Tooley Street
Encyclopedia
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
connecting London Bridge
London Bridge
London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames, connecting the City of London and Southwark, in central London. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London...
to St Saviour's Dock
St Saviour's Dock
St Saviour's Dock is a small dock on the south bank of the River Thames, London. It is located approximately 400 metres east of Tower Bridge and forms the eastern boundary of the picturesque and historic area of London known as Shad Thames...
; it runs past Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, England, over the River Thames. It is close to the Tower of London, from which it takes its name...
on the Southwark
Southwark
Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
side of the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
, and forms part of the A200 road
A200 road
The A200 is an A road in London running from London Bridge to Greenwich. It runs south-east from the A3 road along Duke Street Hill, then Tooley Street and Jamaica Road, following the River Thames until the junction with Rotherhithe Tunnel when it turns south down Lower Road. It follows the Thames...
. (.)
St Olave
The earliest name for the street recorded in the Rolls is the neutral regio vicio i.e. 'royal street' meaning a public highway. In the Agas map of ca 1560 it is shown as 'Barms Street', i.e. street to Bermondsey; in the Stuart period it was referred to as 'Short Southwark' to differentiate it from 'Long Southwark' (the present Borough High StreetBorough High Street
Borough High Street is a main street in Southwark, London running south-west from London Bridge, forming part of the A3 road, which runs from London to Portsmouth.- Overview :...
). The later 'Tooley' designation is a corruption of the original Church of St Olave and the transformation can be seen on maps of the area from that of 'Ralph Agas
Ralph Agas
Ralph Agas , English land surveyor, was born at Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, about 1540, and entered upon the practice of his profession in 1566....
', through 'Braun and Hozenburg' and John Roque and later which are labelling the church of that name; 'Synt Toulus', 'Toulas', 'Toolis', 'Toolies'. The church takes its name from the Norwegian King Olaf
Olaf II of Norway
Olaf II Haraldsson was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. He was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae and canonised in Nidaros by Bishop Grimkell, one year after his death in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030. Enshrined in Nidaros Cathedral...
who was an ally of Æthelred the Unready and attacked Cnut's forces occupying London Bridge in 1013. The earliest reference to the church is in the Southwark entry in Domesday Book of 1086. The church was a little to the east of London Bridge of the period. The church was demolished in 1926 for the headquarters of the Hay's Wharf Company, "St Olaf House", an office block built 1929-31 by Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel
Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel
Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel was an English architect and writer, also a musician.-Life:He was educated at Eton College, and read music at Trinity College, Cambridge. He worked shortly for Sir Charles Nicholson, and then set up his own architectural practice...
(1887–1959) in Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style. This has a legend and mural depiction of the Saint. The termination of the street is not actually at the junction with Borough High Street, as assumed, for that part of the highway is actually Duke Street Hill. Tooley Street actually joins Montague Close under the arch of London Bridge a little to the north of this.
Tooley Street fire, 1861
This fire happened at a time when the fire ‘brigade’, formally known as the London Fire Engine Establishment, was still run by insurance companies. It began on 23 June 1861 in a warehouse at Cotton’s Wharf in Tooley Street and raged for two days, destroying many nearby buildings. It was two weeks before the fire went out completely. The head of the Establishment, James Braidwood, was killed by a falling wall while fighting the fire.Afterwards the insurance companies raised their premiums and threatened to disband the brigade until finally the government agreed to take it over. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act was passed in 1865 and led to a publicly-funded fire service – the first real London fire brigade
London Fire Brigade
The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London.Founded in 1865, it is the largest of the fire services in the United Kingdom and the fourth-largest in the world with nearly 7,000 staff, including 5,800 operational firefighters based in 112 fire...
. http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Past/LondonsBurning/themes/1437/1438
George Orwell
George OrwellGeorge Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
lived as a tramp to gain a first-hand view of poverty. He befriended a man called Ginger in the hop-fields of Kent. They came to a "kip" (doss-house) in Tooley Street and stayed there from September 19 to October 8, 1930. Orwell wrote rough notes in the kip then went further along Tooley Street to Bermondsey Library where he wrote them up into the book Down and Out in Paris and London
Down and Out in Paris and London
Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell , published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is a picaresque account of living on the breadline in Paris and the experience of casual...
. The library building was demolished in the 1980s and the site is now part of the open space called Potter's Fields'.
Hay's Wharf
The most famous wharf of the south side of the Pool of LondonPool of London
The Pool of London is a part of the Tideway of the River Thames from London Bridge to below Tower Bridge. It was the original part of the Port of London. The Pool of London is divided into two parts, the Upper Pool and Lower Pool...
was Hay's Wharf, first mentioned in 1651 to the east of St Olave's church. For 300 years it grew, until Tooley Street and the surrounding industrial development was nicknamed "London's Larder". The warehouses burned down in a disastrous fire on 22 June 1861. It burned for two weeks and smouldered for 6 months. The chief of the fire brigade, James Braidwood
James Braidwood (fire fighter)
James Braidwood founded the world's first municipal fire service in Edinburgh in 1824, and was the first director of the London Fire Engine Establishment...
died in the fire. Hay's Wharf was where Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
's ship "The Quest" lay in 1921. This dock was filled in during extensive rebuilding in the 1980s and is now a shopping mall called "Hay's Galleria
Hay's Galleria
Hay's Galleria is a major riverside tourist attraction on the Jubilee Walk in the London Borough of Southwark situated on the south bank of the River Thames.-Wharf:...
