ST. SAVIOUR'S IN 1660.
Reproduced from "Church Bells."[ToList]
SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL
CHAPTER I[ToC]
HISTORY OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF ST. SAVIOUR,
FORMERLY ST. MARY OVERIE, SOUTHWARK
The history of St. Saviour's takes us back to those distant days when Southwark was but a marsh, and when there was no bridge across the Thames. John Stow, historian and antiquary (1525-1605), was acquainted with Bartholomew Linstede, the last of the Priors, and gives the following account of its origin on his authority:
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.
Stow's account has been disputed in several particulars. Although it may be taken for granted that there was a cross-ferry before there was a bridge, it does not follow that the bridge immediately superseded it; and it has been suggested, as more likely, that both means of transit were used for some time simultaneously, as is the case to-day at other places.
If the first London Bridge was built by Roman engineers during the Roman occupation, it may be assumed that the bridge existed before the church. That the first bridge was a Roman structure has been almost proved by the discovery of Roman coins and other relics among the débris of the original work during the erection of later bridges. We have an evidence of the antiquity of the site in some Roman tesserae, discovered in 1832, while a grave was being dug in the south-east corner of the churchyard, and still preserved in the pavement, near the entrance, in the south aisle of the choir. These tesserae, with the pottery, tiles, coins, lachrymatories, sepulchral urns, etc., excavated from time to time in and about the church, are clear indications of an important Roman settlement.