Route starts at Hyde Park Corner

 

STOP: Double aperture post box

LOCATION: Royal Hospital Chelsea - gates opposite Franklin’s Row

 

Introduced in 1853, the ruling monarch’s cypher is the best guide to the age of post boxes. Early boxes were painted green to blend in but people kept walking into them, so they were all painted red in 1874.

 

The oldest surviving box is on Eton High Street.  It is Victorian with a vertical slot dating from 1856 (only 15 years after the first postage stamps) and is one of only ten survivors with this notable vertical slot.  Sadly, there are none in London itself.

 

Here stands a unique Victorian pillar box, believed to be the only one of its kind in Britain. The box is built into the railings of the Royal Hospital – and it has two slots so that the ageing Chelsea Pensioners don’t have to leave the grounds of the hospital to post a letter and are still able to post a letter when the gates are locked.

 

The story of today’s Royal Hospital Chelsea begins over 300 years ago in 1682 during the reign of King Charles II, whose vision for a home for veteran soldiers was brought to life by Sir Christopher Wren.

 

Until the 17th Century, the state made no specific provision for old and injured soldiers. Care for the poor and sick was provided by the religious foundations. Most of this provision ended following the dissolution of the monasteries during the reign of King Henry VIII.

 

In 1681, responding to the need to look after these soldiers, King Charles II  issued a Royal Warrant authorising the building of the Royal Hospital Chelsea to care for those 'broken by age or war'.

 

The chosen site, set adjacent to the River Thames in the countryside of Chelsea contained the uncompleted building of the former 'Chelsey College'. In 1692 work was finally completed and the first Chelsea Pensioners were admitted in February 1692 and by the end of March the full complement of 476 were in residence.

 

First consecrated in 1691, over 10,000 Chelsea Pensioners, staff and families were laid to rest here before burials ceased in 1854.   However, there are at least two more modern burials, as Baroness Thatcher’s ashes are interred here alongside her husband Dennis. 

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STOP: Millbank Prison moat

LOCATION: Opposite Ponsonby Place

 

Millbank prison was on the site of Tate Britain from 1816 to 1890. 

 

It had six petal-shaped wings, three stories high. Surrounded by a ditch filled with ice cold water it looked like a fortress. The exact centre of the prison was reserved for the main observation tower.  It was England’s ‘model prison’.

 

At first, Millbank Prison served like any other jail and housed people serving both short and long terms. But after some time, damp started to attack the prison creating terrible conditions and disease was rife.  Many died. The problem lay in the ditch that circled the prison - it created an ideal environment for cholera.  

 

But disease wasn’t the only enemy. The inmates often starved to death and were left to live in unbearable stench. And if that wasn’t enough to topple the spirits, brutal beatings and violence were often administrated.

 

This is what forced parliament to reconsider. It was decided that the prison was unfit to hold long term inmates and so Millbank Prison became a place for short-term holding of prisoners – not longer than three months – that were awaiting their deportation to Australia.  

 

The ‘model prison’ role was taken over by Pentonville which had opened in 1842.

 

According to some researchers, the convicts were taken to the ships via underground tunnels that still survive under the Morpeth Arms pub at the end of Ponsonby Place, while others think the prisoners were marched above ground and straight through the front gate. Whatever the truth may be, Millbank and the banks of the River Thames at the end of the road were definitely the last bit of British soil the prisoners would feel beneath their feet.   

 

Some believe prisoners nicknamed the tunnel exit “going down under” which in turn led to the popular colloquial term for Australia. It is also said another Aussie slang term; ‘pom’ is an abbreviation of ‘Prisoner of Millbank’.

 

Ponsonby Place was built for the warders, and the pub was the 'staff pub'.  The prison closed in 1890, and demolished soon after.  However remnants of the moat can still be seen in the backyards of the houses on the east side of Ponsonby Place.

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STOP: Necropolis Railway Station

LOCATION: Waterloo Bridge Road (Westminster Bridge House)

 

In 1801, London had a population of around one million. By 1851, this population had grown to nearly 2.5 million. As the city brimmed with people, so did its graveyards.

 

Secretions from the decaying bodies in crammed graves seeped into London’s water supply. This infected the water and caused even more deaths across the city. The more people died, the more the graveyards filled.

 

In 1852 Parliament passed the Burials Act which forbade burials in London’s central built-up areas. Instead, Parliament arranged the development of cemeteries outside London’s city centre.  

