Southwark, Southwark Cathedral, Bankside and Borough

Background

London’s Southwark and Bankside lies on the south bank of the Thames opposite the City. Historically, they were part of the City and have great historic appeal.

The main sights on the walk are: Bankside, hosting the sites of three Elizabethan theatre's including Shakespeare's Globe; now rebuilt, The Tate Modern Gallery, Southwark, the site of the Clink Prison, the Bishop of Winchester's medieval palace, St Mary Overy Dock, Southwark Cathedral, the George Inn, Chaucer's Tabard tavern and the old operating theatre of St Thomas's Hospital; and in the final section of the walk through the new London Bridge, Guy's, past HMS Belfast and onto Tower Bridge. There are superb views of the City throughout the walk, with many photographic opportunities.

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Start: Blackfriars Station 
Finish: Tower Hill Station Fenchurch Street British Rail Station and Tower Gateway
Station on the Docklands Light Railway are both nearby.
Length: 21/2 miles (4 kilometres).
Time: APPROX 3 hours.

Leave Blackfriars Station following signs to Blackfriars Bridge and then cross Blackfriars Bridge, this was the third bridge over the River Thames to be built in central London. This bridge was erected in 1869, though the first Blackfriars Bridge known as the William Pitt Bridge was built a century earlier. 

Next to the road bridge is a Victorian railway bridge and remnants (of in the piers) of another. 

Both bridges were built for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company in pre-British Rail days, the dismantled one being the first railway bridge across the Thames.

Over the bridge, turn left between the bollards before Ludgate House and go down the steps onto Bankside river walk. Beyond the railway bridges there is a fine view of the City. In the east the National Westminster Tower is the tallest building, with the weird looking city office of the mayor of London ( this has quite a few names invented by the locals) while the western end of the City is still dominated by St Paul's Cathedral, more about this later. 

Until the great rebuilding of London from the massive damage inflicted during the bombing of world war 2, up until the 1960’s St Paul's was the tallest building in London. Even now, sensible planning controls dictate that the buildings around the cathedral are built no higher than around 130 feet (40 metres). St Paul's itself is 365 feet (111 metres) high, It dominates the views from here. 

Go past the Founders Arms built on the site of the foundry where all the iron work for St Paul's was said to have been forged and cast. On the right is the Bankside Gallery (built in 1980), home of the Royal Societies of Painters. Next on the riverside is the Tate Modern gallery formerly the Bankside Power Station, with free entrance and superb work’s of art, magical views, and an architectural experience inside to be seen and believed, look at the huge turbine room and cranes still intact, very impressive. 

In Tudor times (16th century) there were fish ponds here which supplied pike and other fish to the houses in the area, and the royal palaces across the river. Beyond the Tate, Cardinal's Wharf retains some of its old houses.

The house on the left has a plaque recording that Sir Christopher Wren lived here while St Paul's was being built, though there is no evidence to prove this. On the right, Provost's Lodging belongs to the Provost of Southwark Cathedral (featured later in the walk).

In between the houses is Cardinal Cap Alley which once led to a tavern, drinking house or brothel called the Cardinal's Hat. Until the 1600s Bankside was a bawdy place, full of taverns, brothels then called 'stews' from the stewhouses, which were steam baths doubling as brothels, there was bear and bull-baiting pits and, in the time of Shakespeare, public theatres. 

These were all popular forms of entertainment but the City authorities refused to tolerate them within their jurisdiction on the north bank of the river. Not surprisingly, they flourished here, even though part of this area known as “the Liberty of the Clink” was under the control of the Bishops of Winchester, whose London palace was nearby, ironic that their income was derived that way!. 

The other part of the area was called Paris Garden, In 1556 the City authorities gained control of the area but conditions did not really change. It was the 17th-century Puritans who really put an end to Bankside's debauchery and dissipation by closing down the theatres during the Commonwealth.

Further on from Cardinal's Wharf, the new International Shakespeare Globe Centre and visitor centre. This project was the fruit of 20 years' hard lobbying by the film director, Sam Wanamaker. It has a reconstructed Globe Theatre in which people will be able to watch performances of Shakespeare's plays in a partly open-air setting, just as they were staged centuries ago.

Take the second turning on the right after the building site into cobbled Bear Gardens, all hard on the feet here, this was the site of Bankside's bear-baiting arena. 

In 1613 the bear pit was replaced by the Hope Theatre after the nearby Globe Theatre had burned down the Hope Theatre's owner, Philip Henslowe, was a business rival of Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, who ran the Globe. Although it was the most modern of the four Bankside theatres in Shakespeare's time, the Hope only survived for three years as a playhouse. Bear-baiting - presumably more profitable -then resumed. In 1656 the Hope was demolished and, as the plaque on the wall of the museum records, was replaced by the Davies Amphitheatre, the last bear-baiting ring built on Bankside. Bear-baiting and bull-baiting were both finally banned in 1835.

Turn left out of Bear Gardens into Park Street. The next street on the left is Rose Alley with the site of the Rose Theatre on the corner nearest to the bridge. This theatre, built in 1587, was the first theatre on Bankside and (like the Hope Theatre)

Continue along Park Street, going underneath the approach to Southwark Bridge. To the left is the new Financial Times building. Opposite, on the wall of another building site, there is a relief plaque marking the site of Shakespeare's Globe The plaque shows a view of Elizabethan Bankside, with the Globe in the foreground and on the right, London Bridge and Southwark Cathedral. Shakespeare was both an actor and a shareholder in the Globe, which was built in 1599 by the Burbages using materials from their previous theatre in Shoreditch. The Puritans closed the theatre in 1642 and in 1644 it was demolished to make room for houses. In the 18th century there was a brewery on the site, Dr Samuel Johnson, who had his own room here a house next to the brewery. The fourth Bankside theatre was the Swan, built in 1595 near Blackfriars Bridge.

