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 III
BERMONDSEY
Domesday Book tells how “the King holds Bermundeseye,” that “Earl (King)
Harold held it (before),” and that ” there was a new and handsome church with twenty
acres of meadow and woodland for five hogs in pannage time,” also that “the Earl
of Moritm has in Bermundeseye of the King’s land one hide, where stands his
house.” This was Robert, Earl of Moritm and Cornwall, brother of Odo, and halfbrother
of the Conqueror. The etymology of the name of this district is generally
supposed to be derived from a Saxon landowner, Bevrmund, with the addition of
the termination ea or e)\ which signifies water, and, denoting the nature of the soil,
is frequently found in the names of places whose situations on the banks of rivers
render them insular and marshy. All this was formerly marsh recovered from the
Thames by the great dykes probably built by the Romans, and drained by ditches
which existed until quite recently, whose places were taken by the system of
underground sewers. Formerly noted for its market gardens, Bermondsey, as late
as 1850, was very little built on south of the Grange, Spa, and Jamaica Roads.
Now, however, it is closely covered, and in the busier portions the small houses are coming down everywhere to give room to towering piles of artisans’ dwellings.
Always the head-quarters of the leather trade in England, and of the industries
dependent on it, the whole place to-day, covered as it is with acres of tan-yards,
reeks with the smells of the raw and finished product, and in the main roads the
wagons and workmen speak for the vastness of the industry. Tanners, curriers,
fellmongers, wool-staplers, leather factors, skin-dressers, dyers, hatters, parchment
and glue makers are the principal trades, and on these again many smaller trades
are dependent.
Leaving the Borough High Street at Newcomen Street, a narrow turning at
first leads into Snow’s Fields through a neighbourhood of small shops and houses,
many of which are comparatively old. To the south of Newcomen, formerly King
Street, but originally Axe and Bottle Yard, the Tennis Court and Bowling Green,
now full of small houses, are reminders of the time when the original Marshalsea
Prison stood between this street and Mermaid Court to the south, well back from
the High Street. A long passage, down a flight of steps, and over a ditch led to
the open pleasure grounds behind, where, during Southwark Fair, many booths were erected. Passing east, a poor district is reached near Crosby Row with many
very narrow alleys. Some of these turnings are hardly three feet across the
entrance, but widening out as they recede are filled with the poorest people, many of
whom rely on hawking for a living. Between here and Kipling (formerly Nelson)
Street are a large Board School in La.xon Street and a National School, with
St. Paul’s Church, a stone building, facing the tall new blocks of dwellings in
Hamilton Square. Opposite these buildings at the north-east corner of Guy Street
is a large open space with many fine trees, now used as a builder’s yard, and flanked
with small houses. Weston Street, stretching crookedly from St. Thomas Street to
Great Dover Street, is partly residential, and contains many factories, stone yards, a blacklead mill, and the Leather Exchange. This street is composed of the former
Hunter and Baalzephon Streets, and the Maze, and the greatest leather mart of
the world stands at the junction of Manning Street. It covers a vast space, and
was erected in 1832 at a cost of about ^50,000. In the courtyards of the big
warehouses is held the market for hides and skins, at which the leather factors, woolstaplers,
and fellmongers transact their business. The London Leather Warehouse
Company’s premises are part of the pile, and contain vast stores of the finished
product. This market has absorbed all the trade in Leadenhall, which formerly
included it. The whole block to Berniondsey Street and south to Long Lane is covered with tan-yards. To the north are more yards, and on the south side of
Snow’s Fields are portions of very poor and dirty streets and alleys, with a big
Board School in Kirby Street. From Weston Street east to Berniondsey Street
the greater part of the southern side of the Fields have been recently torn down for
about fifty yards back, and on this space foundations are being put in for large
model dwellings, which are badly needed just here.
Old maps of Southwark show Snow’s Fields stretching from the Maze Pond to Bermondsey Street, with ditches at the roadside tenter grounds to the south, and 3
large pond of water where Weston Street now crosses. On the north side of the
road are Roman Catholic schools, a mission hall, and a line of small houses and
shops. Beyond Ship and Mermaid Row (1843), a narrow dirty alley, Bermondsey
Street is reached. Opposite is Crucifix Lane, lined on the north side with storehouses
occupying the arches of the Brighton Railway, and on the south with shops
and large warehouses, behind which are more tan-yards. Beyond the railway arches,
which span the road frequently, is Church Street, with large leather factories, a vinegar manufactory, and tanneries. Tanner Street leads to Bermondsey Street,
opposite Market Street, the site of Bishop Waynflete’s stone bridge erected over a stream here in 1473.
Bermondsey Street, or, as it was sometimes called, Barnaby Street, is a fairly
wide and busy thoroughfare reaching from Tooley Street to Abbey Street. Oft” it run several mean alleys, some of these on the eastern side teeming with poor people,
and those on the west leading into big tan-yards. In Royal Oak Yard, Lamb Alley,
and Great Russell Street are many cottages of the eighteenth century in fair condition.
Behind these are fellmongers’ yards, leather-dressers, and kindred occupations,
and a back-way into the Leather Exchange from Great Russell Street. The long
ranges of black buildings of wood with slate sides to be seen on every side contain
suspended hides in the process of curing. Carts full of skins are constantly passing,
and at the dinner-hour crowds of leather-workers from the yards, their legs tied up
in sacking and whitened with lime from the pits, can be seen walking noisily in their
heavy wooden clogs. The air is full of penetrating odours, which are said to be
healthy in spite of their density.
