St Savior's Dock
 
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Location of St. Savior's Dock in Greater London |
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The St Savior's Dock is a small dock on the south bank of the Thames in London . It is located approx. 400 m east of Tower Bridge and forms the eastern border of the historic Shad Thames area. Jacob's Island is on the other side of the harbor basin .
location
In this part of the Thames estuary the tidal range is particularly high; in the harbor basin it is up to 4 m. During storm surges , the water often rises alarmingly just below the windows of the adjacent buildings on Shad Thames and Mill Street.
The Neckinger also flows into the Thames at St. Savior's Dock . The Neckinger is an underground river that has its source in Southwark and flows northwards completely underground.
history
A congregation of Cluny monks resided in Bermondsey Abbey near this site from 1082 . The parish cultivated the Bermondsey area , cultivated the land, and fortified the banks of the Thames. They converted the mouth of the Neckinger into a harbor basin and named it after Sankt Salvator , the patron of their monastery.
John Stow , a 16th century English historian and antiquarian, had this to say about the area
"At the south end, where there was once a priory or abbey of Saint Salvator, called Bermond's Eye in Southwark, founded by Alwin Childe , a citizen of London in 1081 ..."
St. Savior's Dock in Literature
Charles Dickens has parts of his novel Oliver Twist set in the Shad Thames area, at a time when this area was known for its poverty and was called Jacob's Island . In this novel, Bill Sikes' booth is on the east end of Shad Thames, next to St. Savior's Dock. Here Sikes falls off the roof and dies in the mud, presumably right in St. Savior's Dock.
Dickens gives us a vivid description of what a disgusting place must have looked like in the time the novel is set:
"... quirky wooden galleries, usually attached to the back of half a dozen houses, with holes to look through on the mud underneath; windows, broken and mended, with wooden sticks sticking out from which to dry the linen can that is never there; rooms so small, so dirty, so cramped that the air seems too spoiled even for the dirt and filth in it; wooden chambers that stretch outward over the mud and threaten to fall into it - as has happened a number of times; dirt-smeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive facial feature of poverty, every disgusting sign of filth, rot and rubbish: all this adorns the shores of Jacob's Island. "
St. Savior's Dock is also shown in the 2002 PlayStation 2 action game The Getaway .
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 7.9 " N , 0 ° 4 ′ 15.6" W.