 

[This was after the establishment of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ victorian cemeteries, which were closer into London]

 

One of these new cemeteries was Brookwood in Surrey. However, it was 23 miles outside London. This made for expensive and long horse-drawn hearse journeys. 

 

So people turned to a new technology - the new railway system. This enabled them to transport coffins and mourners between London and Surrey in around 50 minutes.

 

The original station was on what is now Leake Street on the other side of Waterloo, but was moved here in 1902 so that Waterloo station could be expanded.  It had a couple of benefits.  

 

It was close enough to the Thames for bodies to arrive at the station by river.  Water transport was cost-effective and easy. Especially compared to carrying bodies through London’s swarming streets.

 

Three nearby bridges also made it easy for mourners to travel from the north of the river by road. 

 

Finally, the arches of the brick viaduct that carried trains in and out of the station made great mortuaries. 

 

The Necropolis Railway carried up to 2,000 bodies a year, transporting the dead in one carriage and their mourners in others. Over 87 years, the train carried over 200,000 bodies to their final resting place.

 

Demand for the Necropolis in London began to die down in the 1900s. Several other cemeteries were attracting competitors by that point. And the invention of cars allowed for more convenient transport.

 

By the 1930s, only one or two trains departed to Brookwood each week. The last train left on 11 April 1941. 

 

Five days later, a German bombing raid destroyed the company’s rolling stock. The bombing raid also destroyed much of the building. The station officially closed on 11 May 1941, and what you see here is all that’s left.

 

STOP: WW2 stretcher railings

LOCATION: Law Street

 

The ‘ARP’ stretcher was mass produced in anticipation of civilian air-raid casualties during the Second World War.

 

They were stackable to minimise storage space and the all-metal design allowed them to be easily decontaminated after the much-anticipated gas attacks. But many were never used and when the war ended they were redundant.

 

In a period where material was short it made sense to re-use these useful items, usually converting them into railings.

 

So in a clever bit of up-cycling before the term was even invented, these cast iron stretchers (that can’t be melted down) perfectly replaced the wrought iron ones sacrificed during the war.

 

Their distinctive curved ends – built in to avoid putting patients directly on the floor – means they’re easy to spot!

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STOP: Alaska Factory

LOCATION: Gateway at 61 Grange Road, junction with The Grange

 

Opened in 1869 for working seal fur, only the entrance gates with the carving of a seal remain of the old factory, once the haunt of  'shavers, blubberers, fleshers, dyers, tubbers and other top-hatted wing-collared aproned craftsmen'. 

 

1869 is the year the original building was built.

 

The company was established in the City of London in 1823, under the name Oppenheim, before changing hands and becoming Martins and moving to Bermondsey. It was the centre of the London seal fur trade. Like all the smelly industries it was moved out east so the tides and prevailing wind kept all the waste and noxious smells away from the smarter areas of London.

 

The seal skins were initially imported from Antarctica, and later from Alaska and Canada. Unhairing, dressing and dyeing of the furs was undertaken at the factory which, at its peak, employed a tenth of all the fur workers in the UK. 

 

Martin's lent its workers, skills and machinery to the WW2 effort.  345,000 sheepskins for RAF and US Air Force flying suits,  flying jackets and other specialist clothing were also manufactured here.

 

Although much of Bermondsey was damaged during the second world war, the only bomb that hit this factory failed to detonate.

 

Little is known about the factory after the second world war, except that the decline of the fur trade due to changing fashions led to its closure in the 1960s.

 

The newer 1930s art deco building on the site is by architect Wallis Gilbert, who also designed the Hoover buildings in Perivale.

 

TOILETS - SOUTHWARK PARK 

 

STOP: Greenland Dock Bascule Bridge

LOCATION: Redriff Road, just after Tesco supermarket

 

This is one of two Scherzer bascule bridges in Rotherhithe.  Neither of the bridges are functional now, and they have been stripped of most of their associated paraphernalia.

 

Bascule is the French word for a seesaw or balance.

 

Bascule bridges are bridges that roll or rock back on a curved base to raise the platform so that ships can pass beneath, and are often compared to Medieval draw-bridges. They may have one leaf, like this one, or two leaves, which open either side of a span and meet in the middle (like Tower Bridge). 

