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No.53 - October 2002 | Contex HOME OUTING REPORT An Evening’s Walk on the Southbank RICHARD MILLER There
was a superb turn-out for this walk on 19th July. I counted thirty-nine
COLAS members including a dog (the dog, I heard, is an honorary member
since he is very good at digging). We assembled underneath what I
had always known as the Southwark Needle. Roy Walker, our guide,
began by saying that you could argue that we were in the City of
London, and that he would tell us why later on. The Southwark Needle,
it seems, is more correctly known as the Southwark Gate, and was
built from Portland stone as a "Welcoming Millennium monument",
Roy said, "welcoming everyone except parachutists". It
was designed to represent one of the spikes that adorned the gate
of the old London Bridge on which the head of a traitor would have
been impaled.
 William
Wallace was the first victim to have suffered this fate, prompting
Roy to say that although he lost in battle, he was still ahead on
points! (groan, groan). I must say that I had always considered the
Southwark Needle to be a bit of a monstrosity, appealing only to
skateboard enthusiasts. Now I see it in an entirely new light and
its existence appears justified Nearby is Colechurch House, which
commemorates the priest Peter de Colechurch, who designed the first
stone London Bridge famous for the spikes and shops and houses (to
see an impressive model of this bridge, visit the church of St. Magnus
the Martyr in Lower Thames Street). After 600 years the bridge proved
inadequate, in need of much repair, and was replaced by the second
stone bridge designed by John Rennie. The coming of the railway had
a dramatic impact on the area. It brought in so many more people
that this new bridge was already inadequate. It was replaced in 1972
but survives at Lake Havasu City in Arizona as a tourist attraction.
The present London Bridge was opened by the Queen in 1973, the third
stone bridge at this crossing point. We were to see impressive remnants
of the first bridge later on the walk. Our next stop was in St Thomas’s Street outside the tower and chapel of the old St Thomas’s Church, built in 1703. The Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garrett, dating from 1821, lay undiscovered within the roof until 1956. If you have not yet visited this remarkable survivor of the past, you really must go – it’s a fascinating place, if a bit gruesome. The chapel, now a chapter house for Southwark Cathedral, belonged to the old St. Thomas’ Hospital, founded in the 13th century and covering twenty acres of land. In the 1830s, the new railway ran from Deptford to Bermondsey, the whole length built on brick arches. Later in the 1840s it was extended again to Cannon Street, via the massive 180-foot box-girder that is now such a dominant feature of Borough High Street. An Act of Parliament helped the Charing Cross Railway Company to buy the twenty acres of land from the Hospital in 1859, and St. Thomas’ Hospital moved to its present site opposite the Houses of Parliament in 1871. Our next stop was not an inn, but a curious Tudor-style building with exposed beams in Chapel Court. The five mullions visible on the window suggest a medieval hall. On a previous walk, Stephen Humphreys from the local studies centre described this building as a Norfolk barn, dismantled and re-assembled here in the 1980s by a builder from New Zealand. Chapel Court itself was named after an 18th century Zion Chapel. We then made our way back along the other side of Borough High Street, and stopped opposite number 141, currently disused and displaying the shop sign "FLUTES". This is an 18th century building notable for its decorative window surrounds in Coade Stone. Roy said that he was not happy with the dates, but they are from Pevsner and have been confirmed by the Local Studies Library. Further down the road, we peered through some gates to see Calverts Buildings, which has one of the few remaining medieval-type jettied structures in London. Passing left of the war memorial, where in the 17th century the old Southwark fair and market place used to be, we came across the grand Hop Exchange building, looking even grander after its recent repainting. Built in the 1860s, it was well lit by a glass roof to allow for the inspection of the colour as well as the smell of hops. It is testimony to the fact that the area was a centre for brewing. Many people would have gone hop picking as their only form of holiday. Also worth seeing is "Le Mays Hop Factors", a fine building in the High Street with terracotta reliefs. Our next stop was outside Southwark Cathedral, where Roy finally explained why technically you could say that we were still in the City of London. In the 1500s, the City of London acquired land in the Borough, which became its 26th ward. Until the 1970s the senior Alderman from the City was chosen as alderman for the ward of Bridge Without as the Borough was known. Roy drew our attention to a stone in the Cathedral Churchyard, and Rose said: "If you don’t recognise it you shouldn’t be here". On the stone could quite distinctly be seen the familiar shield from the Corporation of London’s coat of arms. Although too worn to decipher completely, the inscriptions on the stone included the