Riverside, south bank east of the Tower. Surrey Docks
Riverside south of the river and east of the Tower. Surrey Docks
Post to the east Greenland Dock
Post to the south Surrey Docks
Post to the west Bermondsey
Post to the north Surrey Canal Entrance and Ratcliffe and Shadwell
Adam Street
This is now called Brunel Road
Adams Gardens Estate
Council housing designed by H. Tansley, Bermondsey Borough Architect in 1934. This was a redevelopment of an area which had been greatly affected by the construction of the Rotherhithe ~Tunnel; in 1908. In 1899 Booth had reported on cottages here and on a small hall 'whose stone was laid by Field Marshal Sir William Gomm, lord of the manor of Rotherhithe. Adams Gardens is dated 1822.
Ainsty Street
Built around 1845, and redeveloped after the Second World War when the Ainsty Estate was built. It is now a side turning with the walls of modern flats in other roads. It was originally called York Street and was renamed in 1872
39 Battle of the Nile Tavern. This has now been demolished.
Albion Channel
Albion Channel. When Canada Dock was infilled and redesigned in the 1980s an ornamental canal, Albion Channel, was created through the site of infilled timber pond Albion Dock and it links Canada Water to Surrey Water. The spoil was used to create Stave Hill. A timber bridge acts as a gateway and the route acts as a coordinating axis. The channel starts with a section which winds picturesquely winding, but straightens to show it is artificial. The original edge of Albion Dock remains in the slighty higher edge stones on one side of the channel.
Granite bollard - used to help ship movements,
Housing - there are several schemes along the length of the channel. One is by the Form Design Group built in 1988. Another scheme has octagonal freestanding towers, with green pantiled roofs, with crescents of red brick houses.
Housing - there are several schemes along the length of the channel. One is by the Form Design Group built in 1988. Another scheme has octagonal freestanding towers, with green pantiled roofs, with crescents of red brick houses.
Albion Dock
Albion Dock. In the 1850s The Grand Surrey Docks and Canal Company bought land from Sir William Maynard Gomm. And they built the new lock, to the north this square, into the Thames along with the Surrey Basin. At the same time construction began on what was initially called Main Dock but was generally known ad Albion Dock. It was built for handling timber and flanked by yards. During the Second World War the northeast side was severely damaged during bombing including two V1s. However after the war the dock was restored and continued to operate until the late 1960s when it Received vessels via the Greenland Entrance. The site is now largely housing. The Albion Channel was excavated from an edge area,
Albion Dock. In the 1850s The Grand Surrey Docks and Canal Company bought land from Sir William Maynard Gomm. And they built the new lock, to the north this square, into the Thames along with the Surrey Basin. At the same time construction began on what was initially called Main Dock but was generally known ad Albion Dock. It was built for handling timber and flanked by yards. During the Second World War the northeast side was severely damaged during bombing including two V1s. However after the war the dock was restored and continued to operate until the late 1960s when it Received vessels via the Greenland Entrance. The site is now largely housing. The Albion Channel was excavated from an edge area,
Albion Dock Dry Dock
Albion Dock Dry Dock. This was in the south east corner of the dock and has been preserved. It was formed from the cut between the Albion Dock and Albion Pond which was too small for the larger ships which used it once Canada Dock was built. It was retained after the docks were infilled and redeveloped but appears now to be a covered shape with a small inlet off the Albion Channel
Albion Dock Dry Dock. This was in the south east corner of the dock and has been preserved. It was formed from the cut between the Albion Dock and Albion Pond which was too small for the larger ships which used it once Canada Dock was built. It was retained after the docks were infilled and redeveloped but appears now to be a covered shape with a small inlet off the Albion Channel
Albion Pond
Albion Pond. This was added to the system as a timber pond called Timber: Pond 1. By 1862 It was designed for floatation and handling of timber. It lay south of Albion Dock and west of Quebec Dock and linked in to both Albion dock and Centre Pond. It was changed when Canada Dock was built. This replaced a third of the pond. Eventually it became part of the extended Canada Dock.
Albion Street
The street ran parallel to the edge of Albion Dock which opened in 1860. It is however shown and named on the early 19th Horwood Plan
20 The Albion Pub, this is now flats. It was first recorded in 1805. Built 1928 with wood panelling in ‘brewers Tudor’. The names of the bars are on the front windows. Inside were a central servery and an island bar.
30-32 Rose and Crown Pub. Closed and it is now a cafe. Modern shop style building.
56 Little Crown. This dated from the 1860s but was closed in the 1990s. The building retains some Watney, Coombe and Reid signage
77 Nisa store. This was previously the Job Centre
87 Health Centre. Albion Street Group Practice
Albion Primary School. Thus was Albion Street School which dated from 1874. The present school dates from the 1960s and is now being rebuilt.
United Methodist Chapel. This opened in 1806 and was on the corner of Nelson Street. It was built by the Wesleyan Reformers in 1852; became a United Methodist Free Church by the amalgamation of the Wesleyan Reformers with the Wesleyan Methodist Association
Rotherhithe Civic Centre and Library. This opened in 1975 to replace a bombed library and was designed by Yorker Rosenberg & Mardall in unadorned red brick to match the same architects’ Finnish Seamen's Church opposite. Inside are two plain assembly halls. The Library is now closed but in use always had a stock of books in Scandinavian languages. Then whole building is to go into residential use.
Finnish Seamen’s Church. Built in 1958 and designed by Yorke Rosenberg & Mardall as a successor to the first Finnish Mission in London of 1887. Carries out the ecclesiastical and social functions of seamen's missions. There is a basement sauna designed by Mardall's wife, June Park. It acts as a meeting place for Finns in London,
St Olaf’s Norwegian church. This was built for seamen from Norway. It is in red brick with spire with a Viking ship on the top with a golden sail. Inside is the model of a Norwegian frigate which was damaged by a drifting barrage balloon during the Second World War. The building was designed by John L. Seaton Dahl in 1925-7.there us a snooker room, library, reading room and flats above. The church is wrapped round with ancillary rooms, by Gemler & Associates, from, 1996. There are panels of stained glass from the second Norwegian church in London, the Ebenezer church of 1871 which was also in Rotherhithe. There is a status of St Olav, patron saint of Norway. The church was built by Norwegian ship-owners as a memorial to 101 Norwegian seamen who were killed in the First World War and named St Olav's after the first Christian King of Norway in the 11th. It provides a centre for the Norwegian community in London.
Sculpture: ‘Bermondsey Boy’ by Tommy Steele. This stood outside the library but has gone – vandalised, destroyed, moved or stolen,
Silk mill. This is listed in the street in 1803
Ann Moss Way
Housing in a close on the site of St.Olave’s Hospital
1 Domus. Specialist dementia clinic
Archangel Street
New housing on the site of Canada Pond and yards, Archangel being a source of timber handled in the Surrey Docks.
Baltic Yard
Baltic Yard lay at the southern end of the Surrey Basin north of Albion Dock and dated from the early 1860s.It was used for handling timber. In 1809 a consortium of Rotherhithe landowners had set up Baltic Dock Company for land adjacent to that of the Commercial Dock Company, who immediately bought them out
Brunswick Quay
This runs along the south end of the north quay of the Greenland Dock on the site of what was Lower Brunswick Yard. It has some of the earliest housing in the area, by Form Design Group of 1985 with coloured brickwork and a double avenue of trees. There are mooring facilities in the Greenland Dock.
Brunel Road
This was previously Adam Street. Obviously named for Marc Brunel. Took its present shape as part of the building of the Rotherhithe Tunnel
Wall – the south side of the road is almost entirely taken with the wall of the Rotherhithe Tunnel. This was previously housing.
Rotherhithe Station. This lies between Wapping and Canada Water stations on the London Overground. This is one of the original East London Railway stations - the outside looks just as it would have done when it was opened on 7th December 1869 on the East London Railway. Trains run form here through the Brunels’ Thames Tunnel and some of the tunnel's original brickwork can be seen from the north end of the platforms. It has a single-storey booking hall but originally the entrance was in Albion Street and platforms were accessed from the ‘other’ end. It was remodelled in 1995-1998 and refurbished again for the re-opening of the East London Line with a new entrance. Trains ran from New Cross to Wapping with London Brighton and South Coast Railway trains. Below, across the railway cutting are massive cast-iron struts between tall arcaded retaining walls which were installed by John Hawkshaw in 1865-9. Water from the cutting is pumped out to the surface in the tunnel and the reciprocating pumps are housed in the west wall at the north end. The line to Surrey Docks opened in 1871 and on to Wapping and Bishopsgate. In 1880 trains ran from Addiscombe Road in Croydon to Liverpool Street and from 1884 the line was run by the Metropolitan & District Railway from St.Mary’s station to New Cross. In 1913 the line was electrified and became part of the Metropolitan Railway who ran a service from New Cross to South Kensington via Baker Street, until 1941. London Transport took over, in 1948 but steam-hauled goods trains from Liverpool Street continued to use the line until 1966. The station was closed 1995 - 1998 for repairs to the Thames Tunnel and from 2007 - 2010 for work on the East London Line extension. At the southern end of the station platforms is the approach ramp for the Rotherhithe Tunnel running above the railway on a low and angled road bridge which is below water level.
Plaque. This is at the bottom of the station stairs. “Thames Tunnel constructed 1825 - 1843. First shield-driven subaqueous tunnel. Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, civil engineer. Presented 25th September 1993. Institution of Civil Engineers and American Society of Civil Engineers. Erected by kind permission of London Underground Limited. American Society of Civil Engineers founded 1852.
Mural. This is in the station building showing riverside cranes.
Entrance to tunnel – metal gate and stairs going down to the tunnel footway. With an ornamental arch and lamp above.
Thames Tunnel – this tunnel now used by the railway and the earliest such tunnel built. This was built 1825-43 by the two Brunels, initially by Marc and finished by his son, Isambard. There had been a previous attempt, slightly down river, by Vazie and Trevithick to build an underwater tunnel but this had failed. However the Brunel tunnel was only achieved after 18 years of floods, disease and terrible problems. It was the first tunnel to be built underwater through soft ground and passes within a few feet of the bed of the Thames. In 1825 Marc Brunel began using a new and different technique to Vazie’s miners. This was the tunnelling shield which he had patented in 1818, the first of its kind – and a method which has been used in such tunnels ever since. The shield had twelve rectangular cast-iron frames placed side by side and supporting three working platforms. Earth was excavated ahead from each platform and then the board and frames were jacked forward and the area behind bricked into a permanent structure. There were five major floods and from 1828 to 1835 work was suspended for lack of finance. With government assistance the tunnel was opened in 1843. It has two parallel vaults in a horseshoe section joined by frequent cross-arches making up the inside of a brick box.with a concealed drainage system. The tunnel was strengthened in 1996, but they were reproduced in a new lining of reinforced concrete. At the end of the tunnel 100 ft was left in unaltered as a demonstration. Spiral ramps for road carriages were never built and it was used as a foot tunnel until 1865 when it was converted for the East London Railway.
Air Shaft. This is a large brick drum built in 1908, for the Rotherhithe Tunnel – the road tunnel which runs below and here turns north to cross the river. It contains a staircase down to the tunnel and there are four ventilation fans at low level. The grilles in the openings incorporate the London County Council monogram.
Children’s Playground alongside the station.
33-37 The Bricklayers Arms .This closed in 1987 and is now a Chinese restaurant.
Canada Water
Canada Dock. Built by James McConnochie in 1874-6, with major arch-buttressed quay walls alongside the East London Railway provided by that company's engineer, John Hawkshaw. The dock was a major new investment for the Commercial Dock Company and it was built specifically to handle the larger iron vessels and their cargo. It quickly became nearly as important as Greenland Dock. The various timber ponds re-arranged to enable the construction of the new dock. The new Dock and Canada Pond were connected to each other and to Quebec Pond, which was still connected to Centre Pond. Much of the area formerly occupied by the ponds was converted to use as yards. Canada Dock was much bigger than Greenland Dock, which had been the dominant Rotherhithe docks. It expanded the areas capacity handling grain and other food imported from Canada. The dock Received vessels via the Canada-Greenland cutting and the Greenland Entrance. The Surrey Quays shopping centre car park takes up much of the land that this occupied, with a small section of the dock left behind as a Canada Water.
Canada Water. Built for the London Docklands Development Corporation, Canada Water was developed out of the Canada Dock. The edge has been turned into an area for fishing and wildlife. It is the only body of fresh water in London Docklands and is kept topped up using a wind pump. This was put in place by the Landscape Architect Fraser Borwick, after it was established that large amounts of potable water were available, and a borehole was sunk with its bottom 20 metres in chalk
Sculpture of Deal Porters. The deal porters were a specialist group of workers who handled loads of softwood stacking them up to 60 feet) high in quayside warehouses – running up narrow planks while balancing the wood on their shoulders. This was a demanding and dangerous job. The sculpture is in- Bronze, painted mild steel abs oak. Two cast bronze figures supported on heavy oak timber trestles and beams, with mild steel curve element. Sculpture set on concrete bases on a landscaped island in water of former dock. It was cast by Meridian Foundry.
Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, by Fitzroy Robinson Partnership 1986-88. Developed by Tesco on a 9 hectare site and provides a Tesco Superstore, a British Home Stores, a food court and 34 other shops. Inside, the top-lit malls organized round a series of pyramid-roofed squares. Blue external cladding that masks a conventional brick construction. There is a central pool with an art work called Dolphins by David Backhouse for Tesco and nautical trim to the glass lift-shaft where Life-belts and rigging have been displayed. Opened to the public in October 1988.