In the plague years of the seventeenth century many Londoners fled to
Bermondsey for safety, but in spite of this the visitation was very severe in 1603,
1625, and 1665. In 1625 the parish burials reached 11 17, at least a thousand more
than the average. Down Dyer’s (Tiler’s) Gateway are many small houses, and
beyond to Weston Street the space is given up to the preparation of leather. The
main street contains some old houses, but they are being replaced with good new
buildings and a great many shops. Christy’s hat factory is on the eastern side near
the church, and behind a tannery runs through as far as MelHck’s Place. North of
this open space are seen the large buildings of the Bermondsey Workhouse of
St. Olave’s Union, erected in 1791, fronting on Tanner Street. This street was
originally known as Five Foot Lane, but was renamed Russell Street after a former
eccentric but wealthy parishioner and finally got this very appropriate name. Some
of the small turnings contain poor people, but Riley Street, with a Board School at the corner, and those beyond are of a better class. Maltby Street, containing a Vestry Hall ;
Millstream Road, probably named from one of the streams that were
formerly abundant ; and the streets south to Abbey Street, are full of good working class
inhabitants, and though small are well kept. Eastwards under the railway
arches, with the constant roar and rumble of trains overhead, the road continues past
shops and busy yards into Dock Head, which since the completion of the Tower
Bridge is very much changed for the better. Here many of the old buildings have
gone, and fine new blocks have taken their places, and trams and omnibuses over
the bridge to Liverpool Street, with a constant passing of teams, make the street
busy. The shops are clean and good, and the former ubiquitous loafer has almost
disappeared. Turning south at Parker’s Row, the corner is taken up by a Roman
Catholic Convent established in 1839, with church and schools. Behind these, the
small turnings off Neckinger Street are very poor, with Woolf and Druid Street
the dirtiest. The shops in Parker’s Row are old and squat, with tiled roofs and
small fronts, but building is progressing and many have recently been pulled down.
At the junction of Jamaica Road is the wide Abbey Street, with a recruiting office
and large drill-ground of the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Volunteers at the southwest
corner. Behind this is a large leather factory, then the railway and leather
and glue factories. On the north side of Abbey Street is the Star Music Hall,
and to the west the road goes under a railway arch the width of the roadway,
necessitating a triple span, the two side arches of which are upheld by rows of
massive fluted cast-iron pillars.
The eastern portion of Abbey Street was originally called the Neckinger, as the
stream which bore that name followed the curve of the road, one branch finding an
outlet at St. Saviour’s Dock, and the other, better known as the Folly Ditch, passing
along George Row and skirting “Jacob’s Island.” The Neckinger was at one time
navigable as far as Bermondsey Abbey, and till comparatively recently flowed to the
tan-yards of the Neckinger Road and supplied them with water at high tide. The
origin of this name is obscure, but it was formerly called ” The Divels Neckerchiefe ”
and ” Neckincher,” and the origin was probably the Gallows, a slang phrase for which was “The Devil’s Neckerchief,” by which name the maps of 1740 designate this
place. The Neckinger Mills, originally erected for the manufacture of paper from
straw, but subsequently used for the leather trade, cover this ground. Abbey Street,
at one time George Street, is named from the Abbey that stood at the western end.
At one time a bridge over the creek and a toll-house stood at the eastern end of
George Street, but the right was bought out and the road made public in 1836. To
the south to Horney Lane the streets are small, but the people are comfortable, and
beyond this to the Spa Road is entirely occupied by tan-yards. Long Walk and
the side alleys are very poor in places and badly looked after, but to the Grange
Road there is an improvement. On the north side of Abbey Street the small streets
from the churchyard to Stanworth Street are also full of toilers in the leather trade.
At the junction of Bermondsey Street is the Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalen,
standing in a well-cared-for open churchyard. The date of the foundation of the
original church is not known, but it was probably anterior to the beginning of the
reign of Edward IIL The church had been allowed to become a partial ruin, which
accounted for the rebuilding which took place in 1680. It is of brick, plastered, with
stone dressings.
Where Bermondsey Lane ran into Tooley Street stood a cross—” Barmsie ”
Cross. This was one of the many crosses in and about London. They were
perhaps intended to serve as reminders of religion. There were certainly too many
such reminders. Religion loses rather than gains by perpetual reminders. They
led to profanity in discourse, and to habitual irreverence towards things sacred.
The crosses stood at every corner. The processions which marched slowly through
every street: the friar in his habit, the priest, the servant in the livery of a
Religious House, were all reminders; the frequent services, the bells of church and
monastery ringing all day long, the pictures on the walls of the church, the sacred
play, these also were reminders. Yet these things do not make a people religious.
In Bermondsey Lane we come upon the water-courses, ditches, and sluggish
streams with which South London was covered as with a pattern of lace. In the
fourteenth century they were bright and sparkling brooks flowing down from the
rising ground between Battersea and Deptford. Numerous rustic bridges crossed
these streams, which with the trees and meadows and gardens made the Hat piece of
land full of beauty, far more beautiful than the lands on the other three sides of the
city, the marshes of the Lea, the dreary waste of the Moorfields, or the marshes of
Westminster and Chelsea. The time came—but it came only after many years,
only in the nineteenth century—when houses and streets began to spread out all over South London. Then the beauty of the place vanished, the trees were cut
down, the gardens built over, and the bright rippling stream of pure water became
a common sewer. Bermondsey Street was built upon very early, as soon as the Abbey of St. Saviour’s began to assume its character for sanctity. The Holy Rood of Barmsie was for many years one of the most favourite places of pilgrimage for the London
citizen or the London visitor. We must remember that there came every summer,
just as there comes now, an army of visitors to London. They came up from all
parts ; they came to pay court to king, ecclesiastic, or noble ; they came on business
to buy or to sell or borrow ; they came about lands, rights, and liberties ; they came
about their wards, about the fines for inheritance, about marriage ; and when they
came they went on pilgrimage to the holy places of London. The shrine of St. Erkenwald of St. Paul’s ; of St. Edward of Westminster ; the Black Virgin of Willesden, of Muswell Hill, and of
Gospel Oak ; and the Holy Rood of Bermondsey, were all visited by every
Londoner and every visitor. John Paston begs his mother and his sister Margery
to visit the ” Rood of North Door and St. Saviour’s, Bermondsey.”