date 1881, and the text "THE PARISHES OF ST SAVIOUR", and "EXCLUSIVE OF THE CLINK LIBERTY, ST THOMAS, ST OLAVE, AND ST JOHN", presumably delineating the extent of the Diocese of Southwark. Rose went on to describe how in the late 1970s the area was full of old derelict warehouses, and she was involved in excavating the grounds of Winchester Palace, the remains of which form a scheduled ancient monument. What Rose found in the Bishop’s old priory garden sounds like an archaeologist’s dream, items that are now on display in the Museum of London. These included the remains of an old Roman bath complex that obviously belonged to someone with pots of money. Inscriptions on marble seem to detail a long list of Roman soldiers, possibly in honour of the Emperor. Turning round a corner, we came to St Mary Overie’s Dock, where is moored a replica of Drake’s ship the Golden Hinde, now on sale for £1.25 million. Reaching Clink Street, we could see the remains of the old Winchester Palace, and Roy pointed out its most dramatic feature, the rose window, "named", he said, "in honour of Rose for her work on the garden". We continued past the old Anchor pub and the Globe Theatre and stopped next to the Millennium Bridge. Roy told us why this famous "wibbly-wobbly" bridge is, to everyone’s disappointment, no longer wobbly. The wobbles, he said, were due to "synchronous lateral excitement", which "sounds like a bit on the side". This being the end of the walk, we thanked Roy for a very informative and entertaining tour, and made our way to the Founder’s Arms for some welcome refreshment.
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Our
third stop was in the courtyard of Guy’s Hospital under the statue
of Thomas Guy and opposite his final resting place in the chapel.
Thomas Guy founded the hospital in the 1720s as a place of convalescence
for patients from St Thomas’. He had amassed a fortune in two main
ways: printing bibles and from the South Sea Bubble. He became a
great philanthropist, although he once had a reputation for miserliness.
Roy told the story of how he broke off the engagement to a maid he
was to marry after she got workmen to extend a pavement by six inches
more than he stipulated. In another courtyard we came across part
of the old London Bridge in the form of an alcove designed by George
Dance in the 1750s, removed from the old London Bridge when it was
demolished in 1832. Two others are in Victoria Park, Hackney At this
point, Rose ventured to remind everyone that Southwark used to be
a busy Roman suburb. It has been excavated a great deal, owing to
the fact that when the handsome Georgian properties were demolished,
the foundations only went down about six inches. Southwark was one
of the ten largest Roman settlements, and there is a theory that
the Roman Governor’s House used to be there.
We
moved on to Borough High Street. On the way, several people stopped
to look at the new plaque to John Keats on 8 St Thomas Street, unveiled
in April 2002 by the poet laureate, Andrew Motion. Borough High Street
had, since Roman times, been on the main supply route from the south
coast to the City of London across the original wooden London Bridge.
By medieval times, coaching inns had sprung up along virtually its
entire length. First we came to Kings Head Yard, where above the
Old Kings Head pub is a colourful bust of King Henry VIII dating
from the 17th century. We skipped the George Inn, being too well
known to COLAS members, and proceeded to Talbot Yard, the site of
the old Tabard Inn, famous as the starting place for Chaucer’s pilgrims
in The Canterbury Tales. Another relic of the old London Bridge
is to be found in Newcomen Street. The coat of arms of George II,
amended to say George III, originally adorned the gatehouse of the
old London Bridge, and was installed high on the front of The Kings
Arms in 1719, hence the pub’s name.
Further
down Borough High Street, we turned left into Angel Court, past the
John Harvard Library, and paused outside the Southwark Local Studies
Library. Here Roy announced: "We are now standing inside the
Marshalsea Prison". On one side, the old red brick wall of the
prison loomed high over us, and through the wrought iron gates of
the original entrance you could see the recently revamped churchyard
of St George the Martyr. The prison was established in the early
1300s, and lasted until 1842. It is most famous for its association
with Charles Dickens whose father was imprisoned there for debt in
1824. Dickens was so affected by this that the prison became the
birthplace of Little Dorrit from his novel of the same name, and
the nearby church was where she married. In fact, St George the Martyr
is often called "Little Dorrit’s" church. The clock on
its tower is unusual in that one of its four faces is never illuminated.
This came about because it faced the parish of Bermondsey and when
the church was asking for donations from the surrounding parishes
Bermondsey never gave anything. In addition to the Marshalsea, there
were the Kings Bench and White Lion prisons in the area, and any
prisoner with enough money could pay to live outside the prison.
When imprisonment for debt was due to be abolished, many people queued
up to be imprisoned before the Act was passed in order to clear their
debts by a term of imprisonment.