Thames Tributary Neckinger - Bermondsey



Thames Tributary Neckinger
The Neckinger is said to have flowed generally north east to emerge at St.Saviour’s Dock.
The Lock Stream is also said to have passed through the area on the way to Duffield Sluice

Abbey Street
Abbey Street named after the Bermondsey which is connected to the river. A stream ran alongside it which is probably the Neckinger following its course, or alternatively the Lock Stream going to Duffield sluice? The monks’ lavatories were built over the stream. It was laid out in 1820, when the western end was built on the site of the nave. The oldest part of the road was at the east end and called Neckinger Road, with the middle section as George Street.
Bermondsey Abbey. This was the Cluniac Priory of St Saviour founded in 1086. During the Crusades, it was used by the Norman Templar knights, as a headquarters. Later founded by Alwyn Childe it became the Benedictine Abbey of the Holy Saviour. The church was at the west end of a gravel island called Bermondsey Eyot with causeways across channels and wetlands and local roads partly follow the layout of the abbey. Abbey Street runs down the nave and chancel. There are surviving carved pieces in the church and in the Cuming Museum. Catherine of Valois, widow of Henry V, died here in 1437 and Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV, in 1492. After dissolution in 1537 a house was built by Sir Thomas Pope on the site of the range, with a garden on the site of the church.  Thus was demolished at the end of the 17th.  Archaeology has uncovered the south wall of the church which was used by Thomas Pope as his north wall cutting two bay windows were cut into it.  A Saxon cross in the North door was called the Rood of Grace.
84 Royal George. Demolished
160 Fleece. Closed
162-164 Neckinger Mills. The mill had belonged to Bermondsey Abbey and became a water-pumping engine in 1780 for paper maker Matthias Koops who also used a steam engine to regenerate old paper following a row with leather manufacturers over the water rights. His patent for reeving ink from paper pulp was pioneered here. The mill was sold in 1805.  Re-built in 1844 it stood in Neckinger Road. In 1866, the Bevington brothers bought 5 acres of land, divided by the railway and they thus rented the arches. It is a four storey yellow brick building, used as offices and showrooms for Bevington & Sons whose adjacent tannery was itself on the site of mills.   Bevingtons retained the mill.
Bromleigh House.  Memorial drinking fountain to Violet Alice Tritton. She worked at Time and Talents and this was erected in 1959 at a time when the estate was being built. It is a line of children’s heads undertaken by Students from the Sculpture Department of Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts.
177 Beormond Community CentreStar Music Hall
Railway Bridge.
On the line to London Bridge Station which was opened in 1836 and was the first railway line in London, Dudley fluted columns – more than in the others and they may have been moved from elsewhere.

Bermondsey
Means Beormund's Island – points to the marshy nature of the area. It is Bermundesye’ 1086 in the Domesday Book. In the Dark Ages Bermondsey was a minster – a church founded by a king as an important administrative centre with priests who were responsible for a whole area. The Manor also had property in the City.

Bermondsey Square
This covers the area of the main quadrangle of the abbey - the inner court, west of the cloister.  The medieval gatehouse was at the entrance to the square and survived until 1820. Some plain early 19th terraces remain,
1-5 New Caledonian antiques market.  By the beginning of the 20th century there was an increasing interest in antiques. Originally the square was 'market ouvert'. This market moved here from north London after the Second World War but it is mainly a market for dealers.  

