Borough Market East Notes
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BOROUGH MARKET EAST NOTES
From coach drop-off point, walk down Southwark Street towards Borough Market
Pass 59½ Southwark Street (see Borough Market West notes). Pass Menier Chocolate Factory (see BMW notes).
East Walk
From the B and F cross over the main road (Southwark Street) and turn right on the pavement, passing under the railway bridge and going as far as The Hop Exchange
Go into The Hop Exchange to see the Atrium
A stunning Grade 2 listed building from 1867, where Kentish hops were bought and sold. South- wark was always known as a borough with a strong history in the brewing trade. The Exchange was never a huge success as hops are a seasonal product and hop traders already had their places of business, so it was mainly used for the buying and selling of eggs. It was also known, therefore, as The Egg Exchange. A fire in 1920 destroyed the top two floors, so imagine how grand it must have been before then. Escaped the bombing in the Second World War. Now used for a va- riety of purposes inc. offices, it is officially described as an Events Venue. The atrium, where the buying and selling went on, is simply superb. The owner is a Formula One devotee and ex-driver.
After The Hop Exchange, turn left and then go up Stoney Street. Turn right into Borough Market
Borough Market: probably over 1000 years old. The present buildings date to 1851. It operates as a charitable trust overseen by a board of trustees, who all live locally. Originally sited at the south end of London Bridge, so pretty much in the same place for its full existence. For many years it was exclusively a wholesale fruit and vegetable market but it now sells to the general public. It is very trendy and this is reflected in some of the prices. There is a Men’s Barber’s Shop. Standard haircut: £19. It is still the main fruit and veg supplier to the greengrocery trade in the London area, along with Covent Garden. It is amazingly close to the railway into London Bridge Station, with two viaducts passing pretty much overhead. Recent Thameslink (Bedford/London Bridge/Brighton) essential upgrading work has meant the al- teration and demolishing of some properties on-site which has been very controversial, but it has also meant the much-needed replacing of the Market glazed roof on Stoney Street. Full market open from Wednesday through to Saturday. Note the bell; formerly rung at 9am to denote the time from which setting up of stalls was permissible. Also note the old fashioned list of rules for stall holders.
Carry on ahead, crossing Bedale Street
The Globe pub to the right was used in the Bridget Jones’ Diary film, as BJ’s flat.
Go through the next bit of the market and bear left by the Gourmet Goat stand to go out on to the road. Turn right and almost immediately turn in through the metal gates of Southwark Cathedral
Walk a short way to look at the outside. The patronal name of Southwark Cathedral is St Saviour’s and St Mary Overie (the latter was made a saint because of her charity, but she was ac- tually a Thames ferryman’s daughter) and it is the oldest cathedral building in London (parts are 12C) but it has only been a cathedral since 1905. The present building has been heavily altered in- side by the Victorians. Overie means “over the river”. Nevertheless, the medieval origins still show through. Impressive flying buttresses are visible from the road. A metal sculpture by Alan Collins of a Roman soldier stands outside on the far side. There are 6 cathedrals in London: St Paul’s Cathe- dral, this one, Westminster Cathedral (RC), St George’s Cathedral in Southwark (also RC), St Mary’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Camberwell and a Russian Orthodox cathedral known as the Cathedral of the Dormition (death of Mary Mother of Jesus) in Knightsbridge. Westminster Abbey is not a cathedral. It is a Royal Peculiar, a church subject to the direct jurisdiction of the monarch, rather than the diocesan Bishop. St Edwards King and Martyr on Peas Hill in Cambridge, just by The Guildhall, is another royal peculiar, dating back to the days of Henry VI. Southwark Cathedral charges £4 per person if you go in as part of a group and these have to be pre-booked anyway, but can be visited for nothing if you go in as an individual or couple (during lunchtime break?) although they try to get you to make a £4 “voluntary donation”. Expect to be pounced on as soon as you enter. It is remarkably crowd-free inside and well worth seeing. You have to purchase a photo permit to take pics: £2. It costs 50p to use the loo.
Turn back out of the cathedral grounds and go right, past the Roman Soldier statue and then to- wards the river
There is a riverside viewpoint of London Bridge in a few yards. The current bridge was opened in 1973, the previous one having been sold to the Americans and it is now reassembled and can be visited in Arizona. Urban myth: the buyers knew very well it was not Tower Bridge but it’s a good story and very plausible. The first stone bridge was 12C and it was the only bridge across the Thames in London until 1750. it used to have houses, shops, chapels and even water mills on it.
On the far side of the Thames is the City of London. It is England’s smallest city by population; only just over 7100 live here. 3000 fewer than Wells, the next smallest. Strictly speaking, there are no roads in the City of London. There are Streets, Squares and Alleys, but the word Road was not coined until the late 16C, but by that time all the thoroughfares in the City of London had already been named.
