SECRET BANKSIDE – WALKS IN THE OUTLAW BOROUGH
On the south bank of the Thames, outside the jurisdiction of the City of London, Bankside has long been known as a hotbed of creativity, dissent and loose living. With its brothels and bear-pits, prisons and pubs, the area has inspired the nation’s greatest writers – Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Keats, and Blake – and been home to its famous theatres – The Globe, The Rose, The Old Vic and The National.
Writer, perfomer and local historian John Constable is well known for his walks around this fascinating area. The eight walks collected here are among his most popular. Packed with social history and local lore, they are witty, insightful and hugely entertaining.
Each walk is easy to follow, accompanied by maps and clear directions, and illustrated with period prints and contemporary photographs.
Together, they tell the extraordinary and, until recently, largely forgotten story of London’s anarchic, irrespressible ‘Outlaw Borough’.
THE SOUTHWARK MYSTERIES
The Liberty of the Clink dates back to 1107, when the Bishop of Winchester was granted a stretch of the Southwark Bankside, which lay outside the law of the City of London. Here, the Bishop controlled the brothels, or ’stews’. His whores were know as Winchester Geese.
The Book of the Goose was revealed to John Crow, trickster-familiar of the Southwark poet John Constable, on 23 November 1996. In this apocalyptic vision, John Crow encounters The Goose at Cross Bones, the whores’ graveyard unearthed during work on the Jubilee Line extension. She initiates him into a secret history spanning over two thousand years, a vision of the Spirit in the flesh, the Sacred in the profane, Eternity in time…
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