St Saviour's Dock in Bermondsey - looking towards Dockhead and Jamaica Road. To the right is Shad Thames - to the left Jacob's Island (a notorious slum until recent times).
Looking back towards the Thames. St Saviour basically means 'Jesus' and the dock is actually the mouth of the Neckinger River. It was first used as a dock by the monks of Bermondsey Abbey. 'Neckinger' is an interesting name, derived from a gibbet hung at the mouth of the river - this was known as the 'Devil's Neckerchief'. There used to be a pretend gibbet outside the Clink Prison Museum but this has been taken down now (presumably too mouldy).
Warehouses in Mill Street, Jacob's Island, ironically not a Victorian slum any more - now very expensive!
Neckinger Mills, Bevington and Sons. A leather factory up until the 1980s. Bermondsey was the centre of the leather trade - messy trades such as leather tanning were kept at arms length from the rest of London. If you look on old maps of this area, you can see the small square and rectangular tanning vats that surround the tanneries. Just to give you an idea - here are some vats that I saw in Marrakech (below)!
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