On Monday the 30th October 2023 Dan and I set off to do a walk from Exploring the Elizabeth Line book. We travelled to Farringdon Station, we exited the station onto Cowcross Street and walked down to Smithfield Market.
Smithfield has borne witness to many bloody executions of heretics and political rebels over the centuries, including major historical figures such as Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace and Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasants' Revolt, among many other religious reformers and dissenters.
Smithfield Market, a Grade II listed-covered market building, was designed by Victorian architect Sir Horace Jones in the second half of the 19th century, and is the dominant architectural feature of the area.Some of its original market premises fell in to disuse in the late 20th century and faced the prospect of demolition. The Corporation of London's public enquiry in 2012 drew widespread support for an urban regeneration plan intent upon preserving Smithfield's historical identity.
William Wallace was hung drawn and quartered here in 1305.
In the Middle Ages, it was a broad grassy area known as Smooth Field, located beyond London Wall stretching to the eastern bank of the River Fleet. Given its ease of access to grazing and water, Smithfield established itself as London's livestock market, remaining so for almost 1,000 years. Many local toponyms are associated with the livestock trade: while some street names (such as "Cow Cross Street" and "Cock Lane") remain in use, many more (such as "Chick Lane", "Duck Lane", "Cow Lane", "Pheasant Court", "Goose Alley") have disappeared from the map after the major redevelopment of the area in the Victorian era.
Smithfield or, to give it its official name, London Central Markets, is the largest wholesale meat market in the UK and one of the largest of its kind in Europe.
Located within the Square Mile of the City of London it is housed in two listed buildings.
It is a place packed with history there has been a livestock market on the site for over 800 years and yet is as modern as tomorrow with its state of the art facilities for the receiving, storing and despatching of meat and poultry.
We walk out of the market and down West Smithfield passing Cloth Fair. Cloth Fair is a street in the City of London where, in medieval times, merchants gathered to buy and sell material during the Bartholomew Fair.
Just pass Cloth Fair we turn left through a half timbered Tudor Gatehouse of St Bartholomew The Great.
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, sometimes abbreviated to Barts the Great, is a mediaeval church in the Church of England's Diocese of London located in Smithfield within the City of London. The building was founded as an Augustinian priory in 1123. It adjoins St Bartholomew's Hospital of the same foundation.
The church was founded in 1123 by Rahere, a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral and an Augustinian canon regular. While in Italy, he had a dream that a winged beast came and transported him to a high place, then relayed a message from "the High Trinity and...the court of Heaven" that he was to erect a church in the London suburb of Smithfield. Rahere travelled to London and was informed that the area in his vision – then a small cemetery – was royal property, and that nothing could be built upon it. Henry I, however, granted the title of the land to Rahere after he explained his divine message.
Rahere started construction on the building with the use of servants and child labourers, who collected stones from all over London.
The priory gained a reputation for curative powers, with many sick people filling its aisles, notably on 24 August (St Bartholomew's Day). Many miracles were attributed to occur within and without the walls of the building, including "a light sent from heaven" from its first foundation, and especially miraculous healings; many serious disabilities were claimed to be cured after a visit. Many of these cures were undertaken at the church hospital, the still existing St Bartholomew's Hospital.
The final Prior was Robert Fuller, the Abbot of Waltham Holy Cross. He was favoured by King Henry VIII, having been invited to attend the christening of Prince Edward, and did not oppose the dissolution of the Priory.
While much of the hospital survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries, about half of the priory's church was ransacked before being demolished in 1543. Having escaped the Great Fire of London of 1666, the church fell into disrepair, becoming occupied by squatters in the 18th century. W. G. Grace, however, was one famous congregant before its restoration in the late 19th century, when it was rebuilt under Sir Aston Webb's direction. During Canon Edwin Savage's tenure as rector, the church was further restored at the cost of more than £60,000. The surviving building had comprised part of a priory adjoining St Bartholomew's Hospital, but its nave was pulled down up to the last bay but the crossing and choir survive largely intact from the Norman and later Middle Ages, enabling its continued use as a parish church. The church and some of the priory buildings were briefly used as the third Dominican friary (Black Friars) of London, refounded by Queen Mary I of England in 1556 and closed in 1559. Part of the main entrance to the church remains at West Smithfield, nowadays most easily recognisable by its half-timbered, late 16th-century, Tudor frontage built on the older (13th-century) stone arch. This adaptation may originally have been carried out by the Dominican friars in the 1550s, or by the post-Reformation patron of the advowson, Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor of England (1547–51). From this gatehouse to the west door of the church, the path leads along roughly where the south aisle of the nave formerly existed. Very little trace of its monastic buildings now survive.
We leave the church and walk down to Little Britain.
Booksellers dominated the Little Britain from the mid-16th century, followed by goldsmiths and clothing trades from the mid-18th to the 20th centuries. The offices of the Daily Courant, the first British daily newspaper, in the 1700s were in Little Britain. Benjamin Franklin lived in Little Britain while working at Palmers printers.
We pass the Statue of Rowland Hill and along King Edward Street to reach Christchurch Greyfriars Church Garden.
In the Middle Ages this was the site of a Franciscan monastery and today’s garden is on the site of the Franciscan Church of Greyfriars (1225). Following the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, it was converted for use as a parish church. In 1429 Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor, founded a library here.
Numerous well-known people, including four queens, were buried in the old church, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. A new church, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was built between 1687 and 1704. The body of the Wren church was gutted by fire in 1940 during WW2 – only the west tower now stands.
