marry his ward, Elizabeth, daughter of John Grey, Viscount Lisle. When he married Queen Mary he was still in the midst of these entanglements. Probably he knew very well that the Church would set him free.
After seventeen years of married life, Mary died, and Suffolk, like the King, made haste to marry again without the least delay. This time he married Katharine Willoughby, another ward, by whom he had two sons, unfortunate boys who died of the plague within an hour of each other.
Suffolk House, or Brandon House, nearly opposite to St. George’s Church, was built by Charles, Duke of Suffolk. The place is figured in Wyngaerde’s View of London, 1553. It was certainly a large and very fine house, built, in the fashion of the time, round an inner court. The Duke did not long enjoy it, for he sold the place to the King, who established a Mint in it and called it Southwark Place.
Edward the Sixth paid a visit to the House, according to Stow. Queen Mary gave it to Spratt, Archbishop of York, and to his successors, to be their inn or town house when they came to London, in place of York House, taken by Henry from Cardinal Wolsey and the See of York. Spratt pulled it down, and in place put up small cottages. The lands and buildings were granted by Edward VI. to the City as part of the Bridge estate. The ground covered by this manor is to-day built over by poor streets.
The part of the Borough known a few years back as Stone’s End stretched from Suffolk Street to the Borough Road ; here at present are the district Police Court and several manufactories of tobacco. From Union Street south to Marshalsea Road is a network of alleys and courts, some running through to Redcross Street, and others but a few yards long. St. Margaret’s Court, Maypole Alley, Redcross Place, Eve’s Place—formerly Adam’s Place—Brent’s Place, Falcon Court, and Birdcage Alley are all that remain of some twenty such turnings that were on this side at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some of these are better than others, but all are bad. Redcross -Street is very little better.
At the east corner of this street and Union Street, where St. Saviour’s Parochial School stands, was the Old Cross-bones or Single Women’s Churchyard, an unconsecrated plot of ground.
The inns of Southwark were always famous; they were especially ” carriers’ inns,” i.e. inns where carriers’ carts and wagons were received and kept in safety.
Let us note a few of these historical inns. The first is the ” Beare at the Bridge Foot,” the building of which by Thomas Drynkwater is recorded in Riley’s Memorials. It was in 13 19. This inn remained, and was a popular place of resort for 450 years. It was a great place for dinners. The parish books of St. Olave preserve some of the bills for the dinners which the vestrymen and ancients of the parish took at the Beare after their labours. In the year 1732 it became the Southwark Penny Post Office.
There were two inns named after St. Clement. The sign was a dedication because St. Clement took sailors and blacksmiths under his special protection.
The King’s Head was the most important of the carriers’ inns. Taylor, the Water Poet, says that the carriers came to the Borough from all parts ; ” from Reygate to the Falcon ; from Tunbridge, Seavenoake, and Steeplehurst to the Katherine Wheel ; from Darking and Lidderhead to the Greyhound ; some to the Spire, the George, the King’s Head ; some lodge at the Tabbard or Talbot ; many far and wide are to be had daily at the White Hart.”
The White Hart is an inn with a very long history. It was at this inn that Jack Cade made his head-quarters. To this place the headless body of Lord Say was dragged before it was quartered and set up for the derision of the people. It can be traced back to the beginning of the fifteenth century. It was partly burned in 1669, and wholly destroyed in 1676. The White Hart which we see in the Pickvjick Papers was that erected after the destruction in 1676. It has now, like all the Southwark inns except one, been taken down and replaced either by tenements and slums or by warehouses.
A great fire in 1676 burned down the Prison of the Compter, the Meat Market, and about 500 houses, including six principal inns. St. Thomas’s Hospital and St. Saviour’s Church were only saved by a change in the wind.
The Tabard Inn became, in the seventeenth century, the Talbot. It was rebuilt after the fire of 1676. The exterior was simply a narrow square gateway in front of which swung the sign of the Talbot with a legend, “This is the Inne where Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine and twenty Pilgrims lay on their journey to Canterbury, Anno 1383.” The sign and the inscription were taken down with all the house signs in the year 1766. Aubrey says that after the rebuilding of the inn ” the ignorant landlord, or tenant, instead of the ancient sign of the Tabard, put up the Talbot or dove.”
During the eighteenth century another transformation took place in Southwark.
The improved roads led to an enormous increase of intercommunication. The inns of Southwark became the principal places of starting and of return for the carriers’ carts and wagons, and stage – coaches which journeyed continued to and fro between London and the towns and villages of the south.
It is here sufficient to call attention to the fact that in the year 1791 there rolled out of the High Street every week 113 conveyances; namely, of stage-coaches, 11 daily, 4 three times a week, i twice a week, and 2 twice a week ; of caravans, 2 daily, and i three times a week ; of carts, 5 daily, 7 three times a week, 3 twice, and 3 once a week ; of wagons, 2 daily, 2 three times a week, 27 twice a week, and 43 once a week.
