'Below Bridge' covers Tooley Street and her lanes: Horselydown, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, Deptford, Greenwich, and Woolwich. The railway has ruined one end of Tooley Street, which is a corruption of St. Olave's Street. Perhaps it was ruined before the railway appeared at all. Certainly no one would believe that this dark and narrow street was once a place of Palaces. The Prior of Lewes had here, opposite St. Olave's Church, his Inn or Town House: here the Abbot of St. Augustine had his Inn: and here, we have seen, was the house of Sir John Fastolf. Here was the Pilgrim's Way to Bermondsey Rood. Some came across the bridge; some by boat, which was far more convenient, to Tooley Stairs; some to Battlebridge Stairs; some to Pickle Herring Stairs. The way lay along Tooley Street and by 'Barmsie' Lane through the fields and gardens: a lovely rural lane. Beyond Tooley Street lies a quarter bounded on the North by the River, and on the East by St. Saviour's Dock: a quarter which is certainly the most industrious in the whole of London. It is called Horselydown, the derivation of which seems obvious, but derivations are not to be trusted, however obvious. We may take it for granted, because we can prove the fact by looking at Roques' map of 1745, that there were meadows where horses grazed as soon as the embankment was up, and the ground drained. There was some kind of common here at one time: here suicides and persons deprived of Christian rites were buried. There was also a Fair held at Horselydown. The{230} industries made their appearance in the eighteenth century, but they came gradually. It is now a place of most remarkable variety as regards occupations. All along the river and the bank of the Dock, formerly Savoy Dock, there are wharves: inland are bonded warehouses, granaries, leather warehouses, hide warehouses, hop warehouses, and wool warehouses. There are tanneries, currieries, fur and skin dyeing works, breweries, rice mills, mustard mills, pepper mills, dyeing works, dog's food manufactories, vinegar works, bottle works, iron foundries, wooden hoop manufactories, cooperages, roperies, smithies, biscuit manufactories, oil and colour works, pin manufactories, varnish works, and distilleries. All this in a district half a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. Between the factories and the warehouses are houses for the workmen and the foremen. On the south side stands the Church, almost the ugliest Church in London: next to the Church is, or was, a few years ago, a street which has something of the look and feeling of a Close.

It is a great pity that in the whole of South London lying east of the High Street there is not a single beautiful, or even picturesque Church. Look at them! St. Olave's, St. John, Horselydown, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Mary, Rotherhithe, the four oldest churches in the quarter. It cannot be pretended that these structures inspire veneration or even respect. You may see drawings of them in Maitland. St. Olave's was rebuilt in 1737, St. John's, Horselydown, in 1735, St. Mary Magdalen in 1680, and St. Mary, Rotherhithe, in 1713 on the site of the older church. In 1738 the steeple was added. The four churches are therefore all examples of the church architecture of nearly the same period.
A FETE AT HORSELYDOWN IN 1590 A FETE AT HORSELYDOWN IN 1590
(From the Painting by G. Hoffnagel, at Hatfield)

Of all the quarters and parts of London that of Horselydown is the least known and the least visited, except by those whose business takes them there every day. There is, in fact, nothing to be seen: the wharves block out the river: the warehouses darken the streets, the places where people{231} live are not interesting: there is not an ancient memory or association, or any ancient fragment of a building, to make one desire to visit Horselydown. When we pass the Dock, we find ourselves in quite a different quarter: the wharves are arranged along the river wall, called the Bermondsey Wall, but behind the wharves there are fewer factories and more people. Alas! poor people! It is a grimy place to live in: of greenery or garden land there is none. There is not even any access to the river except by one or two narrow stairs: the 'works' are those whose near neighbourhood is not generally desired: places where they make leather and curry it: or where they make glue or vinegar. Fortunately, however, the good people of Bermondsey are spared the handling of tallow, bones, or soap. Things might therefore have been worse. This is the industrial centre of South London, and it occupies, including Horselydown, St. Olave's, Bermondsey, and Rotherhithe, something like a quarter of a million, which{232} is a good-sized city in itself. On the one side of St. Saviour's Dock we may step aside to look at two streets, which fifty years ago represented the lowest kind of vice and brutality, and the worse kind of human pigsties, Talbot Street and London Street. The former was taken over by Dickens to adorn his 'Oliver Twist'—lugged in, for indeed it does not belong there.

The condition of the latter is figured in Wilkinson's 'London Illustrated' in the year 1806.

The ugliness of the neighbourhood remains, but some of the dirt has been washed away.

It seems impossible to create a quarter of workmen's cottages or residences which shall be beautiful. First there is the slum with a row of two- or four-roomed cottages in a narrow court: the windows are broken: the banisters of the staircase are broken away to be burned: the sanitary appliances are terrible: the court is a laystall. Some of these delightful places still survive in Southwark. The next step is to build streets for working men in places where the ground is not too valuable. Thus the town of Bromley near Bow sprang into existence. It consists entirely of monotonous streets with monotonous houses, all small, all ugly, all built after the same pattern: the result being dreary and dispiriting. Then come the model dwelling-houses: the huge barrack, of which, Bermondsey way, there are enormous stacks, accommodating the working classes by the hundred thousand. There is not the smallest attempt at making these places beautiful: they are simple cubes of grey brick with rows and lines of windows. Outside they may be models of economy in space. Once within, they may be models of convenience; but there is another side. The moral effect of this piling up of family on family is reported to be injurious in ways not contemplated by the founders: the quiet folk are terrorised by the rowdy; the children are demoralised: there are dangers not expected, and temptations not considered: in a word, the model lodging-houses{233} of Southwark and Bermondsey are not, in every respect, adapted to a model population.

It is difficult between London Bridge and Rotherhithe to get at the river, except at two or three spots where the old stairs can be approached by a narrow passage. There is an embankment or terrace: the whole bank is occupied for commercial purposes: business men do not like strangers on these wharves: and for all practical purposes the dwellers below Bridge might just as well be a dozen miles inland. If, however, the resident of Bermondsey can sometimes—say, on Saturday afternoon—get down to the stairs and look out upon the river, he will see close at hand, not only the ships and barges that lie about the wharves, but the grand new Watergate of London, the most appropriate entrance that could be devised to the port—the new Tower Bridge.
THE OLD ELEPHANT AND CASTLE, 1814 THE OLD ELEPHANT AND CASTLE, 1814

Where Bermondsey Wall ended and Rotherhithe began the houses, until fifty years ago, rapidly grew thinner, until Rotherhithe itself consisted of little more than a single street,{234} with docks, and stairs, and taverns on the riverside, and on the other side lanes leading to cottages and cottage gardens. The Commercial Docks were opened in 1807, but the place still preserved something of its old character until quite recently. It consisted of a district round which the river flowed on the north and east. Like all the country about the Thames, it was low-lying, and originally a marsh. Even as late as 1830 it was imperfectly drained, and a good part of it remained still a marsh. Thus the road, now called Southwark Park Road—why could they not leave the old name, Blue Anchor Road?—even in 1830 wound through a marsh covered with ditches and ponds. On the east side, near the junction of Blue Anchor Road with Jamaica Row, there was a most remarkable collection of ponds and islands, ending with a broad stream or ditch running into the river at Rotherhithe stairs. Other ditches or streams lay or flowed at will over the levels, making islands which were approached by bridges. The character of the place was entirely that of a marsh: in fact, it was the last part of London where there ............