A major overhaul of the gardens took place in 2011, when the garden was stripped of all its planting. Major soil improvements were carried out, along with some hard landscaping improvements. The new planting design was implemented to reflect the current trend in garden planting and to increase bio-diversity.
We have however walked along a little too far and we back track back up the road back past Rowland statue and into Postmans Park across the road.
Postman's Park is a public garden in central London, a short distance north of St Paul's Cathedral. Bordered by Little Britain, Aldersgate Street, St. Martin's Le Grand, King Edward Street, and the site of the former headquarters of the General Post Office (GPO), it is one of the largest open spaces in the City of London.
Postman's Park opened in 1880 on the site of the former churchyard and burial ground of St Botolph's Aldersgate church and expanded over the next 20 years to incorporate the adjacent burial grounds of Christ Church Greyfriars and St Leonard, Foster Lane, together with the site of housing demolished during the widening of Little Britain in 1880; the ownership of the last location became the subject of a lengthy dispute between the church authorities, the General Post Office, the Treasury, and the City Parochial Foundation. A shortage of space for burials in London meant that corpses were often laid on the ground and covered over with soil, thus elevating the park above the streets which surround it.
In 1900, the park became the location for George Frederic Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, a memorial to ordinary people who died while saving the lives of others and who might otherwise be forgotten, in the form of a loggia and long wall housing ceramic memorial tablets. Only four of the planned 120 memorial tablets were in place at the time of its opening, with a further nine tablets added during Watts's lifetime. Watts's wife, Mary Watts, took over the management of the project after Watts's death in 1904 and oversaw the installation of a further 35 memorial tablets in the following four years along with a small monument to Watts. Later she became disillusioned with the new tile manufacturer and, with her time and money increasingly occupied by the running of the Watts Gallery, she lost interest in the project, and only five further tablets were added during her lifetime.
In 1972, key elements of the park, including the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, were Grade II listed to preserve their character, upgraded to Grade II* in 2018. Following the 2004 film Closer, based on the 1997 play Closer by Patrick Marber, Postman's Park experienced a resurgence of interest; key scenes of both were set in the park itself. In June 2009, a city worker, Jane Shaka (née Michele), via the Diocese of London added a new tablet to the Memorial, the first new addition for 78 years. In November 2013 a free mobile app, The Everyday Heroes of Postman’s Park, was launched which documents the lives and deaths of those commemorated on the memorial.
The severe lack of burial space in London meant that graves would be frequently reused in London's burial grounds, and the difficulty of digging without disturbing existing graves led to bodies often simply being stacked on top of each other to fit the available space and covered with a layer of earth. Differing numbers of parishioners in each parish led to burial grounds being used at different rates, and by the mid-19th century, the ground level of the St Botolph's Aldersgate churchyard was 6 feet (1.8 m) above that of the Christ Church Greyfriars burial ground, and 4 feet (1.2 m) above that of the St Leonard, Foster Lane, burial ground.
In 1831 and 1848, serious outbreaks of cholera had overwhelmed the crowded cemeteries of London, causing bodies to be stacked in heaps awaiting burial, and even relatively recent graves to be exhumed to make way for new burials. Public health policy at this time was generally shaped by the miasma theory, and the bad smells and risks of disease caused by piled bodies and exhumed rotting corpses caused great public concern.
A Royal Commission established in 1842 to investigate the problem concluded that London's burial grounds were so overcrowded that it was impossible to dig a new grave without cutting through an existing one. Sir Edwin Chadwick testified that each year, 20,000 adults and 30,000 children were being buried in less than 218 acres (88 ha) of already overcrowded burial grounds; the Commission heard that one cemetery, Spa Fields in Clerkenwell, designed to hold 1,000 bodies, contained 80,000 graves, and that gravediggers throughout London were obliged to shred bodies in order to cram the remains into available grave space.
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| The former burial grounds were covered over, and their gravestones used to line the new park's boundary |
We leave Postmans Park and exit onto Aldersgate Street and pass a Police Public Telephone box.
No longer in operation of course but helpfully suggests a nearby payphone.
This is adjacent to a public Water Fountain, also no longer in use.
We pass the Bart Hospital Offices and come across a Penfold Postbox.
It’s a replica, but a good one and unveiled by the Prince of Wales(Now King Charles III) on 6th September 2016 — and it’s in use as a normal letter box.
The postbox was put here in September 2016 to mark the 500th anniversary of the founding of the post office, when King Henry VIII established a “master of the posts” for his royal mail. It was a long time before ordinary folk were allowed to use the postal service, and even longer before it became affordable.
The letter box with its distinctive design, even by postbox standards, is named after the architect who designed it, John Penfold, and the first ones were installed in 1866. Thanks to their design and short production run (they finished in 1879), they are one of the more loved of the various postboxes that have been used over the past 150 odd years.
The colour is the original that would have been used on postboxes, but it was later turned to red to — depending on which story you like — make them more visible to encourage use, or to make them more visible so people stopped walking into them.
The first boxes to be painted red were in London in June 1874, and it took a decade for most of the rest in the UK to be converted. In the 1930s there was an experiment with blue post boxes for air-mail, but like a London bus, generally, we’ve stuck with red.
The replica Penfold box sits on St Martin le Grand, outside the old General Post Office headquarters.
Fans of Danger Mouse will be familiar with Penfold, although the letterbox on Baker Street they lived in was a later design.
As we continue along St Martin Le Grand we get views to St Pauls Cathedral.
We cross over into Paternoster Square.
