The Tower Bridge is inefficient and a back-number, but it is part of the London scene for, as previously remarked, the river without it is almost unimaginable. It must be replaced, since it is now an anachronism, but it should be succeeded, not by the underground tunnel recommended by the County of London Plan, but by a splendid new bridge, a magnificent conception to lift up our hearts every time we gaze upon it. 

South London, Harry Williams (1949)

Tower Bridge c1971 (Horsleydown is on the right) (c) Skelton family

Last month, I revisited an earlier post I’d written about the Thameside parish of Horsleydown where my first London Skelton ancestors settled, two centuries ago. In this chapter, I intend to continue my exploration of London over-the-river, and as such have found it a pleasure to reread and edit my earlier writing on the topic. Despite not being able to return to the UK currently, I like to visit old and new London in my mind and reflect on my research and experiences to date. It is a comforting reminder of the time when a short trip to the capital could be organised in a couple of mouse clicks, and those long weekends were greatly anticipated events. Part of the pleasure was planning where to go and what to see, although latterly I’d often allowed myself to become distracted on tandem activities, which although not directly related to my genealogical research, did at least help to deepen my knowledge and understanding of the city. Sometimes it was, in fact, those random occasions – often serendipitous in nature – that offered me glimpses into the lives of my ancestors.

I started documenting these experiences last month (see Returning to the River in my Mind – Part 1), and continue to do so in Part 2, below. Perhaps my descriptions may even encourage some readers to visit this part of London, once life returns to normal.

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I will always treasure the moment in the reading room of the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) when I carefully laid the heavy, leather-bound rate books from Horsleydown Lane onto the large foam supports. My fingers struggled to untie the old ribbons which held the covers together, and I nervously eased the pages apart to an ominous creaking sound – accompanied by a rather worrying flurry of desiccated particles of brown leather. It appeared that no-one had opened these books for years, perhaps not even since they had been written, and in the intervening centuries the scribe’s ink had turned to a pale yellowish brown, reminding me of the ‘invisible ink’ I had made from lemon juice as a child. It was a joy to read the beautiful cursive hand of the unknown pen-pusher who’d transcribed these records almost two hundred years ago, perhaps perched all in black like a crow at a high wooden writing desk while laboriously copying out the scribbled notes of the enumerator.

Yet as much as I relish the challenge of searching the records for original documents, particularly when coming across something not in the public domain, nothing beats the  thrill of combining the hunt for specific information with an on-the-ground search. Horsleydown Lane certainly could not have come alive for me if I hadn’t spent time there myself, trying to get under the skin of the neighbourhood (see The Tailor of Horsleydown), even if that did prove rather elusive in the 21st century.

Some of my most successful research days have been those in which I visited the local records office – such as the Southwark Local History Library in Borough High Street, tucked away at the back of the John Harvard library like a tiny secret, or the wonderfully eccentric Lambeth Archives adjoining the Minet Library. Both these places are situated amongst the streets, building and parks that figure in my ancestors’ lives, and there is a comforting sense of continuity when I can set aside a document and walk out to view the area to which it refers, returning again and again to now familiar haunts. Every time I discover some new fact, I feel I want to go back and view the neighbourhood once more in the light of my recent knowledge. Thus my impressions of a place are always shifting and rearranging themselves as I see them in different seasons and weather conditions, at various times of the day, and in ever-changing moods.

In the Tardis-like room that houses the Southwark Local History Library, the friendly and knowledgeable staff helped me to put together an initial picture of the Skeltons’ lives in Horsleydown from the records they house. A trawl through the original trade directories of the time showed that there was James Skelton operating as a Tailor &c  from 1828 to 1843 in Horsleydown. The rate books I later consulted in the LMA showed that James initially paid £14 in annual rent for his brick, Queen Ann house at 41, Horsleydown Lane, which rose to £17 by the 1840s (his parish tax on that amount being £1 and 4 shillings). This record also indicated that the property, along with others in the Lane, was owned by the wealthy, local land-owning Abdy family, and belonged to the Horsleydown estate, built on what had previously been Horsley Down – which, as the name suggests, was grazing land up until the middle of the 17^th century.

Another important piece of the jigsaw fell into place when an archivist helped me to locate the Skeltons’ abode in Horsleydown Lane from the incredibly detailed London street map, created by Richard Horwood from 1792-9. This breathtakingly intricate map not only gives the street number of every house in the capital, but also includes details of the buildings featured, along with their attached yards and gardens and outhouses. From the North Bermondsey section of the Horwood map, it is thus possible to ascertain the exact location of the family’s house. Going back even further by consulting earlier maps, such as John Roque’s plan of 1745 – the predecessor to the Horwood one – it is possible to build up a fascinating picture of how the neighbourhood grew over the centuries to eventually become a densely-populated industrial area by the Victorian age.

