Bermondsey is a place in the London Borough of Southwark. It is a built-up district located 2.1 miles (3.4 km) east south-east of Charing Cross.

History

11th century

The area was originally named "Beormund's Ey", Beormund being a Saxon personal name, "ey" being Old Norse for "island". At this time it would have been little more than a marshy riverside island. A community of Cluniac monks established Bermondsey Abbey on the site in 1082 and began the development of the area, cultivating the land and embanking the riverside. They turned an adjacent tidal inlet at the mouth of the River Neckinger into a dock, naming it St Saviour's Dock after their abbey's patron.

The Knights Templar also owned land here and gave their names to one of the most distinctive streets in London, Shad Thames (a corruption of "St John at Thames"). Other ecclesiastical properties stood nearby at Tooley (a corruption of "St Olave's") Street, where wealthy citizens and clerics had their houses, including the Priors of Lewes, the Abbots of Battle and the Priors of St Augustine, Canterbury.

17th century

18th century

In the 18th century, the discovery of a spring in the area led to Bermondsey becoming a spa. It was from the Bermondsey riverside that the painter J.M.W. Turner executed his famous painting of The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up (1839), depicting the veteran warship being towed to Rotherhithe to be scrapped.

19th century

By the mid-19th century parts of Bermondsey had become a notorious slum - with the arrival of industrial plants, docks and immigrant housing. The area around St Saviour's Dock, known as Jacob's Island, was one of the worst in London. It was immortalised by Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist, in which the principal villain Bill Sikes meets a nasty end in the mud of 'Folly Ditch' - the scene of an attack by Spring Heeled Jack in 1845 - surrounding Jacob's Island. Dickens provides a vivid description of what it was like:

"... crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it - as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Jacob's Island."

Bermondsey Town Hall was built on Spa Road in 1881.

The area was extensively redeveloped during the 19th century and early 20th century with the expansion of the river trade and the arrival of the railways. London's first passenger railway terminus was built by the London to Greenwich Railway in 1836 at London Bridge, connecting Bermondsey with Greenwich. The line ran for four miles on 878 brick arches, with the linked Croydon Railway opening in 1839.

20th century

From 1899 to 1965 Bermondsey formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey.

To the east of Tower Bridge, Bermondsey's 3½ miles of riverside were lined with warehouses and wharves, of which the best known is Butler's Wharf. They suffered severe damage in World War II bombing and became redundant in the 1960s following the collapse of the river trade. After standing derelict for some years, many of the wharves were redeveloped under the aegis of the London Docklands Development Corporation during the 1980s. They have now been converted into a mixture of residential and commercial accommodations and have become some of the most upmarket and expensive properties in London. In 1997, US President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the area to dine at the Pont de la Tour restaurant at Butler's Wharf.

Despite the presence of London Bridge station, Bermondsey's transport links with the rest of London have historically been poor. This was remedied in 1999 with the opening of Bermondsey tube station on the London Underground's Jubilee Line Extension.

Places of interest

• Bermondsey antiques market
• Fashion and Textile Museum
• London Dungeon
• Mandela Way T-34 Tank
• Millwall F.C.

Nearest places

• Wapping
• Whitechapel
• Rotherhithe
• Newington
• Walworth

External links

• London SE1 community website

Districts of London | Southwark