Retrace your steps and go left, past Glazier ’ s Hall
It was built as a warehouse in the early 19C and was added to in the middle of that century. It is the home of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass (and a couple of other august bodies) who gained their charter in 1639. It is now a Conference and Event centre.
It is next to the so-called Nancy Steps, made famous in the film musical Oliver, where Bill Sikes did away with Nancy. In the book, she was actually murdered in her house. She was the original “tart with a heart”. She is described as a prostitute by Dickens, in Oliver Twist.
Pass under London Bridge
It is now Tooley Street (the name derives from The Church of St Olave - t’olous; demolished in the mid-1920s.). The street was formerly known as the Breakfast Table of England due to the plethora of warehouses that were built here. It also used to have The London Provision Exchange some- where along its length.; for ham, bacon, cheese and tinned goods. A huge two week fire in 1861 destroyed a lot of the buildings, said to be second only to The Great Fire of London.
Up St Olaf ’ s Stairs on the left
These are no longer stairs but it is a walkway through to the riverside. It is just before St Olaf’s House: an art deco building from the late 1920s which is now part of London Bridge Hospital (pri- vate, not NHS).
Turn right alongside river on The Queen ’ s (sometimes called Riverside ) Walk
20 Fenchurch Street (The Walkie Talkie) can be seen over the river. Opened very recently, it is an office block designed by a Uruguayan architect. You can go in free up to the roof garden. Go online by putting in Sky Garden and book a date and time slot. Airport security so take photo id with you. Great view up and down the river from the viewing platform.
Go right down Hay ’ s Lane There is a great view of The Shard, ahead.
Turn left into the back of Hay ’ s Galleria before the next cross street
Originally a wharf and warehouses known as Hay’s Dock (after the original owner Alexander Hay). Built in 1856 by William Cubitt and designed for tea clippers, but so many more kinds of dry goods were brought in it was nicknamed the Larder of London. The Victorian architecture in the former dock area has been maintained and the whole has been covered by a glass roof. It closed to ship- ping in 1970, The Pool of London (the Thames upstream as far as London Bridge and downstream to Limehouse) becoming unable to cope with the growth of container traffic and the use of other large, deep-draughted seagoing boats. Such boats now load and unload much further down- stream, near the Thames Estuary, or head for Felixstowe. The large kinetic sculpture - it moves - is called The Navigators and is by David Kemp.
Turn right along the river frontage at the front end of the Galleria.
The Horniman: a modern pub with an “aged’ look, named after Thomas Horniman the Victorian grocer, who imported tea to his warehouse on the Hay’s Galleria site when it was Hay’s Wharf.
HMS Belfast: a museum ship. Launched in 1938, the largest cruiser in the Royal Navy, it was damaged by a mine in late 1939. It was repaired and worked the guarding of Merchant Fleets to Murmansk in Russia. It took part in the destruction of the Scharnhorst at the Battle of North Cape in early 1943. Also involved in the D Day Landings. Taken out of service in 1965. Now part of the Imperial War Museum and can be visited.
The Scoop: to the right, opposite HMS Belfast, this is an outdoor sunken amphitheatre for theatre, film, music, dance, etc. Free to attend events. Has a 1000 person capacity.
Go on, to pass City Hall
The HQ of the Greater London Authority, which means Mayor plus London Assembly. Note, the Lord Mayor of London is nothing to do with City Hall, but is a ceremonial office based in The City of London (nicknamed “the square mile”). The incumbent, invariably a financier of some sort, is changed annually. City Hall was designed by Norman Foster and opened in 2002. You may have seen Mayor’s Question Times on the BBC Parliament Channel, which are held here. It has a sup- posedly energy efficient design but it actually isn’t especially efficient. There are 10 floors, and a helical walkway all the way to the top (it does have lifts, as well). One of its politer nicknames is The Motorcycle Helmet. Ken Livingstone calls it “The Glass Testicle”.
Over the river is the Tower of London: dates back to the time of William the Conqueror and was originally a Royal Residence. Always of huge strategic importance and extremely symbolic of pow- er It became the most significant prison in the country and was used for that purpose from the early 12C up to the 1950s. The Krays were the last inmates. Traitor’s Gate (the water gate) is visible from the south side of the river. The Tower is a World Heritage Site.