Canada-Greenland cutting. This was to allow ships to pass between Greenland and Canada docks. It was built as an invert with sides sloping inwards. This did not suit square built steam ships and meant that the largest vessels remained in the Greenland Dock. The cutting was then widened in 1958. The remains of this cutting
Canada Pond
Canada Pond. By 1862 the Grand Surrey Canal Dock and Canal Company had built a number of four timber ponds to their system. This included Timber Pond No 4 which was later named Canada Pond. It originally lay south of Albion Pond and became the basis of Canada Dock. After construction of Canada Dock the remains, named Canada Pond, lay parallel and to the west of the Dock. This later pond was connected to both Canada Dock and Quebec Pond.
Canada Yard
Canada Yard. This lay between Canada Dock and Canada Pond at the north end of both. It was used as an area of timber handling. Sheds were destroyed here on the first night of the Blitz. Under the development Corporation and ownership of Southwark Council it was used for a leisure development with a nine screen cinema, bingo and social club, restaurants and a pub
Canon Beck Road
This was originally Clarence Street. It appears that, as originally planned, the road would have continued as Upper Clarence Street into the area later used for the Albion Dock. Canon Beck was a mid-19th vicar of St.Mary's
E. Wells & Son. They later became Atlas Express. This haulage business operated from Oak Cottage, an address in the street. Oak Cottage was said to be 300 years old .It stood in Oak Place which was at the south east end of the road in the north side and included two cottages and a dairy,
Ragged School. This stood at the river end of the road on the west side and was built in 1857. It closed in 1876 and the premises were taken over by the girls at the School of Industry.
68 Lord Nelson Pub. This is converted to other use including Horatio Jr an exhibition and project space. The pub dated from at least the 1860s and has a brown tiled facade and signage for Watney Coombe and Reid. There is a dramatic corner lamp
Clarence Street School of Industry. Built 1846 having grown out of a Sunday School opened in 1798. They catered for 100 infants and 100 other children. There was a Girls Industrial School there which had no funding other than local donations. It closed in 1926
Centre Pond
Centre Pond was in the space between Albion Dock and its yards to the northwest, Quebec Dock to the south and Russia Dock and its yards to the east. It was built in 1862 is Timber Pond No.2. by Grand Surrey Canal Dock and Canal Company. It remained after the construction of Canada Dock. It became the site of Harmsworth Quays.
China Hall Mews
New housing at the back of the China Hall Pub in Lower Road. This old established pub had a yard to the rear which is presumably the site of these houses. The site may or may not have been the site of an 19th theatre and tea gardens,
Church Passage
Church Passage is not clear on maps. It may be the name for the lane running to Church Stairs or another further down river.
William Aspdin Cement Works. This is the site where probably Portland Cement as we know it was first made commercially. Aspdin came here from Wakefield in 1841, set up in a mill complex here. Soon after he moved down river to Upper Ordnance Wharf. The site had previously been used for cement manufacture by Charles Christmas and William Hart who had been bankrupt by 1838. When the site was sold in 1839 however it is described as being 'in work' and that it consisted of a large kiln and engine house with chimney a boiler mill and three pairs of French stones, sheds, stabling, counting house and foreman's residence and a wharf.
Culling Road
52 Arthur Stanley House. Albin Funeral Directors. The name of Arthur Stanley is a construct - 'Arthur' was Frederick Albin's father and 'Stanley' was his brother. Albin & Son have been here since about 1974. The family looked after a cemetery locally in the 18th and they also made coffins, and supervised burials. They opened a Funeral Parlour in Snowsfields, next to the new St. Thomas’ Hospital. Later they moved to Jamaica Road where they had over 20 working horses with another 10 being trained. Their first vehicles were bull-nosed Daimlers and Rolls Royce Hearses and limousines and later Princesses. The Albin-Dyer Memorial Garden was opened in 1999 by the late Fred Albin, past staff and MP Simon Hughes.
52a Runge Hall. This was' was the Conservative Club, demolished in the 1960s. It was named after Norah Cecelia Runge Tory MP for Bermondsey in 1931
54 Rotherhithe Evangelical Free Church. This is said to be on the site of the Rotherhithe Hippodrome. The Free Church in Rotherhithe dates from at least the 1880s founded by a Mr. Golding and stood at 46 Lower Road. It was also known as ‘Rotherhithe Great Hall '; although it appears to have been a terrace of three houses. It was damaged in Second World War bombing and demolished.
Deal Porters Way
This road goes round the huge car park for the Canada Water Shopping Mall.
Dock Hill Avenue
This is part of the landscaping around Stave Hill which is connects to Surrey Water, where there was once access to Island Dock. which the avenue is largely on the site of.
Albion Pond. This was added to the system as a timber pond called Timber: Pond 1. By 1862 It was designed for floatation and handling of timber. It lay south of Albion Dock and west of Quebec Dock and linked in to both Albion dock and Centre Pond. It was changed when Canada Dock was built. This replaced a third of the pond. Eventually it became part of the extended Canada Dock.
Albion Street
The street ran parallel to the edge of Albion Dock which opened in 1860. It is however shown and named on the early 19th Horwood Plan
20 The Albion Pub, this is now flats. It was first recorded in 1805. Built 1928 with wood panelling in ‘brewers Tudor’. The names of the bars are on the front windows. Inside were a central servery and an island bar.
30-32 Rose and Crown Pub. Closed and it is now a cafe. Modern shop style building.
56 Little Crown. This dated from the 1860s but was closed in the 1990s. The building retains some Watney, Coombe and Reid signage
77 Nisa store. This was previously the Job Centre
87 Health Centre. Albion Street Group Practice
Albion Primary School. Thus was Albion Street School which dated from 1874. The present school dates from the 1960s and is now being rebuilt.
United Methodist Chapel. This opened in 1806 and was on the corner of Nelson Street. It was built by the Wesleyan Reformers in 1852; became a United Methodist Free Church by the amalgamation of the Wesleyan Reformers with the Wesleyan Methodist Association
Rotherhithe Civic Centre and Library. This opened in 1975 to replace a bombed library and was designed by Yorker Rosenberg & Mardall in unadorned red brick to match the same architects’ Finnish Seamen's Church opposite. Inside are two plain assembly halls. The Library is now closed but in use always had a stock of books in Scandinavian languages. Then whole building is to go into residential use.
Finnish Seamen’s Church. Built in 1958 and designed by Yorke Rosenberg & Mardall as a successor to the first Finnish Mission in London of 1887. Carries out the ecclesiastical and social functions of seamen's missions. There is a basement sauna designed by Mardall's wife, June Park. It acts as a meeting place for Finns in London,
St Olaf’s Norwegian church. This was built for seamen from Norway. It is in red brick with spire with a Viking ship on the top with a golden sail. Inside is the model of a Norwegian frigate which was damaged by a drifting barrage balloon during the Second World War. The building was designed by John L. Seaton Dahl in 1925-7.there us a snooker room, library, reading room and flats above. The church is wrapped round with ancillary rooms, by Gemler & Associates, from, 1996. There are panels of stained glass from the second Norwegian church in London, the Ebenezer church of 1871 which was also in Rotherhithe. There is a status of St Olav, patron saint of Norway. The church was built by Norwegian ship-owners as a memorial to 101 Norwegian seamen who were killed in the First World War and named St Olav's after the first Christian King of Norway in the 11th. It provides a centre for the Norwegian community in London.
Sculpture: ‘Bermondsey Boy’ by Tommy Steele. This stood outside the library but has gone – vandalised, destroyed, moved or stolen,
Silk mill. This is listed in the street in 1803
Ann Moss Way
Housing in a close on the site of St.Olave’s Hospital
1 Domus. Specialist dementia clinic
Archangel Street
New housing on the site of Canada Pond and yards, Archangel being a source of timber handled in the Surrey Docks.
Baltic Yard
Baltic Yard lay at the southern end of the Surrey Basin north of Albion Dock and dated from the early 1860s.It was used for handling timber. In 1809 a consortium of Rotherhithe landowners had set up Baltic Dock Company for land adjacent to that of the Commercial Dock Company, who immediately bought them out
Brunswick Quay
This runs along the south end of the north quay of the Greenland Dock on the site of what was Lower Brunswick Yard. It has some of the earliest housing in the area, by Form Design Group of 1985 with coloured brickwork and a double avenue of trees. There are mooring facilities in the Greenland Dock.
Brunel Road
This was previously Adam Street. Obviously named for Marc Brunel. Took its present shape as part of the building of the Rotherhithe Tunnel
Wall – the south side of the road is almost entirely taken with the wall of the Rotherhithe Tunnel. This was previously housing.
Rotherhithe Station. This lies between Wapping and Canada Water stations on the London Overground. This is one of the original East London Railway stations - the outside looks just as it would have done when it was opened on 7th December 1869 on the East London Railway. Trains run form here through the Brunels’ Thames Tunnel and some of the tunnel's original brickwork can be seen from the north end of the platforms. It has a single-storey booking hall but originally the entrance was in Albion Street and platforms were accessed from the ‘other’ end. It was remodelled in 1995-1998 and refurbished again for the re-opening of the East London Line with a new entrance. Trains ran from New Cross to Wapping with London Brighton and South Coast Railway trains. Below, across the railway cutting are massive cast-iron struts between tall arcaded retaining walls which were installed by John Hawkshaw in 1865-9. Water from the cutting is pumped out to the surface in the tunnel and the reciprocating pumps are housed in the west wall at the north end. The line to Surrey Docks opened in 1871 and on to Wapping and Bishopsgate. In 1880 trains ran from Addiscombe Road in Croydon to Liverpool Street and from 1884 the line was run by the Metropolitan & District Railway from St.Mary’s station to New Cross. In 1913 the line was electrified and became part of the Metropolitan Railway who ran a service from New Cross to South Kensington via Baker Street, until 1941. London Transport took over, in 1948 but steam-hauled goods trains from Liverpool Street continued to use the line until 1966. The station was closed 1995 - 1998 for repairs to the Thames Tunnel and from 2007 - 2010 for work on the East London Line extension. At the southern end of the station platforms is the approach ramp for the Rotherhithe Tunnel running above the railway on a low and angled road bridge which is below water level.
Plaque. This is at the bottom of the station stairs. “Thames Tunnel constructed 1825 - 1843. First shield-driven subaqueous tunnel. Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, civil engineer. Presented 25th September 1993. Institution of Civil Engineers and American Society of Civil Engineers. Erected by kind permission of London Underground Limited. American Society of Civil Engineers founded 1852.
Mural. This is in the station building showing riverside cranes.
Entrance to tunnel – metal gate and stairs going down to the tunnel footway. With an ornamental arch and lamp above.
Thames Tunnel – this tunnel now used by the railway and the earliest such tunnel built. This was built 1825-43 by the two Brunels, initially by Marc and finished by his son, Isambard. There had been a previous attempt, slightly down river, by Vazie and Trevithick to build an underwater tunnel but this had failed. However the Brunel tunnel was only achieved after 18 years of floods, disease and terrible problems. It was the first tunnel to be built underwater through soft ground and passes within a few feet of the bed of the Thames. In 1825 Marc Brunel began using a new and different technique to Vazie’s miners. This was the tunnelling shield which he had patented in 1818, the first of its kind – and a method which has been used in such tunnels ever since. The shield had twelve rectangular cast-iron frames placed side by side and supporting three working platforms. Earth was excavated ahead from each platform and then the board and frames were jacked forward and the area behind bricked into a permanent structure. There were five major floods and from 1828 to 1835 work was suspended for lack of finance. With government assistance the tunnel was opened in 1843. It has two parallel vaults in a horseshoe section joined by frequent cross-arches making up the inside of a brick box.with a concealed drainage system. The tunnel was strengthened in 1996, but they were reproduced in a new lining of reinforced concrete. At the end of the tunnel 100 ft was left in unaltered as a demonstration. Spiral ramps for road carriages were never built and it was used as a foot tunnel until 1865 when it was converted for the East London Railway.
Air Shaft. This is a large brick drum built in 1908, for the Rotherhithe Tunnel – the road tunnel which runs below and here turns north to cross the river. It contains a staircase down to the tunnel and there are four ventilation fans at low level. The grilles in the openings incorporate the London County Council monogram.
Children’s Playground alongside the station.
33-37 The Bricklayers Arms .This closed in 1987 and is now a Chinese restaurant.
Canada Water
Canada Dock. Built by James McConnochie in 1874-6, with major arch-buttressed quay walls alongside the East London Railway provided by that company's engineer, John Hawkshaw. The dock was a major new investment for the Commercial Dock Company and it was built specifically to handle the larger iron vessels and their cargo. It quickly became nearly as important as Greenland Dock. The various timber ponds re-arranged to enable the construction of the new dock. The new Dock and Canada Pond were connected to each other and to Quebec Pond, which was still connected to Centre Pond. Much of the area formerly occupied by the ponds was converted to use as yards. Canada Dock was much bigger than Greenland Dock, which had been the dominant Rotherhithe docks. It expanded the areas capacity handling grain and other food imported from Canada. The dock Received vessels via the Canada-Greenland cutting and the Greenland Entrance. The Surrey Quays shopping centre car park takes up much of the land that this occupied, with a small section of the dock left behind as a Canada Water.
