When London Bridge was the only available way of crossing the river, a thriving trade of ferrymen existed, to take revellers back and forth across the Thames to the red light district of Southwark.

Until the C16th, the area next to the river in Lambeth was home to the so-called Bankside Stews, a collection of bathhouses that doubled as brothels.

Following a rise of piracy from the fifteenth century, those pirates captured were hung at the Execution Dock, and then had their bodies displayed as a warning at Blackwall Point.

Discover the Spitalfields ‘Home of Industry’ where flowers were sent by train from the countryside to be distributed by the women of the Bible Flower Mission amongst the poor of the East End.