Borough Map

Does anyone have a map which defines 'The Borough'?

Loosely I always think it is Borough High Street down to E&C, back up Blackfriars Rd to the River (The triangle) but I can't seem to find historically what the boundary lines were/are.

Any help would be great!

(Also does Bankside start above Southwark Street - as is my assumption?)

Cheers

C

That outline sounds about right to me. And I'd say the north of Borough overlaps with Bankside: think Borough Market and how far back that dates.

Interesting question. Your definition puts Borough tube station right on the edge of "The Borough", which may seem odd, but on the other hand you could argue that it's not relevant to consider relatively recent things like tube stations when you're defining parts of town that are centuries old.

What would you call the area to the East of Borough High St, though? I'd say that Bermondsey doesn't go west of Bermondsey St, so where does that put Long Lane, Tabard Gardens, etc?

(I've lived near The Roebuck for ages, for instance, and would say that I live in The Borough, but I may be out of synch with popular opinion. I've no particular axe to grind, but I think it's an interesting topic.)

Ivanhoe, remember the Borough clock story? Where the parish of Bermondsey wouldn't help with the finances of the church, so no clock was put on the side facing Long Lane and Bermondsey, I'm afraid that would include Tabard as well, if we go by that.

Someone at Lend Lease might know, or hasn't thought of it yet ;)

I do think Bankside starts North of Southwark St, but that means that Borough Market isn't in the Borough.

EDIT: The parishoners of St George the Martyr must be in the Borough and that would include Tabard...I give up.

Ivanhoe wrote:

Interesting question. Your definition puts Borough tube station right on the edge of "The Borough", which may seem odd

But by that logic would it not then be strange to put Bermondsey street on the edge of Bermondsey? As you then do by suggesting that Bermondsey does not go west of Bermondsey street.

Southwark council seem to agree with Ivanhoe - there's a "Welcome to Borough & Bankside" sign on the east side of the intersection where Abbey Street turns into Long Lane, which puts Bermondsey Street as the eastern-most street in Borough (and means Bermondsey Street is not actually in Bermondsey...). Not sure how far south it extends, but this would put all of Long Lane in the Borough camp.

Jac, Bermondsey Street is on the edge of the old Bermondsey. Not too good with my Never Eat Shredded Wheat, but Bermondsey Street is near enough on the boundary between the old Bermondsey and Southwark boroughs, as I recently discovered when trying to trace dead relatives.

The southwark sign for welcome to Bankside etc is admin only for how they divide up the areas-we had this debate before on here an if i recall correctly the conclusion from the maps etc was that Bermondsey went down past Weston Street andas far as Kipling Street??

I see what you're saying, Jac, and I can't disagree.

To put B St right on the edge of Bermondsey would seem illogical of me (especially since I assume B St has been called B St for some time - and then there's B Square, which I also assume has been there for some time).

I suppose there's a similar oddity with the positioning of Borough Market, which, in my mind, is clearly in London Bridge, and on the borders of Bankside.

I've always thought of Bermondsey as being mainly on the East side of TBR, but I stress that this is entirely my personal opinion and not backed up by any facts.

I guess that there was originally a definition of The Borough, but whether that would be useful to discuss today's definitions, I don't know.

To me, Long Lane and Tabard Gdns are in The Borough. I don't think they're Bermondsey. I think the same about The Royal Oak. BUT, this is based on nothing more than my personal feeling. I suppose they may be something else altogether (a third area: Bricklayers Arms, perhaps?). I'd say that Harper Rd and Trinity St were Borough, but I suppose that the Eastern end of Harper Rd is practically Elephant, so perhaps I need to have a word with myself.

I don't care personally whether I live in The Borough or in Bermondsey, or in Elephant. I'm very keen to keep on living in SE1, though ;0)

http://www.londonancestor.com/misc/misc-hist.htm


See site-historically looks like boundary is Crosby row-the other side from there is Borough