Canada Water. Built for the London Docklands Development Corporation, Canada Water was developed out of the Canada Dock. The edge has been turned into an area for fishing and wildlife. It is the only body of fresh water in London Docklands and is kept topped up using a wind pump. This was put in place by the Landscape Architect Fraser Borwick, after it was established that large amounts of potable water were available, and a borehole was sunk with its bottom 20 metres in chalk
Sculpture of Deal Porters. The deal porters were a specialist group of workers who handled loads of softwood stacking them up to 60 feet) high in quayside warehouses – running up narrow planks while balancing the wood on their shoulders. This was a demanding and dangerous job. The sculpture is in- Bronze, painted mild steel abs oak. Two cast bronze figures supported on heavy oak timber trestles and beams, with mild steel curve element. Sculpture set on concrete bases on a landscaped island in water of former dock. It was cast by Meridian Foundry.
Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, by Fitzroy Robinson Partnership 1986-88. Developed by Tesco on a 9 hectare site and provides a Tesco Superstore, a British Home Stores, a food court and 34 other shops. Inside, the top-lit malls organized round a series of pyramid-roofed squares. Blue external cladding that masks a conventional brick construction. There is a central pool with an art work called Dolphins by David Backhouse for Tesco and nautical trim to the glass lift-shaft where Life-belts and rigging have been displayed. Opened to the public in October 1988.
Canada-Greenland cutting. This was to allow ships to pass between Greenland and Canada docks. It was built as an invert with sides sloping inwards. This did not suit square built steam ships and meant that the largest vessels remained in the Greenland Dock. The cutting was then widened in 1958. The remains of this cutting
Canada Pond
Canada Pond. By 1862 the Grand Surrey Canal Dock and Canal Company had built a number of four timber ponds to their system. This included Timber Pond No 4 which was later named Canada Pond. It originally lay south of Albion Pond and became the basis of Canada Dock. After construction of Canada Dock the remains, named Canada Pond, lay parallel and to the west of the Dock. This later pond was connected to both Canada Dock and Quebec Pond.
Canada Yard
Canada Yard. This lay between Canada Dock and Canada Pond at the north end of both. It was used as an area of timber handling. Sheds were destroyed here on the first night of the Blitz. Under the development Corporation and ownership of Southwark Council it was used for a leisure development with a nine screen cinema, bingo and social club, restaurants and a pub
Canon Beck Road
This was originally Clarence Street. It appears that, as originally planned, the road would have continued as Upper Clarence Street into the area later used for the Albion Dock. Canon Beck was a mid-19th vicar of St.Mary's
E. Wells & Son. They later became Atlas Express. This haulage business operated from Oak Cottage, an address in the street. Oak Cottage was said to be 300 years old .It stood in Oak Place which was at the south east end of the road in the north side and included two cottages and a dairy,
Ragged School. This stood at the river end of the road on the west side and was built in 1857. It closed in 1876 and the premises were taken over by the girls at the School of Industry.
68 Lord Nelson Pub. This is converted to other use including Horatio Jr an exhibition and project space. The pub dated from at least the 1860s and has a brown tiled facade and signage for Watney Coombe and Reid. There is a dramatic corner lamp
Clarence Street School of Industry. Built 1846 having grown out of a Sunday School opened in 1798. They catered for 100 infants and 100 other children. There was a Girls Industrial School there which had no funding other than local donations. It closed in 1926
Centre Pond
Centre Pond was in the space between Albion Dock and its yards to the northwest, Quebec Dock to the south and Russia Dock and its yards to the east. It was built in 1862 is Timber Pond No.2. by Grand Surrey Canal Dock and Canal Company. It remained after the construction of Canada Dock. It became the site of Harmsworth Quays.
China Hall Mews
New housing at the back of the China Hall Pub in Lower Road. This old established pub had a yard to the rear which is presumably the site of these houses. The site may or may not have been the site of an 19th theatre and tea gardens,
Church Passage
Church Passage is not clear on maps. It may be the name for the lane running to Church Stairs or another further down river.
William Aspdin Cement Works. This is the site where probably Portland Cement as we know it was first made commercially. Aspdin came here from Wakefield in 1841, set up in a mill complex here. Soon after he moved down river to Upper Ordnance Wharf. The site had previously been used for cement manufacture by Charles Christmas and William Hart who had been bankrupt by 1838. When the site was sold in 1839 however it is described as being 'in work' and that it consisted of a large kiln and engine house with chimney a boiler mill and three pairs of French stones, sheds, stabling, counting house and foreman's residence and a wharf.
Culling Road
52 Arthur Stanley House. Albin Funeral Directors. The name of Arthur Stanley is a construct - 'Arthur' was Frederick Albin's father and 'Stanley' was his brother. Albin & Son have been here since about 1974. The family looked after a cemetery locally in the 18th and they also made coffins, and supervised burials. They opened a Funeral Parlour in Snowsfields, next to the new St. Thomas’ Hospital. Later they moved to Jamaica Road where they had over 20 working horses with another 10 being trained. Their first vehicles were bull-nosed Daimlers and Rolls Royce Hearses and limousines and later Princesses. The Albin-Dyer Memorial Garden was opened in 1999 by the late Fred Albin, past staff and MP Simon Hughes.
52a Runge Hall. This was' was the Conservative Club, demolished in the 1960s. It was named after Norah Cecelia Runge Tory MP for Bermondsey in 1931
54 Rotherhithe Evangelical Free Church. This is said to be on the site of the Rotherhithe Hippodrome. The Free Church in Rotherhithe dates from at least the 1880s founded by a Mr. Golding and stood at 46 Lower Road. It was also known as ‘Rotherhithe Great Hall '; although it appears to have been a terrace of three houses. It was damaged in Second World War bombing and demolished.
Deal Porters Way
This road goes round the huge car park for the Canada Water Shopping Mall.
Dock Hill Avenue
This is part of the landscaping around Stave Hill which is connects to Surrey Water, where there was once access to Island Dock. which the avenue is largely on the site of.
Public art, erected by LDDC.
Metal place on site of fountain with irregular flows.
Elephant Lane
In 1983 The London Docklands Development Corporation held a competition for a new design of this area. This followed years of community action and protests against proposed gentrification
Housing estate by Corrigan, Soundy, and Kilaiditi who provided a new-build mixed use development on as a result of winning a the Competition arranged by the London Docklands Development Corporation. It consisted of 76 dwellings, a mix of houses, flats and maisonettes plus offices. It is said to resemble Victorian suburbia. Riverside addresses now in Elephant Lane were previously in Rotherhithe Street.
London Bubble the company moved its base from Kentish Town to Elephant Lane in 1987. Originally set up by Greater London Arts they provide a base for community theatre, much of it outdoor.
Gomm Road
36 A blue plaque commemorates Major Richard Culling Carr-Gomm, OBE and the Abbeyfield and Carr-Gomm societies. This was the second house he bought for the Abbeyfield Society,
St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School.
Fire station. The first fire station built by the Metropolitan Board of Works in the early 1870s was here and replaced by baths in the 1960s
Gomm Gate. Gomm Road leads up to the gates and is continued as The Drive. They are called after the Lord of the Manor of Rotherhithe, Field Marshall Sir William Maynard Gomm who sold land for the site if the park. The gates seem to be the only set which have remained as built.
Greenland Dock
The main part of this large dock is in the square to the east. This covers only the western end of the north quay.
12a berth was sited at the western end of the dock. It was rebuilt in 1955 and mainly used for general cargo from barges, which had been transshipped from vessels in the Canada and Greenland Docks.
4 shed. This was sited at the western end of this dock and received general cargoes from the continent.
Cut through to Canada Dock. This now lies as a passageway under Redriffe Road. There is an interpretation board and bollards on site.
Harmsworth Quays
Harmsworth Quays. This was built on the site of Centre Pond and Quebec Dock in 1989. The site covers 12 acres and was a state of the art printing works for Associated Newspapers works by Watkins Gray International. It comprised a reel store; press hall, publishing hall and administrative building. It was closed down by its owners, the Daily Mail and General Trust when they moved to Thurrock but the building remained.
Hatteraick Street.
Housing here was built by the London County Council as part of the Adams Gardens Estate. It was originally called New Street
Hothfield Place
New build housing on a road which was previously older terraced housing. In the 19th it was Portland Place, and before that Hoath Place.
Howland Quay
Greenland Quay Housing. This closes the west end of Greenland Dock and comprises Flats by PRP Architects, 1995-6,
Isambard Place
A residential development of properties situated on the bank of the Thames near Rotherhithe Tube Station and close to Surrey Water lake. The external elevation of the development consists of yellow bricks with wrought iron balconies and slated roofs.
Island Dock
Island Dock. This was a small dock between Russia Dock and Surrey Basin which had originally been part of the Surrey Canal. It became Island Dock in the 1860s with a locked connection to the Surrey Basin. Some of it is now covered by Russia Dock Woodland and by Dock Hill Avenue.
Lower Road
Christopher Jones Square. Small garden with seats and an interpretation board next to the business centre. Named Christopher Jones’ Square after the captain of the Mayflower, who is buried at the nearby St Mary’s Churchyard
Public Toilets. These stood on the eastern edge of the roundabout and were no doubt originally for use in connection with the tunnel. They were underground, were full of amazing brass fittings and with instructions in Scandinavian languages
32 St. Mary’s National Schools. The school site was a gift from Sir William Gomm. In 1869 this was described as ‘large’ and ‘full’ and ‘self supporting’. It still appears in early 20th directories.
34-36 Hippodrome Variety Theatre. This was originally called the Terriss Theatre, but was called Rotherhithe Hippodrome from 1907 and it stood on the corner of Culling Road. It was built by Walter Wallis & Co to the designs of W. G. R. Sprague, and opened on 16th October 1899 with the Drury Lane drama 'The White Heather.' It was all very grand and spacious with a circle, dressing rooms and every facility. It was named after an actor who had planned a theatre there but who had been murdered at the Adelphi Theatre in London. The building was a theatre putting on popular plays and melodramas but from 1907 it was putting on variety programmes and eventually some cinema – and then entirely cinema. It was badly damaged and closed following Second World War bombing and was demolished in the early 1950s, after several attempts to sell it.
St. Olave’s Hospital. The St Olave Poor Law Union was formed in 1836 with an elected Board of Guardians. The existing parish workhouse on Parish Street was taken over and used by the new union. In Rotherhithe a workhouse had been built in the Lower Road in 1792. St Mary, Rotherhithe became a Poor Law Parish in 1836 which continued using the Lower Road workhouse. The oldest part, facing to the east, was used for the able-bodied and for offices. A new block, added to the west in 1837, was occupied by the old and infirm, and by the midwifery and nursery wards. A new infirmary was erected in 1864, away from the other buildings, in what was then the garden. In 1868, the Metropolitan Asylums Board wanted to build a hospital to care for the poor away from the workhouse. This was felt to be too expensive and the Rotherhithe Sick Asylum District was subsumed into the St Olave Poor Law Union. In 1873-5, an infirmary designed by Henry Saxon Snell was built in Lower Road west of the former Rotherhithe workhouse. The existing facility in Rotherhithe at Lower Road was adopted as the site of the union's infirmary and it was decided to install new vagrant wards on am adjacent site. . The infirmary was enlarged in 1877 and the further extended in 1890-2 to designs by Newman and Newman. In 1904, the St Olave Union was renamed the Parish of Bermondsey. During the 1920s it was known as the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Infirmary. In 1930, following the abolition of the Boards of Guardians, it came under the control of the London County Council, who renamed it St Olave's Hospital. Three operating theatres were installed. During the Second World War there was considerable damage from bombs and rockets and much of the oldest part of the Hospital was lost. In 1948 the Hospital became part of the NHS. Visitors from the King's Fund found the Hospital very old - part of it was said to date back to 1790. Two of the main ward blocks had ventilation shafts dating back to the mid 19th. In the late 1960s a Psychiatric Day Hospital was established in 1971 the buildings were upgraded. The wards were upgraded in 1973. Despite this in 1979 within the Hospital began to be run down and within the year all acute services had been transferred to Guy's Hospital. By 1979 only 40 patients remained in the hospital, 30 of whom were psychogeriatric and they were transferred to New Cross Hospital. The gatehouse survives and the Out-Patients building were converted into the St Olave's House Nursing Home. The rest of the hospital buildings were demolished. The site was redeveloped in the 1990s and is now a housing estate.
46 Rotherhithe Great Hall. This was the building of the Rotherhithe Free Church, bombed, demolished and in a modern building in Culling Road.
Southwark Park Wesleyan chapel. This was a large gothic church with a prominent tower on the east side of the road.
Helen Peele Memorial Almshouses. This is a terrace of 7 one-bed cottages at right angles to the road. They are managed by Hanover Housing Association. They date from 1902 following a bequest from Charles Peele, a director of Brandram Brothers, to the memory of his mother.
Drill Hall. This stood on the corner of Neptune Street on the site which had been the Town Hall. It was the hall for the 23rd Surrey Rifle Brigade which was a volunteer unit, apparently ‘admin’, which had been raised locally in 1861. In 1880 they became part of the 6th Corps.
Rotherhithe Town Hall. This stood on the east side of the road on the Neptune Street corner on the site of the previous drill hall. It had been built in 1895-7 as the result of a competition. Murray & Foster’s won with a Baroque design with a large public hall on the ground floor. It was converted into a library in 1904 by R J. Angel, borough surveyor bur demolished the same year following bomb damage. Caryatids by Henry Poole which had flanked the main entrance were re-located on the Heygate Estate, but have now been returned to Southwark Park.