Bermondsey Street
Bermondsey Street is the old high street connecting the riverside and the parish church. Retains much of its original character as a high street and many of its original houses
4 bayed warehouse
40-42 security warehouse for Cuban cigars 1980s
46-50 chocolate factory until 1990 part of larger site Coral chocolate
47 The Stage with glazed brickwork
55 The Tannery
59 old Bermondsey Police Station
63 old pub with decorations on upper floors, Davy’s Wine Bars own it and built bridge to 59
65-71 Bramah House, recent renovation
74-76 an irregular 18th group. Medieval style archway. Listed Grade II, terraced houses built in red brick with stuccoed fronts.
78 used by John Cole Baker.  Vinegar distillery in 1910.  The Archway was used as a coaching inn.  Oriel window and weather boarded attic workroom.  Late 17th, with an oriel window, and a double over- hang.  Listed Grade II, Stucco with weather boarded top floor.
83 Fashion and Textile Museum. Centre for contemporary fashion, textiles and jewellery in London. Founded by British designer Zandra Rhodes.  Building designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta and operated by Newham College,
98 Woolpack Inn, old, referencing the wool trade in the area
99 The Garrison was previously the Yorkshire Grey, 1908. Pub with original feature of sand-blasted windows.
102 Lantern House. Metropolitan Society for the Blind.
103 Studio in a warehouse. A single bay with a three- centred arch below a gable
109 was Bermondsey Wireworks
114 false mansards from the 1980s
124-130 terrace dated 1828 originally houses, they have a three-storey cornice line and shop fronts linked by a common fascia line.
139-149 matching warehouses - originally four, but one burnt down during Fire Brigade strike.  Rankin Bros & Sons cork merchants with distinctive central loading bays rising above three storeys to serve an attic storey behind the parapet,
156-170 General Iron Foundry Ltd. early 20th concrete buildings
170 Christy of Bermondse.y. Hat factory largest in the world
173 early concrete structure arch over former Royal Oak.  Early 19th, four storeys with fine Tuscan cornice and giant pilasters. Former cloth factory
Royal Oak Yard. Through the arch are some remaining buildings from tanners Francis Bacon & Sons
175 Robert Boys
Shipping/Waterloo Trading Co.
177 two storey corner building formerly a pub
180-182 Gemini House with Gothic wrought-iron grilles. 
187-189 Time and Talents Settlement. Arts and Crafts style building built in 1908 as a hostel for young working girls and women.
191 Manse.  Rectory on one side of the church and set back.  Early 19th grey-brick house.
193 St.Mary Magdalene. There was a minster here in 708.  The medieval parish church was near the priory but nothing remains -there is a capital perhaps from the cloister with a sunken trefoil on each face and beasts at the corners. This church had been built in 13th for the abbey servants.  It became the Precinct Church c.1300.  Rectors were appointed from 1291, and it was a parochial from 1296. One plate remains from the Abbey. In 1611 the vicar chopped down the maypole. Part of the tower and the aisle may be 15th but Charles Stanton rebuilt the rest in 1675-9 when the earlier church became unsafe. The exterior was stuccoed in 1830, and George Porter remodelled the front in a Gothic Revival style. Inside it is still late 17th. There is a marble font with cherubs' heads; 17th- 18th woodwork; an organ case from 1750; a reredos of carved festoons with the Lord's Prayer; wall paintings of Moses and Aaron; and brass candelabra 1699. Monuments to: William Castell 1687, William Stevens 1713; Beriah Drew.  The Churchwardens' pew has all round seating and four side reading desks so that it could be used as an office. In the 19th with a population of 235,000 the church had six curates, 10 readers and 18 lookers. It is where the costermongers’ harvest festival, with the Pearly Kings is held.
Churchyard turned into public park 1863. It contains a drinking fountain to James Buckingham Bevington 1902.Listed grade II. 
Watch House early 19th stuccoed. There is said to be a tunnel through which to take bodies to Guy's?  It is where the parish constables reported for duty and here a watch was kept on the graveyard to prevent resurrection men stealing corpses.
210 evidence of 17th century structure internally, and a double M-profile roof
244 Hand and Marigold
254 Trocette Mansions built on the site of the Trocette cinema, which opened in 1929 as the Super. Nicknamed 'The Ice-box'. The Hyams brothers bought it in 1933 and renamed it the Trocette. It had a 2,282 seat auditorium with a modest foyer and façade. The Hyams sold it to Gaumont British in 1944. The yobs used to take exit doors off their hinges and sling bricks through the office windows. It was a tough place.' The manager remembered 'throwing out' Tommy Steele, whom he described as 'a little terror'. The cinema closed in 1956
256 Bermondsey Methodist Mission and Central Hall. The Mission stands in direct line of succession from Wesley's third London preaching house, known as Snowfields Chapel. Bookshop
Tunnel under the railway lines. The northern end for the London and Greenwich Railway Bridge with ironwork from Dudley Foundry, which was not completed until after the line was opened, holding up the opening of London Bridge Station.

Carmarthen Place
2 One of two wooden eco houses and artists' studios. Prefabricated in Slovenia, the complete panels were craned into the site.
India Rubber Works 1890s
Tannery 1890s

Crimscott Street
Scientific botanic gardens set up William Curtis in the 1760s. Claimed to be the earliest
25 Fellmongers Arms. Gone
41 St.Mungo’s Hostel
Branston Pickle
.  Production had started in Branston but in 1924, it was moved to Crimscott Street, Bermondsey
Crosse and Blackwell pickle factory. The business was founded in 1706 as the West and Wyatt grocery. In 1819, two young apprentices became friends -- Edmund Crosse and Thomas Blackwell and in 1829, they bought out West and Wyatt. Sometime before 1850, the company bought the canning firm of Donkin, Hall and Gamble in order to make their own tins. By 1939, they had dedicated quality control departments at their Bermondsey canning plant in London.

