Unrestrained by the bylaws, manners and conventions of the City and Westminster across the Thames, Bankside evolved in its own way. Situated at the southern gateway to the old city, it grew in the 16th century as the Tudor outliers of Southwark, St George and The Borough that later became unruly powerhouses of the Victorian city with a dense network of disorderly factories, railways, tenements, wharves and warehouses. Maligned and ignored for decades, it is now resurgent with a stew of new monuments rubbing up against and looming over old urban relics. In this walk, The London Ambler, explores freedom and chaos, architecture and reform, through the streets and spaces of one of London’s most eclectic and intense urban districts.
A Walking Tour by The London Ambler – Mike Althorpe