91 Jolly Sailor. This pub was on the east side south of Neptune Street next to the town hall. It was destroyed by the same V1 as demolished the Town Hall in 1944. It was thought to have been there since at least 1787.
King George's Fields. This is on the site of the burial ground of All Saints Church, but which had not been used since the 1860s. It has a perimeter wall on two sides with grass, rose beds and scattered trees. Bermondsey Borough Council had a grant of £500 from the King George's Fields Foundation to buy the site after the church had been demolished following bombing. Two bronze plaques were on the gates but they have vanished.
All Saints Church. This church, along with its vicarage and churchyard, were established on Lower Road in 1839 and destroyed by a V1 in 1944. All Saints was designed by Sampson Kempthorne, to hold 1000 people and was very cheap. The land was given by Sir William Gomm.
Surrey docks entrance. The entrance yard is now Surrey Docks Road.
Milestone – this is marked on pre-Second World War maps as standing alongside the entrance to the docks. It was, presumably, the second milestone from London Bridge.
97 Rotherhithe Conservative Working Men’s Club
99 Surrey Docks Commercial Institute and Club
99 Rotherhithe Police Station. This is now closed.
Baths and Assembly Hall. The original baths were built in 1880 on land leased from the Gomm family who gave the freehold of the site in 1887 to the Rotherhithe Vestry to commemorate Victoria's Golden Jubilee. During the Second World War the building was bombed and only the laundry and slipper baths remained. A new building was opened in 1965. This had three units in a "U" shape - the swimming pool, the Assembly Hall and a cafeteria/sun terrace. There are also slipper and steam baths and play areas for the children of laundry users. There is a car park under the Assembly Hall which has a stage. It was designed by W. S. A. Williams of Sir F. Snow & Partners, 1965. It is now known as the Seven Islands Leisure Centre. On the wall is a mural designed by Rita Harris for the London Docklands Development Corporation painted by the Bermondsey Artists' Group. Some replacement plans for this old and scruffy facility,
118 Prince of Orange pub. Was a jazz pub. The pub may be named for the heir to the Dutch throne, William, Prince of Orange who became King William II of the Netherlands in 1840. The pub was opened in 1859 as a beer house, in what may have been Orange Place. It was a jazz pub in the 1970s and 80s and then was a gay pub and eventually closed. It is now flats.
120 Rotherhithe Public Library. This original library was the site of the Swedish church. It closed and moved into the town hall opposite in 1904.
120 Swedish Seamen's Church. This was built in 1967 by Elkington Smither and Bentjorgenjorgenson. It is a plain brick house in front of a free standing open concrete belfry with slated spire and large weathercock. It incorporates church of 1930 by Wigglesworth and Marshall Mackenzie. The church of 1905 lies behind and the church. There is also a hostel which replaced earlier predecessors. The church closed in 2012 and has been put up for sale, despite temporary use by the London Bubble.
133 Bermondsey Labour Party office. This is said to have also housed nurse’s quarters and to have been demolished in the 1970s. A terraced house – with the appearance of the 1920s - here was used by the Labour Party was demolished in the 1980s. This may have been partly on the site of St.Winifred’s Hall.
St Winifed’s Hall. A large Mission Hall with outbuildings – used for Sunday Schools - appears on 1890s maps. It has been suggested this might have a St. Andrews Mission but Winifred is the name given in directories. .A Mr. Morris ‘founder and president’ was interviewed for the Booth survey and it appears very much to be a one-person organization. This may also be the site referred to as Tiger Bay.
141 China Hall Pub. In 1719 the "Cock and Pye Ale House" stood here. It was later called the "Marsh Gate" and later the "Green Man." The owner Jonathan Oldfield built a wooden theatre next to the pub and called it ‘China Hall’. It was however ‘the subject of several complaints due to the noise and the undignified behaviour of its customers’ and it burnt down in 1778 or 1779. In 1787 however, the China Hall re-opened as a pub said to be "a picturesque building partly surrounded by an external gallery." It was rebuilt again in the 1860s and the site of the theatric became a tea garden. By the 1920s the tea gardens were part of a timber yard.
Providence Row. On early 19th maps a row of buildings ‘China Hall Place’ is shown in Lower Road and later Providence Row is shown alongside the pub but was curtailed by the railway. The path alongside the pub also seems to have been called Tiger Bay – although this is also given in directories as to the north of the pub, and would have referred to a turning two buildings northwards and shown on earlier maps as Cottage Place. In 1894 this was the site of a large mission hall – see above. There is now an estate of new housing to the rear of both these sites
Halfway Hatch. This tolled pathway ran across the park from Blue Anchor towards the site of the China Hall. It was one of several in this area. From China Hall it ran to the Grand Surrey Canal which it appears to cross at a bride and may originally go to the Dog and Duck near the Greenland Dock entrance. Another Halfpenny Hatch is shown to run southwards down the towpath of the canal from its entrance to the Thames and may well have joined this at this bridge.
Moodkee Street.
Clegg, Murdoch and Neptune houses built by South Met. Gas Co. as company housing
Wells House – named for shipbuilder John Wells
Ritchie House – named for Greenland Dock owner William Ritchie
Columbia House. 21 story block built 1964by the London County Council and includes the Canada Estate Tenants Hall
Mulberry Business Park
Business Park in the area of Harmsworth Quays. Subject soon to redevelopment
Elephant Lane
In 1983 The London Docklands Development Corporation held a competition for a new design of this area. This followed years of community action and protests against proposed gentrification
Housing estate by Corrigan, Soundy, and Kilaiditi who provided a new-build mixed use development on as a result of winning a the Competition arranged by the London Docklands Development Corporation. It consisted of 76 dwellings, a mix of houses, flats and maisonettes plus offices. It is said to resemble Victorian suburbia. Riverside addresses now in Elephant Lane were previously in Rotherhithe Street.
London Bubble the company moved its base from Kentish Town to Elephant Lane in 1987. Originally set up by Greater London Arts they provide a base for community theatre, much of it outdoor.
Gomm Road
36 A blue plaque commemorates Major Richard Culling Carr-Gomm, OBE and the Abbeyfield and Carr-Gomm societies. This was the second house he bought for the Abbeyfield Society,
St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School.
Fire station. The first fire station built by the Metropolitan Board of Works in the early 1870s was here and replaced by baths in the 1960s
Gomm Gate. Gomm Road leads up to the gates and is continued as The Drive. They are called after the Lord of the Manor of Rotherhithe, Field Marshall Sir William Maynard Gomm who sold land for the site if the park. The gates seem to be the only set which have remained as built.
Greenland Dock
The main part of this large dock is in the square to the east. This covers only the western end of the north quay.
12a berth was sited at the western end of the dock. It was rebuilt in 1955 and mainly used for general cargo from barges, which had been transshipped from vessels in the Canada and Greenland Docks.
4 shed. This was sited at the western end of this dock and received general cargoes from the continent.
Cut through to Canada Dock. This now lies as a passageway under Redriffe Road. There is an interpretation board and bollards on site.
Harmsworth Quays
Harmsworth Quays. This was built on the site of Centre Pond and Quebec Dock in 1989. The site covers 12 acres and was a state of the art printing works for Associated Newspapers works by Watkins Gray International. It comprised a reel store; press hall, publishing hall and administrative building. It was closed down by its owners, the Daily Mail and General Trust when they moved to Thurrock but the building remained.
Hatteraick Street.
Housing here was built by the London County Council as part of the Adams Gardens Estate. It was originally called New Street
Hothfield Place
New build housing on a road which was previously older terraced housing. In the 19th it was Portland Place, and before that Hoath Place.
Howland Quay
Greenland Quay Housing. This closes the west end of Greenland Dock and comprises Flats by PRP Architects, 1995-6,
Isambard Place
A residential development of properties situated on the bank of the Thames near Rotherhithe Tube Station and close to Surrey Water lake. The external elevation of the development consists of yellow bricks with wrought iron balconies and slated roofs.
Island Dock
Island Dock. This was a small dock between Russia Dock and Surrey Basin which had originally been part of the Surrey Canal. It became Island Dock in the 1860s with a locked connection to the Surrey Basin. Some of it is now covered by Russia Dock Woodland and by Dock Hill Avenue.
Lower Road
Christopher Jones Square. Small garden with seats and an interpretation board next to the business centre. Named Christopher Jones’ Square after the captain of the Mayflower, who is buried at the nearby St Mary’s Churchyard
Public Toilets. These stood on the eastern edge of the roundabout and were no doubt originally for use in connection with the tunnel. They were underground, were full of amazing brass fittings and with instructions in Scandinavian languages
32 St. Mary’s National Schools. The school site was a gift from Sir William Gomm. In 1869 this was described as ‘large’ and ‘full’ and ‘self supporting’. It still appears in early 20th directories.
34-36 Hippodrome Variety Theatre. This was originally called the Terriss Theatre, but was called Rotherhithe Hippodrome from 1907 and it stood on the corner of Culling Road. It was built by Walter Wallis & Co to the designs of W. G. R. Sprague, and opened on 16th October 1899 with the Drury Lane drama 'The White Heather.' It was all very grand and spacious with a circle, dressing rooms and every facility. It was named after an actor who had planned a theatre there but who had been murdered at the Adelphi Theatre in London. The building was a theatre putting on popular plays and melodramas but from 1907 it was putting on variety programmes and eventually some cinema – and then entirely cinema. It was badly damaged and closed following Second World War bombing and was demolished in the early 1950s, after several attempts to sell it.
St. Olave’s Hospital. The St Olave Poor Law Union was formed in 1836 with an elected Board of Guardians. The existing parish workhouse on Parish Street was taken over and used by the new union. In Rotherhithe a workhouse had been built in the Lower Road in 1792. St Mary, Rotherhithe became a Poor Law Parish in 1836 which continued using the Lower Road workhouse. The oldest part, facing to the east, was used for the able-bodied and for offices. A new block, added to the west in 1837, was occupied by the old and infirm, and by the midwifery and nursery wards. A new infirmary was erected in 1864, away from the other buildings, in what was then the garden. In 1868, the Metropolitan Asylums Board wanted to build a hospital to care for the poor away from the workhouse. This was felt to be too expensive and the Rotherhithe Sick Asylum District was subsumed into the St Olave Poor Law Union. In 1873-5, an infirmary designed by Henry Saxon Snell was built in Lower Road west of the former Rotherhithe workhouse. The existing facility in Rotherhithe at Lower Road was adopted as the site of the union's infirmary and it was decided to install new vagrant wards on am adjacent site. . The infirmary was enlarged in 1877 and the further extended in 1890-2 to designs by Newman and Newman. In 1904, the St Olave Union was renamed the Parish of Bermondsey. During the 1920s it was known as the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Infirmary. In 1930, following the abolition of the Boards of Guardians, it came under the control of the London County Council, who renamed it St Olave's Hospital. Three operating theatres were installed. During the Second World War there was considerable damage from bombs and rockets and much of the oldest part of the Hospital was lost. In 1948 the Hospital became part of the NHS. Visitors from the King's Fund found the Hospital very old - part of it was said to date back to 1790. Two of the main ward blocks had ventilation shafts dating back to the mid 19th. In the late 1960s a Psychiatric Day Hospital was established in 1971 the buildings were upgraded. The wards were upgraded in 1973. Despite this in 1979 within the Hospital began to be run down and within the year all acute services had been transferred to Guy's Hospital. By 1979 only 40 patients remained in the hospital, 30 of whom were psychogeriatric and they were transferred to New Cross Hospital. The gatehouse survives and the Out-Patients building were converted into the St Olave's House Nursing Home. The rest of the hospital buildings were demolished. The site was redeveloped in the 1990s and is now a housing estate.
46 Rotherhithe Great Hall. This was the building of the Rotherhithe Free Church, bombed, demolished and in a modern building in Culling Road.
Southwark Park Wesleyan chapel. This was a large gothic church with a prominent tower on the east side of the road.
Helen Peele Memorial Almshouses. This is a terrace of 7 one-bed cottages at right angles to the road. They are managed by Hanover Housing Association. They date from 1902 following a bequest from Charles Peele, a director of Brandram Brothers, to the memory of his mother.
Drill Hall. This stood on the corner of Neptune Street on the site which had been the Town Hall. It was the hall for the 23rd Surrey Rifle Brigade which was a volunteer unit, apparently ‘admin’, which had been raised locally in 1861. In 1880 they became part of the 6th Corps.
Rotherhithe Town Hall. This stood on the east side of the road on the Neptune Street corner on the site of the previous drill hall. It had been built in 1895-7 as the result of a competition. Murray & Foster’s won with a Baroque design with a large public hall on the ground floor. It was converted into a library in 1904 by R J. Angel, borough surveyor bur demolished the same year following bomb damage. Caryatids by Henry Poole which had flanked the main entrance were re-located on the Heygate Estate, but have now been returned to Southwark Park.
91 Jolly Sailor. This pub was on the east side south of Neptune Street next to the town hall. It was destroyed by the same V1 as demolished the Town Hall in 1944. It was thought to have been there since at least 1787.
King George's Fields. This is on the site of the burial ground of All Saints Church, but which had not been used since the 1860s. It has a perimeter wall on two sides with grass, rose beds and scattered trees. Bermondsey Borough Council had a grant of £500 from the King George's Fields Foundation to buy the site after the church had been demolished following bombing. Two bronze plaques were on the gates but they have vanished.
All Saints Church. This church, along with its vicarage and churchyard, were established on Lower Road in 1839 and destroyed by a V1 in 1944. All Saints was designed by Sampson Kempthorne, to hold 1000 people and was very cheap. The land was given by Sir William Gomm.