Horsleydown in Horwood’s Map of London, circa 1800

Horsleydown in Roque’s Map of London, 1745

What excites me in particular about these two maps is the incredible attention to detail. In the Roque map the exquisite engravings of the long-lost pleasure parks and market gardens of South London help to conjure up a semi-bucolic atmosphere which is in marked contrast to the more urbanised area immediately across the water. There is something about the way the fruit trees throw eerie shadows onto forgotten fields and lanes which gives rise to an almost visceral pain at the loss of such things. I could scroll (metaphorically stroll) through this map for hours, visiting Dancing Bridge and Pye Gardens in Bankside, or taking the air along Melancholy Walk near Bermondsey Abbey.

By the time the Horwood Map was published, fifty years later, the landscape of Bermondsey was markedly changed, in part through the increase in the number of tanners, fellmongers and wool staplers in the area. Although there had been a leather trade there since Medieval times, mostly due to the presence of freshwater tidal streams from the Thames and nearby oak woods, the 18th century saw a boom in the trade, and it was claimed that a third of the leather in Britain came from Bermondsey by the beginning of the 19th century. This was a messy and smelly business involving oak bark, lime, urine and dog faeces, creating noxious smells in the vicinity of the production, and the tanneries had therefore initially been established inland, away from the inhabited areas close to the riverfront.

When James and his family moved to Horsleydown in the 1820s, Bermondsey was certainly in the process of change. In 1833, the new Leather and Skin Market was opened, and three years later the railway came to the area, cutting a swathe through residential districts and causing an exodus of wealthier residents in the wake of increased industrialisation, an event which I documented last month. This resulted in the material decline of the area throughout the second half of the 19^th century and eventually led to the infamous slum clearances of the 20^th. Writing in 1949, in South London, Harry Williams provocatively states that: Ten years ago Bermondsey was, perhaps, the worst slum district in the world. Wholesale damage and demolition caused to its moth-eaten and decayed property by war bombing has improved it, but it is an improvement purely negative in character. It is better because it has been thinned out and has lost a proportion of its congested population. What remains is a mess and a disgrace, none the less.

However, Williams does go on to say (in his own wonderfully poetic way)  that: This web of ill-planned slums, decayed waterfront and wandering highways has an extraordinary fascination. It is impossible to account for the atmosphere generated by the place unless we admit that the shadows of history still cling to the soil on which the events were played out. so many events, gay and colourful, mournful and turbulent, stately and murderous, have taken place in this small area that the air must be full of memories and whispers of gallantry, if only the ear were attuned to the tiny vibrations of forgotten things.

So much of Harry Williams’ riverfront Bermondsey has now gone. But with the loss of the industries which dominated the area and the subsequent closure of the docks, there is now the strange feeling that Horsleydown is slipping back  into its pre-industrial past when visitors would come from across the water to enjoy the pleasures on offer on the south side of the Thames. This trend is most obvious in nearby Bankside, but has also been replicated to a lesser extent in the area south of Tower Bridge, in part due to the attractions of the bridge itself. Now pedestrians can  follow the Jubilee Walkway to St Saviour’s Dock and beyond to where the replica of Sir Frances Drake’s Golden Hinde is berthed, taking in the shops, restaurants and galleries of riverside Horsleydown en route. Many will stroll along the cobbled street of Shad Thames without knowing the exact area through which they are passing, but if they are aware of the old parish name they might easily guess that it was once covered with fields where horses and cattle grazed.

Renovated Victorian Warehouses, Shad Thames, Horsleydown

Replica of the Golden Hinde, St Saviour’s Dock, Bermondsey

The famous Agas map of London in 1540 (not shown), clearly indicates this open land  (complete with drawings of long-horned cattle), and in the Hoefnagel painting from later in the century (below), these same fields can still be seen. The view of the White Tower from the end of the lane on the left – could this be the original Horsleydown Lane running down to the river? –  shows that the location is not in dispute, even if the artist may have taken liberties with the actual details of the scene.