Crucifix Lane
Rood of Grace.  It was put in Crucifix Lane and destroyed. After dissolution in 1537 it stood on Horselydown Common until destroyed by Elizabethan Protestant mob The Saxon cross was put into a pyramid in the churchyard for a while in 1806 and then it disappeared.
2 Suchard Free House was previously the Horns Pub

Curlew Street
Earlier this was Thomas Street
Plaque, 1896 re Butlers Wharf
India House
George’s Stairs

Dockhead, London Street
Paper mill, Symington engine 1790s
41-43 The Italian Building
Most Holy Trinity. Roman Catholic Church. 1951-61. Design of pre-Second World War type by H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, with patterned brickwork outside and banded stonework within.  It replaced a Gothic church of 1834- by Kempthorne destroyed in 1940.  It is Arts and Crafts in form, and with twin-towers. The plan is on the basis of an equilateral triangle, symbolizing the Trinity, and the hexagon. It is in concrete construction, reinforced with Delta metal. 12th Capital from Bermondsey Abbey found during building work in Abbey Street on display.
Convent of Mercy. Bombed and rebuilt.  On the site of a tan yard. The previous church was built in 1839 by Pugin and adjoined the former church also destroyed in the war
Presbytery to Goodhart- Rendel's designs: completed post-1959 by H.L. Cunis.
55 Swan and Sugarloaf. Closed and in other use.
Scotts Wharf corner of Mill Street with Early 19th wooden wall crane, in the yard

Druid Street,
Railway arches from 1839 fitted by as shops and storehouses, only 52 out of 850 available some used as houses of entertainment
8 St.Olave and Bermondsey United Charities
21 Marquis of Wellington. Pub by railway viaduct. Unusual tiled bar in Saloon. 
Training for Life Bermondsey Downside settlement.
Railway arches under the approaches to London Bridge station – originating with those built by the London and Greenwich Railway in 1836 and subsequently added to.  In the Second World War they were bricked-up to serve as air raid shelters. On 25 October 1940 following a direct hit 105 men, women and children were killed and many more injured.

Fair Street
Named after the Horseley Down Fair.
Tower Bridge Primary School. Fancy metal work along the walls.
St.John’s Horselydown.  The church was gutted in the Second World War.  It was a landmark with a square tower from on the top of which rose a tall stone spire and a weather vane shaped like a comet. The church was probably a cut-price job by Hawksmoor and John James built on part of Martial Ground from the Artillery Hall – which was by then used as a workhouse. It was completed in 1752 and was one of the last works of the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches. The 150th anniversary of the church was celebrated in 1883 with a public luncheon in the large hall of St Olave's Grammar School. The church was burned in an air raid of 1940 and the 225ft spire taken down in 1948. The lower parts of the walls are incorporated in an office block.
Naismith House, London City Mission.  New building by John D. Ainsworth & Associates, 1972-6 using the foundations and basement of the old church. 
St Olave and St.John’s Parish War Memorial. Bronze Christ on a cross.  The pedestal has the names of those who died in the First World War.
Vicarage early 18th of brown brick with red dressings, and has a projecting centrepiece with a small pediment.  Parsonage was designed by Hawksmoor in 1733
Watch House one-storeyed stuccoed
Fountain with a stem of twisted dolphins probably dating from when the churchyard became a public garden in 1882.
Tall 19th tenements, now modernized and a little less bleak than previously

Gainsford Street
7 Raw Gallery
8 The Cooperage handsome.  Neo- Georgian interwar building Crown Prosecution Service
9 Bricklayers Arms. Gone.
11 LSE Student Residence Conran Roche, completed 1989. A long facade in pale yellow brick punctuated by grey balconies. 
18 Tamarind Court
20 Coriander Building.  Early 20th warehouse, divided by a core and courtyard garden
60 Nutmeg House

Grange Road
Area of the Abbey Grange farm and crossed by the Neckinger. Later an area of Tan yards.
12 Bacons Free School. J. Bacon donation from 1718. School rebuilt in 1891 but had previously been one of a pair of later 18th houses. Later became Southwark College. To become London School of Osteopathy. Originally had a statue of a boy over the door. 
61 Alaska factory. Premises of C.W.Martin fur merchants which also made sealskin jackets, including for Second World War airmen. Waste went to Young’s glue factory. The entrance gate of 1869 shows a seal. The factory behind was rebuilt to art deco designs by Wallis Gilbert in the 1930s. The business was founded in 1823 by John Moritz Oppenheim and moved here in the 1860s. Now flats.
93 Boutcher School, 1871-2 by Joseph Gale of Bermondsey, picturesque group with an L-shaped school building of two storeys with gabled upper windows with tracery and a tower over the porch, schoolmaster's house with a tower and a . Nature garden
162 Horns Tavern. became the Final Furlong. Demolished
185 Earl of Derby. Closed
210 Sampson’s Castle. Pub gone.
Bermondsey Central Baths
1927-1973 corner of Bacon Grove. Included Turkish Baths.
Park on the site of Bermondsey Spa. Thomas Keyse discovered a spring in the grounds of his tea gardens in the 1770's. He opened a spa and a picture gallery. In the evenings there were concerts and firework displays.