Paternoster Square is an urban development, owned by the Mitsubishi Estate, next to St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. The area, which takes its name from Paternoster Row, once centre of the London publishing trade, was devastated by aerial bombardment in The Blitz during World War II. It is now the location of the London Stock Exchange which relocated there from Threadneedle Street in 2004. It is also the location of investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill and Nomura Securities, and of fund manager Fidelity Investments. The square itself, i.e. the plaza, is privately owned public space. In 2004, Christopher Wren's 1669 Temple Bar Gate was re-erected here as an entrance way to the plaza.
The Square is near the top of a modest rise known as Ludgate Hill, the highest part of the City of London. It is characterised by its pedestrianisation and colonnades.
The City of London was hit by one of the heaviest night raids of The Blitz on the night of 29 December 1940. Buildings on Paternoster Row, housing the publishing companies Simpkin & Marshall, Hutchinsons, Blackwood, Longman and Collins were destroyed. St Paul's Cathedral remained intact.
At the north end of the square is the bronze Paternoster (also known as Shepherd and Sheep) by Dame Elisabeth Frink. The statue was commissioned for the previous Paternoster Square complex in 1975, and was replaced on a new plinth following the redevelopment.
The meaning of this statue is likely to be the religious one; especially since Jesus was called ‘the good shepherd’ and the statue is also known as ‘Shepherd and Sheep’ or ‘Shepherd with his Flock’.
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| Paternoster Square column |
It's a vent shaft for the car park beneath, but this column, or rather the flaming urn, is apparently also a memorial to both the Great Fire of London and also the fire and destruction wrought in the area by the WW2 Blitz.
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| Temple Bar with St Pauls Cathedral behind. |
Temple Bar was the principal ceremonial entrance to the City of London from the City of Westminster. In the middle ages, London expanded city jurisdiction beyond its walls to gates, called ‘bars’, which were erected across thoroughfares. To the west of the City of London, the bar was located adjacent to the area known as the Temple. Temple Bar was situated on the historic royal ceremonial route from the Tower of London to the Palace of Westminster, the two chief residences of the medieval English monarchs, and from the Palace of Westminster to St Paul's Cathedral. The road east of the bar within the City was Fleet Street, while the road to the west, in Westminster, was The Strand.
At the bar, the Corporation of the City of London erected a barrier to regulate trade into the City. The 19th century Royal Courts of Justice are located to its north, having been moved from Westminster Hall. To its south is Temple Church, along with the Inner Temple and Middle Temple Inns of Court. As the most important entrance to the City of London from Westminster, it was formerly long the custom for the monarch to halt at the Temple Bar before entering the City of London, in order for the Lord Mayor to offer the Corporation's pearl-encrusted Sword of State as a token of loyalty.
'Temple Bar' strictly refers to a notional bar or barrier across the route near The Temple precinct, but it is also used to refer to the 17th-century ornamental, English Baroque arched gateway building attributed Christopher Wren, which spanned the roadway at the bar for two centuries. After Wren's gateway was removed in 1878, the Temple Bar Memorial topped by a dragon symbol of London, and containing statues of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, was erected to mark the location. Wren's archway was preserved and was re-erected in 2004 in the City, in a redeveloped Paternoster Square next to St Paul's Cathedral. In September 2022, the preserved Wren gateway and an adjacent building were officially opened by the Duke of Gloucester as the home of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects.
We walk through the Temple Bar to Ludgate Hill and St Pauls Cathedral.
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604.
The present church, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London.
At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962. On 2 December 1697, only 32 years and 3 months after the Great Fire destroyed 'Old St Paul's', the new cathedral was consecrated for use.
The cathedral survived the Blitz although struck by bombs on 10 October 1940 and 17 April 1941. The first strike destroyed the high altar, while the second strike on the north transept left a hole in the floor above the crypt.The latter bomb is believed to have detonated in the upper interior above the north transept and the force was sufficient to shift the entire dome laterally by a small amount.
On 12 September 1940 a time-delayed bomb that had struck the cathedral was successfully defused and removed by a bomb disposal detachment of Royal Engineers under the command of Temporary Lieutenant Robert Davies. Had this bomb detonated, it would have totally destroyed the cathedral; it left a 100-foot (30 m) crater when later remotely detonated in a secure location. As a result of this action, Davies and Sapper George Cameron Wylie were each awarded the George Cross.
We walk along St Pauls Churchyard and turn right down Peters Hill with a view back to the Cathedral.
We cross Queen Victoria Street with a view through a sculpture to the Cathedral.
The guidebook says to cross the Millennium Bridge but as we approached I remembered seeing on the news it was closed for repairs. ( At the time of writing this blog it is now re-opened).
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| Millennium Bridge |
The Millennium Bridge, officially known as the London Millennium Footbridge, is a steel suspension bridge for pedestrians crossing the River Thames in London, England, linking Bankside with the City of London. Construction began in 1998, and it initially opened on 10 June 2000.
Londoners nicknamed it the "Wobbly Bridge" after pedestrians experienced an alarming swaying motion on its opening day. The bridge was closed later that day and, after two days of limited access, it was closed again for almost two years so that modifications and repairs could be made to keep the bridge stable and stop the swaying motion. It reopened in February 2002.
We turn right and walk along the Thames to reach Blackfriars Bridge.
We cross Blackfriars Bridge and walk pass The Tate Modern with huge crowds waiting for it to open at 10am.
Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, defined as from after 1900, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives.
We continue on along Bankside passing Cardinals Wharf.
