Historically, the south side of the river, especially around Southwark, has always had a different vibe from the medieval and Tudor city across the Thames to the north. More relaxed, it was where London’s citizens went for entertainment away from the legal formality and puritanism of the city. It was a place to go to the theatre — there were four on Bankside alone (The Globe, The Rose, The Swan and The Hope), to eat and drink in one of the many taverns (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are set in The Tabard Inn), to gamble or visit the brothels, one infamously run by the Bishop of Winchester, where the prostitutes were known as “The Bishop’s Geese”.
That tradition — of the south side of the river being the go-to place for entertainment — continued as London expanded during the 17th and 18th centuries, when Lambeth Marsh was slowly drained. In the west, at Vauxhall (then known as Fox Hall, or Vaux Hall), a new pleasure garden was first mentioned in 1661. A year later, Samuel Pepys took a boat across the river to visit and he describes spending “… two or three hours talking of several matters very soberly and contentfully to me, which, with the ayre and pleasure of the garden, was a great refreshment…”
