Cherie's Place

Information from Southwark Cathedral website:

The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie stands at the oldest crossing-point of the River Thames at what was for many centuries the only entrance to the City of London situated across the river. A verbal tradition passed on to the Elizabethan historian John Stow suggests that the first Christian establishment was a community of nuns in the 7th century, but the first written reference is the mention of a ‘minster’ in the Domesday Book of 1086.

In 1106 the church was ‘re-founded’ by two Norman knights as a priory, whose members lived according to the rule of St Augustine of Hippo. The church was dedicated to St Mary and later known as St Mary Overie (‘over the river’). The Augustinian Canons created a hospital alongside the church; this was the direct predecessor of today’s St Thomas’s Hospital opposite the Houses of Parliament and originally named in honour of St Thomas Becket who was martyred at Canterbury in 1170.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, the last six canons were pensioned off although they continued to live in buildings north of the church. The church itself became the property of King Henry VIII who rented it to the congregation. It was re-named St Saviour’s, though the old name remained in popular usage for many years.

St Saviour’s Church became Southwark Cathedral in 1905. The diocese which it serves stretches from Kingston-upon-Thames in the west to Thamesmead in the east and Gatwick Airport in the south. It has a population of two-and-a-half million people, served by over 300 parishes.

Tags: London, Shakespeare, Southwark Cathedral