Cardinal’s Wharf isn’t usually on a tourist’s checklist of things to see in London. However, inevitably a large proportion of visitors will pass by it while on the way to the Globe or Tate Modern and be attracted to the row of 18th century terraced houses juxtaposed by 20th century architecture. Standing out amongst the three buildings is the tallest – No. 49 Bankside – a three-storey cream building with red door. If you get close enough, you’ll find a cream, ceramic plaque linking it to a very important Englishman – Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723). Renowned as the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Naval College in Greenwich and many of the City of London’s churches, Wren is an important name in the history of the capital. The plaque claims: ‘Here lived Sir Christopher Wren during the building of St Paul’s Cathedral. Here also, in 1502, Catherine Infanta of Castile and Aragon, afterwards first queen of Henry VIII, took shelter on her first landing in London.’
If you stand with your back to the building, you have a lovely view of St Paul’s over the Thames. It’s easy to imagine Wren retiring with a glass of something to the first floor in the evening after a long day at work and gazing out of the window surveying the progress… however, sadly it’s not quite what happened. Wren was tasked with rebuilding a lot of the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666 and is believed to have based himself at Bankside… but at a building a few doors down from No.49, which has long been demolished.
Writer and historian Gillian Tindall uncovered the truth behind the myth of the building in her 2006 book The House By The Thames: And The People Who Lived There. It turns out No.49 was actually built in 1710 – the same year St Paul’s Cathedral was completed, so that already debunks the theory Wren was based there during the decades it took to build his masterpiece. Tindall believes the plaque stood on the actual house that Wren did live in, but a few houses east – situated where a modern block of flats stands today behind the Founders Arms pub. Her theory suggests Malcolm Munthe (1910-1995), who owned the property in 1945, retrieved the plaque when the original Wren building was demolished and placed it on No.49 to protect it from demolition. While the act may have led many to confuse fact and fiction, the plaque’s incorrect placing has managed to save the house from destruction. Bankside was heavily bombed during World War II, before there was mass demolition and redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s, so the continued existence of these three houses in Cardinal’s Wharf is a remarkable thing. According to Nicky Haslam’s 2009 memoirs ‘Redeeming Features’, antiques dealer and ‘King of Chelsea’, Christopher Gibbs (1938-2018) lived at No.49 at some point in the 1960s. Situated next to the 1940s-built Tate Modern (formerly Bankside Power Station) and the modern reconstruction of The Globe theatre (opened 1997), Cardinal’s Wharf is a striking contrast to the modernity around it. The house used to stand a lot closer to the Thames, until the Greater London Council revised the waterline back in the 1970s, creating a larger pedestrianised area we see today. No.49 remains the oldest house on Bankside today.
It is believed the name Cardinal’s Wharf comes from the Cardinal Wolsey (1473-1530), who was the Bishop of Winchester in 1529 and would have stayed at the nearby Winchester Palace when in London. While the house wasn’t lived in by the great Wren, it did serve as a home for coal merchants, an office, a boarding house, a squat during the 1970s and a private home once again. One previous resident was the late Hollywood actress Anna Lee (1913-2004) and her film director husband Robert Stevenson (1905-1986) – director of classic Disney films Mary Poppins and Bedknobs And Broomsticks -, who lived there in the 1930s before being drawn to the bright lights of Tinseltown. The house and railings outside were Grade II listed by Historic England in 1950.
Prior to being built in the early 18th century, the site was home to the Cardinal’s Hat pub – which was also reported to be a brothel – and mentioned by the diarist Samuel Pepys. Until the Civil War, Bankside was London’s Soho of the day, known for its entertainment and dens of iniquity. It’s highly likely a certain William Shakespeare may have popped in to the Cardinal’s Hat for an ale in between performances at The Rose or the original Globe, which stood around the junction of Park Street and Porter Street, on the east side of Southwark Bridge. He actually referenced the pub in Henry VI Part II. Shakespeare’s contemporary and founder of Dulwich College, the Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn was also recorded to have dined at the pub. Today, the name of the pub lives on in Cardinal Cap Alley (the street sign on the west side of No.49), an alley which actually dates back to around 1360.
Next door, the red brick No.51 Bankside dates back to 1712 and has long ties to Southwark Cathedral. It was named as Provost’s Lodging in the 20th century, with the future Bishop of Salisbury, George Reindorp living there after the war-damaged No.50 and No.51 were purchased from Bankside power station in 1957 (who had owned them for 20 years) and knocked together. Due to its location, Bankside was not an appealing place to live in the 1960s and 1970s due to the constant humming noise from the power station. The late Dean of Southwark, Rev. Colin Slee, lived at the property in the early 21st century until his death, while No.52 was a residence for the Cathedral’s director of music. No. 51 was put up for sale for £6million by Savills in 2011. (For a photo of No.51 Bankside taken in 1940, click here). Meanwhile, on the east side of No.49 stood the house of Elizabethan theatre entrepreneur Philip Henslowe (1550-1616), who built The Rose theatre in 1587 – the first playhouse in Bankside – a three-minute walk away in Park Street. In the early 1800s, Henslowe’s house was home to the senior chaplain of St Saviour’s Church (now Southwark Cathedral, which only received cathedral status in 1905). Today the site of Henslowe’s house is the entrance to the Globe exhibition. Henslowe is buried in Southwark Cathedral.
Source (https://memoirsofametrogirl.com/)
We pass the replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
The original theatre was built in 1599, destroyed by a fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and then demolished in 1644. The modern Globe Theatre is an academic approximation based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings. It is considered quite realistic, though modern safety requirements mean that it accommodates only 1,400 spectators compared to the original theatre's 3,000.