Joris Hoefnagel, A Fete at Bermondsey, circa 1570

A contemporary plan of the area (below) shows Horsleydown in more detail, and it has been suggested that the grey building with the towers, located on the right of the Hoefnagel  painting above,  could be the Hermitadge shown in the map below (top centre). The Knights Hous (the house of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem), is reputed to have stood on the site where the Horsleydown Brewery was eventually erected – and next to the St John’s of Jerusaleme’s Milles on the riverbank, thus indicating where Horsleydown Lane once was. With so much detail, the map is a fascinating insight into the pre-industrial land use of the area, which also encompassed what is today the approach to Tower Bridge, including the section to the west of the bridge, previously called Potters’ Fields, and recently developed as Potters’ Field Park.

It’s hard to imagine the area around Horsleydown currently attracting the same amount of interest if the 1943 County of London Plan to which Harry Williams refers had succeeded in having the ‘anachronism’ of Tower Bridge replaced by a ‘splendid new bridge’! As the most iconic bridge in London, Tower Bridge is frequently mistaken by visitors for London Bridge, whose historical claim to fame is not even hinted at in the modern river crossing. Sometimes I have difficulty myself in believing that Tower Bridge did not even exist when my own London grandparents were born. As I mentioned last month, my great-great grandfather from Horsleydown would be surprised today to see the addition of both Tower Bridge and the Globe Theatre in his old stamping grounds. As if the past had arrived in the future with no thought for the centuries in-between.

And that is what I find so strange and fascinating about shape-shifting London.

The Incidental Genealogist, June 2021

Wills can give an insight into the lifestyle and status of a family. For example, a series of bequests of scholarly books would indicate an interest in learning. They may display deeply felt emotions: love, hate, exasperation, or protectiveness.

Wills and Probate Records, Karen Grannum and Nigel Taylor, (2009)

On one of our family summer pilgrimages to London in the early 1970s (those trips in which we always had to wear our homemade kilts), I remember my father taking us to see  Pudding Lane  – which as every British schoolchild knows is where the Great Fire of London is said to have started. I don’t know what I expected to see there (some charred remains?), but there was definitely something old and significant there that thrilled me at the time. Over forty years later I still have a memory of a narrow street of old brick townhouses,  on one of which was a plaque explaining something along the lines of: It was on this site . . . etc.

But when I returned to the area a few years ago, there was no Pudding Lane to speak of: just a cold and windy cut between bland glass and concrete office buildings. I was horrified to think that such an important street had disappeared in all but name. I felt then as if someone had meddled with my past – a similar emotion to that I’d experienced when I discovered the much-loved Victorian schoolhouse in my Scottish home town had been pulled down and replaced by a block of modern classrooms.

This old, red sandstone schoolhouse was the place I was taught for the first two years of my primary education (until, as older pupils, we were moved to ‘the huts’ – a temporary solution to a rural school that had suddenly become the centre of a fast-growing suburb). I can still clearly see the school’s main hall, with its regimental central rows of coat pegs and long benches. I remember the smell of the wax on the dark wooden floorboards. The way the sun came in through the high classroom windows, picking up dust motes in the late morning air. The apprehension I felt at having to visit the  cold outside toilets where the school bullies lurked. The fascination we had for the roaring furnace into which the janitor (or ‘jannie’) shovelled coal to heat the boiler. I can also recall the strident sound of the hand bell the teacher rang to signal that our precious playtime was over, the insistent clanging alerting us to the fact that we had to promptly line up at the back door in our respective classes. And it was in this red building that I learnt to count with Cuisinaire rods, lisped my way through boring stories about Janet and John, and was told about the complicated adult world of Pounds, Shilling and Pence, before having to relearn it all when the decimal system was brought it shortly afterwards.

However, it is perhaps because of those memories that I can say goodbye to my old schoolhouse with fondness, and in the knowledge that it might not have best served the needs of 21^st century children. But it is difficult to have the same feelings about the destruction of post-fire Pudding Lane – a street whose doors were never opened to me and whose charm is now lost before I ever knew it. (I pity visitors to London who set off in search of one of the city’s most famous streets, only to find themselves in a depressing wind tunnel).

So now I have a reverse (perverse?) philosophy when it comes to old buildings – I do not expect them to still be standing and am always delighted to come across them, particularly if they are in an intact street or neighbourhood. One of my most fascinating finds was an enclave of preserved Georgian terraced houses, including corner shops and pubs, just off Waterloo Road, which I later discovered is often used as a film set, most recently for the Kray twins’ biopic, Legend. Even though none of my ancestors had connections to those exact streets, I knew they had lived in similar ones nearby, and just walking around the area on a quiet Sunday morning was like a little peek into a long-lost London. Southwark is full of such surprises, and one of my favourite activities (once the record offices are closed) is just to lose myself in the backstreets and neighbourhoods that are hidden behind the main roads and thoroughfares.

