A blog about London and other things
At the end of the ghost walk around Southwark, we ended up at the Cross Bones Graveyard and were able to go inside. Cross Bones may have been a burial ground for medieval prostitutes, who could not be buried in consecrated ground. Later it was used as a burial ground for the poor. The graveyard was “rediscovered” a few years ago and hosts a vigil every month to remember “the outcast dead”. Currently a memorial garden is in the process of being constructed.
I signed up for a Christmas ghost walk to explore Southwark, run by poet John Constable who wrote The Southwark Mysteries. The walk began near Borough Station and ended at Cross Bones Graveyard.
There was a Dickensian element to much of the walk: it began at the St George the Martyr Church, where Little Dorrit once fell asleep in Dickens’ novel of the same name.
Nearby was the site of the Marshalsea prison, in which Little Dorrit’s father lived: Dickens’ own father was imprisoned here for debt when Dickens was a child. The wall used to be the original wall from the prison, but it has been rebuilt recently.
We were shown a pub nearby that is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a woman murdered by her husband. The ghost of a crying baby has also been heard there, although no one is quite sure what connection the baby has to events.
On the same street that Dickens lived when he was a young boy and his father was in prison, we saw the National Trust houses established by Octavia Hill.
Travelling towards London Bridge, we passed the location of the inn at which Chaucer’s pilgrims set off on their travels.
We then popped into the George Inn, London’s only surviving galleried inn, and heard a few more ghost stories.
We stopped off by Southwark Cathedral after walking through Borough Market.
By the Golden Hind, we heard a story about the land surrounding Southwark.
We stopped to admire the remains of Winchester Palace.
The walk ended at Cross Bones Graveyard.