Grange Walk
Priory gatehouse site. The road ran from the abbeys eastern gatehouse to the abbey grange or farm. By the 18th this was an area of tanneries. The end section was Horney Lane into the 1920s - .
5, 6 -7 a group with gables although much remodelled, is recognisable as one side of a late medieval gatehouse.  The only remnant of the abbey is this stonework of the East Gate which was demolished in 1760 within 7 where some hinges can be seen protruding from its facade.
15 Charity School for Girls. dated 1830, brick, with round-headed windows in the upper floor. Listed and considered at risk. St.Mary’s Youth Club. Corner of Griggs Place.
55 Duke of Sussex. Closed.
Evelyn Coyle Day Centre
49 Mabel Goldwin House. Mabel was a Mayor of Southwark in the 1970s. Houses PCT, Children's Services and Social Services.
Larnaca Works. Demolished.

Green Walk
The Neckinger crosses this road
Hartley's jam factory converted into flats and offices. W.P. Hartley made preserves at Aintree, Liverpool and opened a factory here in 1901. Electricity was used for power and light and strong walls and fireproof doors were installed to divide the building into seven or eight departments. Facilities were provided for loading and unloading between fifteen and twenty vans at a time. Jam and marmalade was produced from fresh fruit and sold in glazed stoneware jars. Excavations here found a brick-line well and a clay-lined tanning pit containing two timber tanks

Holyrood Street
The name refers to the Rood of Grace
London and Greenwich Railway arches –with an open in the bottom centre of each arch to allow for interchange of units and occupants. White tile extensions

Horsleydown
The name derives from "Horse-lie-down" or "Horseye-downe" and is shown on Tudor maps.   Earlier it was cited as ‘Horsridune’ c.1175, ‘meaning 'hill at the dry ground in marsh where horses are kept', from Old English. The road named this was the part of Tooley Street extending west from Fair Street
28 Anchor Tap. The old tap to Horsleydown brewery, with resident ghost
Creed Lead works. Sir James Creed took out a patent in 1749 for the manufacture of white lead and the casting of sheet lead. He had a white lead works on Horsleydown and died in 1762. The business was carried on by Thomas Farr who married Creed's granddaughter, Elizabeth Birch. In 1780 the firm was trading as Creed, Farr, Birch & Co. and mills for rolling lead sheet.

Jamaica Road,
Name comes from Jamaica Tavern which is supposed to have been a palace of Oliver Cromwell. It was demolished in 1843
Phoenix Wharf. To the rear of Dockhead Stores. The three storey building with a square chimney was a spice grinding works.
Row of large houses and a few shops lining Paradise Row (now Jamaica Road), and which were demolished in 1975 when Jamaica Road was widened

Kirby Grove
Snowsfields Primary School
School nature garden

Guinness Trust Buildings 1897. Founded in 1890, Guinness Trust is a housing association providing affordable homes for over 100 years. It was formed with an endowment of £200,000 by Sir Edward Cecil Guinness, great grandson of the founder of the Guinness brewery.

Lafone Street
Called after Henry Lafone, Wharfinger who ended the 1889 Dock Strike by negotiating separately.
32 The Dean Swift
Horselydown Mansions though much altered 1997 is one of the few groups of tenements of c. 1900 that survive amongst the warehouses, outliers of the extensive groups along Tooley Street

Leathermarket Street
Was previously called Market Street. There are still plenty of older industrial buildings.  Warehouses. A tanner (Oastler, Palmer & Co Ltd) a wool factor, a hop factor (Wild, Neame & Co) as well as a Gas and Sulphate producer.
The Leather Exchange. Pub. This was for a while called the Juggler’s Arms. The bar area has been used as a pub since the building was constructed. Built as the Leather, Hide and Wool Exchange in 1878 by George Ellington & Sons. Its porch is supported by twin Atlases and A series of five roundels depicting the leather trades. It apparently only functioned until 1912. As the Jugglers Arms, and a first floor room is used for juggling tuition by the company More Balls Than Most.
1-5 2-4 are mid 19th, with brick facades and circular corner towers topped by chimneypots
22 warehouse conversion. Wall piece from Dickens by Joseph Kosuth. A former leather factors with an impressive entrance arch.

Leathermarket Court
Leathermarket Gardens.  Small wasteland area with a nature reserve. Laid out in the 1930s, it is overlooked by flats. There is a rectangular sunken area with a formal layout of beds and a raised circular rose garden and also a quiet garden planted with varied trees and grasses