The modern Shakespeare's Globe was founded by the actor and director Sam Wanamaker, and built about 230 metres (750 ft) from the site of the original theatre in the historic open-air style. It opened to the public in 1997, with a production of Henry V.
We walk on under Southwark Bridge and up pass The Anchor Public House.
The current Anchor pub was built between 1770-75 on the site of an earlier inn named the Castell on the Hoop, which dates back a cool 800 years. Bustling Bankside would have been unrecognisable then: the narrow mediaeval street was lined with wharves and warehouses while the air was filled with the stench of fish and the unsettling sounds of bear-baiting arenas and brothels. Inhabitants of the latter were known locally as “Winchester Geese” because the Bishop of Winchester owned the brothels and claimed the tax revenues. A few centuries later this area was the heart of Elizabethan theatreland and Shakespeare may have been a local since this was his stamping ground. The Anchor was a haunt of river pirates and smugglers during its colourful history: when repairs were carried out in the 19th century a wealth of ingenious hiding places for stolen goods and contraband were discovered. This pub has also burnt down (twice) and rebuilt (twice). Other claims to fame are that diarist Samuel Pepys witnessed the Great Fire of London from the comfort of this pub in 1666, and that dictionary supremo Dr Samuel Johnson used to pop in for a pint when he wasn’t engaged on thinking up new words. Sometimes: “ale” and “pipe” are the only words you need.
We on down Clink Street passing Dirty Lane.
The area of the development pretty much fills the site that was once occupied by Winchester Palace and its gardens. By the 1740s, the area was fully developed with a large timber yard in the middle and loads of narrow alleys and streets with wonderful names, such as Dead Mans Place, Dye House, Potts House, Dirty Lane, and Naked Boy Yard.
Dead Mans Place still survives as a road but was later renamed the more polite Park Street, alas.
The current appearance of the area comes from the arrival of the railways, and the wide set of railway arches built by the South Eastern Railway (SER) when they extended their railway across the river to Cannon Street station in the early 1860s.
That transformed the area from lots of smaller buildings into one dominated by the railway and its arches, which were rented out for warehouses, and later the railway was widened with the addition of new arches on either side. The area remained dominated by warehouses until fairly recently, when the Southbank became better known for its culture and cafes, and a large section of the arches was taken over by the wine venue Vinopolis.
I walk on reaching the Clink Prison, I visited here some years ago. It is worth a visit.
The Clink was a prison in Southwark which operated from the 12th century until 1780. The prison served the Liberty of the Clink, a local manor area owned by the Bishop of Winchester rather than by the reigning monarch. As the Liberty owner, the Bishop kept all revenues from the Clink Liberty, and could put people in prison for failing to make their payments. As the Bishop, he could also imprison heretics. The Clink prison was situated next to the Bishop's London-area residence of Winchester Palace. The Clink was possibly the oldest men's prison and probably the oldest women's prison in England.
It is uncertain whether the prison derived its name from, or bestowed it on, the Liberty that it served. The origins of the name "The Clink" are possibly onomatopoeic, deriving from the sound of striking metal as the prison's doors were bolted, or the rattling of the chains the prisoners wore.
The name has become slang as a generic term for prison or a jail cell.
Winchester Palace was once one of the largest and most important buildings in all of medieval London. Built in the early 13th century as a home to the powerful Bishops of Winchester, the palace was mostly destroyed by fire in 1814.
We walk into Pickfords Wharf and pass the Golden Hinde.
The Golden Hinde (launched 1973) is a full-size replica of the Golden Hind (launched 1577). She was built using traditional handicrafts at Appledore, in Devon. Like the original ship, she has circumnavigated the globe.
Golden Hind was a galleon captained by Francis Drake in his circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580. She was originally known as Pelican, but Drake renamed her mid-voyage in 1578, in honour of his patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest was a golden hind (a female red deer). Hatton was one of the principal sponsors of Drake's world voyage.
We walk on up Cathedral Street and up to Borough Market, hoping to grab a bite to eat. Sadly nothing was open yet!
Borough Market is a wholesale and retail market hall in Southwark, London, England. It is one of the largest and oldest food markets in London, with a market on the site dating back to at least the 12th century. The present buildings were built in the 1850s, and today the market mainly sells speciality foods to the general public.
The market itself claims to have existed since 1014 "and probably much earlier" as Snorri Sturluson describes Southwark as a "great market town" when describing an incident in Heimskringla dated to 1014. A market that originally adjoined the end of London Bridge was first mentioned in 1276 and was subsequently moved south of St Margaret's church on the High Street. The City of London received a royal charter from Edward VI in 1550 to control all markets in Southwark (see Guildable Manor), which was confirmed by Charles II in 1671. However, the market caused such traffic congestion that, in 1754, it was abolished by an Act of Parliament .
A second Act that year allowed for the local parishioners to set up another market on a new site, and in 1756, it began again on a 4.5-acre (18,000 m2) site in Rochester Yard. During the 19th century, it became one of London's most important food markets due to its strategic position near the riverside wharves of the Pool of London.
By the mid 1990s the market had declined and trustees decided to revive it as a retail rather than a wholesale market. In 1998 they invited Henrietta Green to hold a Food Lovers' Fair, which recruited several long-term traders for the market. From 1996 they let unused space to wholesale businesses such as Neal's Yard Dairy, Brindisa and Monmouth Coffee Company. The new tenants were encouraged to open their premises to retail customers.