 

Bascule bridges are found all over the world because they have such simple mechanisms, open rapidly and have low energy requirements. There are two components - the length spanning the gap, and a counterweight filled with water. Usually they sit on tracks, and electric motors wind the bridge over the tracks with the assistance of cogs and racks that fix it into place at 90 degrees to prevent slippage.  Bascule bridges are designed to allow unlimited vertical height with relatively low energy to open them due to the use of a counterbalance. This means they're particularly suited for bridges that tall vessels need to sail through.

 

In spite of its somewhat Victorian look and engineering, the bascule bridge was such a success that it continues to be a successful engineering solution today even though the patent has expired.  

 

This is the Greenland Dock bridge that carried the road over the cut between Greenland Dock and Canada Dock. It was built in 1949. Originally erected in Deptford to bridge Deptford Creek it was moved here ten years later to replace the original 1904 swing bridge.

 

Today the bascule bridge no longer carries the road but sits parallel to it.

 

Only twenty years after this bridge was installed the last ship left Greenland Dock, and the last wharves closed in the 1980s, the whole area having been redeveloped since.

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STOP: Three Sustrans sculptures

LOCATION: Brunswick Quay (at the end of the avenue of trees where the road bears left)

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These distinctive sculptures by Sustrans, are part of a nationwide programme to commemorate local heroes.

 

Sir Michael Caine was born in the nearby St Olave’s hospital in 1933. He was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr. And there is an often told story of how he came to be known as Michael Caine.

 

When he started acting in 1953, he took the stage name of Michael Scott. The following year he got work in London but there was already an actor called Michael Scott. Caine learnt this when speaking to his agent from a phone box in Leicester Square. His agent told him to come up with a new name immediately. The young actor looked around for inspiration and seeing that The Caine Mutiny was being shown at the Odeon Cinema, he decided to change his name to “Michael Caine”. Not a lot of people know that.

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Phyllis Pearsall was born in 1906 and lived near the old Greenland Docks. She was a renowned local artist and is famous for being the woman who designed and put together the first A-Z map book. 

 

It is said that she walked a total of 3,000 miles checking the names of some 23,000 streets – working 18 hour days – before the first A to Z was published in 1936.

 

Barry Mason was an activist for cycling in London. After graduating from LSE, Barry’s career included two years as head of visitor services at Salisbury Cathedral and four years working in Liverpool. In his later years he supported community and environmental projects in Southwark. He was manager of Surrey Docks Farm.

 

For many years he was the voluntary coordinator of Southwark Cyclists.  He ran maintenance classes and organised rides, including mass rides on Christmas Day, and organised return transport from the Dunwich Dynamo. He was London Cycling Personality of the Year in 2006.

 

Barry died while swimming off the coast in northern Spain during a cycling holiday in 2011. He was 61.

 

STOP: Dr Salter’s Daydream

LOCATION: Bermondsey Wall East, by The Angel pub

 

A collection of four happy statues known as Dr Salter’s Daydream. The history of these figures is more poignant than most.

 

Born in Greenwich in 1873, Alfred Salter won a scholarship to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital at the young age of 16. An overused phrase today, Salter truly dedicated his entire life to tackling the poverty of 19th Century Bermondsey, for which he made a huge personal sacrifice.

 

In a letter to his beloved wife, Ada (herself a tireless campaigner against poverty and the first female London Mayor of Bermondsey (1922)) we can see the frustration, then resolve of the Salters:

 

"Oh, the cruel wickedness of our society today! To thrust down these people by means of low wages and chronic unemployment into hopeless despair, and then leave them in that condition with no organised or conscious effort to rehabilitate them. What can we do?”

 

“You and I feel we have the same mission in life... we are living and working for the same goal - to make the world, and in particular, this corner of the world, happier and holier for our joint lives.”

 

So instead of moving into a safer, wealthier neighbourhood the Salters moved into the heart of Bermondsey, Jamaica Road, and set up a surgery for the local poor. Alfred incurred the wrath of his medical peers for charging as little as sixpence for a consultation and giving them free to those who couldn’t afford it.

 

In 1902 the couple had a daughter, Joyce, and the new parents made the decision to educate her locally, showing yet more commitment to Bermondsey. Aged only eight Joyce tragically contracted Scarlet Fever, common in poverty stricken areas, and died soon after. Two people who had given everything to improve the lives of those around them had lost their only child.