Long Lane
Connecting the parish churches of Bermondsey and St George' Southwark with 19th industrial buildings, The abbey church was to the north and east of the square, with Long Lane and Abbey Street running down the nave and chancel. 
Long Lane Playground.T his is a small park with a children’s playground and planted with shrubs around the edge. Gravestones arranged along the wall on the east side. It is the site of two burial grounds laid out as a park in 1885.. Buildings between the two and fronting on to Long Lane were demolished in the 20th and the the land added to the park. There is said to havve been a wall plaque sayin “The Property of the Six Weeks Meeting of the Society of Friends. This tablet has been placed here by order of the Said Meeting. The burial ground purchased in 1697 was extensively used for Friends’ burials until closed by order of the Privy Council.”
Friends Burial Ground. This was bought by the Friends in 1697 probably for attendees at the Horsleydown Meeting House.  In 1800 this Meeting House was sold and the congregation combined with those in Redcross Street. The Burial Ground closed in 1855. The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association arranged for Bermondsey Vestry to lease it and it was laid out as public space.
Ebenezer Burial Ground. This dated from the late 18th and was owned by the Independent Chapel in Beck Street and later by the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel.
205 St Christopher's House. Hostel for Guy's Hospital had been Profoto. Stables by Butterworth for bonded carmen
217 Samuel Taylor & Sons Limited, Carmen. Belfry-cum-ventilation at the Gothic end. 1868 First entry for S Taylor.1955 former multi-storey stables over can sheds is of 1886 by J. Butterworth.  Internal ramps beneath the belfry-cum-ventilator at the gable end.
228 Ship.  Closed.
231 Simon the Tanner

237 Oyez Stationary. Stationers Law Society in 1950s factory. Warehouse built for Hepburn and Gale, tanners who merged with Barrow and Sons, 'everything in leather', also used by Britz Bros., fur dealers
239 a large warehouse used by fur dressers, has a lively facade of c. 1875, with cast-iron bars dividing the windows.

Long Walk
19 White Bear. demolished

Maguire Street
Early warehouse, corner of Shad Thames 19th granary, timber frames. Eastern end of Suffolk brick, 1950.
Bramah Tea and Coffee Museum.  Now moved.
9 Clove Building, 1988-9 retained the concrete structure, exposing the columns inside, but created a light well and a new, part- open top floor. 
Shad Thames pumping station.  Storm water pumping station built 1906 for London County Council. Originally it had gas engines, from Campbell Co. of Halifax, electric pumps were brought in after 1984. It is in glazed red brick and terracotta. It was built as part of the L.C.C South London Flood Relief Scheme for Southwark and Bermondsey.  It lifts rain run-off of six metres to discharge it into the Thames

Mill Stream Road,
Neckinger crosses the road; this may be the site of a mill used for gun powder and then paper.
Mill Street
2 Lloyd's Wharf, late c19 facade.  At one time a factory for manufacturing biscuit tins. The units were originally sold as 'shells' for buyers to convert as they wish.
13 Unity Wharf, c. 1850, each face with a gable and a forged-iron wall-crane above the loading bay. Part of the Vogan’s Mills redevelopment
17 Vogan Mills. date from 16th. In 1554, Bermondsey Abbey had a mill at the Neckinger’ mouth. During the 19th James Vogan added a wood hoop factory, a brewery and a slating factory. Vogan Mills ground grain and exotic spices from the East and West Indies. As well as a concrete silo of 1955, there was a pea-splitting mill c. 1850, a pearl barley mill c. 1920, and a lentil mill c.1862.  In the late 1970s the wharf could handle 500 tons of raw materials but restrictions on Heavy Goods Vehicles caused problems and in 1987 they moved to Cambridgeshire and the mill was converted to housing. The grain silo was reconstructed as a seventeen-storey tower by Squires & Partners. The warehouses have a pillared entrance lobby and are listed grade 2.  Some flats have the original oak beams and the entrance cart way, iron columns and some outer walls remain.
25 St.Saviour's flourmill. six-storey mills built 1860 in the general warehouse style. Wall-mounted lattice-jibbed cranes along the dock. Cast-iron columns on the ground floor. 
29 China Wharf. A residential building of 1986 on the east side of New Concordia Wharf Its has a white concrete rear facade with deep flutes. The riverfront is mostly glass but dominated by the centrepiece of red-painted concrete scallops. The lowest balcony has become a surreal boat disappearing under the building. It is now all offices.
33 Reed's Wharf. mid 19th warehouse converted in 1996.  Timber floors and circular cast-iron columns.   Wooden windows
Concordia Wharf.  New Concordia Wharf was built by. Seth Taylor in 1885.  He was a grain merchant and named it after a town called Concordia, near Kansas City, USA, from where much of the grain was imported. In 1934 Taylor sold the buildings to Butlers Wharf Company who undertook not to use the buildings for flour or provender milling. In 1937 the buildings became Tea Warehouses and later were used for tea, stored rubber, paper, film, etc.  Grade 2 listed. Andrew Wadsworth pioneered the conversion these to housing
Peek Frean's. biscuit makers, 1858 -1892. This was their original factory and eventually it burnt down.
Folly ditch – one of two tidal ditches which adjoined the creek to the east.

Mill Stairs
The Harpy. The Chairman of Jacob's Islands Company, responsible for the renovation of New Concordia Wharf, had his office on The Harpy which is an Edwardian HM former Customs & Excise pontoon vessel.  Now usually moored elsewhere.

