History of Southwark
Toponymy
The name Suthriganaweorc or Suthringa geweorche is recorded for the area in the 10th-century Anglo-Saxon document known as the Burghal Hidage and means "fort of the men of Surrey" or "the defensive work of the men of Surrey". Southwark is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as Sudweca. The name means "southern defensive work" and is formed from the Old English sūþ (south) and weorc (work). The southern location is in reference to the City of London to the north, Southwark being at the southern end of London Bridge. In Old English, Surrey means "southern district (or the men of the southern district)", so the change from "southern district work" to the latter "southern work" may be an evolution based on the elision of the single syllable ge element, meaning district.
Pre-Roman Times
Recent excavation has revealed pre-Roman activity including evidence of early ploughing, burial mounds and ritual activity.The natural geography of Southwark (now much altered by human activity), was the principal determining factor for the location of London Bridge, and therefore London itself.
Until relatively recent times, the Thames in central London was much wider and shallower at high tide. The natural shoreline of the City Of London was a short distance further back than it is now, and the high tide shoreline on the Southwark side was much further back, except for the area around London Bridge.
A Southern Marsh
Southwark was mostly made up of a series of often marshy tidal islands in the Thames, with some of the waterways between these island formed by branches of the River Neckinger, a tributary of the Thames. A narrow strip of higher firmer ground ran on a N-S alignment and, even at high tide, provided a much narrower stretch of water, enabling the Romans to bridge the river.
As the lowest bridging point of the Thames in Roman Britain, it determined the position of Londinium; without London Bridge there is unlikely to have been a settlement of any importance in the area; previously the main crossing had been a ford near Vauxhall Bridge. Because of the bridge and the establishment of London, the Romans routed two Roman roads into Southwark: Stane Street and Watling Street which met in what in what is now Borough High Street.
For centuries London Bridge was the only Thames bridge in the area, until a bridge was built upstream more than 10 miles (16 km) to the west.
Southwark Village
Southwark village, in the borough’s northern section, has been important as a junction of roads and as a commanding point on the approach to London ever since 43 CE, when the Romans constructed a bridge there across the Thames. Old Southwark, known traditionally as The Borough, was a market town from early Saxon times. It became a haven for criminals and prostitutes in the Middle Ages. In the mid-16th century it became known as the Bridge Ward Without or the ward of Bridge-without.
Abandonment
Londinium was abandoned at the end of the Roman occupation in the early 5th century and both the city and its bridge collapsed in decay. The settlement at Southwark, like the main settlement of London to the north of the bridge, had been more or less abandoned, a little earlier, by the end of the fourth century.