The short street lying between Barmsie Cross and the Holy Rood was filled
with taverns, whose names survived at least to the time of Strype, the White Hart
Yard, Sun Alley, Swan Alley, Bell Alley, Black Boy Alley, White Lyon Yard, and
Star Yard. Metal tokens issued from these inns are still preserved. There are some in the Guildhall. The church of St. Mary Magdalen is not on the site of any
part of the Abbey. It appears to have been originally built as a parish church for
the people, just as St. Margaret’s, Westminster, was built for the people of the
village outside the Abbey, and St. Katherine Cree for the people of the parish of
the Holy Trinity Priory. The furniture of the church, sold at the Reformation,
shows that it was richly provided with vestments, crosses, and plate of all kinds.
One silver salver they fortunately retained, and it is in use at the church to this day.
Among the Rectors of St. Mary Magdalen was Edward Elton, a well-known
Puritan, who thundered against festivities and merry-makings, and took down and
chopped up the May-pole. Of the buildings that formerly stood at the western end
of the churchyard but two small ones remain ; that near the church door is used as a
registry, while the other at the south-east corner boldly proclaims the fact that it is tenanted by a ” Shirt and Collar Dresser.”
To the south, where Bermondsey Square is now, stood the Abbey of Barmsie
or Bermondsey. As a Priory, the buildings were founded by Aylwyn Child, a
citizen of London, in 1082, and the building was dedicated to Our Saviour. A
Conventual Church was erected close to the south of and contiguous to the present
parochial church, and to this was annexed a Convent of Cluniac monks, who were
brought here in 1089 from the famous Priory of La Charite on the Loire.
It has been a matter of surprise with historians of this suburb that the once
great and venerable Foundation which stood here should have vanished so completely from, the memory of man. But its fate in this respect is no worse than
that which fell upon all the Religious Houses. No mediaeval city, certainly, was
more richly endowed with these Houses than London : the memory of all, except
the Charterhouse and the Temple, has absolutely perished. Who, in the city, knows
anything of the Priory of the Holy Trinity ? Who knows anything of Eastminster,
of Holywell, of St. James’s Nunnery, of the Carmelites? It is not enough that parliaments have been held within the walls of a monastery, or that princes and
nobles have been buried in its church, or that the abbots were great dignitaries of
the Church. The House is suppressed, the place where it stood is invaded by
trades and crafts ; the memory perishes ; perhaps the name survives while the
meaning and history of the name are lost. Bermondsey Abbey is no exception to
the rule : save for a street or so, the very name is gone, and more, there is not a
trace or a fragment left to commemorate the five hundred years of the quiet conventual
life of which this place, with its cloisters and its gardens, was the scene. The surrender of the Abbey took place in 1537 ; in January according to some
authorities, in June according to others. The revenues are stated at ;^548 and at
^474. The last Abbot received a pension of ^”333 : 6 : 8, equivalent to at least
;£’6ooo a year, a sum quite out of proportion to the surrendered income. We need
not consider the meaning of this enormous pension in this place. Remark, however,
the difference which the suppression of the monastery would make in the suburb of
Bermondsey. It consisted of the monastery with the causeway or lane which led
to it ; a few taverns and houses on either side of the lane ; and in the reclaimed
marsh, the rich lands, the orchards, the woods and the black and sluggish streams
about the marshland. The Abbey suppressed, there was an end of the Londoners’
favourite pilgrimage to the Holy Rood of Bermondsey ; there was nothing left to attract them ; the summer crowds who came across by boat, swarmed along the lane.
performed their duties before the Cross, and afterwards made merry in the taverns,
came no longer. The taverns were closed ; the houses, like the Abbey itself, fell into
ruin ; the suburb became a silent and rural place, and so continued until the end of
the eighteenth century, when it began again to become the haunt and residence of
men and women.
The first owner of the desecrated Abbey was Sir Thomas Pope, founder of
Trinity College, Oxford. Pope was born at Dedington in Oxfordshire in the year 1 50S.
He was educated at Eton and sent to London to learn law ; he gained the favour and
the friendship of Sir Thomas More ; in 1533 he was made Clerk of the Briefs in the
Star Chamber at Westminster. In 1536 he was knighted and appointed Treasurer
to the Court of Augmentations. This office was closely connected with the suppression
of the Religious Houses. Pope received for his share of the business upward
of thirty manors in different counties. The site of Bermondsey Abbey was granted
to the Master of the Rolls, Sir Robert Southwell, who by deed of bargain and sale
conveyed it to Sir Thomas Pope. He pulled down the church and part of the
buildings and put up a new house for himself with gardens, orchards, and pasture,
about twenty acres in all. He took down the ” Rood of Grace ” which was in the
church, and set it up on the common of Horsleydown at the end of Crucifix Lane.
In 1559 the Rood of Grace was taken to Paul’s Cross, where, after a sermon by the
Bishop of Rochester, it was publicly broken to pieces. The church furniture, with
the Latin books of parchment, were sold by the churchwardens. The books of the
monks everywhere were sold for a mere song and were used for the most common
and the vilest purposes. Many of the valuable books from the Library of
Bermondsey Abbey were given by Pope to his newly-founded college of Trinity,
Oxford. Sir Thomas Pope became the warden or guardian of the Princess
Elizabeth. He reconveyed his house at Bermondsey to Sir Robert Southwell,
and died at Clerkenwell in January 1559.
The next owner of Bermondsey Abbey was the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas
Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex. In 1583 Queen Elizabeth paid him a visit at Bermondsey : he died a few days afterwards, and was buried with a splendid funeral.
