Yeah we’re still in Southwark and just leaving the

Cathedral

(did you know that beneath the crypt of the cathedral there has been found a statue of Neptune–as well as that hunter god I mentioned in the previous blog, oh and also a well which given its placement, etc is presumed to be a holy one)  and Bouroughs Market.

Oh and please note that I recommend that while I am trying to get directions from place to place some of my ways may be changed from maps and direction sources I’m using so I recommend you get  your own and that way you can be sure me or my direction provider didn’t miss anything.  Mine are merely a tool to let you estimate how much you will walk.

 

 

Crave some cider—you can grab a pint from the London Cider House stall in the market to keep you window shopping all day long.

 

 

Market Porter

9 Stoney Street

 TRADITIONAL VICTORIAN PUBLIC HOUSE BOASTING A CHARMING DINING ROOM WITH PANORAMIC VIEWS OF BUZZING BOROUGH MARKET.

 

 

In Southwark when those Tudors were in charge thousands of people lived here in close quarters  in back to back houses with little alleys which probably collected filth as well as provided a place for thieves who preyed on the residents.  And I have read reports that on Sunday mornings women wearing only a skirt fought each other in what is described as a beastly manner to settle the week’s grievances.

 

Squalor, pig swinging and suburbs of sin – a fascinating journey back in time to Tudor London

 

Head northwest on Stoney Street Toward Middle Rd    0.1 mile

 

In this area was the palace

of the

Bishop of Winchester

which stood on the riverfront, Surrounded by 70 acres of park and cathedral from 1109 to 1642.  It was noted among other things as being visited by that Henry VIII that comes up so often in Yank’s references of English history.

 

 

Turn right onto Clink Street in 69 feet

During the English Revolution

of

Oliver Cromwell

it became a prison for

Royalist

and the park was leased for building soon after

 

Continue onto Pickfords Wharf in about 10 feet

The Rose Window

is all that remains of the

14th century

Great Hall

from the

London Palace of the Bishops of Winchester.

The Rose Window is all that remains of the that fourteenth century Great Hall which sat on the South Bank of the Thames here in Southwark, the window had been lost until the destruction of a nearby warehouse during

World War II

 

Only 203 ft ahead is

 

1

Clink Prison Museum

1 Clink Street

 

One must shutter at the things that this place witnessed during a long session of social, political and religious change England saw.  This resulted in a constant range and change of range of the multitude that this facility held from sinner to debtors, heretics, the drunks to those who made their living selling sex and don’t forget religious adversaries.  The building–built much more recently set today on the site where the original jail was built and survived for all those years–in the heart of Soutwark.  A place associated with raucous, vivacious and unruly persons who inhabited it, surrounded by a loud, rude and wicked area, a neighbor to The City….oh and it was also an area where the people of that city went to be entertained.

 

When you’re through visiting the Click then return to Clink street and head west on Clink St toward Bank End  for 194 feet

 

But Southward wasn’t just the land of a bishop who licensed ill repute—besides a horrible jail and some pretty disreputable people etc—It was Southwark that Elizabethan London’s newest and most famous amusement was getting started—it was here that The Theater found it’s home.

 

London’s original plays were performed at the inns and the city discouraged them “because they wasted the worker’s time.”

 

The first playhouse was built in 1576

The Theater

outside the city of Finsbury Fields

By James Burbage.

It was at Burbage’s theater  that Shakespeare’s 

Romeo and Juliet 

was originally produced.

 

Banks End turns slightly left and becomes Bankside 0.2 mi

 

London’s more famous theaters were here on the south bank and include:

 

The Swan

The Bear Garden

The Globe   (opened 1593)

When  Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Beaumont and Fletcher were writing and even performing in

 plays

They did so in the part of town where prostitutes roamed the street and it wasn’t where the finer citizens of London spent  any of their time….and Southwark  was considered seedy at it’s best.  And considering that today those plays and authors that wrote them are now considered as almost unsurpassed in the heritage of the English language says a lot about  what was good and bad in those days.

 

Turn left onto New Globe Walk

 

Continue on about 75 feet—Destination on the right

Note that the original site of the Globe—for that you have to head round the corner to Park Street where, close to Southwark  Bridge, you can view the footprint of the original building. 

Also near by this foot print is the

Rose Theatre-—

another Tudor relic—are open for regular performances.

Shakespeare’s Globe

21 New Globe

Here (if there are no performances going on) you can take a tour of the rebuilt facility(1599) and you will learn it’ history including how it managed to survive plague, fire and political oppression, and how it arose again 400 years later.  Each tour, which also points out the craftsmanship of the building, is led by one of their export guides.  Of course the building is a pastiche—a beautiful one, but not the originals (well technically the building was rebuilt multiple times before the present building—but—)

Once you’ve complete the tour, you may want to do some shopping etc….then you head out again in Southwark.

 

Southwark (the name) dates back to 886, under the leadership of                                       Alfred of Wessex                                        

The English retook London.  The walls were restored and “Sudwerke” (South Wark)  became the name of the area at the end London Bridge south of London. Which was an anchor for defenses of the fortified “burroughs.”

 

Head North on New Globe , walking toward Bankside—95 ft

 

 

Southwark had a fair until 1763 when it was banned due to the pick pockets and prostitutes in attendance.

 

Turn Left toward Milliennium Bridge  0.1 miles

Dicken’s father was imprisioned for debts in the

Marshreisea 

in Southwark

 

So what Dickens wrote about was actual—DIckens had been forced at age 12 to labor at a work house and his supervisor was Bob Fagan

 

check here below to locate it if you’d like to add it to your walk about the South:

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: MARSHALSEA PRISON WALL

Turn left toward Millennium Bridge in 0.1 mile

In 1832 cholera hit the city of London–a waterborne disease that affected South London the worse—guess where they got their water supply–from the Thames and if that wasn’t bad enough it was in an area opposite a sewer that drained into the river near London Bridge!

 

Sharp Left to stay on Millennium Bridge 0.2 miles

 

 

The Millennium Bridge is also known as the London Millennium Footbridge (because it is  foot bridge across the Thames)  It is a steel suspension bridge and links Bankside

With The City.

Its position is between Southwark Bridge (downstream)

and Blackfriars Railway Bridge (upstream).  It opened in 2000 and is as far as I know the newest bridge on the Thames

Head north on the Millennium Bridge in 66 ft

Steve Wanamaker spearheaded the building of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater here in London.

Head north on the Millennium Bridge itself

 

Londoners nicknamed the bridge, The Wobbly Bridge after people on a charity walk fell an uncomfortable swaying motion.  The bridge was closed later that day.  After two days of limited access the bridge was closed for almost two year—extensive and complicated changes were made and it was reopened in 2002 without the wobble.

 

At the end of the bridge turn left and take the stairs

 

The Southern end of the bridge is also near the Bankside Gallery and the Tate Modern  In case you want to take some time there before returning north of the river.    On the North side you are near St. Paul’s Cathedral.

 

Turn RIght at St. Paul’s Walk 0.2 miles  Take the Stairs

 

Another place that you might like to visit in London area two very strange houses in Leinster Gardens:

23-24 Leinster Gardens, London’s False-Front Houses

Turn right onto A201  322 ft

 

Blackfriars Underground Station

 

You can check with the staff here and they will tell you what train you need to get to your home location—what gate you have to go to to catch it etc…..or it is a good area to take a taxi—they have uber in London just like we do—- as well as those famous black cabs—to your hotel or other desired location.

 

Rick Steves provides some of the places I’ve provided but additional ones you might like to see as well:

Southwark Sights: Offbeat Stops Along London’s South Bank