Streets in the Waterloo neighbourhood

This was how I first stumbled upon the address I had for the birthplace of my great grandfather, Arthur Skelton, in 1859 (and in a neighbouring street in 1858, his older sister, Alice). One September evening I followed a print-out of Stanhope’s 1869 railway map of the area, and after negotiating renamed streets found myself in one of the queerest little corners of Southwark that held a section of mean little houses redolent of Victorian poverty. It was strange and unsettling to see the uncared-for terrace, surrounded by increasing gentrification, and it is a powerful image I still cannot forget. However, when I returned the following year, hoping to photograph the area, the buildings (apart from one on the other side of the railway line) had all gone, and a new block of flats was being quickly thrown up in their place. I walked up and down the street, almost willing the old terrace to reappear, berating my lost opportunity to document the last remaining section of the street. Since that time I go everywhere in the capital on foot with a detailed map and a camera beside me, and never miss the chance to photograph anything interesting, however insignificant it might appear at the time.

Getting lost in ‘Old Southwark’

Of course for those like myself who are easily distracted, this is not always the best strategy for carrying out research. But I have learned to embrace these sudden moments where I veer off-course and wander into a new district, or become side-tracked at the records office by a different set of documents. I frequently tell myself that as I never knew my great-great grandparents, or even my great grandparents, the details of their lives  should really not be regarded as any more important than that of their contemporaries. And so I have learned to accept such distractions as all part of the journey, and keep an open mind as to what is relevant and what is not.

Picture this then: a decayed group of early Victorian brick terraced houses with sheets tacked behind dirty windows and weeds around the doorsteps, darkened by the railway line which runs close by. But in the 1850s this railway had not yet been built and the neighbourhood through which it ran would have felt very different – resembling the more symmetrically pleasing one of the Waterloo enclave. But it is now that ‘film-set ready’ little warren of streets which is the anomaly – with average prices for terrace houses starting at around £1,5 million, the demographics of the community having now moved in a different direction. So there it is: the past slipping and sliding through our fingers again, just when we thought we had a grip of it.

Last remaining terraced house on King James St (formerly King St)

There are, however, two documents that I discovered in my search to find out more about my great-great grandfather’s 19^th century London existence that have probably shed more light on his way of life than any bricks and mortar building can. The first is the copy of the will that he left his relatively new wife, Mary Ann, in 1867. It is written in Victorian secretary’s hand, with its connotations of the court of chancery wills described in Dicken’s novel, Bleak House, and was possibly all the more exciting a find for this reason. A family will was also something I had not considered searching for in the pre-internet days: only around 1 in 10 adult men made wills in the mid-Victorian time (very few women were able to make wills before the 1882 married women’s property act) and I had not expected anyone in our family to be among them. Obviously it was not only the wealthy who made wills, but anyone who had something to leave and a reason to ensure that the goods, money or property would end up in the right hands.

Now that I know more about the Skelton family’s background, the presence of a will no longer surprises me. James’ end-of-life marriage to Mary Ann Hawkins, his long-term mistress and the mother of his younger children, makes it clear that he was serious about ensuring legal protection for his ‘second family’. His successful older son, James William, already a wealthy West India merchant by this time, was one of the executors of the will, and may have also given his father legal advice and encouragement. There was no reason for James not to leave a will to protect his young family (unlike his son Arthur, my great grandfather, who was dependent on his grown-up children towards the end of his life).

The main objective of James’ will was to safeguard Mary Ann by providing her with £60 a year (drawn from an invested  personal estate of just under £800, and payable in quarters), with James stating that the money should go to her two daughters (named Hawkins in the will) if she die or remarry, and then giving his two sons (named Skelton in the will) as the next in line. Although this seemed fair, seeing that the girls may be in more need of money if they remained unmarried, what struck me as odd was the way they were described as my wife’s daughters, even though James was purported to be their father.

However, what the will did help prove was that the oldest son of James and Mary Ann, also called James Skelton, had probably died at some point as he was not mentioned in the document. This confirmed my own suspicions, as I had sadly never been able to find the young James after the 1861 census (where he was described as a schoolboy). The fact that Mary Ann’s oldest son, William Hawkins (named, it would seem, after her father), also went unmentioned in the will was not that surprising – records show that he appeared to have been born before Mary Ann met my great-great grandfather.

