On the south side of London Bridge, over the houses peep the pinnacles of St. Saviour's tower, Southwark. Anciently, it was called St. Mary Overies, and was once a priory, one of the most ancient houses in London. From this there ran a ferry, which was in use long after the bridge was built, for the narrowness of the street and the continual blocks made a passage by the bridge a process of time. Gower, the poet, was a benefactor to the priory, and is buried in the church.
DUTCH BARGES NEAR THE TOWER
As the Tower Bridge can swing open, ships of all sizes can get up as far as London Bridge, when the tide allows them sufficient water-way, and a busy scene, watched by a never-failing crowd of idlers, is always to be witnessed in the reach below. Ships there are of all shapes and sizes, but mostly hideous, made for merchandise and not for show. Many of them are iron, and run between eight and twelve hundred tons. They come from Hamburg, Hull, Newcastle, Holland, and many another port. There, out in the river, is a dredger working with a hideous grinding noise, and beyond it are two or three brilliantly painted green and red boats with great wooden flaps, or lee boards, on their sides. They are Dutch eel boats, and are allowed to lie in the river free from dues, if they keep always in the same place. It is a survival of an ancient custom.
As we pass through under London Bridge, and come out on the other side, we can see the grey river with its bustling craft, framed like a series of pictures in the wide arches.
Some of the oldest theatres in London stood on the part called Bankside, about Southwark Bridge; at present the view is dingy and uninteresting. The Bishop of Winchester's palace once adjoined Bankside, as that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth, still stands near Westminster Bridge; but it fell into ruins and the bishops removed to Chelsea.
It is impossible to enumerate the palaces and fine houses that once stood along Thames Street, which, in the fourteenth century, was the most fashionable street in London. The part of the foreshore now occupied by wharves and great warehouses—where cranes swing and lighters await their loads all day long, and every working day—has all been reclaimed from the river. Once it was covered at every returning tide, but strong piles were driven into the mud, and on this unpromising spot houses began to rise and débris accumulated, until firm ground was made, and this became one side of a busy street.
On the up-side of Cannon Street, close to the cavernous jaws of the station, is a wharf marked in white letters, "Walbrook Wharf." This is as near as we can get to the first site of London, where the Briton made his modest lake-fort, Llyn-din, and afterwards the Romans pitched their strong citadel.