London
Bridge
SE1 9DA
Thursday February 9 2017
Yes
Southwark cathedral is not strictly a museum but a place of worship. However as
it has guide books, shops and a café, and enough things to look at and note,
for today it shall count as a museum, and it certainly took up more of our time
than the Golden Hinde from where we had come to warm ourselves up.
Compared to
Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s this is little visited and so apart from the
vergers, we had it to ourselves. The first experience that delighted us was
underfoot – next to the Cathedral there is a Millennium annexe housing the
‘facilities’ including toilets and meeting rooms joined by a covered corridor
(officially titled Lancelot’s Link) paved with slabs – one for each parish
church in the significantly large diocese of Southwark – it stretches from
Thames Ditton to Thamesmead and right down to Gatwick; the northern edge being
the Thames of course.
The
cathedral traces its origins back to pre-Norman times when it was probably a
convent later replaced by a monastic foundation linked to the Bishop of
Winchester (the remains of whose palace can be seen along Clink Street). And yes,
the monks started a hospital nearby too – St Thomas’s. The church was called St
Mary Overie (over the river) and later St Saviour’s after the Dissolution of
the Monasteries. The proximity to London Bridge, for long enough the only river
crossing, gave the church added prominence. The local population lacked the wealth and
status of those north of the river and the church, eventually raised to
cathedral status as late as 1905, reflected this ‘social divide’.
The first
‘exhibit’ is displayed along the passageway and shows the different finds
discovered during works under the current building – these are mainly from the
Roman era where this part of London would have been on the main route to and
from the coast, but also include the early foundations of the first buildings.
Our interior
photos are poor but for the tourist rather than the worshipper the main sights
are the memorials – like all great churches there are tombs for local worthies
or previous church dignitaries and we have always enjoyed the Tudor habit of
depicting the family along the front of the sarcophagus. There are also side
chapels (in Catholic Cathedrals usually
dedicated to Mary and other important saints) of which the most interesting is
dedicated to John Harvard, who was baptized here and emigrated after completing
his education in England.
He is
generally seen as the founder of Harvard University though in fact it is more
likely he bequeathed his substantial library.
An American
paid for the Harvard memorial, which includes the rather florid Tabernacle designed by Pugin .
Other
smaller chapels are behind the altar (the retro-choir) and are the oldest part
of the building, save the foundations.
Most of the
windows suffered war-time damage and so there is a range of more modern
replacements – the most recent for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and
others celebrating ‘local heroes’ Shakespeare and Chaucer who would have been
familiar with the area and its then places of worship. Chaucer’s pilgrims of course were heading off
to Canterbury to commemorate St Thomas a Becket. Shakespeare’s brother was
apparently buried in St Saviour’s (as it was till 1905) but the ‘tomb’ and
effigy definitely depict William S. with various plays recalled in the window
above.
Also
comparatively recent is a memorial to the 51 people who died when the
Marchioness sunk in the Thames nearby.
The small
graveyard and herb garden recall this was once a monastery and still offer a
(slightly) quieter place to retreat from the hubbub of Borough Market.
Southwark
appears NOT to have a local museum, which is shame as it has a rich heritage,
so to some extent visiting the Cathedral compensates for this lack.
Cuming museum, Walworth Raod was a good local museum but is still closed after a fire
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