South Bank – being a tourist in London

Tuesday, 21 September, 2021

There’s a mouse in the house. There’s a man hunting the mouse in the house. There may be other verses. Every day Krish is consumed with finding where the mouse, mice, are coming from. This is far more important than trapping a mouse, since there will still be entry gates (like those of London) to attract more mouse tourists into Jishville – Jish being our version of us as Brangelina. At any rate, I can’t really move around much – I’m trapped by boxes (moved out from shelving where they were invisible) and barriers that do as much to trap me emotionally as physically.

So I really had to go out and be a tourist outside of Jishville.

Off to Guys again, with a simple plan – to walk from London Bridge to Tower Bridge, not very far at all.

First I walked the brief distance to the junction of Tooley Street and Borough High Street.

The Shard is the landmark for the area. It’s very tall and has a unique design and it towers over the streets in all directions. It may have always happened anyway but it feels like the rest of the surrounding area felt it needed to keep up. There’s been a lot of renewal here around Borough Market (the other landmark, although not towering) including an overhaul of London Bridge Station – and you know how I love a good old and new mingle.

In the photos below, you can see the old, but also how the old and the new happily cohabitate. It’s interesting to see how often the new is just knitted into the old seamlessly, like a really good darn in your favourite sock.

Yes, three entrances of various types all into the same station from the same street.

Tooley Street isn’t modernised when you get past the station entrances. In fact, there are a lot of old buildings, each fairly unique – including the old London Bridge Hospital itself.  Not so old in fact, since this private hospital was finished in 1986.

I was headed for Hays Galleria, a building I happened on when I first came to London and began exploring. South Bank was a favourite walk and I took so many visitors along the river. My tastes have changed a bit, but Hays feels like a great respite from the bustling Borough Market and South Bank.

Hay’s Galleria was a warehouse and wharf (Hay’s Wharf) for the port of London. At first there was a 1651 brewery here. The warehouse and wharf was its next incarnation in 1856. A Grade II listed structure, it closed in 1970 after several redevelopments and disasters such as fire and bombing. Today’s incarnation came in  the 1980s. The feeling in here is quite unique. I imagine myself in a disused railway station rather than a wharf or dry dock. The arched ceiling does that for me. None of the shops interest me particularly. Some sell expensive clothes. There are some fancy independent cafes and a few franchises in here, but who really cares. It’s just nice to sit quietly and have a glimpse of the river just beyond the entry where the ships would have come into the wharf to unload and be reloaded with tea and dry produce. The wharf went through a bunch of revelopments, including after being bombed in WWII, but then closed as a wharf in 1970.

At any rate, it’s a feast to my eyes and senses and it was definitely the only must-do today.

The focal point of the Galleria is The Navigators, 1987, a sculpture by David Kemp. I’d describe it as a steampunk ship. While I was sitting there, it started to do what is probably a time marking thing. Water was sprayed from the bank through to a globe, and fell down to power a wheel. I took a video or two, which I’ll put at the end. It’s a cool and elaborate metal mechanical  (enough adjectives?) sculpture, but why not something more of a cargo shipping theme, given the location?

There’s a great view as you leave the Galleria to go onto the South Bank. There’s the Walkie Talkie facing the river on the left, and to the right the Scalpel, the Cheesegrater, and a sliver of the Gherkin amid all the buildings around Bishopsgate.

Some years earlier I’d gone to The Horniman Pub (named for the tea merchant) with some tourist friends. I’d warned them about the quality of fish and chips anywhere but a decent chippie, but when theirs arrived, it looked really nice. So we decided to have some. Let’s just say that the pub is gorgeous and the fish and chips were not.

The views along South Bank are epic. To your left is The City, with its mix of old and new, and these days to your right are the brand new Southwark offices of London. Krish had told me about two official looking buildings that flanked the river, hold outs from the modern city behind them, so that’s the first photo. I’m map-challenged but Old Billingsgate and Customs House? Sugar Quay? Help!

It’s not as sparkly as it once felt but I still smile at the sight of Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, even the silly city hall (which is moving to the Royal Docks by the end of the year). Usually I continue to Butlers Wharf but today I actually walked through Potter’s Fields for the first time after only looking at it for years. All around this area there are new buildings. So – look left for the old, right for the new, as you head towards Tower Bridge.

Looking back on The City across the river, and walking through Potter’s Field Park, I was so struck by the wildness of it. I bet it attracts a lot of bees and butterflies. I was amused by the Brazilian sushi place. What must that be like? I realise now I didn’t take many proper pictures of the park – it’s so green amidst all the urban architecture, new and old.

A Potters Field was originally a space where poor people were buried; in biblical times, priests bought clay-rich land owned by pot-makers for their burial grounds. Over the centuries, Potters Fields Park has been used as both a burial ground and a site for pottery manufacture. Its riverside setting meant that ships could easily bring in clay. In 1681 the area was the hub of English Delftware, the home of the Pickleherring Pottery (love the name). Warehouses and docks grew around the South Bank but all had closed by 1970. The parkland was transformed from a derelict lorry car park into a thriving wildlife sanctuary and education centre, the WIlliam Curtis Ecological Park. Another change happened in 1988 when the three acre park got a walkway and its current name, fuelled by the dedication of the locals, who campaigned for years to make it what it is today.

It’s a nice cut-through back to Tooley Street where we thought we’d catch a bus home rather than go on the train again. It takes longer but is more relaxing. The bus stop, however, was confusing, showing our bus going in a different direction than we wanted, so we walked around the corner to Tower Bridge Road. On the way we checked out the LaLit hotel, which is the imposing red building at the entrance to Potter’s Field Park. Krish said it was a very fancy one and that made me wistful for a nice retreat staycation. He’s right, since the hotel’s website describes it as ‘a plush 70-room opulent boutique hotel. It is a Grade II listed building, built by Edward Mountford more than 125 years ago, architect of the Old Bailey.’ I looked at the rooms briefly and decided it’s not the sort of plush that I’m longing for.

Walking from the bus stop at Aldgate to our Hackney-bound bus there was more to see. It’s all quite familiar but there’s a new hotel now, a Hilton Krish says. See the hoardings and one (of many) crane on the left? The new continues to encroach on the old. It can either render the old quite shabby or more desirable. It depends how you look at it.

From our bus, and passing along Aldgate High Street, you can see the new construction coming along at the corner of this very different section of Middlesex Street. Once it’s finished the landscape will again be completely changed.

Today I was a tourist doing tourist things. The rest of the tourists haven’t really found here yet but they’re coming.