Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Rotherhithe
Rotherhithe
, the thumb of marshy land jutting out into the Thames east of
Bermondsey,
has always been slightly removed from the rest of London. It was a
thriving shipbuilding centre even before the construction of the Surrey Commercial
Docks in the nineteenth century. However, no other set of London dockyards took
such a hammering in the Blitz, and the immediate postwar decades were years of
inexorable decline. The docks have since been reclaimed for new housing estates and
more upmarket Docklands developments. Despite its geographical isolation, you can
reach Rotherhithe very easily via the tube and Overground network.
Around St Mary's Church
The bit of Rotherhithe worth visiting is the heart of the old eighteenth-century
seafaring village around
St Mary's Church
, which stands in its own leafy square,
northwest of the Overground station. The church itself is unremarkable, but it has
rich maritime associations: several of the furnishings are made from the timber of the
Fighting Temeraire
, the veteran of Trafalgar which ended its days in a Rotherhithe
breaker's yard (Turner's painting of its last voyage hangs in the National Gallery), and
the master of the
Mayflower
was buried here. The
Mayflower
was Rotherhithe-owned
and -crewed, and set off from outside the
Mayflower
pub in 1620 to transport the
Pilgrim Fathers to the New World. (The ship only called in at Plymouth for repairs
after being damaged in the English Channel.) The pub (see p.394), north of the
church, is a rickety white weatherboarded building, badly damaged in the last war,
and a minor pilgrimage site for Americans.
16
Brunel Museum
Railway Ave • Daily 10am-5pm, Tues until 9.30pm • £3 •
T
020 7231 3840,
W
brunel-museum.org.uk •
!
Rotherhithe
To the northeast of St Mary's,
the
Brunel Museum
is a brick-built shed that marks the
site of the Thames Tunnel, the world's first under-river tunnel. It was begun in 1825 by
Marc Brunel and his more famous son, Isambard, and was originally designed for
horse-drawn carriages to travel between Rotherhithe and Wapping. The technology
used was invented by Brunel senior and its basic principles have been used for all
subsequent tunnelling. However, plagued by periodic flooding, labour unrest, fatalities
and lack of funds, the tunnel took eighteen years to construct and was nicknamed
“he Great Bore” by the press.
Funds ran out before the spiral ramps, which would have allowed horse-drawn vehicles
actually to use the tunnel, could be built. Instead, in 1843, the tunnel was opened to
pedestrians as a tourist attraction, pulling in two million visitors in its first year. It was
visited by Queen Victoria herself, who knighted Brunel junior, but the tunnel soon
became the haunt of whores and “tunnel thieves”. In 1869 it was taken over by the East
London Railway (now the Overground) and remains the most watertight of all the rail
tunnels under the Thames. As well as telling the tunnel's fascinating story, the museum
displays some of the old souvenirs sold in Victorian times.
To the east of the engine house lies the circular working shaft, which now sports a
lovely
garden
on its roof, and hosts the
Midnight Apothecary
cocktail bar (April-Sept
Sat 5.30-10.30pm & Sun 12.30-5pm). Inside the shaft, the Grand Entrance Hall
survives and is used to stage a wide variety of music and theatre events - you can also
visit it as part of a guided tour of the area (see website for details).
Surrey Docks
The once marshy land of Rotherhithe peninsula, east of the old village, was chosen as
the site for London's first wet dock, the Howland Great Dock, built in 1696 to take on
any extra repair work and refitting emanating from the Royal Dockyards in nearby
Deptford. Later renamed Greenland Dock, it became part of the network known as
Surrey Commercial Docks
. The main trade was timber, which was piled into stacks up