An average of 19 public conveyances departed, and as many returned every day except Sunday. Thirty-eight to load and unload every day. These were divided among half a dozen inns, yet there was plenty of work and employment in the service of all these coaches and wagons. The High Street, Borough, presents to-day a crowded and animated appearance ; it was not more crowded, but it was more animated, when all these coaches ran out and returned home all day long.
The east side of the Borough High Street that lies within Southwark boasts of many alleys, most of which bear the old inn names from the houses that once stood in them. To-day the road carriers have almost disappeared, and their places have been taken by the Railway Companies with their dull Receiving Offices. The old White Hart Yard has rooms built over the archway full of hop factors ; it also contains a coroner’s court.
George Inn Yard is used by the Great Northern Railway with a part of the old ” George ” on the south side, namely, a two-storied gallery still intact and quite picturesque, and the remainder of the curious old place of three weather-boarded stories, with the coffee-room entrance a couple of feet below the yard level. Old Talbot or Tabard Yard is given over to the hop business ; it recalls Chaucer and the Canterbury pilgrims. Queen’s Head Inn Yard has also part of the old inn left, namely, a gallery on the north side and some of the timbers of the old house ; this is a long yard and a busy one, full of stables, hop merchants, and poultry breeders, with an old wooden house standing -amongst them farther down on the south side of the yard.
Three Tuns Alley extends quite a long way back, and is very narrow and full of old buildings used as offices, with a billiard factory at the far end.
Next to Kentish Buildings is Spur Inn Yard, once the head-quarters of the Kent and Surrey Carriers, now a booking-office with a row of the old stabling still standing on the northern side, opposite some old-fashioned houses. The Nag’s Head Yard is now a G.W.R. yard with the remains of some of the old houses with low fronts and house rooms built over the gateway. Newcomen Street was originally King Street, and was named after Mrs. Newcomen ; it contains that lady’s Endowed Free Schools—new buildings of red brick—founded in 1792.
Off this narrow street runs the Bowling Green and the Tennis Court, once used by the prisoners of the Marshalsea, which stood between here and Mermaid Court.
The King’s Arms in this street has for its sign over the door the Royal Arms that were taken off the south gate of London Bridge when it was removed in 1760; these bear the inscription ” G. iii. R. 1760. King Street.”
The junction of the Borough Road and Blackman Street was the site of a large fort with four bulwarks that was hastily thrown up at the beginning of the Civil War in 1642-3 to command the southern road into London.
The Borough Road was a broad road leading to St. George’s Circus ; it is mostly given over to business, but there are still some dwellings in it, and many vacant plots of ground for building.
At Mansfield Street is the St. George’s Presbyterian Church and one of its Schools, at Lancaster Street the popular Borough Polytechnic, and to the eastward St. George’s Upper Schools established in 1838 for boys and girls. Borough Road Baptist Chapel, and the Vestry Hall.
To the south most of the streets are good and clean, but the great bulk of the people are obviously poor.
Newington Causeway is mainly occupied by wholesale traders.
London Road is a busy mart on both sides, with a gutter market and a large music hall, originally a religious building, on the east side. These shops are mostly second class, embracing many cheap eating-houses, fruit-stalls, and provision dealers and others, who make great display.
Between this road and Market Street stand the remains of the old St. George’s Market, and Butcher Row—a square of low shops now used as dwellings, tenanted by costermongers and the poorest class. Both sides of Market Street and the adjacent alleys harbour a wretched class of people.
St. George’s Road runs through a quieter district ; most of the streets between it and London Road contain fairly well-to-do people. The streets to the south are of a fair class, comparatively new and clean. West Square, east of which stood a station of the old Semaphore Telegraph Line, contains fairly large houses, but here as elsewhere apartments are let everywhere. At Ely Place is a large Board School, and opposite to it is the Church of St. Jude with schools attached.
Next to the Board School is King Edward’s School or House of Occupation, in the grounds and under the management of the Bethlehem Hospital, established for boys and girls ; the boys were removed to the country, and in their place orphan girls are now trained for domestic service.
Facing Lambeth Road is Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane. It was originally the Priory of the Star of Bethlehem, established in 1246 by Simon St. Mary (then Sheriff of London), to the east of Moorfields ; it became in 1330 a public hospital in charge of the City. In 1675 a new building was erected, but in 1818 the institution was removed to this site, which covers some fifteen acres. Since then the buildings have been greatly improved and enlarged. On this site in 1804 stood the St. George’s Spa, and near Brooks Street stood the establishment of the Philanthropic Society for the Encouragement of Industry among the Criminal Poor, both of which were removed to the Hospital. All this district covers St. George’s Fields, in which Wat Tyler and Jack Cade’s rebels concentrated, and where, in 1780, Lord George Gordon’s “No Popery” and the “Wilkes and Liberty ” rioters assembled, to the number of 20,000, who, with the professed desire to petition Parliament against the growth of Popery, marched into Southwark, where they burnt the King’s Bench Prison and let loose the prisoners, besides committing other riotous acts before they were dispersed by the Militia.
