Streets of London : From little things, big things grow

We love buses. We see more of the ever-changing views from their windows, but sometimes, depending on the area we pass through, they become too slow to use, so today's trains were for efficiency, rather than preference. We needed to use two trains to cross over to Southwark for our day's walk, and there, unwittingly, we were to learn more about the bishops of yore.

These Southwark lands once belonged to the Bishop of Winchester. Along with tithes from fish and farm the bishop also owned the rights to rents paid on properties owned, including licensed premises, typical hangouts for hoards of prostitutes attracted to this area which was really just a quick boat trip across the river from the heart of the city. Over time Southwark became infamous for its rookeries. 'Stews', the brothels were called, and the prostitutes, because of their contributions to the bishop's coffers, were labelled 'Winchester geese'. But, as is often the case in such arrangements, sympathy lies with the underdog.

Despite contributing mightily to the church coffers the local prostitutes were not allowed to be buried in consecrated church grounds. Other arrangements therefore had to be made. A block of land tucked into the back of a narrow alley was set aside for them. It was ingloriously called the Cross Bones Graveyard. Today it is locked, but headstones can still be seen through restricting bars, and many locals maintain a shrine to the girls from days long past, 'the outcast dead'. Some 15,000 bodies are believed to be buried here.

They had interesting company really close, for just a block away is a remnant wall of the notorious Marshalsea prison, home to many a pauper, or bad debtor, like Charles Dickens' father, confined here for a time, with his family, after defaulting on a £10 bill. This happened when Charles was ten. Charles was ripped from his comfortable middle class existence and thrown onto the streets, utterly mortified at his family's circumstance. At ten, he was too old to accompany them into Marshalsea, so had to become the money earner while his father was incarcerated. He lived in a little lane just south of here, deep in the rookery, and worked in a shoe blacking factory, gluing labels onto bottles of black dye, and he died a little more every day.

The experience struck at his very core, and forever after influenced how he viewed the world. Little Dorrit's tale, one of my all-time favourites, was set in these streets, in Marshalsea itself, and many chapters in St George the Martyr's church right next door, where she was christened, and later spent a cold scary night as a child after being too late returning home when was locked out of Marshalsea where her father was incarcerated. Here, too, was where she was fictionally married.

Guy's hospital is close, with a statue in the chapel of its founder and philanthropist, Thomas Guy, holding the hand of an 'incurable', such a patient for whom Guys was built, as St Thomas's Hospital, down the street could not, or would not, admit them.

In the gardens of Guy's hospital we found a gorgeous stone alcove called the Lunatick Alcove. It was one of many alcoves that once adorned the old London Bridge, but was bought by Guys for 10 guineas and moved here to provide outdoor breathing and seating space for the 'lunatick' patients.

Exploring further, on a wall outside a residence on the street near the hospital, we found a plaque telling us that John Keats once lived here while studying medicine. But that career was not to be. Poetry became his obsession. Keats most likely had been turned off his studies by the screams coming from the old operating theatre just opposite his rooms. Here, in a tiny space in a gloomy attic, women were operated on in the days before anaesthetic was discovered. Right up until 1862. This dedicated space was a step up from the old practise of operating on them in their beds right there in the dormitories, with all the other patients in close proximity.

Robert Harvard, a local butcher, publican and identity lived close by, too, in the Queen's Head Tavern in the High street, where a tall slim house now stands. When he and most of his nine children died from the plague, a surviving child, John, headed off hoping to find a better life in America and settled in Massachusetts. But John died young, too. He was barely 30. Of tuberculosis. But he left some 400 books he owned and a £750 behest to a small college in Massachusetts. Today that endowment has grown to over $30 billion; the university is Harvard. From little things, big things grow.

A passing shower had us scooting into a communal garden under a little bower where we found a photo of another philanthropist on a wall window: this time a woman, concerned with improving housing for the poor. Octavia Hill, a Victorian lady with a strong social conscience, built these pretty little cottages in pleasant surroundings in the hope that at least some of her tenants might escape their dreadful surroundings and have a little peace and beauty in their lives, if only for a time.

Under a railway bridge and around to the right we found a beautiful block of a building, almost taking up the entire length of the street, which turned out to be an old Hop Exchange. Prior to being planted in England hops originally came to England from the Netherlands. Now we learned that willing local Cockney workers seasonally left Southwark to find work in the Kent hop fields, then returned bringing their harvested hops back to store in such warehouses in Southwark, for sale and distribution. This building was where brewers and classifiers examined the quality of the hops needed to improve the flavour of their brews.

The brewer from The George Inn would likely have made regular trips to the hop exchange, his pub being one of the old coaching inns that, prior to the railroad, dotted access routes between England and the continent, often about ten miles apart where coach horses might be refreshed and replaced.

The George Inn is a gorgeous galleried pub that we found tucked in a square back yard as we were wandering down a nearby lane. It is the only surviving galleried pub in England we learned. So that was a real find. And there has been a pub here, it is believed, since medieval times. Way back then, in Shakespeare's day, upper galleries stretched on all sides of the courtyard and operated as viewing stalls for his plays which were performed right there in the open courtyard.

Dickens likely knew that. He often hung out here. On the wall in the main bar we even found a framed life assurance policy that once belonged to him.

From here, we wound our way through the small streets back to one of our favourite markets in all of London, the Borough Market, where today we ate provolone and onion empanadas from Argentina as an appetiser, and Egyptian koshari for mains: lentils, rice, and chickpeas in a sharp and spicy sauce topped, with a nut dukkah and an extra topping of fine brown onions pieces. What is not to love about street food. We are becoming addicted to it.