At the end of Park Street turn left into Bank End and then right at the Anchor Inn, with its beer garden overlooking the Great River Thames, then into Clink Street. The Clink debtors' prison, many years ago debtors were jailed till their debts were paid this was ended in the 1800???? And the name of the prison gave the origin of the slang word 'clink' meaning prison, tis stood here until it burned down and destroyed during the Gordon Riots in 1780. 

On the right, in an old warehouse, there is a museum about the Bankside area, including the Clink and the 'Liberty' around it which as we mentioned was controlled by the Bishop’s of Winchester.

Just along on the same side of the road are the remains of Winchester Palace, the London house of the Bishop’s of Winchester from 1109 to 1626. There is very little to see apart from the foundations, and plaque although the west wall with its 14th-century rose window is still standing. 

On the left, the former Pickford's Wharf has been renovated as part of the redevelopment of Southwark's ancient dock, St Mary Overy. The cut nearby hosts a three-masted replica of the Golden Hind and is open to the public. To the left there is another good view of the City. Follow the road round to the right, turn left into Winchester Walk and then cross over Cathedral Street to get to Southwark Cathedral. 

The building dates from 1220 and is full of historic monuments and tombs, including that of John Gower (who died in 1408), poet and friend of Chaucer. At that time the church was part of the Priory of St Mary Overy, where Gower lived for the last 20 years of his life. Other interments in the cathedral are Edmund Shakespeare, William's younger brother, and the dramatists Fletcher and Massinger. John Harvard, founder of Harvard University, was born in Southwark and baptized here in 1607.

Walk past the entrance to the churchyard on the left. Underneath the railway bridge turn right into the covered Borough Market probably London's oldest fruit and vegetable market, this is still a live market now catering for the latest incomers and tourists with trendy and organic foods, great fun! And then immediately bear left. Cross the central alley of the market and head for the Wheatsheaf pub tear yourself from it’s welcome and continue, bear left here into Stoney Street and then turn left again into the busy Borough High Street on to the traffic lights outside the Bank. Borough High Street leads to London Bridge on the left. Until 1750 London Bridge was the only one across the Thames in London, so Borough High Street was the main road to the south and the English Channel. 

Inns for travellers entering and leaving the City lined the length of this thoroughfare. 

One actually survives, one of my favourite pub’s - The George, a real galleried inn hidden from view dating from 1677. You can see the entrance to its yard across the road to the right next to another bank. Further on from the George, Talbot Yard marks the site of the Tabard where Chaucer stayed before setting out on his pilgrimage to Canterbury see the introduction to the Canterbury Tales and he write’s, 'In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage to Canterbury...'. 

Further still down the High Street were two more notorious debtors' prisons, the King's Bench and the Marshalsea. Charles Dickens set much of his novel Little Dorrit in the Marshalsea after his father had been imprisoned there in 1824. Later, imprisonment for debt was abolished and both prisons were closed.

On Borough High Street turn right from the George and then right at the traffic lights into St Thomas's Street. On the left is St Thomas's Church, once housed within St Thomas's Hospital and so the hospital chapel as well. 

In 1865 the hospital moved to Lambeth to make way for London Bridge Station. The church meanwhile has become the chapter house of Southwark Cathedral. The church loft, which was used both as a storehouse for medicinal herbs and as an operating theatre for the hospital, was rediscovered in 1956 and opened as a museum.

Just beyond the church, the row of Georgian houses were built for the use of various hospital officials and Nos. 11-19 are still occupied by the local health authority.

Opposite is the 1725 entrance court of Guy's Hospital with a statue of its founder, Thomas Guy (an MP and a wealthy printer and publisher) in the middle. It was here that Keats spent a year training to be a surgeon before giving up medicine for poetry.

Turn left into Joiner Street and go through the tunnel under London Bridge Station, opened in 1837 as London's south railway station. Now go across Tooley Street to the London Bridge Hospital and turn right past the London Dungeon a tourist attraction in the form of horror museum mainly medieval. 

Walk over the now filled-in dock to the riverside terrace note the Custom House building which is over the river opposite and the old Billingsgate Fish Market buildings next to it (Billingsgate now lives in the Isle of Dogs see the Wapping walk). Turn right here to HMS Belfast the largest cruiser built for the Royal Navy - weighing in at 11,000 tons (11,220 tonnes) - and now the only one of its old big-gun ships in existence. This massive warship was built in 1939 just before world war 2 and, on it’s disposal was opened as a museum and venue in 1971.

When you get to the ship's gangway turn right into Morgan's and walk down to Tooley Street. Then turn left and walk along Tooley Street until you come to the riverside park on the left. Go into the park and down to the riverside walkway, where there is a fine view of the Tower of London directly opposite, potographer’s click here!!. Then turn right, climb the steps onto Tower Bridge and cross the river using the left-hand pavement.

Completed in 1894, when tall ships still used the Pool of London before London Bridge, Tower Bridge was provided with a central section which could be opened to let high-masted ships through, and an overhead walkway so that pedestrians could use the bridge even when it was closed to road traffic. The walkway is now included in the bridge museum, worth the time here.

Once over the bridge, you can continue along Tower Bridge Approach into the City, 
now you can join our Wapping walk or see the Tower.