Tower Bridge is ahead. It is not as old as it looks. It dates to 1894. Was designed to blend in archi- tecturally with the Tower of London. Designed by Sir Horace Jones who died a month after con- struction started and his design was modified and brought to fruition by John Barry who was origi- nally brought in on the project to work on the lifting mechanism (after being knighted in 1897 he af- fected the name Sir John Wolfe Barry). It is a bascule and suspension bridge. The word bascule refers to the two drawbridge sections that open when large vessels come up the Thames. The op- eration of these was steam hydraulically powered until the mid 1970s, but now electric motors are used. Can visit it and see how it operates now and how it used to operate. Repainted in blue and white in 2016, the original 1894 colours.The overhead walkway offers an excellent view up and down the river. 24 hours notice is required to have the bridge opened for shipping and, so long as your craft is 29ft high or taller, there is no charge to open the bridge. If you want to have it opened for your rowing boat or similar, as a bit of a vanity project, you will get a bill for £2500.
Go under Tower Bridge Road
The chimney and building to the right immediately after the bridge is the old engine house for the raising and lowering operation of the bridge.
The cobbled street ahead and the surrounding small area are known as Shad Thames: a historic area of former warehouses which were abandoned in 1972 as a result of The Pool of London de- cline. Now largely residential but with a variety of restaurants too. The original architecture along Shad Thames street has been maintained, including the overhead walkways from one warehouse to another. Shad is possibly short for St John at Thames, the name of a long-gone local church but it seems a bit unlikely to get from that to Shad and some experts believe it derives from the name of a fish found in the Thames at that time, pointing out that Pickled Herring Street was the name of the riverside street to the west of Shad Thames. Not sure that’s any more likely. Nothing to do with Shadwell near Wapping on the other side of the river where the name derives from the Old English word for shallow. The river frontage (and sometimes the immediate area) is often called Butler’s Wharf after the main warehouse facing the river.
Turn left at the first cross street and go on to the river frontage. Turn right
Terence Conran’s creation The Design Museum can be seen in a former banana warehouse which looks nothing like one. Now closed on this site and reopening in Kensington in November of this year.
Pass a load of sculptures and artworks of various kinds, many with a nautical theme. One is a piece of pink granite split open showing the inside of a fruit.
Keep on past the last of the restaurants to the right and go on to the dock gate
This is St Saviour’s Dock: at the far end of Shad Thames where the subterranean River Neckinger enters the Thames. It was created by medieval monks from nearby Bermondsey Abbey and named after their patron. The name Neckinger comes about as a result of pirates being hanged at the mouth of the river in the 17C. The hangman’s noose being known colloquially as the devil’s neck cloth. The dock has a substantial tidal range: 4m. Old warehouses (Cinnamon Wharf, Saffron Wharf, Java Wharf etc) surround it. The left hand side of the dock, furthest from Shad Thames, is known as Jacob’s Island, a notorious lawless slum in the 19C. Bill Sikes, in Oliver Twist, had his den there and met his end in the mud of the dock. it is described by Dickens as the Venice of Drains. Used as a set in several films eg. The World Is Not Enough (Pierce Brosnan as James Bond) with a typically unfeasible speedboat stunt.
Looking across the river St Katharine’s Dock is over on the other side of the Thames. Formerly part of the docks along this stretch of the Thames, also part of The Pool of London. Is now a popu- lar housing and leisure complex for those with the money to live/play there.
Canary Wharf can be seen over the river downstream. Named after the banana boats from the Canary Islands that docked there. The Canary Islands got their name not from the birds (which were, in fact, named after the Islands) but from the latin for dog. Wild dogs were found on the is- lands when they were first settled. Coincidentally, Canary Wharf is on the Isle of Dogs, but this is, some say, named after various monarchs’ royal kennels, which were said to be situated in the area. Other people dispute this explanation and no one really knows the origin of the name.
Retrace your steps to go along the river front passing Butler ’ s Wharf and go back to Shad Thames street via Maggie Blake ’ s Cause, an alley at the end of the river frontage. To the right of the alley is the old John Courage Brewery building, first opened in the late 18C but closed in 1981 Alley so named after an activist who successfully campaigned to keep the waterfront open to the general public in the wake of the Shad Thames redevelopment project; the developers wanted to make it completely private. Cue Maggie.
Look down Horselydown Lane to the left (an old name meaning hill by the horse marsh). The pub down there is The Anchor Tap dating from the 19C but on the site of John Courage’s first pub, bought at the end of the 18C. A tap was the nearest pub to the brewery and here beer was on draught or “on tap”. At other outlets it was merely bottled.
Go back under south end of Tower Bridge and fork left into Potters Field Park heading behind City Hall
The park was planned in 1982 and re-opened in its current form in 2007. The area used to be wharves and warehouses, but now there are great views of the river frontage. The range of plants is rather impressive. During the Olympics there was a huge screen here showing the main events.