Surrey docks entrance. The entrance yard is now Surrey Docks Road.
Milestone – this is marked on pre-Second World War maps as standing alongside the entrance to the docks. It was, presumably, the second milestone from London Bridge.
97 Rotherhithe Conservative Working Men’s Club
99 Surrey Docks Commercial Institute and Club
99 Rotherhithe Police Station. This is now closed.
Baths and Assembly Hall. The original baths were built in 1880 on land leased from the Gomm family who gave the freehold of the site in 1887 to the Rotherhithe Vestry to commemorate Victoria's Golden Jubilee. During the Second World War the building was bombed and only the laundry and slipper baths remained. A new building was opened in 1965. This had three units in a "U" shape - the swimming pool, the Assembly Hall and a cafeteria/sun terrace. There are also slipper and steam baths and play areas for the children of laundry users. There is a car park under the Assembly Hall which has a stage. It was designed by W. S. A. Williams of Sir F. Snow & Partners, 1965. It is now known as the Seven Islands Leisure Centre. On the wall is a mural designed by Rita Harris for the London Docklands Development Corporation painted by the Bermondsey Artists' Group. Some replacement plans for this old and scruffy facility,
118 Prince of Orange pub. Was a jazz pub. The pub may be named for the heir to the Dutch throne, William, Prince of Orange who became King William II of the Netherlands in 1840. The pub was opened in 1859 as a beer house, in what may have been Orange Place. It was a jazz pub in the 1970s and 80s and then was a gay pub and eventually closed. It is now flats.
120 Rotherhithe Public Library. This original library was the site of the Swedish church. It closed and moved into the town hall opposite in 1904.
120 Swedish Seamen's Church. This was built in 1967 by Elkington Smither and Bentjorgenjorgenson. It is a plain brick house in front of a free standing open concrete belfry with slated spire and large weathercock. It incorporates church of 1930 by Wigglesworth and Marshall Mackenzie. The church of 1905 lies behind and the church. There is also a hostel which replaced earlier predecessors. The church closed in 2012 and has been put up for sale, despite temporary use by the London Bubble.
133 Bermondsey Labour Party office. This is said to have also housed nurse’s quarters and to have been demolished in the 1970s. A terraced house – with the appearance of the 1920s - here was used by the Labour Party was demolished in the 1980s. This may have been partly on the site of St.Winifred’s Hall.
St Winifed’s Hall. A large Mission Hall with outbuildings – used for Sunday Schools - appears on 1890s maps. It has been suggested this might have a St. Andrews Mission but Winifred is the name given in directories. .A Mr. Morris ‘founder and president’ was interviewed for the Booth survey and it appears very much to be a one-person organization. This may also be the site referred to as Tiger Bay.
141 China Hall Pub. In 1719 the "Cock and Pye Ale House" stood here. It was later called the "Marsh Gate" and later the "Green Man." The owner Jonathan Oldfield built a wooden theatre next to the pub and called it ‘China Hall’. It was however ‘the subject of several complaints due to the noise and the undignified behaviour of its customers’ and it burnt down in 1778 or 1779. In 1787 however, the China Hall re-opened as a pub said to be "a picturesque building partly surrounded by an external gallery." It was rebuilt again in the 1860s and the site of the theatric became a tea garden. By the 1920s the tea gardens were part of a timber yard.
Providence Row. On early 19th maps a row of buildings ‘China Hall Place’ is shown in Lower Road and later Providence Row is shown alongside the pub but was curtailed by the railway. The path alongside the pub also seems to have been called Tiger Bay – although this is also given in directories as to the north of the pub, and would have referred to a turning two buildings northwards and shown on earlier maps as Cottage Place. In 1894 this was the site of a large mission hall – see above. There is now an estate of new housing to the rear of both these sites
Halfway Hatch. This tolled pathway ran across the park from Blue Anchor towards the site of the China Hall. It was one of several in this area. From China Hall it ran to the Grand Surrey Canal which it appears to cross at a bride and may originally go to the Dog and Duck near the Greenland Dock entrance. Another Halfpenny Hatch is shown to run southwards down the towpath of the canal from its entrance to the Thames and may well have joined this at this bridge.
Moodkee Street.
Clegg, Murdoch and Neptune houses built by South Met. Gas Co. as company housing
Wells House – named for shipbuilder John Wells
Ritchie House – named for Greenland Dock owner William Ritchie
Columbia House. 21 story block built 1964by the London County Council and includes the Canada Estate Tenants Hall
Mulberry Business Park
Business Park in the area of Harmsworth Quays. Subject soon to redevelopment
Neptune Street
In the early 19th the end of the street at Lower Road was known as Coburg Street
Brandram and Co. In the early nineteenth century Samuel and Thomas Brandram set up a works for the manufacture of white lead. Sulphur and saltpetre were also handled there. Two large reservoirs are shown on site. In 1825 they installed a Boulton & Watt side lever engine with a diameter of 31 inches and 3-foot stroke. The firm also had wharves in Shad Thames and, later, a wharf on Rotherhithe Street. They were taken over by Standard Industrial Corporation Ltd, based at Redditch, in the 1950s. The factory closed in 1958 and was demolished for the construction of the Canada Estate in 1962.
In the early 19th the end of the street at Lower Road was known as Coburg Street
Brandram and Co. In the early nineteenth century Samuel and Thomas Brandram set up a works for the manufacture of white lead. Sulphur and saltpetre were also handled there. Two large reservoirs are shown on site. In 1825 they installed a Boulton & Watt side lever engine with a diameter of 31 inches and 3-foot stroke. The firm also had wharves in Shad Thames and, later, a wharf on Rotherhithe Street. They were taken over by Standard Industrial Corporation Ltd, based at Redditch, in the 1950s. The factory closed in 1958 and was demolished for the construction of the Canada Estate in 1962.
Dummelow factory, 18th chemicak works,later amalgamated with Brandram
29 Britannia Pub. This was first noted in 1855 and was still there in 1909. It may have pre-existed as a beer house. It has now been demolished.
Mayflower Tenants Hall. A post war built hall for local residents.
Neptune Street Park. Along with the tenants hall this is on the site of the bombed municipal complex. It is a dog free environment, with Seats and a vine-covered veranda.
Cock and Monkey Pub. Name changed in the 1930s from Princess Alexandra and was rebuilt. It was demolished in 2003.
George Alfred Dyer House. This is Albin, funeral directors, yard and offices
29 Britannia Pub. This was first noted in 1855 and was still there in 1909. It may have pre-existed as a beer house. It has now been demolished.
Mayflower Tenants Hall. A post war built hall for local residents.
Neptune Street Park. Along with the tenants hall this is on the site of the bombed municipal complex. It is a dog free environment, with Seats and a vine-covered veranda.
Cock and Monkey Pub. Name changed in the 1930s from Princess Alexandra and was rebuilt. It was demolished in 2003.
George Alfred Dyer House. This is Albin, funeral directors, yard and offices
Canada Estate. 1963 LCC brutalist estate
Orange Place
This street name existed from at least 1810 and is probably named after one of the Princes of Organe. There is now an estate of modern housing on site.
Quebec Dock
Quebec Dock. This dock dated from 1926 and was built by the Port of London Authority which took over control of the port in 1909. The need of the softwood trade was examined and some of the timber ponds subsumed into this new deep-water dock. Quebec Dock provided additional berths sufficient for six vessels to unload. Shops entered via the Canada-Greenland cutting and the Greenland Entrance. In the early 1980s, following the closure of the Surrey Docks all of Quebec Dock was filled in and Harmsworth Quays built on the site.
Quebec Pond
Quebec Pond lay south of Centre Pond. The Grand Surrey Canal Dock and Canal Company had built four timber ponds in the early 1860s. Of these Timber Ponds, 3 were later named Quebec Pond. Main Dock fed into Quebec Pond to its east; also linked to it, and it connected to Centre Pond to the north.When Canada Dock was built it connected to each of them but remained in its original location without changes to its size or shape.
Quebec Way
Alfred Salter School. By Southwark Borough Council. The design is in yellow and red striped brickwork with a curved end wall. It was opened in 1995 by David Blunkett.
Business Estate now likely to be redeveloped for housing
Railway Avenue
Brunel Museum. – The Brunel Engine House. This originally housed the steam pump used by Marc Brunel for his Thames Tunnel of 1825-43. It is a small building, probably built in 1842 and subsequently altered. It was restored 'in 1979-80 and a raised brick-paved piazza was added. Later in 1993 a near-replica of the wrought-iron chimney was reinstated on the existing tapering brick base. An Exhibition was opened with the story of the first ever tunnel built under water which has been used by the East London Railway since 1865Underground line. The engine house itself is now an educational charity run by volunteers which tells the story of one of the world’s great engineering dynasties
Ventilation shaft behind the underground station is the ventilation shaft of Thames Tunnel – the tunnel which now takes the railway. This is the remains of the first part of the construction of a large shaft of the Thames Tunnel. It was dug by assembling an iron ring above ground with a brick wall on top of it with a steam engine to drive the pumps. The soil below the ring's lower edge was removed manually and it gradually sank under its own weight. By November 1825 it was in place and tunnelling work could begin at the bottom. In the 1860s, when trains started running through the tunnel. It was adapted for ventilation and the staircase was removed. In 2011, a concrete raft was built near the bottom of the shaft, above the tracks and this is now accessible from and functions as a concert venue. A rooftop garden and bar have been built on top of the shaft.
Orange Place
This street name existed from at least 1810 and is probably named after one of the Princes of Organe. There is now an estate of modern housing on site.
Quebec Dock
Quebec Dock. This dock dated from 1926 and was built by the Port of London Authority which took over control of the port in 1909. The need of the softwood trade was examined and some of the timber ponds subsumed into this new deep-water dock. Quebec Dock provided additional berths sufficient for six vessels to unload. Shops entered via the Canada-Greenland cutting and the Greenland Entrance. In the early 1980s, following the closure of the Surrey Docks all of Quebec Dock was filled in and Harmsworth Quays built on the site.
Quebec Pond
Quebec Pond lay south of Centre Pond. The Grand Surrey Canal Dock and Canal Company had built four timber ponds in the early 1860s. Of these Timber Ponds, 3 were later named Quebec Pond. Main Dock fed into Quebec Pond to its east; also linked to it, and it connected to Centre Pond to the north.When Canada Dock was built it connected to each of them but remained in its original location without changes to its size or shape.
Quebec Way
Alfred Salter School. By Southwark Borough Council. The design is in yellow and red striped brickwork with a curved end wall. It was opened in 1995 by David Blunkett.
Business Estate now likely to be redeveloped for housing
Railway Avenue
Brunel Museum. – The Brunel Engine House. This originally housed the steam pump used by Marc Brunel for his Thames Tunnel of 1825-43. It is a small building, probably built in 1842 and subsequently altered. It was restored 'in 1979-80 and a raised brick-paved piazza was added. Later in 1993 a near-replica of the wrought-iron chimney was reinstated on the existing tapering brick base. An Exhibition was opened with the story of the first ever tunnel built under water which has been used by the East London Railway since 1865Underground line. The engine house itself is now an educational charity run by volunteers which tells the story of one of the world’s great engineering dynasties
Ventilation shaft behind the underground station is the ventilation shaft of Thames Tunnel – the tunnel which now takes the railway. This is the remains of the first part of the construction of a large shaft of the Thames Tunnel. It was dug by assembling an iron ring above ground with a brick wall on top of it with a steam engine to drive the pumps. The soil below the ring's lower edge was removed manually and it gradually sank under its own weight. By November 1825 it was in place and tunnelling work could begin at the bottom. In the 1860s, when trains started running through the tunnel. It was adapted for ventilation and the staircase was removed. In 2011, a concrete raft was built near the bottom of the shaft, above the tracks and this is now accessible from and functions as a concert venue. A rooftop garden and bar have been built on top of the shaft.
LCC flats on the corner with Kenning Street. Built 1902-4 to house those made homeless by the Rotherhithe Tunnel and first municipal housing in Rotherhithe.255 flats.
Redriff Road
Lifting Bridge. This is the red painted preserved remains of a bridge which once controlled the cut between Greenland and Canada docks. It is a late example of the Scherzer rolling-bascule type and was originally erected at Deptford Creek in. 1955 and moved here 1959.
Renforth Street
Until 1873 this was George Street
Hale’s Rocket Factory. This is thought to have been here in the early 1850s. It is thought this was on the site later used by the London Hydraulic Company. William Hale had invented an important projectile described as a ‘rotary rocket. Working with his sons these were successful and sold internationally. Sadly Hale became involved with Hungarian revolutionary Louis Kossoth and following a sensational trial and Hale went out of business.
Pump House Close. Pumping station. This was built in 1902/3 for the London Hydraulic Co. They used water from the Albion Dock and stored it on site. They sold the pressurized water as a power source, much of it to power dock and warehouse machinery. It is in yellow and red brick with tall arched windows to the pump room, there is an octagonal chimney on a tall base. There is an Accumulator tower with arcading. The lower blocks supporting cast-iron tanks carried on a steel frame internally. There was an engine house, workshops, and cottages for employees. It later became the Company Head Office and also an engineering works. It closed in 1977 and has now been converted to housing.
Canada Estate. Built by the London County Council Architect’s Department, 1962-4, with the brutalist concrete detailing typical of the period. There are maisonettes and two towers with every fourth floor recessed. The estate took its name from the nearby dock and was built on the site of the Brandram's Brothers Works which was demolished in the late 1950s. The estate was built by Tersons.
