You can easily walk by them. I almost did. I was in a metropolitan hurry, headphones on, listening to a podcast, dodging in and out of the lazy weekend walkers hovering around Borough Market like bees round a honey pot. Not really concentrating, heading quickly to the river.
You can stand in front of them oblivious of what’s beyond the gates like the chap in the photo below. (And yes, I think I have snapped him digging for gold!)
But then I almost walked smack bang into a delivery man in a helmet and visor who burst out of the gates, carrying a box of files to his motorbike.
I stopped and noticed where he had come from. The dark wooden gates looked old. And through the inner gate I glimpsed sunlight bouncing off whitewashed walls. I glanced up at the red brick building above the gate. It looked Georgian but the white washed walls within didn’t. They looked much older.
I ventured through the gate, leaving Borough High Street behind. There were ancient looking flagstones on the ground, swept clean. Small trees and flowers arranged neatly in planters and along one side of the courtyard there were white buildings, which had a first floor lip that extended over the ground floor and gave them away as medieval.
God only knows how they have survived but these buildings are what is left of the front of an old inn, which had existed just off Borough High Street. It was originally The Goat Inn, built in the sixteenth century, possibly 1542, which later changed its name to The Brew House. Considering how old they are, the buildings look to be in incredibly good nick. More like a medieval showhouse than an ancient ruin. Well done to all who have contributed to their maintenance.
They are grade II listed and described by Historic England as follows:
“Timber-framed, rendered, with asymmetrical steeply pitched roof, tiled on
west (yard) side, lower pitched and top-lit at rear. 2 storeys, jettied over yard; 6 bays. Ground floor at left almost completely glazed, a pair of part-glazed doors at 4th bay. Return of 3 bays, similarly treated. 1st-floor sashes with glazing bars and a small fixed light.“
So there you go, just another little bit of old London hiding in plain sight off a busy main road. Marvellous.