 

The folk of Bermondsey - to whom Joyce’s parents had devoted their lives - had come to love the little girl so much, that they now referred to her as, “our little ray of sunshine.” So acute was the local concern for Joyce Salter, that Alfred and Ada placed a regular bulletin on their front door, informing the distressed public of their daughter’s progress.

 

They never overcame their grief but continued to dedicate themselves to their neighbourhood and when Ada died in 1942, Alfred wrote to a friend that “the loneliness is almost unbearable, but I have to learn to bear it.” He died just three years later at Guy’s Hospital.

 

In 1991, to celebrate the history of this remarkable family, Diane Gorvin created ‘Dr Salter’s Daydream’ on the face of it a happy scene of a man watching his daughter play with her pet cat from afar.

 

STOP: King Edward III Manor House

LOCATION: Bermondsey Wall East, by The Angel pub

 

On the other side of the road from Dr Salter's Daydream are the remains of King Edward III manor house.  The earliest reliable reference to a manor at Rotherhithe is 1127 when Henry I granted half of the manor to the monks of Bermondsey Abbey. 

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The basis of the moated house you can see here was built around 1350 by King Edward III when Rotherhithe was just a small hamlet. It was situated on a small island and consisted of several stone buildings arranged around a courtyard. These included a hall with a fireplace, the private apartments of the king, kitchens and further ancillary buildings. 

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The function of the house is disputed. It seems unlikely that it was a hunting lodge as there was no attached royal park. However, it might have been a falconry. The north wall fronted directly on to the river.

 

After Edward III's death, the manor house passed to the Cistercian abbey of St Mary Graces by the Tower, and then, in 1399, to Bermondsey Abbey. In the 16th century, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the house was sold to private owners. 

 

In the 17th century it became a pottery. In the following 18th and 19th centuries the area was built up with warehouses and the remains of the manor house were incorporated into a warehouse. The façade of the manor house was still standing in 1907 but was was demolished in the 1970s. Excavations were conducted in the 1980s and the remaining parts preserved, and several parts re-buried.

 

STOP: Duffield’s Sluice

LOCATION: Bermondsey Wall East, junction with Farncombe Street

 

This is part a former sewer pumping station. The sewers concerned pre-dated the great works of Joseph Bazalgette in the 1860s and were constructed by the Surrey and Kent Commission of Sewers.

 

At the time, this part of London was still part of Surrey, and this particular Commission can be dated to 1554, as its Letters of Patent were granted by Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary) following a series of “gret wyndes and fluddes”. 

 

Sewers at the time were more interested in draining water to prevent flooding in the low lying lands, not the removal of human waste.

 

The cost of maintaining the water drains was paid by the land owners, at a rate based on the size of land owned. Most of the sewers managed by the company in the area were below the level of the Thames at high-tide, so they built sluices, with gates at the river edge to help manage the flow of sewage into the river.

 

It is one of these sluice-gates which was on the site next to this remaining building. Duffield’s Sluice was constructed on the Lock stream, which was part of the more famous Neckinger river, of which the associated slums  on Jacob’s Island inspired Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

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The remaining building is Grade II listed. Interestingly, the Land Registry documents for the last sale indicate that the sewers remain under the building, and are still used by Thames Water – which is probably why the building hasn’t been replaced with a block of flats by now.

 

The land is now owned by Southwark Council.

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STOP: The Shared

LOCATION: Carmarthen Place, off Bermondsey Street

(Carmarthen Place is accessed through the archway between numbers 70 and 72 Bermondsey Street)

 

Cannily known as 'The Shared’ (in contrast to its shiny, commercial counterpart at London Bridge), this sculpture was conceived by local artist Austin Emery and local housing organisation Leathermarket.

 

During the Autumn of 2012 Austin invited all who worked, lived and passed through Bermondsey to take part in open sculpting workshops. Using professional carving tools, the amateurs of the Bermondsey community were able to create their own unique small sculptures which form part of the stone spire. Austin then put 800 hours of his own time into piecing together each individual sculpture, adding his own touches here and there.

 

It was completed and installed in 2014.

 

In an added twist, the obelisk contains stone fragments from Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and the nearby London Bridge Station. It also includes small niches for the use of animals.

 

It is made from Portland and Bath stone.