Morocco Street
Was originally called Lower Russell Street
24 James White tan yard. taken over by Fellmongers Strong Rawle and Strong in 1893.  Tan pits were flushed by the various tidal ditches in the area. Basically the firm was processing skins brought in from slaughter houses. Still operational in the 1980s.
Margetson and Sons, tanners
Benjamin White, leather dressers
1 -3 stables with horses heads and glazed bricks
2a R.W.Autos with horses heads was a smithy/farrier

Neckinger
Road built along the line of the Neckinger
Bermondsey dust destructor, 1902. With electricity works, power to public baths, lot of tanners’ refuses. Switched to LESCO in 1917 and power generation ended in 1929.

Queen Elizabeth Street
Flag Store, premises of 1899 built for Black & Edgington, flag and tent manufacturers, converted into offices and flats by Dransfield Design, 1991-3. A central passage with salvaged iron gate leads to the Canvas House. Originally two warehouses, one of the 1840s, the other 1890, where tents were stored.
20 Albion House, now offices
2-16 warehouses attached to a later block that extends to Tooley Street. Now flats by Michael Ginn Associates, 1994-7.
31 Jubilee Yard. The Pyramid. Artists studio in a cobbled courtyard
The Circle.  Residential development of 302 flats with shops offices. Bright blue. Four big quadrant blocks, with curves faced in ultramarine glazed bricks and linked to make a circular piazza. The other facades are in the area's prevailing yellow brick.  With undulating parapets and bigger balconies. It was part of the redevelopment of the Courage brewery premises.
Jacob, a bronze dray horse by Shirley Place, 1987. It was cast at the Burghleighfield Foundry in High Wycombe. The Courage Brewery Stables were here 1800 – 1985 and the area has been associated with horses since the 16th hence Horselydown Lane. 

Shad Thames
2 Jamaica Wharf. 1883 at the dock- head. Timber and slate hood over the loading doors. Erected by Talbot & Lugg. A courtyard complex of offices, shops and apartments on a small site,
4 Dockhead Wharf. Warehouses with, small iron windows.
6 St.George’s Wharf. The last, late 19th flourmills.  Built 1870 with small, once even smaller, cast-iron windows.
8 St.Saviour's Wharf
12 St.Andrew's Wharf.  For Brown and Co., flour millers.  Perhaps c. 1840.  Retains some of its granary character.  Had an early 19th cast-iron footbridge linking the landside mills. Built in the 1830s, as rice and oil mills but when it closed in 1995, was the last working mill here, it was a spice mill worked by Butler’s Grinders & Operators Ltd. Because of the fire risk it had a large cast iron water tank above the door to feed a sprinkler system.
15 Anise Warehouse. Listed Grade II. 1813 warehouse. Brick in Flemish bond.
16 Java Wharf.  Crown Wharf became part of it and was probably a recasing of 1840. Loading doors, and 20th steel footbridge over the street
18 Saffron Wharf. designed by Conran Roche as offices. Simple framework clad in white stove-enamelled steel panels.
22 David Mellor Building.  workshops for the industrial designer by Michael Hopkins & Partners 1990-1. A simple box, glazed back and front in exposed concrete. It replaced a 19th granary, part of which remains at 15.
24 Cinnamon Wharf. Converted into a hotel.   It was originally flats, completed 1987 by Conran Roche. A particularly successful group
27 Wheat Wharf was Coles Upper Wharf. This was the largest granary in Bermondsey in the mid 19th. The frontage is 1903-4 and designed to redress the severe tilt of the whole building, which is entirely timber-framed. The rear wall has small windows and the remains of two lucams.
28 Design Museum. Art Deco, white in a 1950s warehouse. Opened in July 1989. It exhibits the growth of design and explains how design and technology influenced commerce and culture over the years. There is a double-height first-floor gallery and a top floor Café. The gallery has display cases by Stanton Williams. RIBA London Region Award
Newton after James Watt. Sculpture by Eduardo Paolozzi of a giant head. Erected 1990. Commissioned by Conran.
55 Colonial Wharf
Burma Warehouse. Probably the original 1830s rice mill of five storeys, cast-iron windowsills, and wall tie plates.  Timber floors on stout circular cast-iron columns, supplemented with more timber when it became a rice warehouse in the later 19th. Behind it is the old beam-engine house, two storeys; narrow, with an octagonal chimney: in 1857 this had the largest steam engine in the Bermondsey mills. Various other 19th mill buildings behind had the remains of late 19th edge-runner spice milling equipment.  On the landside was a water tower c. 1900, for fire protection, and a mid-19th cast-iron footbridge across the street
Lime Wharf, sack hoist.  1883, is untypical, in red brick with a gabled sack hoist.
Shuter's Wharf distinctive flat top to their broad gabled roof.
Spillers Mill. made dog biscuits until 1983.  .
Exotic Cargo. Sculpture on the quay in front of the warehouse. A rough lump of pink granite split open like a fruit to reveal all. 1995 by H Randall-Page for Conran Restaurants and the LDDC.