In 2011, seven traders were expelled from the market for trading from their storage units at Maltby Street Market a mile away. In turn the traders criticised poor facilities at the market and a move to selling takeaway food.
In the 2017 London Bridge attack, three attackers drove a vehicle over London Bridge and then ran to the area, where they stabbed and killed eight people with knives before they were shot dead by armed police. The market was then closed for 11 days following the attack.
We walk back up Cathedral Street and up to Southwark Cathedral that was closed due to an art installation.
It has been a place of Christian worship for more than 1,000 years, but a cathedral only since the creation of the diocese of Southwark in 1905.
Between 1106 and 1538 it was the church of an Augustinian priory, Southwark Priory, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, it became a parish church, with the new dedication of St Saviour's. The church was in the diocese of Winchester until 1877, when the parish of St Saviour's, along with other South London parishes, was transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The present building retains the basic form of the Gothic structure built between 1220 and 1420, although the nave is a late 19th-century reconstruction.
Walking on we walk under London Bridge.
To the left is Nancy Steps, next to the steps is a blue plaque sited next to them.
The plaque has the facts wrong; in the novel Nancy is murdered in her house. It is in the 1960 musical Oliver! that she is murdered at steps leading to London Bridge. However the steps are mentioned in the novel as explained at Lost Industry.
We poke our head into The Bermondsey Bierkeller to show Dan. I visited last month a great place for German beer and to watch sport!
We walk on and pass London Bridge Station with views to The Shard beyond.
We turn left into Hayes Galleria.
Hay's Galleria is a mixed use building in the London Borough of Southwark situated on the south bank of the River Thames featuring offices, restaurants, shops, and flats. Originally a warehouse and associated wharf (Hay's Wharf) for the port of London, it was redeveloped in the 1980s. It is a Grade II listed structure.
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The Navigators, 1987, a sculpture by David Kemp |
Hay's Galleria is named after its original owner, the merchant Alexander Hay, who acquired the property – then a brewhouse – in 1651. In around 1840 John Humphrey Jnr acquired a lease on the property He asked William Cubitt (who was father-in-law to two of Humphrey's sons) to convert it into a 'wharf', in fact an enclosed dock, in 1856 and it was renamed Hay's Wharf.
During the nineteenth century, the wharf was one of the chief delivery points for ships bringing tea to the Pool of London. At its height, 80% of the dry produce imported to London passed through the wharf, and on this account the wharf was nicknamed 'the Larder of London'. The wharf was largely rebuilt following the Great Fire of Southwark in June 1861 and then continued in use for nearly a century until it was badly bombed in September 1940 during the Second World War.
In 1920, the owners of the wharf purchased the shares of Pickfords as part of their Hay's Wharf Cartage Company subsidiary. This subsidiary was sold to the Big Four railways in 1933.
The progressive adoption of containerisation during the 1960s led to the shipping industry moving to deep water ports further down the Thames and the subsequent closure of Hay's Wharf in 1970.
We leave Hayes Galleria and back onto walking beside the Thames and psas HMS BELFAST.
HMS Belfast is a Town-class light cruiser that was built for the Royal Navy. She is now permanently moored as a museum ship on the River Thames in London and is operated by the Imperial War Museum.
Construction of Belfast, the first ship in the Royal Navy to be named after the capital city of Northern Ireland and one of ten Town-class cruisers, began in December 1936. She was launched on St Patrick's Day 1938. Commissioned in early August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Belfast was initially part of the British naval blockade against Germany. In November 1939, Belfast struck a German mine and, in spite of fears that she would be scrapped, spent more than two years undergoing extensive repairs. Belfast returned to action in November 1942 with improved firepower, radar equipment, and armour. Belfast saw action escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during 1943 and in December 1943 played an important role in the Battle of North Cape, assisting in the destruction of the German warship Scharnhorst. In June 1944, Belfast took part in Operation Overlord supporting the Normandy landings. In June 1945, she was redeployed to the Far East to join the British Pacific Fleet, arriving shortly before the end of the Second World War. Belfast saw further combat action in 1950–52 during the Korean War and underwent an extensive modernisation between 1956 and 1959. A number of further overseas commissions followed before she entered reserve in 1963.
In 1967, efforts were initiated to avert Belfast's expected scrapping and to preserve her as a museum ship. A joint committee of the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Ministry of Defence was established and then reported in June 1968 that preservation was practical. In 1971, however, the government decided against preservation, prompting the formation of the private HMS Belfast Trust to campaign for her preservation. The efforts of the Trust were successful, and the government transferred the ship to the Trust in July 1971. Brought to London, she was moored on the River Thames near Tower Bridge in the Pool of London. Opened to the public in October 1971, Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978. Since 1973 she has been home to City of London Sea Cadets who meet on board twice a week.
We walk on with views to Tower Bridge and The Tower of London.
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| The Tower of London |
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded toward the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new Norman ruling class. The castle was also used as a prison from 1100 (Ranulf Flambard) until 1952 (Kray twins),[3] although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion, mainly under kings Richard I, Henry III, and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site.
The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times, and controlling it has been important to controlling the country. The Tower has served variously as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the home of the Royal Mint, a public record office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of England. From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II in the 17th century, a procession would be led from the Tower to Westminster Abbey on the coronation of a monarch. In the absence of the monarch, the Constable of the Tower is in charge of the castle. This was a powerful and trusted position in the medieval period. In the late 15th century, the Princes in the Tower were housed at the castle when they mysteriously disappeared, presumed murdered. Under the Tudors, the Tower became used less as a royal residence, and despite attempts to refortify and repair the castle, its defences lagged behind developments to deal with artillery.
