Southwark Cathedral - London, UK
Posted by: Metro2
N 51° 30.422 W 000° 05.419
30U E 701918 N 5710225
The site of Southwark Cathedral has been a place of worship for over 1,000 years.
Waymark Code: WMDVME
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/27/2012
Views: 14
This Cathedral was mostly built between 1106 to 1897.
Wikipedia (
visit link) further informs us:
"Southwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge.
It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. It has been a place of Christian worship for over 1,000 years, but a cathedral only since the creation of the diocese of Southwark in 1905. The church was in the diocese of Winchester until 1877, when the parish of St Saviour's, along with other South London parishes was transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The present building is mainly Gothic, from 1220 to 1420, although the nave is a nineteenth-century reconstruction in a thirteenth-century style...
The earliest reference to the site was in the Domesday Book survey of 1086, wherein the "minster" of Southwark seems to be under the control of Bishop Odo of Bayeux (William the Conqueror's half-brother). It is unlikely that this minster pre-dates the conversion of Wessex in the mid-seventh century, or the foundation of the "burh" ca AD 886. There is no proof of any claims, as presently made by the Cathedral authorities, that a convent was founded on the site in 606 nor of the claim that a monastery was founded by St Swithun in the ninth century. The Old English minster was a collegiate church servicing a south Thames area. In 1106, Henry I's reign, the latter became an Augustinian Priory: this was founded with the patronage of the Bishops of Winchester which relationship was re-inforced by the establishment of their London palace immediately neghbouring the Priory to the west in 1149; a remaining wall and rose window of the refectory of the Palace survives on nearby Clink Street. Norman stonework can still be seen, and Thomas Becket preached here before departing to Canterbury, days before his murder in 1170.
The Priory was dedicated to the Virgin Mother as 'St Mary' but had the additional soubriquet of 'Overie' ('over the water') to distinguish it from the many other churches in the City with the same name."