Link to the Show / Show Notes
This is the start of a two part walk through The Borough - a Londoner's familiar name for Bankside and Southwark on the South Bank of the Thames.
The walk will continue from Elephant & Castle where Part II can be reached from Borough or London Bridge Underground stations. This part starts at Waterloo - a large Underground station in Zone 1 on the Bakerloo, Jubilee, Northern (Charing Cross branch) and Waterloo and City lines. Exit from the station via the South Bank signs.
The walks takes us to the secret and little known places in The Borough. Feliks Topolski's Century is an exhibition of his work covering most of the 20th century. The murals are housed in the Hungerford Arches right under the mainline railway. Details from the exhibition web site. A little further on we enter the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank. Here we wander round the public spaces open during the day, and visit the little known Saison Poetry Library. Poetry can be borrowed free from their collection of over 95,000 works.
Next we have to work hard to find the BFI. Full instructions are given to reach it - a gem inside and like the RFH newly refurbished. There is a wonderful cafe, and themed public spaces - but we have come to visit the BFI Mediatheque. Here you can have your own personal viewing screen and access the digital archives of the BFI covering more than 230,000 films and 650,000 TV programmes. very comfortable - all you do is sign in and get a number for free use of a screen for up to 2 hours.
Further along the Thames Path is the Tate Modern, where we enter the turbine hall in the converted old Bankside Power Station. Just past Shakespeare's Globe, we find the Ferryman's Seat in the walk beyond the Pizza Express. From here we turn south away from the River and find one of the saddest sights in London. Hardly known to anyone, but remembered by a certain class of Londoner judging by the flower-covered gates, 15,000 single women are buried in the Crossbones Graveyard under what is now used by London Underground to store vehicles. We hear all about the Bishop of Winchester who for 500 years had the right to house prostitutes in the Liberty of Southwark. Inns, theatres, brothels - all these characterise The Borough which has a seedier and more notorious past than any other part of the capital.
Two authors then dominate our walk. Charles Dickens was familiar with the area. His own father was incarcerated in the Marshalsea - a debtor's prison where inmates were left for years to look after themselves, and only released when their debts were fully paid. Only one wall remains near the wonderful church of St George the Martyr. The roads all around are reminiscent of Litte Dorrit set in the Marshalsea and in the church were Arthur Clenham and Little Dorrit were eventually married, and where Little Dorrit herself slept in a small vestry when locked out of the prison overnight.
Finally the other author is Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury pilgrims started from The Tabard inn. None of the large number of ancient inns remains, but the names are recalled in various alleys and cul de sacs off Borough High St. The George is a notable exception. It is London's only remaining galleried inn, and is owned by the National Trust whilst still operating as a public house and restaurant.
Part I of the walk finishes either at nearby London Bridge or at Borough Underground stations - from where we finish our walk, or travel to Elephant & Castle for Part II.
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