Although St. Saviour’s, Southwark, is one of the oldest buildings in London, it is one of the youngest of cathedrals in England, having been formally inaugurated as a Cathedral by King Edward on July 3, 1905. It was recently restored at a cost of £40,000. Parts of the Norman nave, dating from the Twelfth Century, were incorporated by Sir Arthur Blomfield in the new nave built in 1891-1896.
St. Saviour’s stands on the south or Surrey side of London in the Borough, a district of very little interest in comparison with London north of the Thames; but very rich in historical associations. After crossing London Bridge we find this church on our right on a lower level than the road, which sunken situation prevents a good view of the venerable pile. Adjoining the church is the Borough Market for fruit and vegetables and west of it in Park Street, close to Southwark Bridge, is Barclay’s Brewery on the site of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Going down Borough High Street we pass the site of the old Tabard Inn, from which Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims started on their journey; and still lower down the street, the successor to the White Hart, where Mr. Pickwick found the immortal Sam Weller. In the vicinity the Marshalsea prison stood until the middle of the Nineteenth Century, within the sound of St. Saviour’s bells.
St. Saviour’s is now almost the only remaining landmark of “Old Southwark.”
Its early history is lost in legend. Stow, on the authority of Linstede, the last of the priors, attributed the building of the original London Bridge to the profits made by a ferryman here, who left his money to his daughter Mary. He tells the story as follows:
“East from the Bishop of Winchester’s house, directly over against it, standeth a fair church called St. Mary-over-the-Rie, or Overie; that is, over the water. This church, or some other in place thereof, was, of old time, long before the Conquest, a house of sisters, founded by a maiden named Mary; unto the which house and sisters she left, as was left to her by her parents, the oversight and profits of a cross ferry, or traverse ferry over the Thames, there kept before that any bridge was built. This house of sisters was after by Swithun, a noble lady, converted into a college of priests, who in place of the ferry built a bridge of timber, and from time to time kept the place in good reparations; but lastly, the same bridge was built of stone; and then in the year 1106 was this church again founded for canons regular by William Pont de la Arch, and William Dauncey, Knights, Normans.”
Modern historians have made a few corrections in this statement, particularly as regards the person who changed the nunnery into a college of priests. This was not a “noble lady,” but St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester (832-856) ([see page 46]). It became a monastery of the Augustinian order in 1106, and the Norman knights who aided in its foundation also built the new Norman nave. After a severe fire that occurred early in the Thirteenth Century, when much of Southwark was destroyed, the church suffered greatly. Repairs were, of course, necessary; and the Bishop of Winchester, who took charge, rebuilt the nave in the lighter Early English style and also the choir and retro-choir.
Another fire in the reign of Richard II. occasioned other repairs in the new Perpendicular style which was continued by Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (1405-1447), who restored the south transept. The Cardinal was the son of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford. In this church he married his niece Jane Beaufort to James I. of Scotland in 1423, with whom the royal poet fell in love during his imprisonment at Windsor.
After the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 St. Mary Overy, which had already been united with St. Mary Magdalene, was now combined with St. Margaret’s and in the year of Linstede’s surrender to Henry VIII. (1540) the three parishes were united under the name of the Collegiate Church of St. Saviour.
St. Saviour’s was several times repaired and altered in the Eighteenth Century, and then fell into neglect.
The East End is an enlargement or addition to the choir. It consists, as we see, of four bays separated by buttresses and surmounted by gables. Each gable is lighted by a triplet of lancet windows. Larger windows of the same general style light the bays below. At the north-east corner is a short hexagonal stair turret. Above the Lady-Chapel rises the East End or gable of the choir. This has also a three-light lancet window, with a small circular window with seven cusps above. On the north-east corner the turret is capped by a pinnacle. Above rises the venerable square tower—St. Saviour’s best feature.