My walk took me along the Thames Path on the South Bank. Starting at Blackfriars Station, I quickly passed through Bankside, past the Tate
Modern, and soon arrived at the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. The
original Globe was not located here, but somewhere near here. I did not come to
see the Globe, however, but a house next to it.
I had recently
read The House by the Thames and the
People Who Lived There by Gillian Tindall, a fascinating account of Bankside
and its people since medieval times. I have passed the house in question many
times before but never took any notice of it. It isn’t a palace, or even a
mansion, but a modest residence that has been here since the early
18th century. After reading Tindall’s book, however, I just had to
have a look.
What I was
most interested in was this plaque on the front of the house:
None of this
was true, as Tindall explains in her book. Wren did live for a time in a house
nearby that no longer exists. As for Catherine of Aragon, no evidence exists
that she slept here, with or without Henry. The house did not exist in 1502. An inn, perhaps, but as Tindall points out, 16th century princesses didn't stay in common inns.
The claims about Wren and
Catherine were fabricated. the culprit was a mid-twentieth owner of the house, Ludwig Malcolm
Munthe. Perhaps he put up the plaque to attract tourists who prefer myth to history or just to make
himself feel important. Despite Tindall’s exposure, the plaque remains to
mislead those who bother to read it. Munthe’s fabrication may have had a good
result, however. Tindall argues that its faux history may have helped save the house
from demolition in the late 1940s, the fate of many nearby old buildings.
Moving on, I
passed The Clink, a museum named for the Bishop of Winchester’s prison that existed
here from the 12th century to 1781. The Bishop’s Palace was next
door, but only part of its foundations remain. A little further on is the Golden Hind, a replica of the ship that
Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world in/on 1577-1580.
Resisting
tours, I plowed on past London bridge and the HMS Belfast, a WWII light cruiser, one of only three surviving
ships that formed part of the bombardment fleet on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Next, I came to City Hall,
which looked like it was about to take off into hyperspace, in stark contrast
to the extremely earthbound medieval Tower of London across the river.
Just past
these monuments to the past, I arrived at iconic Tower Bridge, which looks
medieval, but dates from the 1890s, when neo-gothic was the rage.
I recalled
the story that the developers of Lake Havasu City, AZ, who bought the previous
London Bridge in the 1970s, actually thought Tower Bridge was London Bridge,
and were disappointed to learn they had bought a rather dull neoclassical
construction. Maybe the story is apocryphal, but many tourists no doubt think
of Tower Bridge as London Bridge. Souvenir shops are full of models of the
former, but not the latter.
Passing
under Tower Bridge, I entered Bermondsey. The Docklands proper
begin here, and for centuries until the 1960s this area would have been chock
full of ships coming and going from all points of the globe. The advent of
giant container ships ended that world. Just past the Bridge one comes to
Butler’s Wharf, a huge Victorian warehouse that has been converted into upscale
apartments and restaurants.
At the end
of Butler’s Wharf, I came to a muddy inlet of warehouses: St. Savior’s Dock, New
Concordia Wharf, and Jacob’s Island Pier. This area was once a notorious slum. It now features luxury flats.
Readers of Dickens’ Oliver
Twist may recall that it is at Jacob's Island that the villainous Bill Sykes
meets his well-deserved end, falling from a roof into the mud, still very evident at low tide. Dickens called
this area “the filthiest, strangest, and most extraordinary of the many localities
that are hidden in London.” It's no longer filthy, at least, and is now rather posh.
After
crossing the inlet on a metal pedestrian bridge, I went through and under a
building on the waterfront. For a few blocks here, the Thames Path meanders along
Bermondsey Wall West. Here, old warehouses, now luxury apartments, generally obscure the river from view. I passed by the location of a huge new Thames super sewer tunnel project, which also obscures the river from view now. Recent discharges of raw sewage into British waters make the need for this project urgent.
The path soon rejoins the river again at
Bermondsey Wall East, near the Angel Pub. I was sorely tempted to enter for a
pint, but I resisted and sat for a while on a bench, looking across to Wapping and Execution Dock, where the notorious alleged pirate Captain Kidd was hanged in
1701. A short
distance past the Angel I walked through a narrow passage between warehouses
(now apartments) linked by overhead bridges (now bedecked with flowering
plants).
Just past these warehouses I entered the historic heart of Rotherhithe
and arrived at the quaint and ancient Mayflower Pub.
The pub,
which dates in part from the 17th century, was later renamed for the famous
ship that carried the Pilgrim Fathers (and Mothers/Kids) to Massachusetts in
1620. The ship was from here in Rotherhithe, and several of its owners are
buried in St. Mary’s Churchyard across the street. Among them is Christopher
Jones, who captained the Mayflower on
its voyage to “discover the New World." At least this is what the plaque on the
pub’s front claims. Fake News has a long history.
The plaque
reminded me of Munthe’s plaque on the House by the Thames at Bankside: not entirely truthful, but maybe useful. I went inside and discovered the Mayflower pub, enjoying an ale and lunch. Leaving the Mayflower while I could still walk, I soon arrived at the nearby Brunel Museum.
The building
was originally an engine house designed by Marc Isambard Brunel, the engineer
who designed the Thames Tunnel. Completed in 1843, it was the first tunnel ever
built under a navigable river. It connects Rotherhithe with Wapping on the
north bank of the river and is @1300 feet (396m) in length. The engine house contained
pumps to pump water from the tunnel during construction.
Today, the museum highlights
the careers and engineering projects of Marc Brunel and his more famous son,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who completed the tunnel after his father’s death. The
Thames Tunnel is used today by London Overground trains.
The Brunel
Museum is a charitable project. I would have liked to visit it, but I was
running out of time. I made my way to the nearby Rotherhithe Overground Station
and so to home. I decided to come back soon and see more of the fascinating Docklands area.
