Bermondsey Watch House
nineteenth century guardhouse to watch for body snatchers in the churchyard
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Taken on Wednesday February 25, 2015
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Posted on Saturday February 28, 2015
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Isisbridge said:
You pass the early 19th century (post 1829) rectory, and stop at the Church (originally built for the Abbey servants and lay-people). It was rebuilt between 1680 and 1690 as a parish church - the tower and west front altered 1830 to suit ‘Gothick’ fashion. The Galleries were added in in the 18th Century.
Here is another watch-house built to deter resurrectionists’ or grave robbers who supplied the local hospital medical schools with subjects for dissection.
Tan yards once abutted the church yard which supposedly contains a 1665 plague pit. The Bevingtons (leather manufacturers) contributed generously to restoring and furnishing the church.
It is said that a Puritan rector, Jeremiah Whitaker, here once ended his sermon of sixty-nine pages with the phrase ‘…one hundred and twenty-seventhly…’.
In the crypt: are references to many local people and craftsman including: Joseph Watson, founder of the first public institution for the deaf and dumb in 1792, James Hardwidge, needlemaker to Queen Charlotte, 1819, William Browning, Fellmonger, 1758. Floor memorials include one to a tanner, William Mercer, 1718, and Elizabeth Tyers, 1681 (see Tyer’s Gateway, Bermondsey Street).
The works of the striking clock bear a brass plate on which is inscribed ‘This clock thoroughly repaired and altered to an eight-day by Charles Porter, Southwark, 1841.’