But the thing that fascinated most about the will was the items James Skelton wanted his only son from his first marriage to inherit. While Mary Ann received the expected ‘household furniture, beds, bedding linen, glass, china and silver‘, the forty year old merchant was given ‘all my oil paintings to and for his own absolute use and benefit’. I thought about those paintings for a long time afterwards, imagining what they might be. Landscapes? Family heirlooms? Investment pieces? None of these answers seemed to make sense. Another Skelton family researcher (a descendant of Mary Ann Hawkins’ first-born son, William), who had initially alerted me about the existence of James’ will, wondered at the logic of having oil paintings in a working-class community  in Walworth. But this line of reasoning confuses 21^st century sensibilities with those of the 19^th, over-simplifying the notion of paintings as valuable and collectable.

It was only when I later discovered James William’s will, made out at the end of the century, shortly before he died, that I realised  why his father had most likely given him these paintings.  In the part of the will in which the retired merchant details his possessions he states: I bequeath to my son Stanley Sleath Skelton my watch and chain and pendants and pearl pin, and my portrait of myself as a boy. I bequeath to my son Herbert Sleath Skelton my jet and diamond solitaires and pin, my pearl studs, my coral studs and vest buttons and my portrait of myself as a man. And I bequeath the remainder of my jewellery to my said sons in equal shares.

Before the invention of photography, oil paintings of family members were relatively common among those with a reasonable amount of dispoable income, often undertaken by itinerant portrait painters. I now believe the oil paintings mentioned in my great-great grandfather’s will had  most likely been portraits of his first family – not something that would have interested his second wife! Perhaps James had these portraits painted for a special occasion – to mark a birthday or, in James William’s case, entrance to the local grammar school. However, there is no mention of any paintings of his four daughters (two of whom had died in the years before James made his will). Perhaps James simply gave all of the existing paintings to his son to distribute as he saw fit (‘all my oil paintings’), and the only ones that James William thought worthy of passing on to his sons were those of himself?

Sadly, none of James William’s  three children had any families of their own, cutting dead the only London Skelton branch who had actually inherited anything valuable or interesting. Ironically it was this very lack of family heirlooms (as opposed to the Waughs, see Begin Again) which made me want to resume my genealogical search. Like the demolished post-fire houses of Pudding Lane referred to at the beginning of this chapter, the fact that there were once objects deemed important to the family, but which will now never be found, is almost more tragic than the loss of things which can still be recalled in detail. Thus I can say a fond goodbye to my old village school (which I can conjure up in my head any time I want), and yet I can still remember my childhood obsession with another building I never saw. This was the gothic ruins of an old baronial-style house, once a preparatory school for boys, and located in the expansive riverside grounds of nearby public parkland, called Cambusdoon. The house – which had originally been built for a Victorian industrialist in the 1850s  – had been a private boys’ school from the 1920s to the 60s, and was eventually demolished in the 1970s after previous fire damage left the building dangerously unstable. As a child, I found this ruin utterly fascinating and used to spend hours exploring the grounds and clambering among the surviving masonry, trying to imagine what the house and environs must have once been like, yet feeling nothing but anguish at the fact that I had never been able to experience  the place in all its glory.  

The house at Cambusdoon I never knew

When I mentioned a different fire (conflagration?) at the very beginning of this chapter, I had not known exactly how pertinent that would turn out to be. But since then I have learned that this first week in September marks the 350 year anniversary of the Great Fire of London (a fact I had not been aware of when I started composing this post a few days ago). This coincidence thus brings me neatly to  the description of the other important document pertaining to James Skelton and his family: namely the Sun Fire Insurance records for the family home in Horsleydown Lane – a boon for any house researcher.

After the Great Fire in 1666, regulations were brought in which required all new buildings in London to be constructed in brick and stone, and to be aligned with or set back from the street. This rule was not always followed outside the jurisdiction of the City, and in Southwark a mixture of brick and wooden buildings was retained well into the 19th and early 20th century. However, most post-fire housing in the main streets would have been constructed in stone and brick, and so it came to pass that in Horsleydown many of the new 18th century dwelling houses were built with such materials.  In addition to this rule, houseowners and occupiers were expected to have made provisions for extinguishing any local fires – and so the development of the first fire insurance companies began, one of the most well-known of these being the Sun Fire Office. 

Until the establishment of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in 1865, each insurance company had its own private fire brigade which knew and recognised the buildings they protected by the presence of the metal badge or ‘fire mark’ (with policy number ) affixed to  the outer wall. Very few of these signs still exist, although this one (below) is from an 18th century house in Bermondsey, very similar to the one in which James and his family lived.