Adjoining the Abbey, Richard, the prior in 1213, built an almshouse or hospital
which was dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, and is often confounded with the
former hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark. Several distinguished and royal
personages found an asylum within the Abbey ; amongst others, Mary, daughter of
Malcolm III. of Scotland, who died here ; the body of Thomas of Woodstock, seventh
son of Edward III., was brought here from Calais; Katherine of France, wife of
Henry V., and Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV., both died within the
walls.
According to Wilkinson’s plan, the Abbey covered a rectangular area of 720
feet by 560 feet. A view of the map which shows the north and south walls of St. Mary Magdalen’s churchyard, Abbey Street, and the Grange Road running parallel
with each other and at an angle of about ii” 30′ to the south, makes one inclined to believe that this was the line of the north and south walls of the Abbey. The ” Long
Walk ” which figures in Wilkinson’s plan also follows the direction of the Abbey
Street. On Wilkinson it is represented as due east and west. Wilkinson’s plan is from a drawing taken in 1679. It is very unsatisfactory, inasmuch as the Abbey buildings were hardly laid down at all. The north and west gates of the Abbey,
which were still standing in 1822, are represented ; the site of the church is laid
down, apparently from conjecture, and that is all. He presents the hall both within
and without, but does not lay it down upon his plan. The cloisters were, of course,
south of the church. The rest of the buildings must be conjectural. The North
Gate house led into the Great Close, formerly known as King John’s Court, now
Bermondsey Square. The West Gate faced Long Lane at the corner of the present churchyard. The Monastery occupied the ground between Grange Walk
and Long Walk, and in Grange Walk was the East Gate removed in 1760. The
Long Walk, to-day a narrow, poor turning with many old houses in it, marks the
passage between the Abbey and its church, and crosses the site of the Conventual
Churchyard. Grange Walk, with its old houses running parallel with Grange Road,
was so called from the Grange, a farm of the Abbey which stood at its eastern end.
Mention is made of a royal palace here, probably that in which Henry II. resided
and held his first parliament at Christmas 1154.
After the sixteenth century begins the history of modern Bermondsey. At
some period, unknown perhaps in the time of Sir Thomas Pope himself, the tanning
industry was started in the parish. The place, to begin with, was eminently fitted
for such work, which requires plenty of running water. The ground was not only
intersected with streams connected by ponds, but received by means of creeks and
culverts an abundant supply of Thames water twice a day. Moreover, there were
oak woods in Bermondsey and on the higher ground to the south which supplied
bark in plenty. The immigration of Huguenots is also assigned as a cause for the
formation of these tanneries.
Another industry was the trade in wool, also carried on in Bermondsey. A few
great houses stood for a long time among these new places of industry : among them
was especially Jamaica House, said to have been occupied by Oliver Cromwell ; it stood at the end of Cherry Garden Street, leading from Jamaica Road to the river.
Pepys records a visit to Jamaica House, and also to Cherry Garden close by.
A pleasure garden, with the usual accompaniments, was opened here in 1770 by one Keyse, an artist who exhibited his own pictures—chiefly representing deadmeat
and butchers’ shops—in the Hall. It was closed in 1800. There was also a
botanical garden here established by William Curtis, who lectured on Pottery and
wrote Flora Londiiieiisis and other botanical works. Joanna Southcott for some time
lived in Bermondsey. John Timbs, the antiquary and writer, was also at one time a resident in Bermondsey. The churches, schools, settlements, libraries, and public
institutions of Bermondsey belong to the modern parish, and will be found noted in
their places.
From Abbey Street to Grange Road, the Bermondsey New Road, till recently
known as the Star Corner, has been widened considerably on the eastern side and
some new blocks built. There is still considerable vacant land, and the west side
still contains many small buildings, including a row of seven quaint tiled cottages at the corner of Decima Street. South of these cottages as far as Rothsay Street was,
last century, called the Old Packthread Ground. This New Road to the Old Kent
Road is a busy shopping street, wide in places, with many large business premises
and a heavy traffic. A costermongers’ market is in full swing on the western side of
the road, and the inevitable widening has been well begun by the erection of new shops at the western end, some twenty feet back from the present street line. In
Webb Street is a Board School and many fine blocks of dwellings erected in 1892,
extending from the main road to Leroy Street, and bounded by lumber and tan
yards eastwards to Page’s Walk. The smaller turnings to the south are gloomy,
dirty, and in bad condition. At Noel Street is Haddon Hall and the Green Walk
Mission, established in 1833, surrounded by miserably poor and dirty alleys. Back
through narrow alleys to the Grange Road—once called the King’s Road—and
opposite to Bermondsey Square is the red-brick Bacon’s School. Over the gate is a statue of the founder, Josiah Bacon, a merchant of London, whose executors
established the school in 1718. The new building was erected in 1891 with a
spacious playground adjoining. This road is a busy one, but not very wide ; it is paved with wood, well kept, and has a single line of tramway. INIost of the houses
are still used as dwellings, but many shops have been built. Tan-yards are on the
south side almost to the Alscot Road, and in the north from Fendall Street to the
Spa Road. Some of the minor streets on both sides are rather poor, but they
improve to the east. On the west side are St. Luke’s Church, with the Boutcher
Schools behind, and terraces of good large houses. Most of these newer houses were built about 1848, but there are many which are older and larger standing in extensive gardens shaded with trees. The Upper Grange Road, a broad wood-paved
road with good houses on both sides, runs from here to the Old Kent Road, and is used as an omnibus route from Camberwell to Liverpool Street.
Fort Place (once Berwick Place), an inn known as ” The Fort,” and an
adjoining road with the same name have given rise to a local tradition that here
was situated one of the bastions with ” four half bulwarks ” on the defensive
wall built in 1643. (See illustration on p. 51.) The Alscot Road, clean and
well-to-do, falls into the Spa Road opposite the Public Baths and Washhouses.
