Baffling Borough's Much-changed Market (1)

The Only One!

It was called "Borough" because it was, historically, the only borough south of the Thames. You crossed the only London bridge on the Thames and there the settlement became a borough, known at The Borough.

The station on the City and South London Railway (later The Northern Line) was called just 'Borough".

 It has changed a bit!

The "wark" on the South of the Thames also gave the area an alternative name. "wark" meant "defensive embankment" and remains in modern linguistics as "earthwork."(Such erudite trivia is always a feature of an fbb blog!)

London's historic core, the City of London, lay north of the Bridge and for centuries the area of Southwark just south of the bridge was governed by the city. By the 12th century Southwark had been incorporated as an ancient borough, and this historic status is reflected in the alternative name of the area, as Borough. The ancient borough of Southwark's river frontage extended from the modern borough boundary, just to the west of by the Oxo Tower, to St Saviour's Dock (originally the mouth of the River Neckinger) in the east.

In relatively recent times, Borough Market was a wholesale fruit and veg emporium ...

... but as this business declined it became the focus of trendy and specialist food stalls.

Very trendy! The market is a maze of buildings clustered around and under the railway viaducts. The new viaduct (seen lower on aerial view), built for the development of London Bridge station has meant some parts of the market have been rebuilt.

To complement the amazing maze of the market, the railway had, over the years created an equally labyrinthine selection of footways, tunnels and closed-off roadways both near the markets and, to the east, at London Bridge station!

Up The Junction!

For those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the area, fbb needs to explain what lines "junct" at Borough Market Junction.

Here are some nice ancient electric trains doing it!

London Bridge was originally the terminus of the London and Chatham Railway (later the South Eastern and Chatham) joined hy part of the London Brighton and South Coast. Originally they had separate but side-by-side stations only fully merged with the latest rebuild!

But there was a strong desire to get close to the west end and to penetrate the city's commuter-land more intrusively, despite the commuting crowd (once all bowler hatted!) that still surges across London Bridge

So lines were built to Charing Cross via Waterloo East and, with a sharp right hand turn, to Cannon Street. Hence the need for Borough Market Junction and its signal box as shown in previous blogs and again here.

The ancient track plan below shows an older layout than today's ...

On the right are the western ends if the platforms at London Bridge; the junction is lower left and the signal boz (dot and line) roughly central. We know that this box is now on display at York Railway Museum, but can an inquisitive blog writer entertain his inquisitive blog readers by finding its remains in 2022?

Yes he can!

To be continued tomorrow.

The Modeller's Craft

Tiny people made out of folded and coloured paper.

Even tinier animals carved by hand!

And furnishing for a very small dolls house.

Meanwhile, fbb can make a mess of a simple plastic Airfix kit!

Memory Stick Maintenance System?

fbb uses a Memory Stick to transfer files between a Windows laptop and his RISC OS machine which shares the top floor with the model railway. Generally speaking, the stick does not contain essential back up material.

Which is good news.

fbb had recently lost his blue stick.

Mrs fbb found it in the old man's pyjama trouser pocket after a trip through the fbb washing machine, but before a visit to the tumble dryer.

Everything on the stick is unharmed and works perfectly!

Ahh, the delights of modern technology. 

 Next Borough Market blog : Froday 4th November