And Did Those Feet

Excellent article on Hay's Wharf, Southwark. http://www.exploringsouthwark.co.uk/hays-wharf/4588352949

These are the walks I am doing for London Walks for the forthcoming winter season: Sat 10.45 4th Nov 2017 The Archaeology & History of the Bankside - from London Bridge to the Globe  - London Bridge  Tooley Street Entrance A walk  looking at the Archaeology and History of Southwark and the Bankside.  This area, to the South of London Bridge, has more prehistoric remains that the City of London and a set of important Roman buildings that suggest it was more than just a suburb of Roman London.  On the walk we look at the origins and history of London's most famous Bridge, and its importance for the development of London's most famous suburb.  The walk will explore the Roman settlement, its decline in the so-called 'Dark Ages' and its reappearance in the 9th Century as a new Bridge was erected.  We investigate the area in and around Southwark Cathedral. The walk ends  looking at the archaeology of Shakespeare's Stage. Sat 2.30 18...

This is the place to find the Complete Shakespeare Walk taking place this year on 23 and 24th April 2016 The Complete Walk / Shakespeare's Globe

Newgate I have been ploughing my way through a small mountain of books. My main worry is that I repeat the Saxon London Walk, and don't have enough time to do justice to the Medieval. Sat, (Apr. 4)     I'm doing the Archaeology of Mediaeval London     10.45 Moorgate Tube

Hackney Today revealed fascinating archive footage of Slum Clearance in 1930's Hackney. http://wwwhttp://www.londonsscreenarchives.org.uk/public/details.php?id=241&searchId=15972 Heavy handed officials come to Banister Road to measure up, assess and ultimately to condemn and demolish working class housing in Hackney. The officious film shows glimpses of everyday life for poor Londoners, as the camera lens looks down its long nose at their lives.  The worst scenes are of the insect infestations and the damp wall paper, but otherwise the Londoners look cheerful, with the kids enjoying the outdoor life unsupervised. What is notable is how messy the outhouses, and yards are - full of carts, plants and detritus.  But they provide a little bit of customisable space.  The rows of Victorian houses are replaced by large blocks of flat, which however neat they look, you feel the Londoners are crammed into them, and they look unresponsive to the idiosyncratic needs of th...

Having drawn a blank as to where Peter Treveris printed his pioneering Great Herbal, I rang the local studies Library, in Southwark, and Patricia was able to track down a reference Treveris working at the 'Sign of the Three Widows'. As to why his title page says 'Wodows' we don't know.  We had no luck finding out where in Southwark the 'Sign of the 3 Widows' was however. Patricia used British History Online Old and New London Volume 6 which is about Southwark, and in the Inns section is this: 'Another inn, called the "Three Widows," was probably a perversion of the "Three Nuns"—the ignorant people after the Reformation confounding the white head-dresses of the religious sisterhood with those of disconsolate relicts. Here, "at the 'Three Widows,' in Southwark," a foreigner, Peter Treviris, in the early part of the sixteenth century, set up a printing-press, which he kept constantly at work for several years, as...

After a little bit of digging around. I discovered some very interesting facts about printing in Southwark.  Dawn Kemp, the new Director of the Old Operating Theatre Museum alerted me to Peter Treveris, the Southwark based printer of the first illustrated Herbal in England, ( Peter Treveris’ Grete herball ). I had not heard of this herbal before, and wondered if it had anything to do with the printing of the first Bible in English by Miles Coverdale in the grounds of St Thomas Hospital, Southwark in 1537. Title Page of Grete Herball A little bit of research established that Treveris was established as a printer at the 'sygne of the wodows'  in 1516.  ( The Stationers' Company and the Printers of London , 1501–1557  By Peter W. M. Blayney; ).  Was this the 'Sign of the Widows'? Treveris was an alien, possibly from Trier, and was a publisher/translator. However,  what was a great discovering was that Treveris also published the 'Handywo...

The Liberal Democrats have launched a scheme to revive local high streets.  It was launched by Simon Hughes in Southwark. These are the proposals The Lib Dem proposals Simon Hughes MP & the Southwark Liberal Democrats will: 1. Revitalise high streets and markets giving community councils more control, creating a new 'I'm shopping locally' parking scheme and introducing a levy on large supermarkets. 2. Offer business loans through the council to help start-up companies in Southwark obtain the financial support they need to start trading. 3. Use new powers to reduce business rates to support struggling businesses and encourage regeneration where it is most needed 4. Create 1,000 new apprenticeships in the borough to help to revitalise the local economy and create lasting jobs. 5. Open a new 'Jobs & Enterprise Hub' offering information and support on jobs and training, as well as providing desk space for start-up businesses ...

This building is clearly too tall for its position next to the Church. Brandon House redevelopment approved [4 September 2013]

The South Bank in 10 years time? Revealed: the SE1 skyline in 2023 [8 September 2013]

An excellent short documentary on the pronouciation of shakespeare's plays 22 Words | Performing Shakespeare’s plays with their original English accent

This is a very interesting article about the inventor of the Tin Can which took place in 1813 in Bermondsey. The article shows that the invention was a development of pioneering work in France. BBC News - The story of how the tin can nearly wasn't

North Southwark/Bermondsey  has a unique collection of industrial buildings of the 18th, 19th and 20th Century.  These need to be preserved as a set - and we must not allow the developers to pick them off one by one.  We need to set up a thoughtful planning process whereby examples of all periods are kept. For example in Bear Gardens there was a series of industrial buildings, most of which have been preserved except  a 1960's concrete building was pulled down - probably because no one thought it had an architectural merit but it was the only one from that period and as such was a great example of modernism. So the stock of industrial buildings needs to be studied as a set and preservation issue determined as a set with a view to preserving not just the quaint old ones but also some of the harsh modern industrial ones. Southwark gains its uniqueness from a diversity of building types and styles and that the atmosphere of the area is ruined if they are a...