Sun Insurance fire mark on an 18th C house (shown below) in Bermondsey

Discovering that James Skelton’s house in Horsleydown Lane was one of those which was insured with the Sun Insurance Company in the 1830s felt like a real ‘eureka moment’ in my research. The register (now in the London Metropolitan Archives under their A Place in the Sun index) shows that a policy was taken out by my great-great grandfather on 21^st February 1833 (a policy normally ran for five years), and describes the house he rented as ‘brick and tiled’ containing ‘household goods, wearing apparel, printed books and plate’: value £240’.  Also insured were ‘pictures and prints: value £10’ as well as ‘china and glass: value £20’ and ‘stock and utensils and goods in trust: value £30’ (confirming James worked from home, which was common at the time).

When I first came across this document in the LMA, I could have wept with relief. In James’ will of 1866, the household objects left to his wife did not contain any ‘printed material’, which was not surprising, given that his young wife was illiterate. But  it is the presence of these ‘printed books’ in the 1830s, which means more to me than any other  object described in the documents detailing my great-great grandfather’s possessions. Because, above all, it shows that not only did he want to financially protect his new wife and children, but he was most likely someone who saw the importance of reading and education. It is just a pity that for little Arthur his father’s death came too early for him to benefit from such values. 

The Incidental Genealogist, September 2016

Of all the quarters and parts of London that of Horsleydown is the least known and the least visited, except by those whose business takes them there every day. There is, in fact, nothing to be seen: the wharves block out the river; the warehouses darken the streets, the places where people live are not interesting; there is not an ancient memory or association, or any ancient fragment of a building, to make one desire to visit Horsleydown.

South London, Walter Besant (1898)

The two decades that my great-great grandfather, James Skelton, and his first family spent in Horsleydown (from around 1823 – 42) coincided with changes to public record-keeping which saw civil registration introduced in England and Wales in 1837, followed by the national census in 1841. It was the combination of these records which had allowed me to unearth James and his second family in Aldred Rd in the 1860s, but the lack of  data earlier in the century (when records had been kept by individual parishes) was the stumbling block which had prevented me from finding him in Horsleydown (and later Brixton) with his first wife and children – the family I regard as ‘lost’.

However, when I resumed my search in 2010 the internet had already changed the landscape of genealogical research, and suddenly it seemed that everyone was busy downloading parish records, assembling family trees on-line, and posting queries about long-lost cousins. It was with a slight trepidation that I re-ignited my quest to find my lost ancestors, spurred on by the Waugh family documentary that had fascinated me so much (see Begin Again). I knew that once I started it could easily turn into an all-consuming obsession. Would I end up sitting wild-eyed at 2am, telling myself I would have just one more attempt to find an ancestor who had so far proved elusive? (My ongoing search for the ‘doorstep foundling’ Nell springs to mind here.)

Even in the last couple of years, numerous records have been published on-line that were previously only accessible at archive centres: parish rates, divorce petitions, school board admission records. In a peculiar way it can be irksome to find such previously hard-won information suddenly retrievable at the push of the button (and the wave of a credit card). Document searches that used to entail a precious day at the archives – a day in which various choices regarding where to spend limited research time had to be made – can now be conjured up on a screen anywhere, almost devaluing the content in the process.

Some of the records that I found for James Skelton and his family fall into this category – the rate books from Horsleydown Lane being a prime example. Yet I still treasure the moment in the document consultation room in the London Metropolitan Archives when I laid the heavy, leather-bound book on the foam reading supports, untied the ribbons that held the covers together, and eased the pages apart to an ominous creaking, accompanied by a flurry of desiccated particles of brown leather. It appeared that no-one had opened these books for years – perhaps not even since they had been written, and in the intervening centuries the scribe’s ink had turned to a pale yellowish brown, reminding me of the ‘invisible ink’ I had made from lemon juice as a child. It was a joy, too,  to read the beautiful cursive hand of the unknown pen-pusher who’d transcribed these records almost two hundred years ago, perhaps perched at a high wooden writing desk while he laboriously copied out the scribbled notes of the enumerator.

As much as I relish the challenge of searching the records for original documents, particularly when coming across something not in the public domain, nothing beats the  thrill of combining the hunt for specific information with an on-the-ground search. Horsleydown Lane certainly could not have come alive for me if I hadn’t spent time there myself, trying to get under the skin of the neighbourhood (see The Tailor of Horsleydown), even if that did prove rather elusive.