Regina Point. 21 story block built 1964by the London County Council.
Rotherhithe Road Tunnel
The tunnel was built by The London County Council, who got Parliamentary approval in and began work in 1904. The tunnel was built to plans by Maurice Fitzmaurice using a tunnelling shield plus some by cut and cover. The top of the tunnel is 48ft below Trinity high-water mark to allow for large ships in the river above. It has one bore and still takes two way traffic, plus brave pedestrians and cyclists – although the intermediate footway entrances are closed. It was built for horse and cart which means that it includes design features which are now unnecessary – like bends at the end to stop horses seeing daylight. The entrance is in polished pink granite with a steel arch, which was the cutting edge of the tunnelling shield. It was opened in 1908 by the Prince of Wales and generally similar to the Blackwall Tunnel. Like the Blackwall it takes a huge load of motor traffic which it was never planned for – in 2005 34,000 vehicles a day. Heavy lorries are banned but a single decker bus service runs through
Rotherhithe Street.
Princes Stairs. Watermen’s stairs. These stairs are now the site of flats at 97 Rotherhithe Street.
Prince's Wharf. This wharf was used by barge and boat builders and a sailmaker in the 19th. From at least the 1880s and in the 20th it was a six-storey brick-built wharf linked to Gordon's Wharf to the west by a walkway. Both wharves were granaries for Gillman and Spencer, hand ling flaked maize and brewers' preservative. They had been taken over by Paul’s Malt Ltd in 1902 and later made Kositos, an animal feed. The firm remained however, as Gillman and Spencer, into the 1960s
97 Prince’s Wharf. This art deco style block of flats on the riverside was built in 1990. Now called Riverside Apartments aka Prince’s Tower. .
Prince's Iron Works. This had the address of 31-33 Rotherhithe Street and in 1983 were described as the last shipbuilder on the upper Thames and owned by Erith and Dartford Lighterage.
85 White Lion Pub. This stood by Prince's Stairs 1805 – 1931. The site is now covered with housing. Locally it was a meeting place for freemasons
89-93 Carr’s Wharf. In 1900 this was occupied by Ward, barge builders. Later this was G.Carr, engineers, anchor smiths and barge builders. They were connected to Prince’s Ironworks, to the west.
91 Torbay Pub. First noted in 1903 Closed in 1955 and now demolished. It is said to have had its own rowing team,
93-89 Beard’s Wharf. T.W.Beard operated a lighterage business here in the 1930s and built some lighters here for the Thames Steam Tug and Lighterage Co. This was also occupied by Ward, barge builders, in the early 20th. Smith, barge builders were also here around the same time.
99 East India Wharf. There were two 19th granaries here. To the east was W.Lyons Granary and to the west W.W.Llandells, Granary. Between then was a barge building yard. Also called Archer’s Wharf. The building is first noted in 1843 and in 1857 it was a granary of five floors occupied by W W Landell. The building is now listed and was one of the earliest conversions. It initially was home to Waterside Workshops, with a puppet theatre on the ground floor. It now seems to be flats.
99-101 John Dutlin, lightermen. This firm operated the two granaries at East India Wharf in the 1890s. Later, in the 1930s, it was operated by British Bluefries Wharfage and Transport.
105 Bombay wharf G. & H. Green wharfingers still there in the 1930s. It had previously been a barge builders. It is now flats.
Hope Wharf. This was a 19th warehouse which had been was used in the 1850s by Joseph Goddard, as a coal wharf and depot. The warehouse was used by I..Farrell and then A.J.Gardiner and sons, wharfingers. This has survived as Hope Sufferance wharf. From the 17th goods could only be unloaded in the port of London at legal quays. When these became congested other quays were licensed or ‘suffered’ to take goods which paid low customs dues. Hope Wharf was thus a licensed sufferance wharf. Between the 1920s and 1960s it was operated by A.J. Gardiner and Sons as a sufferance wharf for the handling of foodstuffs, flour and metals. In 1974 part of it was acquired by the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust and was converted by Duffy Lange Giffone Worthington to premises for crafts workers. It was passed to Southwark Council in 1977 and closed a few years. In 1997 it was converted to apartments. and trhe artists evicted. There is a wall crane from the 1930s.
109-113 George Carr, engineers, barge builders and chain makers. In the 1890s this was Hope Anchor Works and St. Mary's Ironworks. In the 1970s it was W.E.White and Sons. Later it was a glassblowing workshop
111-115 Thames Tunnel Mills. This seven storey ex-flour mill was one of the first industrial buildings in Docklands to be converted into flats. It had been owned by White, Tompkins & Courage who were maltsters who supplied flaked rice, tapioca flakes, and cooked maize flakes and extracts for brewing. It is a good example of early 19th warehouse architecture. It closed in the 1970s and was bought by London and Quadrant Housing Association for conversion to flats. Some internal features sere preserved - the cast iron columns and timber beams plus the free standing chimney and the tower which contains the lift and is topped by the original cast iron water tank.
Church Stairs. These ran down the western side if the pub, now called the Mayflower. These were extant in at least the 18th and were originally stone but are now concrete. Access may be blocked, illegally.
Thames Steam Ferry Company. In 1874 Frederick Duckham was asked to design a new ferry to run between Church Stairs Rotherhithe and Wapping. There were enormous problems with designing terminals on a tidal river. He devised a scheme using an embarkation platform which could be raised or lowered and paddle steamers which could disconnect one wheel and which could carry vehicles. It opened in 1876 with two steamers, Pearl and Jessy May. By 1878 it was out of business and the liquidator had been called in. In 1889 the jetty at Rotherhithe was removed. Part of the churchyard was taken for this to allow for a turnng point.
117 Mayflower Pub. This is a picturesque pastiche built by H. G. Clinch in 1958 after a wartime bomb had removed the top floor of the 19th Spread Eagle and Crown. The original pub here was called The Shippe and The Mayflower which carried the Pilgrim Fathers over to America in 1621 moored nearby. There is a milestone embedded in the wall – it says it is the second milestone from London Bridge, and is it therefore the missing milestone from the corner of what is now Surrey Quays Road.
Redriff Road
Lifting Bridge. This is the red painted preserved remains of a bridge which once controlled the cut between Greenland and Canada docks. It is a late example of the Scherzer rolling-bascule type and was originally erected at Deptford Creek in. 1955 and moved here 1959.
Renforth Street
Until 1873 this was George Street
Hale’s Rocket Factory. This is thought to have been here in the early 1850s. It is thought this was on the site later used by the London Hydraulic Company. William Hale had invented an important projectile described as a ‘rotary rocket. Working with his sons these were successful and sold internationally. Sadly Hale became involved with Hungarian revolutionary Louis Kossoth and following a sensational trial and Hale went out of business.
Pump House Close. Pumping station. This was built in 1902/3 for the London Hydraulic Co. They used water from the Albion Dock and stored it on site. They sold the pressurized water as a power source, much of it to power dock and warehouse machinery. It is in yellow and red brick with tall arched windows to the pump room, there is an octagonal chimney on a tall base. There is an Accumulator tower with arcading. The lower blocks supporting cast-iron tanks carried on a steel frame internally. There was an engine house, workshops, and cottages for employees. It later became the Company Head Office and also an engineering works. It closed in 1977 and has now been converted to housing.
Canada Estate. Built by the London County Council Architect’s Department, 1962-4, with the brutalist concrete detailing typical of the period. There are maisonettes and two towers with every fourth floor recessed. The estate took its name from the nearby dock and was built on the site of the Brandram's Brothers Works which was demolished in the late 1950s. The estate was built by Tersons.
Regina Point. 21 story block built 1964by the London County Council.
Rotherhithe Road Tunnel
The tunnel was built by The London County Council, who got Parliamentary approval in and began work in 1904. The tunnel was built to plans by Maurice Fitzmaurice using a tunnelling shield plus some by cut and cover. The top of the tunnel is 48ft below Trinity high-water mark to allow for large ships in the river above. It has one bore and still takes two way traffic, plus brave pedestrians and cyclists – although the intermediate footway entrances are closed. It was built for horse and cart which means that it includes design features which are now unnecessary – like bends at the end to stop horses seeing daylight. The entrance is in polished pink granite with a steel arch, which was the cutting edge of the tunnelling shield. It was opened in 1908 by the Prince of Wales and generally similar to the Blackwall Tunnel. Like the Blackwall it takes a huge load of motor traffic which it was never planned for – in 2005 34,000 vehicles a day. Heavy lorries are banned but a single decker bus service runs through
Rotherhithe Street.
Princes Stairs. Watermen’s stairs. These stairs are now the site of flats at 97 Rotherhithe Street.
Prince's Wharf. This wharf was used by barge and boat builders and a sailmaker in the 19th. From at least the 1880s and in the 20th it was a six-storey brick-built wharf linked to Gordon's Wharf to the west by a walkway. Both wharves were granaries for Gillman and Spencer, hand ling flaked maize and brewers' preservative. They had been taken over by Paul’s Malt Ltd in 1902 and later made Kositos, an animal feed. The firm remained however, as Gillman and Spencer, into the 1960s
97 Prince’s Wharf. This art deco style block of flats on the riverside was built in 1990. Now called Riverside Apartments aka Prince’s Tower. .
Prince's Iron Works. This had the address of 31-33 Rotherhithe Street and in 1983 were described as the last shipbuilder on the upper Thames and owned by Erith and Dartford Lighterage.
85 White Lion Pub. This stood by Prince's Stairs 1805 – 1931. The site is now covered with housing. Locally it was a meeting place for freemasons
89-93 Carr’s Wharf. In 1900 this was occupied by Ward, barge builders. Later this was G.Carr, engineers, anchor smiths and barge builders. They were connected to Prince’s Ironworks, to the west.
91 Torbay Pub. First noted in 1903 Closed in 1955 and now demolished. It is said to have had its own rowing team,
93-89 Beard’s Wharf. T.W.Beard operated a lighterage business here in the 1930s and built some lighters here for the Thames Steam Tug and Lighterage Co. This was also occupied by Ward, barge builders, in the early 20th. Smith, barge builders were also here around the same time.
99 East India Wharf. There were two 19th granaries here. To the east was W.Lyons Granary and to the west W.W.Llandells, Granary. Between then was a barge building yard. Also called Archer’s Wharf. The building is first noted in 1843 and in 1857 it was a granary of five floors occupied by W W Landell. The building is now listed and was one of the earliest conversions. It initially was home to Waterside Workshops, with a puppet theatre on the ground floor. It now seems to be flats.
99-101 John Dutlin, lightermen. This firm operated the two granaries at East India Wharf in the 1890s. Later, in the 1930s, it was operated by British Bluefries Wharfage and Transport.
105 Bombay wharf G. & H. Green wharfingers still there in the 1930s. It had previously been a barge builders. It is now flats.
Hope Wharf. This was a 19th warehouse which had been was used in the 1850s by Joseph Goddard, as a coal wharf and depot. The warehouse was used by I..Farrell and then A.J.Gardiner and sons, wharfingers. This has survived as Hope Sufferance wharf. From the 17th goods could only be unloaded in the port of London at legal quays. When these became congested other quays were licensed or ‘suffered’ to take goods which paid low customs dues. Hope Wharf was thus a licensed sufferance wharf. Between the 1920s and 1960s it was operated by A.J. Gardiner and Sons as a sufferance wharf for the handling of foodstuffs, flour and metals. In 1974 part of it was acquired by the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust and was converted by Duffy Lange Giffone Worthington to premises for crafts workers. It was passed to Southwark Council in 1977 and closed a few years. In 1997 it was converted to apartments. and trhe artists evicted. There is a wall crane from the 1930s.
109-113 George Carr, engineers, barge builders and chain makers. In the 1890s this was Hope Anchor Works and St. Mary's Ironworks. In the 1970s it was W.E.White and Sons. Later it was a glassblowing workshop
111-115 Thames Tunnel Mills. This seven storey ex-flour mill was one of the first industrial buildings in Docklands to be converted into flats. It had been owned by White, Tompkins & Courage who were maltsters who supplied flaked rice, tapioca flakes, and cooked maize flakes and extracts for brewing. It is a good example of early 19th warehouse architecture. It closed in the 1970s and was bought by London and Quadrant Housing Association for conversion to flats. Some internal features sere preserved - the cast iron columns and timber beams plus the free standing chimney and the tower which contains the lift and is topped by the original cast iron water tank.
Church Stairs. These ran down the western side if the pub, now called the Mayflower. These were extant in at least the 18th and were originally stone but are now concrete. Access may be blocked, illegally.
Thames Steam Ferry Company. In 1874 Frederick Duckham was asked to design a new ferry to run between Church Stairs Rotherhithe and Wapping. There were enormous problems with designing terminals on a tidal river. He devised a scheme using an embarkation platform which could be raised or lowered and paddle steamers which could disconnect one wheel and which could carry vehicles. It opened in 1876 with two steamers, Pearl and Jessy May. By 1878 it was out of business and the liquidator had been called in. In 1889 the jetty at Rotherhithe was removed. Part of the churchyard was taken for this to allow for a turnng point.
117 Mayflower Pub. This is a picturesque pastiche built by H. G. Clinch in 1958 after a wartime bomb had removed the top floor of the 19th Spread Eagle and Crown. The original pub here was called The Shippe and The Mayflower which carried the Pilgrim Fathers over to America in 1621 moored nearby. There is a milestone embedded in the wall – it says it is the second milestone from London Bridge, and is it therefore the missing milestone from the corner of what is now Surrey Quays Road.
