Bermondsey ( ) is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham, and to the north is Wapping across the River Thames. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Surrey. During the Industrial Revolution Bermondsey became a centre for manufacturing, particularly in relation to tanning. More recently it has experienced regeneration including warehouse conversions to flats and the provision of new transport links.
History
Toponymy Bermondsey may be understood to mean Beornmunds island; but, while Beornmund represents an Old English personal name, identifying an individual once associated with the place, the element "-ey" represents Old English eg, for "island", "piece of firm land in a fen", or simply a "place by a stream or river". Thus Bermondsey need not have been an island as such in the Anglo-Saxon period, and is as likely to have been a higher, drier spot in an otherwise marshy area.Ekwall, E., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th edn., Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 39, 161 (for "eg"). Though Bermondsey's earliest written appearance is in the Domesday Book of 1086, it also appears in a source which, though surviving only in a copy written at Peterborough Abbey in the 12th century, claiming "ancient rights" unproven purporting to be a transcription of a letter of Pope Constantine (708–715), in which he grants privileges to a monastery at Vermundesei, then in the hands of the abbot of Medeshamstede, as Peterborough was known at the time.See e.g. Stenton, F.M., 'Medeshamstede and its Colonies', in Stenton, D.M. (ed.), Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, Oxford University Press, 1970, and Blair, J., 'Frithuwold's kingdom and the origins of Surrey', in Bassett, S. (ed.), The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, Leicester University Press, 1989. Vermund, however is an old norse name.
Anglo-Saxon and Norman period
Bermondsey appears in the Domesday Book as Bermundesy and Bermundesye, in the Hundred of Brixton within the County of Surrey.Open Domesday Online: Bermondsey, accessed January 2020. It was then held by King William, though a small part was in the hands of Robert, Count of Mortain, the king's half brother, and younger brother of Odo of Bayeux, then earl of Kent. Its Domesday assets were recorded as including 13 hides, 'a new and handsome church', 5 ploughs, of meadow, and woodland for 5 pigs. It rendered £15 in total. It also included interests in London, in respect of which 13 burgesses paid 44d (£0.18).Williams, A. & Martin, G.H. (eds.), Domesday Book A Complete Translation, Penguin, 2002, pp. 72, 80.
The church mentioned in Domesday Book was presumably the nascent Bermondsey Abbey, which was founded as a Cluniac priory in 1082, and was dedicated to St Saviour. Monks from the abbey began the development of the area, cultivating the land and embanking the riverside. They turned an adjacent tidal inlet at the mouth of the River Neckinger into a dock, named St Saviour's Dock after their abbey. But Bermondsey then was little more than a high street ribbon (the modern Bermondsey Street), leading from the southern bank of the Thames, at Tooley Street, up to the abbey close.
The Knights Templar also owned land here and gave their names to one of the most distinctive streets in London: Shad Thames (a corruption of "St John at Thames"). Other ecclesiastical properties stood nearby at Tooley Street (a corruption of "St Olave's"), owned by the priors of Lewes, St Augustine's, and Canterbury, as well as the abbot of Battle. These properties are located within the Archbishop of Canterbury's manor of Southwark, where wealthy citizens and clerics had their houses.
14th century King Edward III built a manor house close to the Thames in Bermondsey in 1353. The excavated foundations are visible next to Bermondsey Wall East, close to the famous Angel public house.Staff. The London Borough of Southwark English Heritage. () "This page provides an overview of the Borough's fascinating archaeology..."
Early Modern period
As it developed over the centuries, Bermondsey underwent some striking changes. After the Great Fire of London, it was settled by the well-to-do, and took on the character of a garden suburb especially along the line of Grange Road and Bermondsey Wall East as it became more urbanised. A pleasure garden was constructed during the Restoration period in the 17th century, commemorated by the Cherry Garden Pier. Samuel Pepys once visited here.
A rare surviving building from this period is St Mary Magdalen Church in Bermondsey Street, completed in 1690 (although a church has been recorded on this site from the 13th century). This church survived the 19th-century redevelopment phase and the Blitz unscathed. It is an unusual survivor for Bermondsey as buildings of this period are relative rarities in Inner London in general.
In the 18th century, the discovery of a spring from the river Neckinger in the area led to the development of Bermondsey Spa, as the area between Grange and Jamaica Roads called Spa Road commemorates.Bermondsey Spa Gardens, Sean Spurr, Bermondsey.org, Accessed 5 August 2012 A new church was built for the growing population of the area, and named St John Horsleydown.