Some of my most successful research days have been those in which I visited the local records office – such as the Southwark Local History Library in Borough High Street, tucked away at the back of the John Harvard library like a little secret, or the wonderfully eccentric Lambeth Archives adjoining the Minet Library. Both these places are situated amongst the streets, building and parks that figure in my ancestors’ lives, and there is a comforting sense of continuity when I can set aside a document and walk out to view the area to which it refers, returning again and again to now familiar haunts. Each time I discover something new, I have a need to go back and see the neighbourhood once more in the light of my recent knowledge. Thus my impressions of a place are always shifting and rearranging themselves as I view them in different seasons and weather conditions, at different times of the day, and in different moods.

In the Tardis-like room that houses the Southwark Local History Library, the friendly and knowledgeable staff helped me to put together an initial picture of the Skeltons’ life in Horsleydown from the records they house. A trawl through the original trade directories of the time showed that there was James Skelton operating as a Tailor &c in 1828 at 7 Broad Street, Horsleydown. I already knew from the Horsleydown parish records (found on-line) that James’ son, James William was born in Broad Street in December 1827, corroborating the information in Robsons. Thereafter, the various trade directories show the family as living at Horsleydown Lane, where they were to stay for the next 15 years.

Interestingly, the birth records for James first two children show that they were born in the town of Erith (in 1824) and Printer’s Place, also located in Horsleydown, (in 1826), respectively. As Sarah’s brother and his wife (the witnesses at James and Sarah’s wedding) were from Erith, it is probably safe to say that Sarah was originally from this area and had perhaps returned to her family home to give birth to her first child (Margaret Sarah) a year after her marriage. Unfortunately, many of the relevant parish records for Erith were destroyed in a church fire in 1877, so at present there does not seem to be any easy way to confirm this fact. As Sarah is not a blood relative, I feel I can let her story lapse to a certain extent, although I often wonder if she was the driving force behind James’ success story and at some point would like to try to discover more about her.

I am fully aware that I may be biased in my reporting, but it does seem as if the records give support to my theory of upward mobility. Firstly, James and Sarah have two addresses in the neighbourhood (which we know about) before they eventually settle in Horsleydown Lane for a relatively long period, indicating that they were putting down roots in the area. In addition, James’ appearance in the London trade directories of the time shows that he took ‘growing’ the business seriously.

And finally – and perhaps most fascinating of all – the aforementioned rate books I consulted in the LMA show that James paid initially paid £14 in annual rent for the brick property at 41 Horsleydown Lane, which rose to £17 by the 1840s (his parish tax on that amount being £1 and 4 shillings). This record also showed that the house, along with others in the street, was owned by the local landowning Abdy family, and was part of the Horsleydown estate, built on what had previously been Horsley Down, grazing land up to the middle of the 17^th century.

Another important piece of the jigsaw fell into place when an archivist helped me to locate the Skeltons’ abode in Horsleydown Lane from the incredibly detailed London street map, created by Richard Horwood from 1792-9. This breathtakingly intricate map not only gives the street number of every house in the capital, but also includes details of the buildings featured, along with their attached yards and gardens and outhouses. From the North Bermondsey section of the Horwood map, it is thus possible to ascertain the exact location of the family’s house  – interestingly it also shows that their previous address at 7 Broad Street (now Elizabeth Street) was literally only round the corner from Horsleydown Lane. Going back even further by consulting earlier maps, such as John Roque’s plan of 1745 – the predecessor to the Horwood one –  it is possible to build up a fascinating picture of how the neighbourhood grew over the centuries to eventually become a densely-populated industrial area by the Victorian age.

Horsleydown in Horwood’s Map of London, circa 1800

Horsleydown in Roque’s Map of London, 1745

What excites me in particular about these two maps is the incredible attention to detail. In the Roque map the exquisite engravings of the long-lost pleasure parks and market gardens of south London help to conjure up a semi-bucolic atmosphere which is in marked contrast to the more urbanised area immediately across the water. There is something about the way the fruit trees throw eerie shadows onto forgotten fields and lanes which gives rise to an almost visceral pain at the loss of such things. I could scroll (metaphorically stroll) through this map for hours, visiting Dancing Bridge and Pye Gardens in Bankside, or taking the air along Melancholy Walk near Bermondsey Abbey.