This was formerly common land, but all such rights were extinguished in 1810, and several Acts were passed in the next few years to improve the Fields. In the wall of the hospital, opposite the Baptist Chapel on Barkham Terrace, is the stone sign of The Dog and Duck, with date 17 16. This was a noted house of resort in the eighteenth century for the sport of duck-hunting. Here also in 1642 was erected a fort with four half bulwarks; Defoe says (in 1724) that the ducking pond was evidently the moat of this fort, and that the lines were so high and so un-demolished that only a little was needed to repair them.
The Apollo Gardens were also near the point where the Westminster Bridge and the St. George’s Roads meet.
The site of St. George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral is pointed out as the actual spot where ” No Popery” rioters under Lord George Gordon assembled prior to their descent on Southwark. This cathedral, with church house adjoining, is still unfinished, being minus a spire. In grounds extending from St. George’s Road to the Circus stands Notre-Dame High School for Girls, and the Asylum for the Indigent Blind, instituted in 1799 on the site of The Dog and Duck.
Opposite is Barbel Street, very small, dirty, and sheltering a very low class. Across the Westminster Road is another wretched neighbourhood of small streets, with a Board School off Tower Street, which is very poor. Between here and St. George’s Circus is a block of Peabody’s Industrial Buildings on the ground formerly covered by the Magdalen Home.
Adjoining them is the South Metropolitan Temperance Hall, a Salvation Army Shelter with accommodation from one penny upwards, and the Surrey Theatre. This was originally the Royal Circus, erected in 1778 by Hughes, a pupil of Astley, in imitation of Astley’s Circus. The circus was burnt down and the present house erected on the site.
Spanning the Blackfriars Road, or, as it was called, Great Surrey Street, opposite this building, was a turnpike gate.
In the centre of the Circus stands an obelisk, erected in 1771 in honour of Brass Crosby, who during his mayoralty was imprisoned in the Tower, with John Wilkes of the North Briton, then an alderman, for having released some printers of London newspapers who had been apprehended on warrants issued by the House of Commons. On the north side of the obelisk is carved “One mile 350 feet from Fleet Street,” on the east side “One mile 40 feet from London Bridge,” and on the west side “One mile from Palace Yard, Westminster Hall.”
To the north, from the Borough Road to Pocock Street, all the streets are narrow, dirty, and filled with poor people, whose children are provided for by two Board Schools, one large one in Wellington Street, and a small one at the back of the Borough Road Station.
In Hill Street are the Drapers’ Almshouses facing the railway arches, with King’s Bench Walk and Green Street full of poor houses behind. North of Pocock Street is Surrey Row, originally Melancholy Walk, full of small houses ; whilst Surrey Street, south of Friar Street, has the same dismal character. West of Blackfriars Road is a dingy purveu of narrow streets. In Webber Street are the Hedger Almshouses, dating from 1797, and farther north in Malborough Street, amongst old houses, alleys, and mews, is Christ Church Board School, opposite St. Saviour’s Union Workhouse.
This turning falls into Great Charlotte Street at the eastern end of the New Cut, and at the Blackfriars Road, on the north-east corner, stands what was Rowland Hill’s chapel. The building, octagonal in shape, erected in the fields in 1783, served for many years as a chapel, but lately has been rented by a maker of agricultural implements.
South of it stood Nelson Square, a good large open space with a well-to-do class of residents in good houses. Northwards to Southwark Street the main road is lined with shops of a medium grade, with some wholesale houses, and on the west side of the road are many cheap lodging-houses with prices varying from fourpence to sixpence and upwards.
To the west the Broad Wall is the Southwark boundary, and here the houses and inhabitants are again poor, and of the shiftless floating type found near the river and docks.
This Broad Wall, or Walk, was a bank thrown up probably as an embankment with an open sewer on each side, and is even mentioned as being the line of Canute’s Trench from Dockhead to the Old Barge House Stairs. This was the site of the old Paris Garden, which was reached from Paris Garden Stairs by the Green Walk, now Collingwood Street. Christ Church in Collingwood Street Street was erected in the middle of the eighteenth century and stands in a large yard, now a public garden, with a row of old and picturesque houses to the south. To the east in Charles Street is a public library with the Ponsonby Buildings, high-class tenement houses, and Edward’s Charity in Burrell Street. In the Broad Wall is a Board School, and in Stamford Street, a street of cheap apartment houses and hotels, is a Unitarian Chapel with a Hospital for Skin Diseases opposite, at Hatfield Street.
From Stamford Street to the river are many poor residences, but warehouses are taking their places. Old Barge House Street, and Stairs, so named from the King’s Barge House standing here, is also part warehouse and residence, and falls into Ground Street, which is full of high buildings and wharves, and past a squalid alley up a steep rise leads out to Albion Place at Blackfriars Bridge, a very busy spot for foot and vehicular traffic, and the terminus of the tramway lines to the south of London.