Adjoining is the Town Hall, a large brick building faced with stone and
possessing an imposing portico, begun in iSSo. Farther west again is the Free
Library, three stories in height, with a cupola, of red brick, and containing lending
and reference libraries, with magazine and large reading rooms. All these
public buildings are hemmed in by tan-yards, and the odours of the industry are very pronounced in all of them. Opposite are Carlton Cottages (1847), a long
row of small two-story houses, very clean, with little gardens in front, while on the north side, at the Grange Road end, are some artisans’ dwellings of the
better class erected in 18S9, and known as Spa Mansions. This road—originally
Ropemaker’s Walk—is well cared for, wide, and well built ; but between Alscot
Road and Amelia Row there are still some very poor and squalid alleys. There
are many large establishments situated near this road, two large preserving works,
a baking powder and spice manufactory, and a linoleum factory. Spa House
and Terrace (1855), and the Spa Tavern at the corner of the Rouel Road, mark the site of the Bermondsey Spa. The waters, which were chalybeate, were
discovered about 1770, a few years before which the gardens had been opened
for tea-drinking. The place had quite a vogue, and obtained a licence for musical
entertainments in 17S4, but in a few years the gardens declined in popularity
and were finally closed about 1804. Under the railway and skirting to the south of St. James’s Churchyard the St. James’s Road is reached. This is a wide
and busy street from Jamaica Road to the Old Kent Road at the Canal Bridge.
The houses are very clean, contain respectable people, and at the upper end were
built about 1859. The side streets are good and neatly kept, and the houses in
many cases display cards offering rooms to rent. South of the railway arches the
roads to the west, though good, contain a poorer class of tenants. The Southwark
Park Road crosses the St. James’s Road, and it here changes its character to a busy market street. This is the former Bhie Anchor Road, named from the tavern, a once famous old house in the fields that stood at the corner of Blue Anchor Lane.
The district to the railway yards is a clean one of tidy streets, neat small dwellings,
and respectable people. The Alderminster Road, which bounds the railway yards,
is poorer, but clean and respectable. In the centre of this block is Thorburn Square,
composed of new red-brick cottages—the best portion of the district—with the
small Church of St. Anne and a hall in the square. At the corner of Reverdy Road
and the main road stands an old-fashioned parish pump now out of date, but
showing that water mains are not very old here. In Monnow Road is a large
Board School, with another opposite Balaclava Road, and a third off Linsey Road.
Eastwards from St. James’s Road the Southwark Park Road changes to a busy
shopping street with long lines of barrows and hawkers at the kerb. Cheap shops,
with much display, cater to a cash trade, and provisions are the principal stock. In
the Galley Wall, a wide, neat, and closely-built street, is the Manor Chapel and
another Board School. This was sometimes known as the Manor Road, and its present peculiar name may be a reminder of the time when this district, being
marshy and abounding in watercourses, possessed a quay or wall at which galleys were moored.
Passing the Lynton Road with its long gardens to the houses and the big
material yard of the National Telephone Company, the Rotherhithe New Road is
reached. Some of the houses in this street are dated 1864, and facing them behind
a high wall are the great yards attached to the goods station of the Bricklayers’
Arms. Skirting these through a region of clean, new, two-story houses, St. James’s
Road is reached again. Here all is bustle. Hundreds of carts, closely following
each other, all filled with dry rubbish, mainly from excavations, are passing into the
southern yards and depositing them on acres of allotments, formerly owned by the
railway men. A deep depression between this point and the New Road is being
levelled so as to make room for many more railway sidings and another goods yard.
The St. James’s Road rises here, and crossing the yards slopes away again to the
north. Going still westward along the wall, with glimpses through the gates of busy
railway work, the Upper Grange Road is reached. Here steps lead up to the
Viaduct, which has left the houses far below it on either side, and from the bridge a glimpse is obtained of the sheds and warehouses of the railway company, with long
lines of trucks and busy engines panting up and down the network of shining rails. Upper Grange Road contains many good houses, and at the south-east corner in a
large double house is a Police Station. More tan-yards are behind Willow Walk,
and in Grimscott Street are two factories and a foundry. On a large vacant spot at Page’s Walk a miniature fair is in progress, and to the north the Walk is narrow and crowded. Towards the Old Kent Road on the south side of what was Swan
Street are small cottages. Facing these are large timber-yards, and then come the four palatial blocks of the Guinness Trust Buildings, built during 1894- 1895. These
are without exception the most beautifully-built and cared-for blocks in all London,
and shelter a great number of very respectable people. West again is a large new
Board School in an extensive playground with the temporary school buildings still in
use, and opposite at the corner is the entrance to the great freight station of the
Bricklayers’ Arms. Built on the site of market gardens, bought by the SouthEastern
Railway in 1843, it was intended for heavy goods traffic, but until Charing
Cross Station was built was also the place of reception for foreign potentates. To
it were brought the Duke of Wellington’s remains in 1852 on the way from Walmer
to St. Paul’s Cathedral. A constant stream of heavily-laden wagons passes in and
out of the station, and from here to the Bermondsey New Road the Old Kent Road
is very busy both with vehicles and pedestrians, while even the gutter is closely
packed with stalls that carry on a big trade.