By the time the Horwood Map was published, fifty years later, the landscape of Bermondsey was markedly changed, in part through the increase in the number of tanners, fellmongers and wool staplers in the area. Although there had been a leather trade there since Medieval times, mostly due to the presence of freshwater tidal streams from the Thames and nearby oak woods, the 18th century saw a boom in the trade, and it was claimed that a third of the leather in Britain came from Bermondsey by the beginning of the 19th century. This was a messy and smelly business involving oak bark, lime, urine and dog faeces, creating noxious smells in the vicinity of the production, and the tanneries had therefore initially been established inland, away from the inhabited areas close to the riverfront.

When James and his family moved to Horsleydown in the 1820s, Bermondsey was certainly in the process of change. In 1833, the new Leather and Skin Market was opened, and three years later the railway came to the area, cutting a swathe through residential districts and causing an exodus of wealthier residents in the wake of increased industrialisation. This resulted in the material decline of the area throughout the second half of the 19^th century and eventually led to the infamous slum clearances of the 20^th. Writing in 1949, in South London, Harry Williams provocatively states that: Ten years ago Bermondsey was, perhaps, the worst slum district in the world. Wholesale damage and demolition caused to its moth-eaten and decayed property by war bombing has improved it, but it is an improvement purely negative in character. It is better because it has been thinned out and has lost a proportion of its congested population. What remains is a mess and a disgrace, none the less.

However, Williams does go on to say (in his own wonderfully poetic way)  that: This web of ill-planned slums, decayed waterfront and wandering highways has an extraordinary fascination. It is impossible to account for the atmosphere generated by the place unless we admit that the shadows of history still cling to the soil on which the events were played out. so many events, gay and colourful, mournful and turbulent, stately and murderous, have taken place in this small area that the air must be full of memories and whispers of gallantry, if only the ear were attuned to the tiny vibrations of forgotten things.

So much of Harry William’s riverfront Bermondsey has now gone. But with the loss of the industries which dominated the area and the subsequent closure of the docks, there is now the strange feeling that Horsleydown is slipping back  into its pre-industrial past when visitors would come from across the water to enjoy the pleasures on offer on the south side of the Thames. This trend is most obvious in nearby Bankside (in Lambeth), but has also been replicated to a lesser extent in the area south of Tower Bridge. Now pedestrians can  follow the Jubilee Walkway to St Saviour’s Dock (and beyond) to where the replica of Sir Frances Drake’s Golden Hinde is berthed, taking in the shops, restaurants and galleries of riverside Horsleydown en route. Many will stroll along the cobbled street of Shad Thames without knowing the exact area through which they are passing, but if they are aware of the old parish name they might easily guess that it was once covered  with fields where horses and cattle grazed.

Renovated Victorian Warehouses, Shad Thames, Horsleydown

Replica of the Golden Hinde, St Saviour’s Dock, Bermondsey

The famous Agas map of London in 1540 (not shown), clearly indicates this open land  (complete with drawings of long-horned cattle), and in the Hoefnagel painting from later in the century (below), these same fields can still be seen. The view of the White Tower from the end of the lane on the left (could this be the original Horsleydown Lane running down to the river?) shows that the location is not in dispute, even if the artist may have taken liberties with the actual details of the scene.

Joris Hoefnagel, A Fete at Bermondsey, circa 1570

A contemporary plan of the area (below) shows Horsleydown in more detail, and it has been suggested that the grey building with the towers, located on the right of the Hoefnagel  painting above,  could be the Hermitadge shown in the map below (top centre). The Knights Hous (the house of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem), is reputed to have stood on the site where the Horsleydown Brewery was eventually erected – and next to the St John’s of Jerusaleme’s Milles on the riverbank, thus indicating where Horsleydown Lane once was. With so much detail, the map is a fascinating insight into the pre-industrial land use of the area, which also encompassed what is today the approach to Tower Bridge, including the section to the west of the bridge, previously called Potters’ Fields (and recently developed as Potters’ Field Park).

A few months ago, while looking through slide film of our family visits to London in the early 1970s, I came across the image (below) of my sister and myself, taken by my father,  which inadvertently captures the area of Horsleydown behind us. It brought back memories of how much of the south bank of the Thames always looked like a different world in those days – dark hulking warehouses, many already closed up, lined the river, cranes jutting out over the water (still visible in the photograph). It seemed to represent another London – one that both fascinated and repelled me. I sometimes wished we could go over the bridge to discover what was on the other side for ourselves; however, just like Sir Walter Besant, in the quote at the beginning of this chapter, my father used to say that there was nothing to see there, which was simultaneously a relief and a disappointment.

But perhaps even then my ear was already straining to become attuned to the tiny vibrations of forgotten things.

The Incidental Genealogist, August 2016