Place Name
Remembering the the medieval abbots of the former Lewes Priory who had a substantial property near here. It was they who oversaw the foundation of Bermondsey Abbey, which like their own was attached to the French Abbey of Cluny. Bermondsey Abbey was laid out over the site of the pre-existing 8thCentury monastery after one Alwyn Child or Aylwin Childe, a wealthy Saxon merchant, who was given land by William the Conqueror, funded the construction of a new building in 1082. In 1399 the Priory became an Abbey, at the request of King Richard II to the Pope. The Abbey was dissolved in 1537 by Henry VIII, and the estate was acquired by Sir Thomas Pope (who founded Trinity College Oxford) who built a mansion for himself, Bermondsey House.