Spa Road
Bermondsey Spa. This was the corner of what are now Rouel and Spa Roads. It was created by artist Thomas Keyse 1722-18. After buying the Waterman's Arms in 1765, he converted some open fields at the rear into pleasure gardens. He also had an art gallery for own paintings. This was on the strength of a spring, discovered in the grounds, which enabled him to use the title of 'spa'. The water was of a somewhat muddy appearance, and some health seekers were persuaded into drinking it.
Plan for Wellington Docks in this area which did not happen.
South London Mission, Bermondsey Central Hall. Methodist. Rebuilt 1968, but keeping the 1900 front by Charles Bell.
Town Hall, Bermondsey Vestry Hall and Municipal Offices.  Partly demolished. The municipal buildings here began with public baths in 1854. In 1879-82 a grand vestry hall was designed by George Elkington surveyor to the local board. It was faced in Portland stone with a public hall occupying most of the first floor for 1,400 people. In 1890-1 a public library by Johnson was added and in 1928-30 new municipal offices were built on the site of the baths. In 1963 the vestry hall was demolished following bombing.
Public Library. The building was opened in 1892 by Sir John Lubbock, MP who was a banker, scientist and author. There was a spacious hall and staircase; a newspaper reading room; and a lending library. There was a librarian’s room and residence. The reference library had a domed roof.
Pearce Duff works. Making custard and blancmange powder
Baths on corner of Neckinger Road. Replaced by baths in Grange Road

St.Olave's estate
St.Olave's estate. Housing put up as part of Bermondsey's inter war slum clearance programme. Extended by a paved square, flats with private gardens and a boys' club, by Peter Moro & Partners, in 1969.

St.Saviour's Dock,
This is the main mouth of the Neckinger and is a tidal inlet - although originally the stream had a number of divisions which flowed to the Thames.  The inlet itself was probably created in the 13th century by the monks from the abbey who enlarged and embanked it. The creek is said to have been navigable at high tide.  A tide-mill was owned by the Abbey which later became a gunpowder mill and later a paper mill. This may have been built to the east of the creek in the1530s and the Neckinger diverted to it leaving the dock as a blind ended creek. Mills and warehouses grew up along its banks and have in the late 20th mainly been converted to housing. 
Footbridge. in stainless steel supported by a central stay. Built 1995 by Whitby & Bird, with Nicholas Lacey & Partners for the LDDC.  
St.George's Stairs. Once had a ferry

Tanner Street
Originally called Russell Street
3-7 James Lord, wool. Simmons & Co., Patent Perambulators
43 Weston Williamson Architect’s Office.  On the site of Sarson’s Yard.  Sustainable features
Sarson’s Malt Vinegar works. Sarson's, traced its history back to 1794. There was a vinegar yard on this site from 1814. They had oak vats standing in the open, adjacent to a complex of small late 19th buildings. There was a square brew house.  British Vinegars Ltd, the largest vinegar brewer in Britain, was formed in 1932 as a merger of several companies, including Sarson's. They were taken over by the Swiss Nestle group in 1979 but continued to manufacture a range of malt, distilled and specialty vinegars under the Sarson's trade name until 1992 when the site closed. The premises are now flats. Archaeological investigation found medieval tannery remains here.
52 Raven in the Tower. originally Raven & Sun. closed and now flats.
Grange Mill Tannery. Barrow Hepburn & Gale tanners made heavy duty belting in the Second World War.  Moved to Bermondsey from Beverley in 1750.
71 Tower Bridge Antiques
47-49 Walter Coles Ltd.
Tanner Street Park. Built on the site of the Tanner Street workhouse. Dr. Alfred Salter planted a tree to mark its opening in 1929.  . The top of the tower of St Olave's church is in the playground used as a fountain which was moved from the demolished church in Tooley Street and the park was built with proceeds of the sale of the church.   Tennis courts community art project involving a 'tagging' exploration, with names blasted on the concrete pavements, with artist Annabelle Dawson
Workhouse - St Olave Southwark Poor Law Union merged into Bermondsey in 1836, Built Bermondsey Workhouse in 1791. After 1836 The Guardians continued using the existing parish workhouse and additions were made in 1844. The buildings formed a square with porter's lodge, dining-hall, kitchens, and guardians' board-room. Male inmates were kept on the west side of the building. In 1865, The Lancet made a number of criticisms – there was often flooding; the infirm wards were likely to foster epidemics, sanitary arrangements were "scandalously bad", accommodation for tramps was insufficient
Swan court
Bermondsey wire works

146 Dockhead Stores pub. Became an Irish pub now offices. Built by Talbot & Lugg 1884, local builders and builders' merchants, established here in 1876. They occupied these premises until the 1970s

