Brandon David - Curiosities of London: Historical Walks Around the Capital

Maps contain Ornance Survey data Crown copyright and database right [2015]

First published 2011 as Curious Walks Around London
This edition published 2015

Amberley Publishing
The Hill, Stroud
Gloucestershire, GL5 4EP

www.amberley-books.com

Copyright David Brandon & Alan Brooke, 2011, 2015

The right of David Brandon & Alan Brooke to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781445648439 (PRINT)
ISBN 9781445648446 (eBOOK)

Typesetting by Amberley Publishing.
Printed in the UK.

The purpose of this book is to provide what is hopefully an informative and entertaining selection of walks around well-known and some less-visited parts of London. We make no attempt to replicate the many excellent earlier or existing publications which guide people round the streets of the metropolis in search of ghostly or criminal associations, for example, or architectural features. Rather, while there may indeed be passing allusions to supernatural or illegal activities and to interesting buildings, we intend to concentrate on oddities, curiosities, strange stories, bizarre connections or those things to be seen in the streets which are so familiar that they are frequently simply overlooked. The seemingly mundane or the understated can often on investigation turn out to be as fascinating as the best-known of Londons historic monuments.

The authors make no apology for their love of and perennial enthusiasm for London and its history. As callow youths they wandered the streets, keen to find out what was round the corner and rarely disappointed, revelling in the sheer complexity and diversity which are such features of the capital. Remaining callow but sadly no longer so youthful, they are still on the streets and never happier than when grubbing around obscure alleys or coming across some serendipitous curiosity of the sort largely unseen by those with more urgent and important demands on their time.

The walks suggested here are the personal and entirely subjective choices of the authors and we hope that our readers will find them rewarding. These walks have in common an attempt to highlight the curiosity and diversity that have been mentioned but we also know that for each of the walks that are included, dozens of others that would offer up an alternative harvest of eclectic delights could also be included. We do not stray far out of what can loosely be described as central London.

Any opinions expressed are the authors own highly subjective judgements. On the other hand, where we provide information we hope we have the facts right or at least provide some acknowledgement where there is any doubt. Parts of London are changing extremely rapidly, hence the need for this revised edition of our book.

The authors felt that this shortish walk was particularly relevant given the extraordinary transformation that is currently taking place between Borough High Street and Tower Bridge Road.

Historically, the Borough has been part of Southwark, transpontine London, for as long as London itself and the bridge over the Thames have existed. Roads to London from the Channel ports and the towns along the south coast converged on what is now Borough High Street. This then channelled the traffic through to London Bridge and across to the City. It was always a cosmopolitan, unsettled quarter, many of the people lodging or living in the district essentially being on their way, sooner or later, to somewhere else. This transient activity was characterised by a large number of inns, traces of which can still be seen. London Bridge was closed at night and so travellers who arrived in the late evening often had little choice but to find accommodation. Many of the coaches were too wide for the congested London Bridge and so the practice of terminating coaches at these inns was encouraged.

The Borough came to house a sizeable immigrant community and successive generations of immigrants established industries in the locality. A very wide and eclectic range of industries developed before the nineteenth century. Prominent among these was brewing. Settlers from the Low Countries introduced beer to England. Beer contained hops and gradually replaced the un-hopped traditional English ales. Large quantities of hops were cultivated in Kent, not far away. Most businesses were small in scale. The making of hats and the leather trade were particularly prominent but metal-working and victualling also provided much employment. Glass-making was also an industry associated with the district.

In the Victorian period the Borough and the part of Bermondsey that we are visiting became a noxious, polluted and overcrowded mix of dire working-class housing and industry, much of which involved food-processing. It became known as Londons Larder, the raw materials for which mostly arrived at the riverside wharves and were distributed from the warehouses which were such a feature of the district. As organic changes took place in the nature of the British economy and also in the size of ships and the way in which the shipping industry operated, the wharves and warehouses became obsolete and the associated industries declined. By the 1980s the northern parts of Southwark had become a kind of underbelly to London with dereliction and inner-city decline and decay all just a stones throw from the gilded temples of mammon in the City.

Within the last decade or so the district has been undergoing a transformation. It began in 2000 with the opening of Tate Modern in nearby Bankside since when developments such as the reconstruction of Shakespeares Globe Theatre and the opening of the Millennium Bridge have assisted the reinvention of the district as a prime site for offices, expensive apartments, chic eating places and tourist attractions. This inevitably means that the character of Borough and Bankside is changing very rapidly and further development plans will only accelerate that process. It is as if multinational Big Business has suddenly discovered a previously ignored prime location ripe for exploitation right on the doorstep of the City of London and is now homing in gleefully and greedily to make the most of it. Social polarization is an inevitable outcome.

The Walk

From London Bridge main line or tube station via Railway Approach, turn left into Borough High Street. Walk down the east side of the street. Immediately on the left is a grey stone-like building seemingly out of place in these surroundings. This was part of St Thomas Hospital and is now a post office. It bears a Borough of Southwark plaque indicating that the first Bible printed in English was produced on this site. The year was 1537. It should be remembered that it took great courage to print and publish such a work at that time in the face of the terror imposed by the Catholic Church, which did not want the word of God made more accessible by being printed in a language other than Latin.