The Bermondsey Watch House
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The Bermondsey Watch House by Stephen Craven as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The Bermondsey Watch House
Image: © Stephen Craven Taken: 10 Jan 2013
This unusual octagonal building is on the corner of Bermondsey Street and Long Lane. It is within the old churchyard of St Mary Magdalene, now in the ownership of Southwark Council, and on the site of the old Bermondsey Abbey. It has an interesting history: such buildings were erected in the 19th century for what we would now call security guards to watch out for "body snatchers" who would exhume recently buried corpses to sell for medical or other purposes. The watch house is listed grade 2 (list entry number 1376581). At the time of the photo it was not in use, but a planning application had been made to lease it as a cafe. For a post-conversion photo, see Image
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.498013
Longitude
-0.081199