". The office block attached to it is called "Shackleton House". Nearby, at no 27 is the private London Bridge Hospital
London Bridge Hospital
The London Bridge Hospital is a private hospital on the south bank of the River Thames in London.-History:The hospital opened in 1986 following redevelopment of Chamberlain's Wharf. Architects Llewelyn Davies Weeks, Consulting Engineers Oscar Faber, Main Contractor Bovis Construction...
.
Old and new horrors
A 1542 map of SouthwarkSouthwark
Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
shows only three or four features on Tooley Street, although it is not given a name on this. One of them is a pillory
Pillory
The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
, set up for punishing fraudulent traders. Next to it is a "cage". This was a place to keep drunken disorderly people who were arrested too late in the day to be imprisoned. They would sleep in the cage until sober. The site of those medieval punishments is occupied, quite appropriately, by London Dungeon
London Dungeon
The London Dungeon is a popular London tourist attraction, which recreates various gory and macabre historical events in a grimly comedic 'gallows humour' style, attempting to make them appealing to younger audiences...
, a popular tourist attraction. It opened in 1975 and is similar to the "Chamber of Horrors" in Madame Tussaud's Museum (it is owned by Merlin Entertainments). The next building is "Britain at War", another tourist attraction, a recreation of the Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
. More poignantly in nearby, Stainer Street, off Tooley Street running under the mainline station, there is a 'Blue Plaque' commemorating the 68 people who were killed in the 1941 bombing raid. Popular legend says that there was so much rubble that bodies were simply left behind, and re-buried in the masonry under London Bridge Station. Another museum and tourist attraction has been created under the Bridge at number 2- 4 called 'The London Bridge Experience and London Tombs', the first part of the display is an exhibition of the history of the Bridge and the other part is more of a popular entertainment similar to the 'Dungeon'.
John Keats
Next to Stainer Street, off Tooley Street is Weston Street. Both are among the gloomiest places in London. At this part of their route they became road tunnels under the mainline station as it expanded over the years. In the early nineteenth century, before the station was built, John KeatsJohn Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
lived in Weston Street, at that time called Dean Street, when a medical student at Guy's Hospital. It was here that he wrote the poem "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer".
London Bridge City and More London
From 1987 into the early 1990s and again in the period from 1999 to 2009, new developments between the street and the river have been created. In 1987, with the increasing urban regeneration of the Thames Corridor and nearby London Docklands, the area was acquired by the St Martins Property GroupSt Martins Property Group
St Martins Property Group is a leading property development, investment and asset management company based in the United Kingdom representing the real estate interests of the State of Kuwait with their headquarters in London Bridge City, London. Their flagship projects are the London Bridge City,...
as part of their London Bridge City development, stretching from London Bridge easterly to English Grounds where it is terminated by the Southwark Crown Court site and this has caused a remarkable recovery in the area. In the later campaign of urban renewal More London
More London
More London is a new development on the south bank of the River Thames, immediately south-west of Tower Bridge in London. The southern exit is on Tooley Street....
has been created, bounded by the Hay's Galleria site and Tower Bridge Road, it is a pedestrian area connecting Tooley Street with London City Hall . From the Tooley Street end there are a spectacular vistas converging on Tower Bridge, The Tower of London and City Hall. A children's theatre called The Unicorn Theatre
Unicorn Theatre
The Unicorn Theatre is a producer of professional theatre for children in Britain. It is based in a RIBA Award–winning centre in Tooley Street, in the London Borough of Southwark, opened in 2005...
, has been built here. 'The Scoop' is an amphitheatre or stepped area of More London upon which regular events (plays, music, open air movies) are held throughout the summertime. Besides City Hall, a number of prominent London companies are also based here including Visit London, Ernst and Young's European Headquarters, Norton Rose's main building and a Hilton
Hilton Hotels
Hilton Hotels & Resorts is an international chain of full-service hotels and resorts founded by Conrad Hilton and now owned by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton hotels are either owned by, managed by, or franchised to independent operators by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Hotels became the first coast-to-coast...
hotel.
