According to his legendary diary, written between 1660 and 1669, Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire of London unfold from a tavern on the South Bank.
Historians believe the ‘ale-house’ was a pub now known as The Anchor, next to Shakespeare’s Globe.
Generations have read the famous entry, in which Pepys ‘weeps’ as a ‘horrid malicious bloody flame’ engulfs the capital.
Pepys is most strongly associated with central London where he lived and worked as a high-ranking civil servant in the navy for much of his life.
So this short passage about The Anchor is sometimes considered Pepys’ most enduring connection with south London.
In reality, while south London was far less urbanised than the north, Pepys still frequently forayed into Southwark.
So just as his diary sheds light on 17th-century England’s historic events, it also illuminates the grimy alleys of south London.
Pepys’ Pubs: ‘Wine and cheese down the Bear’
The Bear – London Bridge
Pepys’s love of drink is hardly a secret. It’s telling that when he suspected his home was burning down during The Great Fire, he rushed back to bury his wine in the garden.
But few pubs are mentioned in his diary as many times as the Bear which is referenced eleven times.
Established in 1319, the Bear was based at the southern foot of the old London Bridge, on the west side of the road, where the steps are today.
Fortunately, being a landing point for vessels carrying passengers across the river, Pepys had a good excuse to visit.
On June 4, 1661, he visited with his father, brother and cousin to drink wine after perusing lodgings with the English baronet Colonel Robert Slingsby.
Another time, on Thursday, September 14, 1665, he stopped by before being forced to make a treacherous journey through the hustle and bustle of London Bridge after high winds brought vessels to a standstill.
Being the height of the Great Plague of 1665, Pepys was worried that the sickness was ‘all whereabouts’ along the bridge.
Fortunately, he made the crossing unscathed, presumably fortified by the ‘piece of cheese and gill [quarter pint] of sacke [wine]’ he’d picked up moments earlier.
The Anchor – Bankside
After being the first to warn King Charles II of the Great Fire of London, historians believe Pepys fled to a pub now called The Anchor on Bankside.
Pepys portrays himself as playing a key role in the King’s strategy for tackling the fire; claiming to be the one who recommended that houses be pulled down to stop it from spreading.
After playing his part in history, he watched the fire spread from safety across the river and later wrote a startling account.
‘When we could endure no more upon the water; we to a little ale-house on the Bankside, over against the Three Cranes, and there staid till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire.’
He continued: ‘We staid till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it.’
The King’s Head – Lambeth
Pepys was something of a womaniser and his diary is littered with his overtly sexual and often questionable behaviour.
He wrote about fondling his servants’ breasts and would sometimes use his senior position at the Navy Board to cajole women into affairs.
We get another insight into this side of him during a visit to the King’s Head in Lambeth, which was possibly near St Mary’s Church – today by the Imperial War Museum.
On April 20, 1666, he met with Mrs. Martin there – a mistress of his who ran a draper’s stall in Westminster Hall.
He wrote how the pair took a boat over the river to Stangold [Stangate] and ‘after a walke in the fields to the King’s Head, and there spent an houre or two with pleasure with her, and eat a tansy [a herbal pancake] and so parted’.
The Bear Garden – Bankside
The Bear Garden, next to where Southwark Bridge now stands, was not strictly a tavern but still fell firmly in the ‘pleasure’ category.
Based where an alley sharing the same name is today, it was a circular theatre where spectators watched animal sports with bulls and bears fighting to the death.
In his diary, Samuel Pepys described a visit he and his wife paid on August 14, 1666 – describing the spectacle as ‘a rude and nasty pleasure’.
It wasn’t just animals. On May 27, 1667, he appears to have watched a butcher and a waterman have a knife fight.
At one point the waterman, who was already losing, dropped his sword and the butcher, against protocol, slashed at him while he was unarmed.
Pepys described how a bloody fight erupted between spectating watermen and butchers: ‘But, Lord! to see how in a minute the whole stage was full of watermen to revenge the foul play, and the butchers to defend their fellow, though most blamed him; and there they all fell to it to knocking down and cutting many on each side.
‘It was pleasant to see, but that I stood in the pit, and feared that in the tumult I might get some hurt.’
Pepys the Commuter
Crossing the Thames
Like any London worker, much of Pepys’ life was spent commuting between various places on business errands.
When crossing the river he appears to have avoided using London Bridge at any cost. At that time, shops lined the bridge and he appears to have been worried about it being a source of the plague.
And on October 26, 1664, he put his foot straight through a hole in the bridge and nearly broke his leg.
Instead, he much preferred using watermen or ‘werrymen’ – 17th-century aquatic taxi drivers who ferried passengers between the Thames banks.
They were a good source of gossip. On February 24, 1666, one told him the wife of the Bear’s publican had committed suicide.
Pepys wrote: ‘My waterman told me how the mistress of the Beare tavern, at the bridge-foot, did lately fling herself into the Thames, and drowned herself.’
What troubled Pepys ‘the more’ was the realisation that she was the ‘beautiful woman’ who lived at the White Horse Tavern on Lombard Street.
A frequent customer, he came to know the ferrymen by name; Bland and Payne being among them.
He trusted Bland so much that on September 21, 1668, he left him with gold and valuables worth £40 – equivalent to nearly £8,000 today.
Pepys had feared that if he carried the goods around his pockets would be ‘cut’ by a pickpocket.
Walking the streets
Even a wealthy gentleman like Pepys was sometimes forced to walk the streets, an experience he didn’t always enjoy.
On January 24, 1665, he walked through Horsleydown, now part of Bermondsey, on a ‘very foule, windy, and rainy’ day.
He wrote that it ‘was dangerous to walk the streets’ while ‘bricks and tiles… and whole chimneys’ were toppling to the ground.
While waking through Redriffe [Rotherhithe] at night after work, on September 19, 1662, he was glad to be guarded by ‘four armed men’.
He wrote: ‘I hear this walk is dangerous to walk alone by night, and much robbery committed here.’
Pepys’ Work: Getting down to business
The Dockyards in Rotherhithe
As Secretary of the Royal Navy, Pepys was a regular visitor to Redriffe where ships gathered at the dockyards.
It was here that he ordered the fitting out of the fleet for the Dutch Wars – hence Rotherhithe’s Pepys Estate is named after him.
The senior civil servant kept a close eye on the dock. On January 24, 1662, he surveyed a ship bound for Tangier, Morocco – then a British colony – finding her ‘ready to sail’.
Six months later, on July 1, 1662, he wrote of ‘concerning abuse of the yard’ which a clerk warned him about during his visit to Redriffe.
Pepys excelled in his role despite the underfunding of the Navy and strategic mishaps by admirals.
An intriguing passage, written on March 19, 1662, hints at the obstacles he faced, with a colleague discussing ‘several errors in the Navy’ as they walked through Redriffe.
The Admiralty Court
In the mid-17th century, an admiralty court was based on St Margaret’s Hill, now Borough High Street.
Pepys paid a visit on Tuesday, March 17 to witness a hearing, overseen by lawyer Dr John Exton, which he appears to have been unimpressed by.
He wrote that the meeting was ‘somewhat dull, though he [Dr Exton] would seem to intend it to be very rhetoricall, saying that justice had two wings, one of which spread itself over the land, and the other over the water, which was this Admiralty Court’.
