Bankside
Non-Profit organization in London, EnglandWikipedia
103
MENTIONS
4
EPISODES
2
PODCASTS
Search complete. 103 mentions across 4 episodes found for "Bankside".
Oct 15, 2026
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then let the room grow dark, let your breathing slow, and come with me to the riverside.
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On our earlier visits, we walked the stews of Bankside, in the age of the Black Death, and in the turbulent summer of Jack Cade's rebellion.
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Tonight, we arrive at the very end.
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Strictly speaking.
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We have crossed out of the Middle Ages and into the Tudor century, but the stews themselves are a thoroughly medieval institution, running on rules first written down centuries ago, and tonight is the last time those rules will matter.
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The date is Tuesday the 13th of April, 1546.
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Easter falls in 12 days, and this very day, the king has signed a proclamation that will close every stew on Bankside forever.
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So you are spending a night in a house that has been sentenced to death.
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Before you is a row of whitewashed houses, with their gable ends turned towards the Thames, each with a painted sign hung out so that people on the water can find it.
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These are the stews of Bankside.
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One of the houses along here may already bear the sign of a Cardinal's hat, a name that will become famous in the decades to come.
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Yours, tonight, shows a bell, or possibly an upturned bucket.
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And so, with a cup in each hand, a rebel army outside, and an unpaid archer for company, your night begins.
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Every danger the Middle Ages can offer is gathering in this room, and they are all in excellent spirits.
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Every house on Bankside has a ruler, and in this one she is called Dame Joan.
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In the records of the time, the person who kept a stew was called a stew holder, and very often that person was a woman, sometimes a widow, sometimes a wife who ran the business while her husband ran the tavern down the lane.
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Congratulations.
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You have just woken up in the year 1352, on the south bank of the River Thames, in the liberty of Southwark, on the strip of riverside known as Bankside.
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Across the water, the spires and smoke of the City of London glitter in the dusk.
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Behind you lies the most notorious street in England.
5 MINS LATER
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She offers you a cup of wine which is suspiciously thick and tastes as though it may have been strained through an old stocking.
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You drink it anyway, and you would be right to.
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Contrary to the popular myth, Medieval people did drink water, and London even had a conduit piping fresh water from the springs at Tyburn into the city, but the river water on Bankside is not something any sensible person would choose.
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As night falls and the house properly wakes, you realise that your modern troubles, such as a weak signal or running out of oat milk, are nothing compared with discovering you are not alone in your room.
Will ToshGUEST
It's the day before Essex's uprising on Sunday the 8th of Feb, 1601.
Will ToshGUEST
The afternoon of Saturday the 7th at the Globe on Bankside, which is just over the river from Essex's house on the Strand.
Will ToshGUEST
The Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare's theater company, put on a performance of Richard II, Shakespeare's amazing, lyrical, brilliant historical tragedy about the fall of the medieval King Richard II, who has his power seized by an aggrieved noble, Henry Bolingbroke, who then becomes Henry IV.
Will ToshGUEST
Now, we need to slightly roll back a few days into the earlier parts of the week when at some point, men associated with the Earl of Essex go to the Lord Chamberlain's Men and commission this play.