Bermondsey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bermondsey is an area of south London in the London Borough of Southwark. It is a built-up district located 2.1 miles (3.4 km) east of Charing Cross.
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[edit] History
[edit] 11th century
The area was originally named "Beormund's Ey", Beormund being a Saxon personal name, "ey" being Old Norse for "island". At this time it would have been little more than a marshy riverside island. A community of Cluniac monks established Bermondsey Abbey on the site in 1082 and began the development of the area, cultivating the land and embanking the riverside. They turned an adjacent tidal inlet at the mouth of the River Neckinger into a dock, naming it St Saviour's Dock after their abbey's patron.
The Knights Templar also owned land here and gave their names to one of the most distinctive streets in London, Shad Thames (a corruption of "St John at Thames"). Other ecclesiastical properties stood nearby at Tooley (a corruption of "St Olave's") Street, where wealthy citizens and clerics had their houses, including the Priors of Lewes, the Abbots of Battle and the Priors of St Augustine, Canterbury.
[edit] 17th century
As it developed over the centuries, Bermondsey underwent some striking changes. After the Great Fire of London, it was settled by the well-to-do and took on the character of a garden suburb. A pleasure garden was founded there in the 17th century, commemorated by the Cherry Garden Pier. Samuel Pepys visited "Jamaica House" at Cherry Gardens in 1664 and recorded in his diary that he had left it "singing finely".
Though not many buildings survive from this era, one notable exception is the church of St Mary Magdalen on Bermondsey Street, completed in 1690 (although a church has been recorded on this site from the 13th Century). This church came through both 19th-century redevelopment and The Blitz unscathed. It is not just an unusual survivor for Bermondsey; buildings of this era are relative rarities in Inner London in general.
[edit] 18th century
In the 18th century, the discovery of a spring in the area led to Bermondsey becoming a spa. It was from the Bermondsey riverside that the painter J.M.W. Turner executed his famous painting of The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up (1839), depicting the veteran warship being towed to Rotherhithe to be scrapped.
[edit] 19th century
By the mid-19th century parts of Bermondsey had become a notorious slum - with the arrival of industrial plants, docks and immigrant housing. The area around St Saviour's Dock, known as Jacob's Island, was one of the worst in London. It was immortalised by Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist, in which the principal villain Bill Sikes meets a nasty end in the mud of 'Folly Ditch' - the scene of an attack by Spring Heeled Jack in 1845 - surrounding Jacob's Island. Dickens provides a vivid description of what it was like:
- "... crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it - as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Jacob's Island."
Bermondsey Town Hall was built on Spa Road in 1881.
The area was extensively redeveloped during the 19th century and early 20th century with the expansion of the river trade and the arrival of the railways. London's first passenger railway terminus was built by the London to Greenwich Railway in 1836 at London Bridge, connecting Bermondsey with Greenwich. The line ran for four miles on 878 brick arches, with the linked Croydon Railway opening in 1839.
The industrial boom of the 19th century was an extension of Bermondsey's manufacturing role in earlier eras. As in the East End, industries that were deemed too noisome to be carried on within the narrow confines of the City of London had been located here - one such that came to dominate central Bermondsey, away from the riverfront, was the processing and trading of leather and hides. Many buildings from this era survive around Leathermarket Street including the huge Leather, Hide and Wool Exchange (now residential and small work spaces). Hepburn and Gale's tannery (disused as of early 2007) on Long Lane is also a substantial survivor of the leather trade.
[edit] 20th century
From 1899 to 1965, Bermondsey formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey.
To the east of Tower Bridge, Bermondsey's 3½ miles of riverside were lined with warehouses and wharves, of which the best known is Butler's Wharf. They suffered severe damage in World War II bombing and became redundant in the 1960s following the collapse of the river trade. After standing derelict for some years, many of the wharves were redeveloped under the aegis of the London Docklands Development Corporation during the 1980s. They have now been converted into a mixture of residential and commercial accommodations and have become some of the most upmarket and expensive properties in London. In 1997, US President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the area to dine at the Pont de la Tour restaurant at Butler's Wharf.
Despite the presence of London Bridge station, Bermondsey's transport links with the rest of London have historically been poor. This was remedied in 1999 with the opening of Bermondsey tube station on the London Underground's Jubilee Line Extension.
[edit] Places of interest
- Bermondsey antiques market
- Fashion and Textile Museum
- London Dungeon
- Mandela Way T-34 Tank
- Millwall F.C.
[edit] Nearest places
[edit] Nearest stations
[edit] See also
- Antenna Audio, UK office
[edit] External links
- London SE1 community website
- Bermondsey Spa Regeneration Plans
- Bermondsey Spa Webcam
- Time Out London's Guide to Bermondsey