Passageway. Built to provide river access. Right of Way sign and Rotherhithe Parish plates.
119 Grice's Granary. Warehouse built around 1797 and once a granary belonging to the Grice family until 1857. It is divided inside by brick party walls into three units; timber floors and posts, reinforced on the ground floor by hanging knees. Its timber stanchions have massive timber "knees" supporting the beams. It was at one time the base for Sands Studios and also the Rotherhithe Picture Library. Sands Films. Building belonging to the film company which made Little Dorrrit here with a blue plaque. The building has other facilities including a cinema and the Rotherhithe Picture Research Library was established in 1975 as a reference collection. It is, freely available to anyone wishing to do picture research for any reason whatsoever. It is in Grice’s Granaries.
119 Grice's Wharf mid-c19th warehouse converted to flats. It has timber storey-posts and a kingpost. Inside it had kept its timber floors and posts. This warehouse is linked to Grice's Granary by a later overhead gangway now festiooned with creeper.
119 Grice's Granary. Warehouse built around 1797 and once a granary belonging to the Grice family until 1857. It is divided inside by brick party walls into three units; timber floors and posts, reinforced on the ground floor by hanging knees. Its timber stanchions have massive timber "knees" supporting the beams. It was at one time the base for Sands Studios and also the Rotherhithe Picture Library. Sands Films. Building belonging to the film company which made Little Dorrrit here with a blue plaque. The building has other facilities including a cinema and the Rotherhithe Picture Research Library was established in 1975 as a reference collection. It is, freely available to anyone wishing to do picture research for any reason whatsoever. It is in Grice’s Granaries.
119 Grice's Wharf mid-c19th warehouse converted to flats. It has timber storey-posts and a kingpost. Inside it had kept its timber floors and posts. This warehouse is linked to Grice's Granary by a later overhead gangway now festiooned with creeper.
Thames Tunnel Wharf site used by Marc Brunel to handle materials for the tunnel.
121-123 Tunnel Wharf. This warehouse site was previously Claydon’s Wharf and operated by this company of wharfingers until the Second World War. They handled a wide range of goods - spirits, saltpetre, canes, jellies, rattans, tar, roofing felt, asphalt, glucose, muriatic acid, fodder, vaseline, hemp yarn and rope, tallow, soap, pitch, resin and talcum powder. It was bombed in the Second World War. In 1974 it was converted by Nicholas Lacey into a family home and a site for small businesses - furniture and film set makers, clothing manufacturers, photographic studios, publishers and label distributors. Flats by CZWG in 1997.
125 Clarence Wharf. This was operated by Ginesi, marble merchants – who also used another Clarence Wharf slightly down river. It became the site of the Knot Garden.
Knot Garden. This was a small brick-paved window on the Thames designed by T. Meddings as an entry for the 1975 Art into Landscape Competition. It contained a number of giant rope knots which were set with resin but they have now been removed. It is still open space. On the site of Ginisei Stone and Marble Works,
127-131 Brandram's Wharf is now housing as Brandram's Court. This was the riverside site for Brandram brothers, otherwise based in Neptune Street. It is a warehouse of 1870-80 converted to housing association flats in 1984-8 by Levin Bernstein Associates. The street wall screens an internal courtyard. In the end wall the steel stanchions are revealed where balconies have been created. The end had cast-iron columns. On the riverside is the name ‘Brandram's Wharf’. It is currently operated as a co-op with a membership restricted to low income single people and childless couples with a strong connection to the London Borough of Southwark.
135 Charles Hay and Sons has a sign on the door which says, the business was first established in 1789. In the early 19th Francis Hay had worked his way up to a become a master-lighterman and barge owner. His son, Charles Hay, also had a successful lighterage business and this was his base. The building dates from the mid 19th and is now listed. There is a local family charity and family members are buried in the local churchyard. The building is now flats.
Riverside pocket park to mark the supposed position of the Mayflower's mooring Sculpture by Peter Mclean, 1991, for the London Docklands Development Corporation. A group in bronze comprising a bearded Pilgrim Father looking over the shoulder of a young boy who reads a comic, 'Sunbeam Weekly' whilst his dog jumps up, this is a bronze moulded around the base of an old-fashioned lamppost. A plaque says it was unveiled by Mrs. Elsie Marks Vice Chair, Mayflower Tenants Association
137 Fisher Sufferance Wharf. Cumberland Wharf. This handled general cargoes and closed in 1973. It is now the site of the park and flats.
Rupack Street
This was originally part of Neptune Street. ‘Rupack’ was used as the name in connection with Prince Lee Boo as the word for ‘king’ in his native language.
17 Neptune Pub. Built 1850 and reputed to be a brothel for sailors. Closed in the 1990s and demolished. It was named in conjunction with Neptune Street.
Southern Approach to the Rotherhithe Tunnel
125 Clarence Wharf. This was operated by Ginesi, marble merchants – who also used another Clarence Wharf slightly down river. It became the site of the Knot Garden.
Knot Garden. This was a small brick-paved window on the Thames designed by T. Meddings as an entry for the 1975 Art into Landscape Competition. It contained a number of giant rope knots which were set with resin but they have now been removed. It is still open space. On the site of Ginisei Stone and Marble Works,
127-131 Brandram's Wharf is now housing as Brandram's Court. This was the riverside site for Brandram brothers, otherwise based in Neptune Street. It is a warehouse of 1870-80 converted to housing association flats in 1984-8 by Levin Bernstein Associates. The street wall screens an internal courtyard. In the end wall the steel stanchions are revealed where balconies have been created. The end had cast-iron columns. On the riverside is the name ‘Brandram's Wharf’. It is currently operated as a co-op with a membership restricted to low income single people and childless couples with a strong connection to the London Borough of Southwark.
135 Charles Hay and Sons has a sign on the door which says, the business was first established in 1789. In the early 19th Francis Hay had worked his way up to a become a master-lighterman and barge owner. His son, Charles Hay, also had a successful lighterage business and this was his base. The building dates from the mid 19th and is now listed. There is a local family charity and family members are buried in the local churchyard. The building is now flats.
Riverside pocket park to mark the supposed position of the Mayflower's mooring Sculpture by Peter Mclean, 1991, for the London Docklands Development Corporation. A group in bronze comprising a bearded Pilgrim Father looking over the shoulder of a young boy who reads a comic, 'Sunbeam Weekly' whilst his dog jumps up, this is a bronze moulded around the base of an old-fashioned lamppost. A plaque says it was unveiled by Mrs. Elsie Marks Vice Chair, Mayflower Tenants Association
137 Fisher Sufferance Wharf. Cumberland Wharf. This handled general cargoes and closed in 1973. It is now the site of the park and flats.
Rupack Street
This was originally part of Neptune Street. ‘Rupack’ was used as the name in connection with Prince Lee Boo as the word for ‘king’ in his native language.
17 Neptune Pub. Built 1850 and reputed to be a brothel for sailors. Closed in the 1990s and demolished. It was named in conjunction with Neptune Street.
Southern Approach to the Rotherhithe Tunnel
Cut off from Brunel Road by a wall. Tunnel portal etc. in polished pink granite.
Stairs lead down to footpath through the tunnel.
Southwark Park
Southwark Park. The park was set up by Metropolitan Board of Works on what had been market gardens. The land was bought from the Gomm family and it is entirely in what was Bermondsey. The park was opened by Sir John Thwaites in 1869. It has In trees, acres of grass and playing fields plus an ornamental garden with rockeries and massed flower beds; a band enclosure; a delightfully sited open air cafe and an out-door swimming pool It5 was once thought that the Park was designed by Alexander McKenzie, but also seems that his deputy,. Vuilliamy produced the plans. To service planned houses a carriageway was planed around the periphery of the Park but the plans were challenged by the "Southwark Park Protection Committee" and the scheme was dropped.
Southwark Park Lido. This was one of three lidos built by the London County Council in 1923 and built as a local unemployment relief scheme. It closed in 1989. The site of the pool has been developed into a children's playground, with the aerator fountain and a small store or plant room the only surviving structures.
Ada Salter Garden. This was opened in 1936. Dr. Alfred Salter was a major figure in the social reform of Bermondsey and M.P. for the west of the borough. He wanted a beautiful area for the elderly and mothers with young children to sit. His wife, Ada, was a member of the Bermondsey Borough Beautification Committee and London County Council Parks Committee and she lobbied for the garden. In 1934, when the London County Council was a Labour authority the garden was laid out. It was designed by Lt. Col. J. J. Sexby, superintendent of London's parks, and was known as "The Sexby Garden". Mrs. Salter was too unwell to attend the opening and when she died in 1942, it was decided to rename the garden in her memory. A plaque was put on the pergola, but this has gone, as has the sundial. A Tree of Heaven was also planted in her memory and this is by eastern entrance to the garden.
Lake. This was not present when the Park opened, but dates from 1885. A pair of swans was donated by Queen Victoria, and the rest of the waterfowl was donated by a local working men's committee. It may have had a direct hit, during Second World War bombing but the lake began to leak and has been progressively downsized ever since,
Cafe Gallery. This was originally in what was the old service building for the Lido. The Gallery was established in 1964 when the Bermondsey Artists' Group converted the park's derelict café into an art gallery. Cafe Gallery was rebuilt in 2000 as a fully accessible 'white cube' gallery.
St.Marychurch Street
St.Mary Rotherhithe. The church used to be on the waterfront and is probably a Saxon church connected to Bermondsey Abbey. The original church was demolished because the foundations were flooded. The present church was built by local people engaged in the coal trade in 1715 and built raised on a plinth to protect it from flooding. Rebuilding began in 1714 and was not finished by 1737 and the tower and chancel may be 1747. It is said that shipwrights gave masts for the pillars wh8ch look like stone but are in fact wood encased to plaster. The architect of the tower was Lancelot Dowbiggin. The church is in brick simple and friendly, among old trees. The roof is like an upturned boat but the octagonal obelisk spire was rebuilt in 1861. Internal galleries were removed in 1876 by Butterfield. There is a John Byfield organ of 1746. And reredos carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The communion table is of wood salvaged from the Temeraire. There are many memorials to ships captains. Including Christopher Jones, master of the Mayflower,
Churchyard. Full of trees and tombstones. There are many sea captains and their relations. There is a modern memorial and a 1995 statue to the captain of the Mayflower and the tomb of Lee Boo. The prince from the Pacific island of Cooroora who came to England to be educated, caught smallpox and died. There is also a children’s playground.
Time and Talents in the old Mortuary. The mortuary itself dates from the 19th. Time & Talents was set up- in 1875 for working class girls and has been involved in community development and social action since 1887. In 1898 a house in Bermondsey Square was used as the first base for Time & Talents activities in Bermondsey. Ladies held Bible classes and visited factories at lunch time to talk, sing and distribute flowers. They raised money for a Settlement in Bermondsey Street that opened in 1908. The organization fell on hard times during the 1960s and all its properties were sold. Since the 1980s they have developed the Old Mortuary a community centre.
St.Mary's School. Opened in 1613 this has 18th children’s statues above the door. The charity school was founded in 1612 by Robert Bacon and Peter Hills - a seaman, to whom there is a brass memorial in the church. In 1797 it moved to this house - thought to have been 100 years old by thn - although the school itself is now in a modern building in Beatson Walk. Above the door the children are in blue uniforms are blue, the boy with orange stockings and the girl with a white apron; both hold Bibles or prayer books, and the girl also has a scroll as well. An inscription between the corbels they stand on records "Free School founded by Peter Hill and Robert Bell Esqs 1613. Charity School substituted 1742, removed here 1797, supported by voluntary contributions. It is now used as offices.
6 The Bell Pub. Now demolished
9 Europa Pub, closed in 1980 and now demolished
12 Blue Bell Pub. Now demolished
39 Ship Pub. Probably the last pub to be built before the Second World War although it actually dates back to 1865. It moved to new premises in 1939 and it is now a Young pub.
40 New Dock Inn. Closed in 1939 and now demolished
Watch House - Old burial ground, facade 1821. Built to watch out for grave robbers.
St Mary's Rectory. Planned in 1803 by and enlarged 1869. Simple classical style, ands now being done up as a very posh house for someone.
Engine house. This is now a shelter with most of the building missing. It is dated 1821 on an inscribed panel. It is single storey with a wide central entranceway and 2 small windows. It forms a pair with the former watch house
Henley Close. Flats with the Bermondsey coat of arms displayed above the door.
Machinery on the corner with Tunnel Road is water pump from Lavender Dock Pumping Station.
Stave Dock
Stave Dock was composed out of the northern arm of the Grand Surrey Canal as it reached the river as the northern extension of Russia Dock.. It was shallow and only used by barges and for floated timber. Part of its site now appears to be sports grounds
Surrey Quays Road
This is a new road running around the area now called Surrey Quays – the southern section of Surrey Docks around Canada and Quebec Docks.
Horse trough. This is a granite cattle trough from around 1900, which has drinking fountain on one end. It is used as a flower bed, and has an inscription of the Association’s old address, 10 Victoria Street London S.W. The original trough was stolen and it was replaced with the current trough in 2010
Dock Offices. These once stood at the end of a short entrance road into the Docks from Lower Road. The clock tower now marks the entrance to the shopping centre from Surrey Quays Road. They were designed by engineer James McConnochie and are some of the few surviving buildings of the Surrey Commercial Docks. They were built in 1887, and it continued in use until the closure of the docks in 1969. There are three linked parts the Superintendent's Office with clock tower and the Janitor's House, both now known as the Dock Manager's Office and a large open plan General Office which is now 1-14 Dock Offices. They were restored by the London Docklands Development Corporation for use as offices. There is a blue plaque to the fire storm bombing of 1940 on the first night of the blitz.