On the west side of the road are the large buildings of the Deaf and Dumb
Asylum, founded in 1792 and rebuilt in 1888. They stand well back from the road,
with fine trees in the forecourt, where the London sparrow congregates and fills the
air with immelodious chirping. The streets on the western side back to the
borough line are generally small and dirty, but there are a few exceptions where the newer houses built on the site of Lock’s Fields are clean and well kept. Near the corner of the New Kent Road, on the south side, stands the ” Paragon,” a crescent
of well-built houses standing in pairs with a welcome open space in front, where
grass and several trees break the monotony. These houses, built in 1795, still have
long gardens behind with a mews beyond. In 1800, all to the south of this spot was open fields with a few scattered houses here and there, and the eastern side of
the Old Kent Road was almost bare of dwellings. South of the Bermondsey
New Road was mainly gardens with rope walks behind the buildings that
fringed it. Union Crescent has small houses of three stories with little gardens in
front and a strip of open ground to the main road. Alongside, through an iron
gateway, is the Pilgrim Church, erected as a memorial of the Pilgrim Fathers, and
formed in 1592. Behind this is Buckenham Square and a street of clean small
houses erected in 1828 on what was known as ” The Toll Acre,” and close to which,
at the end of Tabard Street (Old Kent Street), St. George’s or Southwark Bar—
a toll gate—is said to have stood. Between Buckenham Square and Great Dover
Street is St. George’s Burial-ground, with two small gate-houses erected in 1792 at the entrance. This ground, small as it is, has been laid out with walks and seats,
and is well used. Facing this, near the new shops across the way, is the one-mile
stone from London Bridge. Since the making of Great Dover Street and the
change of the Bridge site, this stone has evidently been moved farther south, as the
old maps place it opposite the old Bull Tavern. This once well-known house stood on the south side of a watercourse —spoken of as Canute’s Trench—which, forming a large pond here, had the Lock Hospital on the opposite bank. This house was
founded by the Hospital of St. Bartholomew for lepers, and gave its name to the
Lock Fields on the south of the New Kent Road, and the arms of St. Bartholomew
on the houses show the owners to-day. The stream which flowed across the Kent
Road (Tabard Street) turned to the south, and after a few yards again turned off
parallel with the Bermondsey New Road, and meandered through fields and tentergrounds
towards the river. A bridge was built on this stream, probably about the
middle of the fifteenth century, by the monks of Bermondsey, who were Lords of the
Great Liberty Manor of Southwark. The bridge is now part of the sewer system,
the brickwork being built up to it on both sides, and when seen a few years ago was
found to be perfect, but was again covered up. Drawings were made of it and
measurements were taken which give it a width of 20 feet, with an arch of 9 feet
span, the stone of which was in good condition.
At the foot of Kent Street and near the Lock Hospital a redoubt with four flanks was erected in 1643 to command the Kentish Road.
Off the eastern side of Tabard Street are many small streets containing poor people, and turning into Weston Street many more are found. As far north as Staple Street all the alleys and small streets are bad, with a poor casual population, dirty, and in some cases full of the worst kind of characters. Lansdowne Place and Law Street, straight terraces of small two-story houses—built from 1S22 to 1828—are specimens of the district, the homes of costermongers and hawkers, full of dirty children, and with the roadways blocked with barrows, baskets, and the material of their stalls.
The western side of Western
Street is mostly composed of small new houses of three stories, many more of which
are now being erected. Rephidim Street is also new on the eastern side and
between these two is a Board School. The eastern side of Western Street is being gradually torn down and the new buildings set back about fifteen feet. The
junction of Western Street and Rothsay Street—the old Green Walk—is still locally
called the ” Halfpenny Hatch ” though the fields have long been built over. At
Elim Street are many large factories, and in Minto Street is a vast jam factory.
Long Lane is busy, with small houses and shops and towering warehouses gradually
filling up both sides. IMany very poor alleys are on both sides of this street, those
on the north being the worst. Tan-yards, cartage contractors with large yards,
wheelwrights, leather-dressers and many odd trades are here, and near the eastern
end on the south side is a small asphalted open space, used by the children as a
playground, which a stone in the wall describes as the Long Lane Burial-ground,
the property of the Six Weeks’ Meeting of the Society of Friends, opened in 1697 and
closed in 1S55. It was made public in 1896. As there were no gravestones, the
positions of the bodies being determined by numerals on the south wall and
letters on the northern one, the ground was soon laid out and is a popular playground
for the local children.
In Long Lane there is a public-house with the probably unique sign of ” Simon
the Tanner,” and all through the leather district many of the tavern signs allude
to the ruling trades, such as The Fleece, Jolly Tanners, Horns, Woolpack,
Fellmongers’ Arms. Chapel Place contains Southwark Chapel, built in 1S08,
in a queer out-of-the-way square full of large old houses standing in deserted
gardens. Behind these, and reaching through to Tabard Street, is a network of
dirty poverty-stricken courts. Crosby Row is also full of such turnings with very narrow entries. Towards the Borough, Long Lane makes a bend and contains
many wholesale places, larger shops and factories. This portion of the street to
Crosby Row was at different times Church Lane, White Street, then Ivy Lane, and was finally merged into Long Lane.
The Church of St. George stands at the western end with the churchyard
thrown open to the public and greatly used as a short cut to the High Street.
This is a very old church site, and mention is made of a former church having
been given by Thomas Arderne to the Monastery of Bermondsey in 11 12. The
old church, becoming ruinous, was taken down and the present one commenced
in 1734, and finished in 1736. On the northern wall of the churchyard are attached large signs which inform the reader that this was the site of the
Marshalsea Prison made famous by Charles Dickens in Little Dorrit. The
ground is now covered by a hardware manufactory. High Street, Borough, has
much heavy traffic, being on the direct road from London Bridge, and on the eastern
side is honeycombed with little alleys. To the north of the church is a dirty little passage unfittingly named Angel Court. A range of boarded-up shops and high
walls is on the south side running through into Collier’s Rents, also a narrow lane with some stables, a Mission Hall, and a few poor houses in it. Near the mouth of
this Court stood the White Lion, originally an inn, but turned into a prison about
1558, and reported as ruinous in 1681.
