St Saviour's Dock is a small dock on the south bank of the River Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It is located approximately 400 metres east of Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, England, over the River Thames. It is close to the Tower of London, from which it takes its name...

 and forms the eastern boundary of the picturesque and historic area of London known as Shad Thames

Shad Thames

Shad Thames is an historic riverside street next to Tower Bridge in Bermondsey, London, England, and is also an informal name for the surrounding area...

. The other side of the Dock is Jacob's Island

Jacob's Island

Jacob's Island was a notorious rookery in Bermondsey, on the south bank of the River Thames in London. It was separated from Shad Thames to the west by St Saviour's Dock, the point where the subterranean River Neckinger enters the Thames, and on the other two sides by tidal ditches, one just west...

.

Geography

The Thames is highly tidal at this point and the intertidal range within the dock is substantial, with the water rising by as much 4 metres. During tidal surges the water level often rises alarmingly close to the windows of adjacent buildings on Shad Thames and Mill Street.

St Saviour's Dock is the point where the River Neckinger

River Neckinger

The River Neckinger is a subterranean river that rises in Southwark and flows through London to St Saviour's Dock where it enters the River Thames. The river is now totally enclosed and runs underground.-History:...

 enters the Thames. The Neckinger is a subterranean river

Subterranean rivers of London

The subterranean or underground rivers of London are the tributaries of the River Thames and River Lea that were built over during the growth of the metropolis of London...

 that rises in Southwark and flows north entirely underground.

History

A community of Cluniac

Cluny

Cluny or Clungy is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France. It is 20 km northwest of Mâcon.The town grew up around the Benedictine Cluny Abbey, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in 910...

 monks resided at Bermondsey Abbey

Bermondsey Abbey

Bermondsey Abbey was an English Benedictine monastery. Most widely known as an 11th-century foundation, it had a precursor mentioned in the early 8th century, and was centred on what is now Bermondsey Square, the site of Bermondsey Market, Bermondsey in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast...

 close to the site from 1082 onwards. The community began the development of the Bermondsey

Bermondsey

Bermondsey is an area in London on the south bank of the river Thames, and is part of the London Borough of Southwark. To the west lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe, and to the south, Walworth and Peckham.-Toponomy:...

 area, cultivating the land and embanking the riverside. They turned the adjacent tidal inlet at the mouth of the River Neckinger

River Neckinger

The River Neckinger is a subterranean river that rises in Southwark and flows through London to St Saviour's Dock where it enters the River Thames. The river is now totally enclosed and runs underground.-History:...

 into a dock, and named it Saint Saviour

Saint Saviour

-People:*Sanctus Salvator, a Latin dedication of churches or places to Jesus, translated in English as "Saint Saviour" or, more accurately, "Holy Saviour"*Saint Salvator of Horta, a Catalan saint*Saint Saviour -Schools:...

's Dock after their abbey's patron.

John Stow

John Stow

John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...

, a 16th century English historian and antiquarian had the following to say about the area,

"In the south end whereof was sometime a priory or abbey of St. Saviour, called Bermond's Eye in Southwark, founded by Alwin Childe, a citizen of London, in the year 1081."

St Saviour's in the Arts

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 set portions of his novel Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...

 in the area of Shad Thames, at a time when it was an area of notorious poverty known as Jacob's Island

Jacob's Island

Jacob's Island was a notorious rookery in Bermondsey, on the south bank of the River Thames in London. It was separated from Shad Thames to the west by St Saviour's Dock, the point where the subterranean River Neckinger enters the Thames, and on the other two sides by tidal ditches, one just west...

. In Oliver Twist, he set Bill Sikes's

Bill Sikes

William "Bill" Sikes is a fictional character in the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.He is one of Dickens's most vicious characters and a very strong force in the novel when it comes to having control over somebody or harming others. He is portrayed as a rough and barbaric man. He is a career...

 den at the east of Shad Thames in Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...

, in the buildings adjacent to St Saviour's Dock. It is here that Sykes falls from a roof and dies in the mud, probably of St Saviour's Dock itself.

Dickens, gives us a vivid description of what this unsavoury place must have looked like at the time of the novel,

". . . crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it - as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Jacob's Island."

St Saviour's dock was also featured in the 2002 videogame The Getaway

The Getaway (video game)

The Getaway is a video game series focused on gang life and the police in the city of London. The series was created by Brendan McNamara and is developed by Team Soho for the PlayStation 2...

.