Canada Water Station. This was opened in and lies between London Bridge and Canary Wharf on the Jubilee Line. Between Rotherhithe and Surrey Quays on the East London Line. It was designed by Herron Associates and completed by the Jubilee Line Extension's staff for opening in 1998. It was intended to be part of the Fleet Line which was never built. It is sited on part of what was Albion dock. Construction began in 1995 and needed a 72 feet deep cut-and-cover box in complex T-plan with multi-level concourses. The East London Line station required a separate slot at right angles, incorporating a 19th railway tunnel, which had to be dismantled. There was also a high water table here and two nearby 22 storey tower blocks. It initially opened with the East London Line only to be joined by the Jubilee line a month later. Above ground, its most noticeable feature is a glass drum designed and built by Buro Happold which covers an opening descending to near the Jubilee line platforms. This allows natural light to reach deep into the station. Below ground is a concrete box lined by concrete pillars to take the weight of a tower and the bus station above.
Canada Water Bus Station. This was opened in 1999 and has four bus stands. It was designed by Eva Jiriena as a hub for local services and an interchange for the tube station. It has a row of long roof spans cantilevered from a row of central columns supporting a glass and aluminium canopy.
21 Canada Water Library. This is a free standing building with an inverted pyramid shape; it contains a café, performance space, internet points and popular books. It is clad in aluminium sheets, anodised a light bronze with sequined perforations. The south-eastern corner has a 150-seat auditorium, to be managed by the Deptford-based Albany community theatre.
Ontario Point. 24 storey tower block built in 2013.
Odeon. This was opened by United Cinemas International in 1998. And it is in the Surrey Quays Leisure Park. It was taken over by Odeon Theatres in 2006 and re-branded Odeon.
Swan Road
This was originally called Swan Lane and is one of the oldest roads in the area, probably dating from the seventeenth century.
The Swan Road Estate. This was built by the London County Council in 1902-3 to rehouse people who had to move because of the building of the Rotherhithe Tunnel. They were refurbished by Robinson, Kenning Gallagher in 1996 for the London Docklands Development Corporation. There are also some new flats here.
Mural. Installed 1992 by David John. It is in Vitreous Glass Mosaic and shows swans in forint of the Rotherhithe riverfront.
47 Pub was Adam and Eve now Brunel. It was built in 1913 for the Wenlock Brewery of Shoreditch,
Sources
Aldous. London Villages
A Rotherhithe blog, Web site
Arthur Lloyd. Web site
Bermondsey Boy. Web site
Bird, Geography of the Port of London
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Bygone Kent
Canals from Croydon to Camberwell
Cement Kilns. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Dockland History Survey
English Heritage. London’s Town Halls
Exploring Southwark. Web site
GLIAS Newsletter
GLIAS-walk,
Lewisham History Society Transactions
London Encyclopedia
London Docklands Guide
London Gardens On Line. Web site
Lost Churches. Web site
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Lost Pubs. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Pevsner and Williamson. London Docklands
Port Cities. Web site.
Port of London Magazine
South East London Industrial Archaeology
Spurgeon. Discover Deptford and Lewisham
Trench and Hillman. London Under London
Tucker. Ferries of the Lower Thames
Winter. The First Golden Age of Rocketry
Southwark Park
Southwark Park. The park was set up by Metropolitan Board of Works on what had been market gardens. The land was bought from the Gomm family and it is entirely in what was Bermondsey. The park was opened by Sir John Thwaites in 1869. It has In trees, acres of grass and playing fields plus an ornamental garden with rockeries and massed flower beds; a band enclosure; a delightfully sited open air cafe and an out-door swimming pool It5 was once thought that the Park was designed by Alexander McKenzie, but also seems that his deputy,. Vuilliamy produced the plans. To service planned houses a carriageway was planed around the periphery of the Park but the plans were challenged by the "Southwark Park Protection Committee" and the scheme was dropped.
Southwark Park Lido. This was one of three lidos built by the London County Council in 1923 and built as a local unemployment relief scheme. It closed in 1989. The site of the pool has been developed into a children's playground, with the aerator fountain and a small store or plant room the only surviving structures.
Ada Salter Garden. This was opened in 1936. Dr. Alfred Salter was a major figure in the social reform of Bermondsey and M.P. for the west of the borough. He wanted a beautiful area for the elderly and mothers with young children to sit. His wife, Ada, was a member of the Bermondsey Borough Beautification Committee and London County Council Parks Committee and she lobbied for the garden. In 1934, when the London County Council was a Labour authority the garden was laid out. It was designed by Lt. Col. J. J. Sexby, superintendent of London's parks, and was known as "The Sexby Garden". Mrs. Salter was too unwell to attend the opening and when she died in 1942, it was decided to rename the garden in her memory. A plaque was put on the pergola, but this has gone, as has the sundial. A Tree of Heaven was also planted in her memory and this is by eastern entrance to the garden.
Lake. This was not present when the Park opened, but dates from 1885. A pair of swans was donated by Queen Victoria, and the rest of the waterfowl was donated by a local working men's committee. It may have had a direct hit, during Second World War bombing but the lake began to leak and has been progressively downsized ever since,
Cafe Gallery. This was originally in what was the old service building for the Lido. The Gallery was established in 1964 when the Bermondsey Artists' Group converted the park's derelict café into an art gallery. Cafe Gallery was rebuilt in 2000 as a fully accessible 'white cube' gallery.
St.Marychurch Street
St.Mary Rotherhithe. The church used to be on the waterfront and is probably a Saxon church connected to Bermondsey Abbey. The original church was demolished because the foundations were flooded. The present church was built by local people engaged in the coal trade in 1715 and built raised on a plinth to protect it from flooding. Rebuilding began in 1714 and was not finished by 1737 and the tower and chancel may be 1747. It is said that shipwrights gave masts for the pillars wh8ch look like stone but are in fact wood encased to plaster. The architect of the tower was Lancelot Dowbiggin. The church is in brick simple and friendly, among old trees. The roof is like an upturned boat but the octagonal obelisk spire was rebuilt in 1861. Internal galleries were removed in 1876 by Butterfield. There is a John Byfield organ of 1746. And reredos carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The communion table is of wood salvaged from the Temeraire. There are many memorials to ships captains. Including Christopher Jones, master of the Mayflower,
Churchyard. Full of trees and tombstones. There are many sea captains and their relations. There is a modern memorial and a 1995 statue to the captain of the Mayflower and the tomb of Lee Boo. The prince from the Pacific island of Cooroora who came to England to be educated, caught smallpox and died. There is also a children’s playground.
Time and Talents in the old Mortuary. The mortuary itself dates from the 19th. Time & Talents was set up- in 1875 for working class girls and has been involved in community development and social action since 1887. In 1898 a house in Bermondsey Square was used as the first base for Time & Talents activities in Bermondsey. Ladies held Bible classes and visited factories at lunch time to talk, sing and distribute flowers. They raised money for a Settlement in Bermondsey Street that opened in 1908. The organization fell on hard times during the 1960s and all its properties were sold. Since the 1980s they have developed the Old Mortuary a community centre.
St.Mary's School. Opened in 1613 this has 18th children’s statues above the door. The charity school was founded in 1612 by Robert Bacon and Peter Hills - a seaman, to whom there is a brass memorial in the church. In 1797 it moved to this house - thought to have been 100 years old by thn - although the school itself is now in a modern building in Beatson Walk. Above the door the children are in blue uniforms are blue, the boy with orange stockings and the girl with a white apron; both hold Bibles or prayer books, and the girl also has a scroll as well. An inscription between the corbels they stand on records "Free School founded by Peter Hill and Robert Bell Esqs 1613. Charity School substituted 1742, removed here 1797, supported by voluntary contributions. It is now used as offices.
6 The Bell Pub. Now demolished
9 Europa Pub, closed in 1980 and now demolished
12 Blue Bell Pub. Now demolished
39 Ship Pub. Probably the last pub to be built before the Second World War although it actually dates back to 1865. It moved to new premises in 1939 and it is now a Young pub.
40 New Dock Inn. Closed in 1939 and now demolished
Watch House - Old burial ground, facade 1821. Built to watch out for grave robbers.
St Mary's Rectory. Planned in 1803 by and enlarged 1869. Simple classical style, ands now being done up as a very posh house for someone.
Engine house. This is now a shelter with most of the building missing. It is dated 1821 on an inscribed panel. It is single storey with a wide central entranceway and 2 small windows. It forms a pair with the former watch house
Henley Close. Flats with the Bermondsey coat of arms displayed above the door.
Machinery on the corner with Tunnel Road is water pump from Lavender Dock Pumping Station.
Stave Dock
Stave Dock was composed out of the northern arm of the Grand Surrey Canal as it reached the river as the northern extension of Russia Dock.. It was shallow and only used by barges and for floated timber. Part of its site now appears to be sports grounds
Surrey Quays Road
This is a new road running around the area now called Surrey Quays – the southern section of Surrey Docks around Canada and Quebec Docks.
Horse trough. This is a granite cattle trough from around 1900, which has drinking fountain on one end. It is used as a flower bed, and has an inscription of the Association’s old address, 10 Victoria Street London S.W. The original trough was stolen and it was replaced with the current trough in 2010
Dock Offices. These once stood at the end of a short entrance road into the Docks from Lower Road. The clock tower now marks the entrance to the shopping centre from Surrey Quays Road. They were designed by engineer James McConnochie and are some of the few surviving buildings of the Surrey Commercial Docks. They were built in 1887, and it continued in use until the closure of the docks in 1969. There are three linked parts the Superintendent's Office with clock tower and the Janitor's House, both now known as the Dock Manager's Office and a large open plan General Office which is now 1-14 Dock Offices. They were restored by the London Docklands Development Corporation for use as offices. There is a blue plaque to the fire storm bombing of 1940 on the first night of the blitz.
Canada Water Station. This was opened in and lies between London Bridge and Canary Wharf on the Jubilee Line. Between Rotherhithe and Surrey Quays on the East London Line. It was designed by Herron Associates and completed by the Jubilee Line Extension's staff for opening in 1998. It was intended to be part of the Fleet Line which was never built. It is sited on part of what was Albion dock. Construction began in 1995 and needed a 72 feet deep cut-and-cover box in complex T-plan with multi-level concourses. The East London Line station required a separate slot at right angles, incorporating a 19th railway tunnel, which had to be dismantled. There was also a high water table here and two nearby 22 storey tower blocks. It initially opened with the East London Line only to be joined by the Jubilee line a month later. Above ground, its most noticeable feature is a glass drum designed and built by Buro Happold which covers an opening descending to near the Jubilee line platforms. This allows natural light to reach deep into the station. Below ground is a concrete box lined by concrete pillars to take the weight of a tower and the bus station above.
Canada Water Bus Station. This was opened in 1999 and has four bus stands. It was designed by Eva Jiriena as a hub for local services and an interchange for the tube station. It has a row of long roof spans cantilevered from a row of central columns supporting a glass and aluminium canopy.
21 Canada Water Library. This is a free standing building with an inverted pyramid shape; it contains a café, performance space, internet points and popular books. It is clad in aluminium sheets, anodised a light bronze with sequined perforations. The south-eastern corner has a 150-seat auditorium, to be managed by the Deptford-based Albany community theatre.
Ontario Point. 24 storey tower block built in 2013.
Odeon. This was opened by United Cinemas International in 1998. And it is in the Surrey Quays Leisure Park. It was taken over by Odeon Theatres in 2006 and re-branded Odeon.
Swan Road
This was originally called Swan Lane and is one of the oldest roads in the area, probably dating from the seventeenth century.
The Swan Road Estate. This was built by the London County Council in 1902-3 to rehouse people who had to move because of the building of the Rotherhithe Tunnel. They were refurbished by Robinson, Kenning Gallagher in 1996 for the London Docklands Development Corporation. There are also some new flats here.
Mural. Installed 1992 by David John. It is in Vitreous Glass Mosaic and shows swans in forint of the Rotherhithe riverfront.
47 Pub was Adam and Eve now Brunel. It was built in 1913 for the Wenlock Brewery of Shoreditch,
Sources
Aldous. London Villages
A Rotherhithe blog, Web site
Arthur Lloyd. Web site
Bermondsey Boy. Web site
Bird, Geography of the Port of London
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Bygone Kent
Canals from Croydon to Camberwell
Cement Kilns. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Dockland History Survey
English Heritage. London’s Town Halls
Exploring Southwark. Web site
GLIAS Newsletter
GLIAS-walk,
Lewisham History Society Transactions
London Encyclopedia
London Docklands Guide
London Gardens On Line. Web site
Lost Churches. Web site
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Lost Pubs. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Pevsner and Williamson. London Docklands
Port Cities. Web site.
Port of London Magazine
South East London Industrial Archaeology
Spurgeon. Discover Deptford and Lewisham
Trench and Hillman. London Under London
Tucker. Ferries of the Lower Thames
Winter. The First Golden Age of Rocketry
Comments
Many thanks
Jamie Friel
Jfriel1@hotmail.com
Here is some more information about him: https://morethannelson.com/officer/john-elphinstone-1/