Walk between the black ball sculptures. Known as the Punctuation Marks
After City Hall, the route passes over the now defunct Thames Subway. A tunnel was opened in 1870, containing a cable-hauled railway carriage on a narrow gauge track in which people were hauled under the river. The company soon went bust but the tunnel was converted to a pedestrian footway (cost ½d) and was used by a million people a year. After the toll-free Tower Bridge was opened it became uneconomic and it was abandoned in 1898. Now mainly used for water mains.
Carry on ahead down More London Riverside (walk down the paved area to the left of Gaucho, the paved area having a conduit running down the centre)
More London is mixed-use business district with a very modern look, dating to 2002 at its earliest. About 20,000 people will work here (inc. City Hall) when all building is complete. The statues at the far end are called Couple and are made from wood. They had disappeared in Sept 2016 but may well be back after painting. More London was a contender for Carbuncle of the Year a few years back.
Turn right along Tooley Street
Pass Stainer Street to the left, now being filled in after extensive station work overhead (it will be the site of yet another dungeon-type museum/entertainment for those who like being scared out of their wits; The London Dungeon is very close by). It was the scene of the death of over 60 people in 1941 when the railway arches, where people were sheltering during The Blitz, suffered a direct bomb hit.
Cross over at the first pedestrian crossing
Look left across the road. A “V2 Rocket “ used to be attached to the side of a building. With the V2 looking like it was created with a budget of about £2.50, the building used to house the Winston Churchill Britain at War Experience. This got the chop when Railtrack needed the land as part of the Crossrail project. Trying to improve direct rail links across London.
London Bridge Station is more or less overhead: the earliest railway terminus in London although no longer a full terminus as it has some through platforms. Originally called Tooley Street station. It opened in 1836. The fourth busiest railway station in Britain in terms of numbers of passengers: 56 million people p.a. use it. The busiest is Waterloo.
Carry on to just after the point where Tooley Street forks off right. The route is now on Duke Street Hill
Take the walkway under London Bridge Station , opposite the London Dungeon The entrance to The Shard is on the far side. Crane neck and look right up its height.
Turn right when St Thomas Street is reached, on other side of the station, and cross over as soon as possible
Look back along the road to view The Shard, which is the official name of the building: built on the site of the old Southwark Towers office block, by London Bridge Station, and completed after a lot of planning and objection overcoming, in 2008. It needed the State of Qatar to come on board to provide finance when the global financial crash happened, otherwise it would never have been fin- ished. Nearly 310 metres tall (just over 1000ft) and with 87 floors it is the tallest building in the EU. Offices, restaurants and hotel rooms. Great view from the top, on a nice day.
On the far side of the road is Guy’s Hospital: dating to 1726. The founder was the bookseller and publisher Thomas Guy (he was said to be a bit of a miser, too, but was also a speculator and made money as an investor in the South Sea Company: a slave trading operation). He realised there was a need for a new hospital in addition to the existing St Thomas’ of which he was a governor and set this up leaving nearly £220k in his will, for its continued maintenance. John Keats trained here be- fore giving up medicine to be a poet. Much good it did him; he died at the age of 26 from consump- tion. St Thomas’ Hospital (hence the name of the road) used to be on much the same site but has now moved. All that remains are the red brick Queen Anne Buildings and St Thomas’ Church.
Keep ahead on St Thomas ’ Street
The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret is opposite: rediscovered in 1956 in the roof of an 18C church. A genuine early Victorian operating theatre sans anaesthetics. The herb garret was where the hospital apothecary cultivated his medicinal herbs. It is open for visitors, at a price.
Turn round and a blue plaque will be seen, commemorating John Keats and Henry Stephens, who actually lived here when they was studying at Guy’s and St Thomas’s.
Go left into Borough High Street
Look along King’s Head Yard. The pub is still there on the right, but the galleries on the building that existed until near the end of the 19C have long gone. The Old King’s Head, the king in ques- tion being Henry VIII, is not the place to go for a quiet drink (busy and with TV screens showing sport) but the beer garden out back is good and the food is not the most expensive for this part of London. Used a lot by market traders.
Carry on to The George
An old coaching inn and it is the only galleried pub left in London. Dates from 1676; it originally stretched round three sides of the courtyard, but the north and west wings were demolished in 1899 to make way for railway buildings. Has been a National Trust property since the late 1930s.- Good lavatory stop. There were many coaching inns around here; the site of The Tabard from where Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims set out is just a short distance further down Borough High Street. Nothing to see today, other than a plaque.
Turn back right up Borough High Street from The George and cross over at the first crossing both over Borough High Street and then go to the right over Southwark Street by number 59 ½ . Return to the coach.