To the north of this site stood the old King’s Bench Prison where Layton’s Buildings now stand and the contour of which
gives an idea of the shape of the prison. In 1758, when the new King’s Bench was
built between the Borough and Southwark Bridge Roads, the old Borough Jail —on
the White Lion site—became the county prison, and in 1811, after the building of
Horsemonger Lane Jail, the county magistrates sold it, and it became the
Marshalsea. North of this is Layton’s Buildings, bearing the name fixed in the
walls on two artificial stone tablets made in Coades factory in Lambeth in 1799—the
first of its kind in England. This yard is roomy and clean, and full of old houses
with small gardens, wooden-fronted warehouses, and on the right a large house with
bay windows and a tall peaked roof A lofty wall, part of the old King’s Bench
Prison, still stands, and within is a large timber-yard and buildings. Nearer King
Street is Layton’s Grove, narrow and filthy, full of small houses, stables, and costermongers’
barrows, with washing strung over the pavement. The entrance is very
low under a house supported on heavy beams and the people are very poor. Half
Moon Yard contains a hotel and restaurant with stables running far back. BlueEyed
Maid or Chapel Court is lined with old shops and substantial houses and
contains a Mission Room. Mermaid Court, once the site of the original Marshalsea, is now full of warehouses.
BERMONDSEY FAIR
The following lines sum up all the features of the Fair—the stalls, the trade, and the shows. They tell us :
How pedlars’ stalls with glittering toys are laid, The various fairings of the country maid. Long silken laces hang upon the twine. And rows of pins and amber bracelets shine ; How the neat lass knives, combs, and scissors spies,
And looks on thimbles with desiring eyes. Of lotteries next with tuneful note he told, Where silver spoons are won, and rings of gold.
The lads and lasses trudge the street along.
And all the fair is crowded in his song. The mountebank now treads the stage, and sells His pills, his balsams, and his ague-spells ; Now o’er and o’er the nimble tumbler springs,
And on the rope the venturous maiden swings ; Jack Pudding, in his party-coloured jacket, Tosses the glove, and jokes at every packet.
Of raree-shows he sung, and Punch’s feats, Of pockets picked in crowds, and various cheats.
Other important fairs in these days were those of Charlton and Greenwich.
The former, held on St. Luke’s Day, October i8th, was a Horse Fair ; and it was held on St. Luke’s Day because the horned ox is a symbol of St. Luke. The people went to Charlton by boat ; they went by thousands ; it was a day of mad merriment ; every stall was decorated with horns ; even the gingerbread was stamped with a horn ; all the people put on horns ; there was a burlesque procession in which men dressed up as women ; those who remember the significance of the horns—the symbol which was quite apart from St. Luke—will understand the kind of merriment which was hallowed this day. The procession was discontinued in 1768, but the Fair went on till 1871.
On Whit Monday, Greenwich Fair was held. The day was for the spring what Charlton Fair was for the autumn. The amusements consisted of two parts – the first, playing in the Park, where there were races and sports ; the second, the fun of the booths and the shows.
The former began early in the forenoon, and went on until the evening. The people came down from London in boats for the most part, and by the Old Kent Road in vehicles of every description, or even on foot for the whole five miles. If it was a fine morning the park was filled with the working classes, and the young men and maidens belonging to the working classes. The sports were primitive; the favourite amusement was for a line of youths and girls to run down hill hand-in-hand. The slope was steep, the pace was rapid ; before long half of them were sprawling headlong or rolling over and over, with such displays and derangements as may be imagined. Or there were games of kiss-in-the-ring and thread-my-needle ; or there were sailors showing the Cockneys how to dance the hornpipe ; men with telescopes through which could be seen the men hanging in chains on the Isle of Dogs, or St. Paul’s Cathedral ; or there were the old pensioners telling yarns of the battles they had fought, especially the Battle of Trafalgar, when to every man, as it seemed, Fortune had caused the hero Nelson to fall into his arms. Outside the Park the street was filled with booths where, as at Lady Fair, everything which was worthless could be bought, including gingerbread. There were theatrical booths, shows of pictures, pantomimes, Punch and Judy, exhibitions of monsters, dwarfs, giants, bearded ladies, mermaids, menageries of wild beasts, feats of legerdemain, fire-eaters, boxers and quarterstafif players, cock-fighting, and every other conceivable amusement. In the evening, besides the theatre, there were the dancing booths.
The same cause which led to the suppression of the Lady Fair brought about that of Greenwich Fair. It was suppressed, I think, about the year 1855. I myself saw it in 1S51, but only in the afternoon, when it was already, I remember, a good-natured crowd playing horse-tricks upon each other and making a noise, which, with the bellowing of the show-folk, the blaring of the bands, the cries of the boys and girls on the merry-go-rounds, and the roar of the crowd, one will never forget.
For my own part I am of opinion that the noise was the worst part of the fair ; that what went on in the evening would have gone on just as much outside the Fair as in it ; and that it did very little harm to let people enjoy themselves in their own way, which was a coarse, somewhat drunken and somewhat indecent way ”
The last house on the east in Stoney Lane was the town house of Sir John Fastolf This stout old soldier had a house on the embankment east of the Bridge.
He went to live there on his return from the French wars, after fighting continuously and holding every kind of responsible appointment for forty years. It was a time when the ill-success of the English inclined their leaders to accuse each other of treachery and of cowardice. Shakespeare no doubt represents the popular opinion of the time when he makes Fastolf an actual coward on the field.
He was accused of cowardice at the battle of Patay, but demanded an inquiry, obtained an acquittal and did good service afterward. However, in the public mind he was considered as the principal cause of the continual disasters. He came home, then, at the age of sixty, to pass the evening of his days in retirement, but not obscurity. He occupies a considerable part of the Paston Letters.