The zenith of the castle's use as a prison was the 16th and 17th centuries, when many figures who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Elizabeth Throckmorton, were held within its walls. This use has led to the phrase "sent to the Tower". Despite its enduring reputation as a place of torture and death, popularised by 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century writers, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the world wars of the 20th century. Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period. In the latter half of the 19th century, institutions such as the Royal Mint moved out of the castle to other locations, leaving many buildings empty. Anthony Salvin and John Taylor took the opportunity to restore the Tower to what was felt to be its medieval appearance, clearing out many of the vacant post-medieval structures.
In the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage. After the Second World War, damage caused during the Blitz was repaired, and the castle reopened to the public. Today, the Tower of London is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions. Under the ceremonial charge of the Constable of the Tower, operated by the Resident Governor of the Tower of London and Keeper of the Jewel House, and guarded by the Yeomen Warders, the property is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces and is protected as a World Heritage Site.
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| City Hall |
City Hall is a building in Southwark, London, which previously served as the headquarters of the Greater London Authority (GLA) between July 2002 and December 2021. It is located in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames near Tower Bridge. In June 2020, the Greater London Authority started a consultation on proposals to vacate City Hall and move to The Crystal, a GLA-owned property in Newham, at the end of 2021. The decision was confirmed on 3 November 2020 and the GLA vacated City Hall on 2 December 2021. The Southwark location is ultimately owned by the government of Kuwait.
We walk on a short way and reach Tower Bridge.
Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry with the help of Henry Marc Brunel.[1] It crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and is one of five London bridges owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust founded in 1282. The bridge was constructed to give better access to the East End of London, which had expanded its commercial potential in the 19th century. The bridge was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra, Princess of Wales in 1894.
The bridge is 800 feet (240 m) in length and consists of two 213-foot (65 m) bridge towers connected at the upper level by two horizontal walkways, and a central pair of bascules that can open to allow shipping. Originally hydraulically powered, the operating mechanism was converted to an electro-hydraulic system in 1972. The bridge is part of the London Inner Ring Road and thus the boundary of the London congestion charge zone, and remains an important traffic route with 40,000 crossings every day. The bridge deck is freely accessible to both vehicles and pedestrians, whereas the bridge's twin towers, high-level walkways, and Victorian engine rooms form part of the Tower Bridge Exhibition.
Tower Bridge has become a recognisable London landmark. It is sometimes confused with London Bridge, about 0.5 miles (800 m) upstream, which has led to a persistent urban legend about an American purchasing the wrong bridge.
We walk down onto Horseydown Old Stairs to get a good view of the bridge from river level.
This was the site of the original John Smith Beer!
We cross Tower Bridge to drop down into St Katherines Dock.
A mix view of new and old. Tower of London with the mix of new buildings beyond. When I took this photo I thought I'd taken a video instead as the building in the middle, has a rooftop that looks like the play button ha ha.
We walk into St Katherines Dock.
St Katharine Docks took their name from the former hospital of St Katharine's by the Tower, built in the 12th century, which stood on the site. An intensely built-up area, the entire 23-acre (9.5 hectares) Precinct of St Katharine by the Tower and part of East Smithfield, was earmarked for redevelopment by an Act of Parliament in 1825, with construction commencing in May 1827. Some 1250 houses were demolished, together with the medieval hospital of St. Katharine. Around 11,300 inhabitants, mostly port workers crammed into unsanitary slums, lost their homes; only the property owners received compensation. The scheme was designed by engineer Thomas Telford and was his only major project in London. George Turnbull and James Waylen were working for Telford. To create as much quayside as possible, the docks were designed in the form of two linked basins (East and West), both accessed via an entrance lock from the Thames. Steam engines designed by James Watt and Matthew Boulton kept the water level in the basins about four feet above that of the tidal river. By 1830, the docks had cost over £2 million to build.
Telford aimed to minimise the amount of quayside activity and specified that the docks' warehouses (designed by the architect Philip Hardwick) be built right on the quayside so that goods could be unloaded directly into them.
The docks were officially opened on 25 October 1828. Although well used, they were not a great commercial success and were unable to accommodate large ships. They were amalgamated in 1864 with the neighbouring London Docks. In 1909, the Port of London Authority took over the management of almost all of the Thames docks, including St Katharine Dock. By the 1930s the only regular use was by ships of the General Steam Navigation Company.
St Katharine Docks were badly damaged by German bombing during the Second World War. All the warehouses around the eastern basin were destroyed, and the site they had occupied remained derelict until the 1960s. The dock entrance lock was rebuilt in 1957 but the docks ceased commercial use in 1968. The remaining warehouses on the western side were demolished to make way for redevelopment.
We stop for a drink at The Dickens Inn.
Originally thought to have been either a tea warehouse (or perhaps a brewery warehouse) from the late 1700’s, The Dickens Inn has survived the threat of being demolished a number of times over the years.
This wonderfully preserved wooden structure was one of only a handful of buildings to survive in the area from the Blitz of World War 2 and was again saved from developers in an area regeneration program in the 1960’s.
We had a Dickens Gold, when I logged it in UnTappd, I see its a unlabelled Greene King Beer. Probably wouldn't have ordered it had I known. Not a fan of Greene King beers, but this one was actually okay.