Public Buildings
The GLA's City Hall was opened here in 2000. In 2009 Southwark Council opened its new civic centre in a modern office block on Tooley Street, replacing some other facilities within the Borough.Public houses
At the junction between Tooley Street and Bermondsey Street is a historic pub called "The Shipwright's Arms", recalling one of the local industries. It has a large wall of tiles showing ships being built.There are also three wine bars — The Mug House, which occupies a vault under London Bridge at 1 Tooley Street, Skinkers under the Railway Viaduct at the corner of Joiner Street and The Auberge within the London Bridge City development. During reconstruction work another pub, The Antigallican, has been closed down. Its name celebrates a man o' war
Man O' War
Man O' War, man o' war or manowar may refer to:* Man-of-war, a warship* Man of war for uses with this spelling - Places :...
wooden battleship named after the ancient enmity that existed between the English and the French.
Several streets that used to be on maps before 1999 have been swept away — Willson's Wharf, Unicorn Passage, Morgan's Lane and Pickle Herring Street. The Bethell Estate that was built in the early 1930s between Tooley Street and the river was demolished in its entirety for redevelopment.This area used to house some of the poorest people in London, and fell victim to cholera in the 1840s.
Theatres
Two recent additions to street are theatres, the Unicorn TheatreUnicorn Theatre
The Unicorn Theatre is a producer of professional theatre for children in Britain. It is based in a RIBA Award–winning centre in Tooley Street, in the London Borough of Southwark, opened in 2005...
is in a custom built building that does shows exclusively for children whilst the Southwark Playhouse
Southwark Playhouse
-History:Southwark Playhouse Theatre Company was founded in 1993 by Juliet Alderdice, Tom Wilson & Mehmet Ergen. They identified the need for a high quality accessible theatre which would also act as a major resource for the community...
is in a railway arch behind "The Shipwright's Arms"
Public Art, Memorials and Statues
On the corner of Braidwood Street on a building that is part of the London Bridge Hospital is the memorial to James Braidwood who died in the fire of 1861. In the foyer of the Cottons Centre, an office block next to the river, is a modern work of art. Likewise, within Hay's Galleria is the sculpture / fountain 'The Navigators'. There are three water features on More London: a channel called the Rill runs the length of the street; at the City Hall end there are 210 fountains; at the Tooley Street end there are three "Water Tables" continuously overflowing with water and above these is a statue, almost like a waxwork, of an ordinary member of the public.At the fork in the road between Tooley Street and Elizabeth Street and Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, England, over the River Thames. It is close to the Tower of London, from which it takes its name...
Road there are two statues. One is a bust of dockworkers' trade unionist, founder of the Transport & General Workers Union, Churchill's Minister of Labour during WWII and Attlee's Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
. This is somewhat overshadowed by the full size monument to local worthy Samuel Bourne Bevington, a member of a Bermondsey leather manufacturing dynasty and philanthropist. He is represented as the first Mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey, which incorporated this street, and was erected shortly after his death in 1908.
Anecdotal Culture
"The Three TailorsThe Three Tailors
The Three Tailors of Tooley Street were, according to Prime Minister George Canning, individuals who presented a petition of grievances to Parliament claiming to represent "We, the people of England."In his 1906 pamphlet 'Faults of the Fabian', H. G...
of Tooley Street" is a remark made in regard to any small group pretending to greater representative authority than they have in reality. It is based on the tale that the eponymous characters wanted to have some exemption from a local rate and were informed they would have to petition the Privy Council
Privy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
; accordingly they drafted their appeal, which began with the phrase "We, The People of England ...". It is notable that by far the largest trade occupation in the Street on the Bridge House Rent Roll prepared for the Poll Tax
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
of 1381 was that of the tailors.
Tooley Street Conservation Area
A Conservation Area is defined under the Civic Amenities Act 1967 as an "area of special architectural or historic interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance." Tooley Street falls within the London Borough of SouthwarkLondon Borough of Southwark
The London Borough of Southwark is a London borough in south east London, England. It is directly south of the River Thames and the City of London, and forms part of Inner London.-History:...
and was designated a Conservation Area in June 1988 (Tooley Street South) and February 1991 (Tooley Street South).
There are seventeen listed buildings in the conservation area, including: St Olave's Grammar School
St Olave's Grammar School
St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School is a super-selective boys' secondary school in Orpington, Greater London, England. The school is consistently one of the top achieving state schools in the UK and it was The Sunday Times State School of the Year in 2008...
(exterior and parts interior Grade II*), St. Olaf House (grade II*); Hay's Galleria
Hay's Galleria
Hay's Galleria is a major riverside tourist attraction on the Jubilee Walk in the London Borough of Southwark situated on the south bank of the River Thames.-Wharf:...
(grade II), Denmark House (grade II), London Bridge Hospital (grade II), and The Shipwright's Arms public house (grade II).
Southwark Council has also identified a number of buildings on Tooley Street that, whilst unlisted, make a "positive contribution" to the local area, including: The Antigallican public house, Devon Mansions
Devon Mansions
Devon Mansions are a set of five residential mansion block buildings situated along the south side of Tooley Street in Bermondsey, London. The buildings are located within the London Borough of Southwark and are included in both the Tower Bridge and Tooley Street Conservation Areas.- History...
, and Magdalen House.