There is, in fact, no figure in mediaeval history which is so clear and well drawn as that of Sir John Fastolf. This being the case, it is remarkable to find his character drawn with so little critical judgment.
Because one of his servants calls him ” cruel and vengeful,” it is assumed that he was really so. Now, before branding a man with these adjectives, it would be well to
find out who first assigned them to Sir John, under what circumstances, and what was the man’s own character. He is also called litigious, because he defended his rights —if they were his rights, it was laudable to defend them ; it is objected that he persisted in urging certain claims he had against the Crown—if these claimis were just, why should he not urge them ? For my own part, I think that since we cannot find out the character of the servant who thus accused his master, we can only fall back upon the facts of the time.
It was a time of great lawlessness. Quiet country people had to fortify their houses and to arm their servants with crossbows and pikes. Landmarks were removed ; rights of hunting and fishing were violated ; the courts of law were in the hands of certain persons of whom justice could not be had. On the other hand, this old soldier, after forty years of camp life, with its discipline, obedience, and rough-and-ready justice, came back to England a stern, hard man ; one who expected honest service of his people, and one who would not brook the treatment on his country estates which weaker men meekly endured.
There was nothing to blame in the defence of his property. Nor can one blame him for pressing his claims, if he had any, on the Crown. There is a story about his selling the wardship of a boy. Now wardship meant the care and management of the ward’s affairs while in his minority. If the property was large, the guardian might derive great profit from the post. It was quite common to consider a wardship as actual property which might be bought and sold.
If Fastolf sold the wardship of Stephen Scrope, the latter sold the wardship of his own daughter. One can hardly blame the old knight for doing what everybody else did. In other words, if we bring nineteenth-century ideas to bear upon fifteenth-century customs, we can find in Fastolf all kinds of evil qualities. If we judge him by the standard of his own times, he was more masterful than most ; he was an old soldier and an old governor ; he was a hard master and a stalwart defender of his own rights. It was not, however, a time for the feeble and the gentle and the benevolent to prosper.
Fastolf, then, had large possessions in Southwark : ” The High Bere House, le Bore’s Head, and le Harte Home, Water mills; Dough mills ; tenements and
gardens called Wallas and le Dyhouse.” On the outbreak of Cade’s rebellion
Fastolf, whose followers formed a garrison of his house, proposed to give them battle. The battle of London Bridge is spoken of in another place. By the advice of
Payn, Fastolf withdrew to the Tower, whence he had the pleasure of watching the
sack of his house by the rebels. He then left Southwark and retired to Norfolk,
where he built the great Castle of Caister, in which he presently died. It may be
noticed that he had a service of ships sailing between Yarmouth and his house at Southwark for the supply of his household with provisions. This practice was no doubt common with other large landowners, and it partly explains how London was
supplied with provisions.
Rendle gives the name of three Fastolfs belonging to Southwark in this century. They were in no way distinguished. Perhaps the family came originally from Southwark. Or the three may have been younger sons who came to London in search of fortune.
Bermondsey, already mentioned, is Bermund’s ea, but nothing is known about Bermund. The place was one of the many islets of the Marsh. Like the rest of South London, Bermondsey has been built over in recent years ; it was formerly and is still the centre of the leather trade. Apart from the Abbey and the Holy Rood, considered elsewhere, Bermondsey has little history. It is now a place of a thousand industries ; no busier place can be found anywhere, but there is nothing to see in its streets and lines of factories and buildings.
There was a chalybeate spring here and a pleasure garden called the Bermondsey Spa kept here from 1770. The pamphlet called ” A Sunday Ramble ” gives a notice of Bermondsey, and the pictures of butchers’ shops, dead meat, and other objects which were exhibited near Jacob’s Island, described by Dickens in Oliver Twist. It was in Jacob’s Street, between London Street and Bermondsey Wall, on the east side of St. Saviour’s Dock. The Dead Tree public-house in Wilkinson’s plan is probably the ancient place of punishment of Bermondsey Manor.
Newington, or Newington Butts, is the parish south of St. George’s. The name of its principal street, Newington Causeway, is one of the few surviving names which preserve the memory of the Marsh. It included the prison called Horsemonger Lane Jail, which was erected under the advice of John Howard. Leigh Hunt was confined here—1812-1814—for a libel on the Prince Regent. Lord Byron and Moore dined with him in the prison. There appears to have been a theatre during the last years of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, of which Philip Henslowe was the manager. The only evidence is the existence of a diary kept by Henslowe, from which it is certain that plays were acted here, and the presumption is that they were acted in a building and not in the open air. Michael Faraday was born at Newington, September 22, 1791.
Walworth lies on the east of Newington. The name, coupled with Ptolemy’s assertion that London was in Kent, has given rise to a belief that a wall stood here which enclosed ancient London. It is only necessary to point out that the place was a marsh, and that a city could never, at any time, be planted in a marsh. In 1745 Rogers shows Walworth as a mere hamlet containing a few houses in the midst of fields and commons. Wheatley says that it contained two commons, Walworth and Lowinmoor, the former of forty-eight acres, the latter of nineteen. Rocque also mentions Dolles Common.
Rotherhithe, commonly called Redriff, was formerly part of the manor of Bermondsey. It consisted, until recently, of one long line of houses, sometimes only one line and sometimes double, on the embankment, and facing the river. There were several old docks here of which one or two still remain. At the back of the houses were fields and ponds. The construction of the Commercial Docks cut a large slice away from the fields, which have since, except for Southwark Park, been built over. But a little of the ancient picturesque street by the river still survives in old manors, river-side taverns, stairs, and docks. There are still narrow alleys leading into courts containing cottages and gardens ; there are boat-building yards and curious and interesting bits and corners which make Rotherhithe Street well worthy of a walk from the church all round the docks as far as Deptford.