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STOP: Hopton Street almshouses 

LOCATION: Hopton Street

 

These almshouses were built around 1749 for “twenty-six decayed house-keepers, each to have an upper and lower room with £10 per annum and a chaldron of coals (about 3,000lb).” They have been occupied continuously since July 1752.  The occupants were allowed to marry, but any children were barred from claiming from the local parish.

 

The money (and name) for these came from one Charles Hopton who on his death left a large sum of money to his sister, stipulating that on her death the money was to be used to build the almshouses. Hopton was born around 1654 into a wealthy merchant family and was a member of the Guild of Fishmongers. He lived in Golden Square (Soho).

 

His connections to Southwark are not particularly clear.  Donations like these can be seen across London, most notably with The Charterhouse, Geffrye Museum (now Museum of the Home) and along Whitechapel Road.

 

Two additional almshouses were built in 1825 but otherwise the almshouses stood happily here until the Second World War when they suffered damage in bombing raids. They were duly repaired and the interiors were modernised in 1988.

 

Today the almshouses are completely dwarfed by Neo Bankside. Somewhat ironically, the residents of four flats in the development filed a complaint against the Tate Modern’s new extension because they overlooked their flats. Even though they themselves clearly overlook the almshouses.

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STOP: No 67 Hopton Street 

LOCATION: Hopton Street

 

Formerly No.61 Hopton Street (earlier than that it was 9 Green Walk) is a tiny survivor, dating from 1702, and according to Historic England it is possibly even late 17th century.

 

Over the centuries this house has been home to Edward Knight, a trustee of a charity school nearby (1720), Henry Batterson a bricklayer (1744) and Eliza Reynolds, a vellum binder (the fine animal skin used for binding books) in 1895.

 

The house and attached railings are Grade II listed. It is the oldest surviving house in this area, second only to 49 Bankside (Cardinal Cap Alley).

 

The house owes its origins to property developers, James Price and John Morgan, who secured a lease on the farmland here over 300 years ago and started building houses along a road that already existed at the time known as Green Walk. This is the only one of the original houses that survives.  It’s actually quite odd how it survived when the rest were torn down, and it’s not as if the house was in a nice area, as this part of London became heavily industrialised and it would have been surrounded by factories and warehouses for about 200 years of its life.

 

It was restored in 1947, and was known then as Nell Gwyn’s Old Home, with the claim that she may have stayed there, along with Sir Christopher Wren and Mary Shelley, although presumably not all at the same time. We’ll overlook the fact that Nell Gwyn died long before the house was built as being annoyingly inconvenient.

 

Hopton Street has had several names. It’s shown on the 1682 map as Green Walk, became Holland Street in the late 19th century, getting its current name of Hopton Street, in 1938.  The street takes its name from the almshouses, although it has recently been renumbered as part of the huge Bankside Lofts development that surrounds it.

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STOP: Hollands Leaguer

LOCATION: North end of Hopton Street

 

Although there’s nothing left of it to see, at the end of this street was ‘Holland’s Leaguer’ which was one of the most famous and celebrated brothels of the early 1600s, operating for nearly 30 years from 1603. It is often considered as the most famous brothel of 17th-century England. "Lageur" means military encampment, which might help explain its origin.

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It was an expensive establishment with King James I of England and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, among its clients. The brothel was owned and managed by Elizabeth Holland, known as Bess. She may have been married to one of the Holland family, notorious figures in the Elizabethan underworld. 

 

Popular rumour linked the house specifically with Dutch prostitutes. The brothel modelled itself on the Schoen Majken (The Lovely Little Maiden) in Brussels. It provided luxurious surroundings, good food, clean linen and 'modern' plumbing.

 

Located in a former manor house in Bankside, part of the Liberty of the Clink it was beyond the control of the London civil authorities. It was surrounded by a moat and had a drawbridge and portcullis. Although Henry VIII had suppressed the Bankside whorehouses in the 1540s, that had been only a temporary measure.

 

The brothel was a topical subject in 1631, when it was attacked and damaged by a mob of London apprentices.  Shrove Tuesday was the 'prentices' holiday, and they often celebrated by running wild and causing destruction. Brothels were a regular target.

 

Shortly after, Charles I sent soldiers to close the place. As they cross the drawbridge, Bess Holland raised it, causing the soldiers to fall in the water, after which the brothel workers emptied their pots over them. The brothel was besieged for a month until it was finally closed in January 1632. Bess Holland fled and opened another brothel elsewhere.