Industrial era
Bermondsey was one of London's major industrial centres. It was the chief centre for the leather trade and tannery industry, food processing and manufacture, and the heart of the provisions trade in London. Colloquially the area has been known as "larder of London", "biscuits town", and the "land of leather" reflecting the influence of these industries. While many of these industries have declined, their factories, warehouses and wharfs, and institutions remain significant in the area's built heritage and local landmarks, and are reflected in street and building names.
It was from the Bermondsey riverside that the painter J. M. W. Turner executed his famous painting of The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up (1839), depicting the veteran warship being towed to Rotherhithe to be scrapped.
By the mid-19th century factories sprang up, most notably the landmark factories of Alaska Factory (originally opened by fur merchants C.W. Martin & Sons Ltd in 1869 for the processing of the Alaskan sealskin fur), Salt, cheese and Hartley's Jam. Parts of Bermondsey, especially along the riverside, had become notorious slums with the arrival of industrial plants, docks and immigrant housing. The area around St. Saviour's Dock, known as Jacob's Island, was considered one of the worst slums in London. It was immortalised in Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist, in which the villain, Bill Sikes, meets his end in the mud of 'Folly Ditch', in reference to Hickman's Folly, which surrounded Jacob's Island. Dickens provides a vivid description of what it was like:
Bermondsey vestry hall was built on Spa Road in 1881 but was severely damaged by bombing during the Blitz in 1941. It was demolished soon thereafter. The original vestry hall was extended to create the Bermondsey Town Hall in 1930. The area was extensively redeveloped during the 19th century and early 20th century with the expansion of the river trade and the arrival of the railways. London's first passenger railway terminus was built by the London to Greenwich Railway in 1836 at London Bridge. The first section to be used was between the Spa Road Station and Deptford High Street. This local station had closed by 1915.
The industrial boom of the 19th century was an extension of Bermondsey's manufacturing role in earlier eras. As in the East End, industries that were deemed too noisome to be carried on within the narrow confines of the City of London had been located here – one such that came to dominate central Bermondsey, away from the riverfront, was the processing and trading of leather and hides. Many of the warehouse buildings from this era survive around Bermondsey Street, Tanner Street, Morocco Street and Leathermarket Street including the huge Leather Market of 1833 and the Leather, Hide and Wool Exchange of 1878; virtually all are now residential and small work spaces or offices. Hepburn and Gale's tannery (disused as of early 2007) on Long Lane is also a substantial surviving building of the leather trade. The Exchange building had a fine private club, effectively a gentlemen's club for the leading merchants and manufacturers. In 1703 they had acquired a royal charter from Queen Anne to gain a monopoly of trading and training of apprentices for within of the ancient parish, similar to a City livery company, the Bermondsey tanners.
Peek, Frean and Co was established in 1857 at Dockhead, Bermondsey by James Peek and George Hender Frean. They moved to a larger plant in Clements Road in 1866, leading to the nickname 'Biscuit Town' for Bermondsey, where they continued baking until the brand was discontinued in 1989.Peek Frean's Biscuit Factory in Bermondsey, LondonBiscuit Factory Makes 'Comeback', BBC News, 8 Feb 2005 The former biscuit factory site was renamed as the Pearl Yard Bermondsey in 2025, and is being redeveloped into 1,600 new homes by Greystar.
Bermondsey, specifically Blue Anchor Lane, was also the location of the world's first food canning business, established in 1812, by Donkin, Hall and Gamble.
The Bermondsey battalions
During the Napoleonic Wars volunteer units were formed for home defence, including the 'Old' and 'New' Bermondsey Volunteers (existing in 1799)Major R. Money Barnes, The Soldiers of London, London: Seeley Service, 1963, Appendices. and the Rotherhithe Volunteers in 1803.War Office, A List of the Officers of the Militia, the Gentlemen & Yeomanry Cavalry, and Volunteer Infantry of the United Kingdom, 11th Edn, London: War Office, 14 October 1805/Uckfield: Naval and Military Press, 2005, ISBN 978-1-84574-207-2. After another invasion scare, the 10th (Bermondsey) and 23rd (Rotherhithe) Surrey Rifle Volunteer Corps were formed in 1860–61. Together they became a volunteer battalion of the Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) in 1883, with its drill hall in Jamaica Road. When the Territorial Force was created in 1908 this became the 22nd Battalion, London Regiment (Queen's).Ray Westlake, Tracing the Rifle Volunteers: A Guide for Military and Family Historians, Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84884-211-3, pp. 230–2.'22nd Londons' at Stepping Forward: A Tribute to the Volunteer Military Reservists and Supporting Auxiliaries of Greater London.'Drill Halls' at Stepping Forward. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914 it expanded to three battalions, of which the 1/22nd served on the Western Front and the 2/22nd in Palestine.