Astoft

 

  Some Buildings in Bermondsey, London  
         
  Click on thumbnail photos to enlarge

Notes in italics are from London 2: South by Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner (1983)
Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Other information is from a variety of sources.		  
     
         
Shad Thames bridges
         
         
  Shad Thames is a street of old warehouses that starts at the southern end of Tower Bridge, runs east and then makes a right-angled turn south. Many bridges connect the warehouses on the first stretch. Known as Butler's Wharf, dating from 1871-73, the buildings have been largely converted into apartment blocks, the bridges forming balconies.
Pevsner writes of Shad Thames: The most dramatic industrial street surviving in London. The towering warehouses and lattice wrought-iron bridges crossing at all heights still remain much in their Victorian state. Doré has immortalized the Dante-cum-Piranesi appearance of such areas. ...
The name Shad Thames may be a corruption of 'St John-at-Thames', dating from a settlement of the Order of Knights Templar in the 12th century.		  
         
Anchor Brewhouse Horslydown          Anchor Brewhouse Horslydown 2          Tower Bridge Piazza
         
  The west end of Shad Thames begins with the Anchor Brewhouse, founded 1789, much rebuilt after a fire in 1891, closed 1982. The pictures show riverside and Shad Thames side. The last picture is of Horselydown Square on the opposite side of Shad Thames. See separate page on Horselydown Square.  
         
Butler's Wharf Riverside     Butler's Wharf Riverside Balconies     Butler's Wharf 2     Butler's Wharf
         
  The river side of Butler's Wharf along Shad Thames, following on from the Anchor Brewhouse. The last picture is the street side where Shad Thames turns south.  
         
Design Museum
         
  Sandwiched within Butler's Wharf is the Design Museum, a warehouse transformed by Conran Roche in 1989, the design giving a strong suggestion of the 1930s.  
         
David Mellor Building     Conran Roche     St Goerge's Wharf and Christians, Shad Thames     Jamaica Wharf, Shad Thames
         
  The stretch of Shad Thames going south starts with modern buildings and then becomes warehouses of the second half of the 19th century.
First picture is the David Mellor Building (1990-1) by Michael Hopkins and Partners. Second picture is next door, of the same period, by Conran Roche.
Then the Victorian warehouses. St George's Wharf has discrete bands of blue brick and a cornice, and very small cast-iron windows. ...

More about Shad Thames in Wikipedia.		  
         
The Circle 1          The Circle 3          The Circle 5
         
  Queen Elizabeth Street runs parallel to the first stretch of Shad Thames. It contains the following development:
The Circle by CZWG Architects, completed 1990. This development of 302 apartments and a few shops and offices stretches along Queen Elizabeth Street, and in the centre widens into a circular space. Here the four quadrants of the circle are clad in blue-glazed bricks. To some they look like (menacing?) owls.		  
         
The Circle 2          Queen Elizabeth Street          The Circle 4
         
  Balconies bracketed on pine logs. Light gold metal windows. The second picture shows the building at the junction with the south stretch of Shad Thames.
In the middle of The Circle: Jacob - The Circle Dray Horse by Shirley Pace, unveiled 1987.
On a bronze plaque on the pedestal: The famous Courage dray horses were stabled on this site from the early nineteenth century and delivered beer around London from the brewery on Horselydown Lane by Tower Bridge. In the sixteenth century the area became known as Horselydown, which derives from horse-lie-down, a description of working horses resting before crossing London Bridge into the City of London. Jacob was commissioned by Jacobs Island Company and Farlane Properties as the centrepiece of The Circle to commemorate the history of the site. ...		  
         
China Wharf     China Wharf Boat     China Wharf rear     China Wharf rear 2
         
  East of Butler's Wharf along the river is China Wharf, a conversion into flats and offices by CZWG Architects, 1988. It has pagoda look on the river side. The rear end of a cantilevered boat is a balcony, at about the height of a very high spring tide. The land side of the building has deeply fluted white concrete with inset windows. The eastern facade in the last picture has stepped windows and then an inset so that the building appears to be pierced by Reed's Wharf.  
         
Thames View from Bermondsey               Canary Wharf
         
  Views across the river east from Butler's Wharf.
First picture, riverside flats in Wapping. Second picture, Canary Wharf area.		  
         
Tower Bridge 3
         
  Tower Bridge, Southwark. 1886-94 ... by Sir John Wolfe Barry, engineer, and Sir Horace Jones, architect. The lowest bridge on the Thames ... See separate page on Tower Bridge  
         
City Hall and More London
         
  City Hall and More London
See separate page		  
         
Bermondsey St          Bermondsey Street 78 etc          Bermondsey Street
         
  Bermondsey Street, the old High Street connecting the riverside with the parish church, still has a recognizably village character, even though the older houses are interrupted by C19 warehouses ... The best house is at the N end: No. 78, late C17, with a  pretty oriel window and a double overhang; the top floor weatherboarded. Around it, an irregular C18 group with stuccoed fronts ... Further S a plain terrace dated 1828 ...  
         
  Bermondsey Street The Old Rectory Bermondsey Street Church FTM Fashion and Textile Museum  
         
  No.191, set back next to the church, also early C19, four storeys with fine Tuscan cornice and giant pilasters ...
St Mary Magdalene has medieval origins but was mostly rebuilt in the 1670s. The whole exterior was stuccoed in 1830, and it was then also that George Porter remodelled the W front in a gimcrack  but charming, wholly unscholarly Gothic Revival. The aisles project as far W as the W tower and end in castellated lean-to roofs. The tower has pinnacles and a top stage with four gables and a tiny lantern. ...
Fashion and Textile Museum 2002.Colourful modern building in the middle of Bermondsey Street designed by the Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta for fashion designer Zandra Rhodes. Flats on the upper floors. More at arcspace.com.		  
         
Bermondsey St 3               Bermondsey St 2
         
  Carmarthen Place behind Bermondsey Street. Built 2006. Made of prefabricated  solid timber panels, 10cm thick, with batten cladding. The windows and doors are cut into the timber panels. More at architects' site.  
         
Weston Williamson Tanner Street          51 Tanner Street          51 Tanner Street 2
         
  The headquarters of Weston Williamson Architects on the corner of Tanner Street and Tower Bridge Road.
51 Tanner Street appears to have a wood-clad frontage, but which on closer inspection shows a repeat pattern in the grain.		  
         
London Bridge Station          London Bridge Station 2          London Bridge Station 3
         
  Victorian railway arches at London Bridge Station along St Thomas Street.  
         
    Hay's Galleria    
         
  Hays Galleria (between Tower Bridge and London Bridge) is a mall of cafes, restaurants, shops and offices. It is a refurbishment of what was once a water inlet for river barges loading and unloading by the Victorian warehouses on either side. The renovation was designed by Michael Twigg-Brown and Partners (1986).  
         
Guys 2
         
  Guy's Hospital
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