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STOP: Barge Master and Swan

LOCATION: Bottom of Garlick Hill

 

This life-sized bronze was commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Vintners. It is believed to be the first public sculpture in London ever to be commissioned by a Livery Company. The Barge Master is shown in his traditional costume with a swan at his feet.

 

The Vintners’ Company and the Dyers Company share the duty of ‘swan marking’ on the Thames.

 

They share ownership of mute swans with the monarch and it is their job to catch and ring them each June in a ceremony known as 'Swan Upping'. The Swan Marker is in charge of the Vintners’ Swan Uppers for the event, but also wears the uniform of Barge Master, dating back to the time when the Company owned a ceremonial barge on the Thames.   

 

In the Swan Upping ceremony, six traditional Thames rowing skiffs journey up-river over the course of five days.  The King's Swan Uppers wear traditional scarlet uniforms and each boat flies appropriate flags and pennants.  

 

When a brood of cygnets is sighted, a cry of "All up!" is given to signal that the boats should get into position.  The cygnets are weighed and measured to obtain estimates of growth rates and the birds are examined for any sign of injury (commonly caused by fishing hooks and line).  The swans are also given a health check and ringed with individual identification numbers. They are then set free again. Children from local schools are invited every year to watch this.

 

On passing Windsor Castle, the rowers stand to attention in their boat with oars raised and salute "His Majesty The King, Seigneur of the Swans".

 

At the completion of Swan Upping each year, The King’s Swan Marker produces a report which provides data on the number of swans accounted for, including broods and cygnets. This data enables suitable conservation methods to be used to protect the swans. 

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STOP: Bracken House clock 

LOCATION: Cannon Street, junction with New Change

 

Despite the pictures adorning the station, Cannon Street has nothing to do with canons. It’s a corruption of Candlewick Street. Because that’s where the candles were made.

 

This gigantic astronomical clock guards the entrance to Bracken House showing the minutes, hours, days, months and zodiac signs.   And, right there in the middle, is the face of Winston Churchill.

 

It really is Winnie. 

 

Although it’s a clock, there are no hands - the entire outer dial rotates with the current time appearing at the top of the clock inside a decorative frame. Likewise, the inner dial for the months and astrological symbols also rotates over the period of the year.

 

The building is named after Brendan Bracken, a key ally of Churchill during the second world war. The statesman's grimacing countenance was built into the clock in 1959, by designers in a nod to this relationship.

 

Bracken and Churchill have other connections, played out in the pages of George Orwell's 1984. During the second world war, Bracken ran the Ministry of Information, inspiration for Orwell's Ministry of Truth.   He also shares his initials with Big Brother. The novel's protagonist is called Winston. 

 

Bracken House was designed as the headquarters of the Financial Times, which Bracken re-founded in 1945. The coloured facade is as a deliberate nod to that newspaper's famously pink pages.

 

The FT decamped to Southwark in the 1980s. But then, in 2018, the newspaper returned here to Bracken House. 

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STOP: Cockpit pub

LOCATION: St Andrew’s Hill

 

This pub dates back to the 18th century, although the building dates from the 1840s.

 

The first mention of an inn on this site was in 1352, when it was called the ‘Oakbourn Inn’, and situated on what would then have been the eastern edge of the Dominican friars – or ‘Blackfriars’ – monastery.  Blackfriars because their habits were black in colour.

 

The pub name is derived from cock fights that used to be staged here. Cockfighting had first become popular in Tudor times.  Watching male chickens fight to the death and betting heavily on the outcome was all the rage in England until 1835 when it was finally outlawed. Spectators would stand in the gallery above the Cockpit (still there but out of bounds to punters) where they were sufficiently far removed from the flying feathers and blood-spattered entrails to keep their clothes clean.

 

Due to large sums of money involved, the rules were remarkably complex, so much so that entire books were written regarding the correct manner in which the fights should take place.  

 

Interestingly, the term “Cockpit” was used by Shakespeare in Henry V to describe the area around a theatre’s stage. And this pub is coincidentally reported to have had close ties with the bard. It marks the approximate site of a house bought by Shakespeare for the princely sum of £140.

 

The pub became The Three Castles after cock fighting was banned. It reverted to the Cockpit after being renovated in 1970.

 

It is Grade II listed.

 

The ride ends at the cafe in Russell Square