The Grange
13 Red Cow. Closed

Tooley Street
201 former London and County Bank. This was built after Tower Bridge approach and anticipated the creation of Tower Bridge Road in 1902.  1900 by William Campbell Jones.
251 King's Arms. Pub with a Victorian exterior and internally, an island bar with mahogany cornices   and   carvings.
283 Southwark Social Services, by Newman & Newman, 1898, built as St Olave's Union office.
Bust of Ernest Bevin, 1955 bronze.  Dockworkers' union official before he became Minister of Labour. By E. Whitney-Smith.
Devon Mansions. Between Tooley Street and Dockhead. Originally called ‘Hanover Buildings’, were built c. 1888 to house 525 dockers' families as a philanthropic venture by James Hartnoll based on revolutionary concepts introduced from Germany. Features in films 'Blue Ice’.
Lambeth College.  Former St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School, founded in 1571. The building is 1893-6 by E. W. Mountford, in red brick with white stone. The hall is in the centre with sculpture on the street facade. The original school moved because of the railway and it was Re-opened in Horsleydown. This was also demolished. The two schools merged in 1899 and have since moved to Orpington in 1961. The statue of Queen Elizabeth from the original building was preserved in the garden –now gone to Orpington as has the war memorial.   On the pediments ate reliefs of schoolboys, science, philosophy, Newton and the zodiac.
Police Station and Magistrates' Court. By J. D. Butler, 1904, with a large pediment and a balcony, and a doorway with a curved hood on brackets.
St Olave's Library was at the corner of Tooley Street and Potters' Fields. George Orwell wrote Hop-Picking Diary there. Opened in 1902.  Basement intended for a gym, ground floor library, billiard room and caretaker's flat.
St.Olave Burial Ground, by the school, leased for 500 years. In 1839 the grave digger died of typhus, closed
Statue of Col Sam Bevington as first Mayor of Bermondsey, 1911.  By Sydney March, showing him as first mayor of Bermondsey,
Sufferance Wharf. Development of flats with shops and offices at the end of St. Saviour's Dock. Sufferance Wharves were licensed for the landing of goods overspill from the "Legal Quays".
Tower Bridge Road
Built 1862 and widened by London County Council 1902.The Neckinger crosses it. The road was cut diagonally across the site of the abbey cloister and the 16th mansion of Sir Thomas Pope. Medieval walls, extend parallel to the church wall and run under the road. Of the mansion  corridor and staircase were  identified and a blocked fireplace. Ashlar masonry in yellow Caen stone survived, as did medieval underpinning of the wall and a soak-away for runoff from the roof.  The west tower was revealed under the tarmac with the lowest few steps of the staircase evident
22 Haddon Hall Baptist Church
40 The George

64 The Hartley, was previously called The Pagoda
87 Manze’s Eel and Pie shop. Michele Manze came from Ravello in 1878.The family settled in Bermondsey and traded as ice-merchants, and ice-cream makers. Michele then took to the pie, mash & eels trade. The first shop was at 87 Tower Bridge Road, and He went on to open others. Some of his brothers also opened shops and by 1930 there were 14 pie, mash & eel shops called Manze. By 1988 Graham, Geoff and Richard Manze had the Tower Bridge shop.
157 Cinema Antique Warehouse. Site since redeveloped.
159 Premier Inn
168 Antiques Exchange converted to housing.
176 Leathersellers' College Opened in 1909 with educational and laboratory facilities. Now in other use as Osteopathy House.
196 Pommellers Rest. Former Tower Bridge Hotel by Latham A. Withall, 1896-7, Jacobean style with dome.
208 The River Bar and Brasserie. Was previously The Copper
218 Ye Olde Bridge House . Home brew pub in 1994 brewing two house beers. Mock Tudor interior with   foreign   currency fixed to the ceiling. The brewery was later moved elsewhere and the room in the pub used for games.
Feaver tin  box factory. Sited near the end of Grange Walk.
Lazenby’s pickle factory, bought by Crosse and Blackwell
Liptons Factory. Factory built by Lipton's in 1928 for sausages. The site is now part of Trust House Forte.
London County Council subways. One grille in the west pavement and three on road islands.
Parish mark
Railway Bridge over the road.
Built at the same time as the road. 60 ft

Tyer’s Gate
Kenson Leather Warehouse
4-6 warehouse with high ground floor
V2 an airburst over Bermondsey March 1945 from which parts fell through the roof of Braybrook's Tannery in Tyers Gate. 

Webb Street
Oxford and Bermondsey Boys Club

Whites Grounds
Parish mark on wall. ‘St.MMB’ is Mary Magdalene Bermondsey ‘St.JS’ is St.John’
2 is also 1 Tanner Street was Tan Yard is still a tanners
27 Black Eagle Brewery. Noakes brewery founded 1697,
Skate park

Wild’s Rents
6 Gilly's

Comments

Anonymous said…
St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School moved to Orpington in 1967, starting with the Spring term of that year and heavy snow!

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