The building itself actually had to be moved to its current position in order to evade the wrecking ball, and now stands around 70 metres east of its original location. When the move occurred the building was intentionally and carefully reconstructed to resemble a traditional three storied 18th-Century styled Inn. The hope from the council at the time was that the pub would attract tourism to the area around Marble Dock and surrounding areas.
We leave the pub and St Katherines Dock. Now we seem a little lost. The books directions are confusing and the small map with no road names next to useless. So we walk on knowing we have to at least reach Tobacco Dock which I know where that is.
We walk along the Thames Path towards Wapping. This appears wrong but I'd given up on the guidebook for now.
We leave the Thames Path and Wapping High Street and walk up Garnet Street.
We cross the Bascule Bridge on Garnet Street. This was built in the 1930s by the Port of London Authority and was restored by the London Docklands Development Corporation during their redevelopment of the site in the 1980s.
We walk into Shadwell Basin for a quick look,. The picture above is the location from the Only Fools and Horses :He ain't heavy, he's my brother' where Uncle Albert goes missing and is found here.
The London Docks expanded eastward in the 1830s with the opening of the Eastern Dock and Shadwell Basin (built 1828–32). To provide these new docks with access to the river, a new entrance at Shadwell was built. Opened in 1832, it was named Shadwell Entrance (the main entrance to the London Dock was through Wapping Entrance with a third entrance at Hermitage Basin).
By the 1850s, the London Dock Company had recognised that the entrances at both Wapping and Shadwell were too small to accommodate the newer and larger ships coming into service. In 1854-58 the company built a new larger entrance (45 feet wide) and a new basin at Shadwell (the only element of the London Docks system to have survived redevelopment to this day) linked to the west part of the docks by Eastern Dock and the short Tobacco Dock.
The small size of the London Docks made them outdated by the early 20th century as steam power meant ships were built too large to fit into them. Cargoes were unloaded downriver and then ferried by barge to warehouses in Wapping. This system was uneconomic and inefficient and one of the main reasons that London's western docks (St Katharine Dock and the London Docks) were the first to close in the 1960s.
The London Docks complex closed to shipping in 1969. Purchased by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Shadwell Basin and the western part of the London Docks fell into a derelict state, mostly a large open tract of land and water. Acquired in 1981 by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), redevelopment of Shadwell Basin took place in 1987 resulting in 169 houses and flats being built around the retained historic dock.
We cross back over the road and walk down to Tobacco Dock.
Tobacco Dock is a Grade I listed warehouse located in the East London district of Wapping, and thereby the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Part of the London Docks designed by Scottish civil engineer and architect John Rennie, the warehouse was completed in 1812 and primarily served as a store for imported tobacco, hence the name. During the early 20th century, economic activity in the area fluctuated due to World War I and World War II, and both London Docks and nearby St Katharine Docks had closed by 1969.
After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until it was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its "at risk" register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For two decades Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics.
In 2012 the company Tobacco Dock Ltd launched the building as an events and conferencing space for up to 10,000 people. It also houses offices and co-working spaces operated by Tobacco Dock Venue Ltd, although the site and building itself are owned by Kuwaiti investment company Messila House.
We walk up Wapping Lane cross The Highway into St Georges Gardens.
We pass St George in The East Church.
The church is one of six Hawksmoor churches in London, England. It was built from 1714 to 1729, with funding from the 1711 Act of Parliament. Its name has been used for two forms of parish (areas of land) surrounding, one ecclesiastical which remains and one a Civil counterpart, a third tier of local government. The latter assisted public facilities in the late 19th century but ceded its dwindling purposes to the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney so was abolished in 1927. The church was designated a Grade I listed building in 1950.
In 1836, the parish of St George in the East was constituted as a Poor Law parish under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834.
In the 1850s, Archibald Campbell Tait, then Bishop of London, appointed a Low Church lecturer, which was contrary to the High Church attitude of the rector and curate. As a protest, there were catcalls and horn blowing, and some male members of the congregation went into the church smoking their pipes, keeping their hats on, and leading barking dogs Refuse was thrown onto the altar. The church was closed for a while in 1859, and the rector, owing to his poor health, was persuaded by the author Tom Hughes to hand over his duties to a locum.
The church was hit by a bomb during the Second World War Blitz on London's docklands in May 1941. The original interior was destroyed by the fire, but the walls and distinctive "pepper-pot" towers stayed up. In 1964 a modern church interior was constructed inside the existing walls, and a new flat built under each corner tower.
It appeared in the 1980 film The Long Good Friday starring Bob Hoskins. It also appeared in S02E01 of Killing Eve.
We leave the park and walk onto Cable Street. Here is the mural of the Battle of Cable Street.
The Cable Street Mural was painted on the side of St George's Town Hall by Dave Binnington, Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort between 1979 and 1983 to commemorate the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. The original design was by Dave Binnington.
The Battle of Cable Street took place on Sunday 4 October 1936 in Cable Street, as a result of opposition to a march by the British Union of Fascists led by Oswald Mosley. Anti-fascist protesters, including local Jewish, socialist, anarchist, Irish and communist groups, clashed with the Metropolitan Police, who attempted to remove the barricades erected to stop the march.
We walk along Cable Street pass Shadwell Tube Station.
We turn into Watney Street and treated our selves to the finest East London Cuisine. Fired Chicken and Chips ha ha.
Walking on we pass through Watney Street Market.
We walk out onto Commercial Road (A13) and to the end of the walk at Whitechapel Station. Guidebook says 5 miles but I suspect we did a tad more.
