St Thomas à Watering Church, Old Kent Road, Southwark, Surrey, South-East England, British Isles [Map]

St Thomas à Watering Church, Old Kent Road is in Old Kent Road [Map], Churches in Surrey.

Chronicle of Robert Fabyan [-1512]. 12th February 1499. And upon Shrove Tuesday was put in execution, at Saint Thomas Watering [Map], a stripling [Ralph Wulford (age 20)] of twenty years of age, which had himself to be the son or heir to the Earl of Warwick's lands, and was the son of a cordwainer of London.

In 1540 Vicar Griffith Clerke, vicar of Wandsworth, with his chaplain, servant, and Friar Waire, were all hanged and quartered at St. Thomas Watering [Map], most probably for denying the King's supremacy; though Stow, who mentions the fact, professes himself ignorant of the cause of their execution.

Wriothesley's Chronicle [1508-1562]. 28th June 1541. The 28th daie of June, beinge Sainct Peters eaven, the Lord Leenard Gray (age 62) was beheaded at the Towre Hill, and in the afternoune nyne persons, three persons gentlemen, one called Mantell, and one Proudes, and another, was hanged at Saint Thomas Watteringes [Map] for the murther that the said Lord Dacrees was arraigned for.

29 Jun 1541 Execution of Thomas Fiennes

Chronicle of Edward Hall [1496-1548]. [28th June 1541]. In this season was arraigned and condemned three gentlemen, called Mantell, Roydon, and Frowdes, and were hanged at Saint Thomas of Wateringes [Map]. Likewise was Thomas Fiennes (age 26) Lord Dacres of the South, arraigned before the Lord Audley of Walden (age 53), then Chancellor of England, and that day High Steward of the same at Westminster, and there before the said Lord Chancellor and his Peers, he confessed the inditement, and so had judgement to be hanged.

And so the twenty and nine day of June , being Saint Peter's day at afternoon, he was led on foot, between the two Sheriffs of London, from the Tower through the city to Tyburn [Map], where he was strangled, as common murderers are, and his body buried in the Church of Saint Sepulchres. The cause of the death of this noble man, and the other gentlemen, was a murder of a simple man and an unlawful assembly made in Sussex. Great moan was made for them all, but most especially for Mantell, who was as witty, and toward a gentleman, as any was in the realm, and a man able to have done good service.

Wriothesley's Chronicle [1508-1562]. 12th July 1541. The 12th daie of Julie, one of Mr. Gunstons sonnes, which was a Knight of the Rodes, was drawen from the Kinges Bench to Sainct Thomas Wateringes [Map], and their hanged and quartered for treason.

Old and New London Volume 6 Chaper XIX The Old Kent Road. 18th June 1556. And on the 18th of June, 1556, a younger son [Note. Probably Henry Sandys] of Lord Sandys (age 59) was executed here [Map] for robbing a cart, coming from a fair, at Beverley. The booty was estimated at about four thousand pounds.

Old and New London Volume 6 Chaper XIX The Old Kent Road. In 1559 five men were executed here [Map]. Macbyn, in his Diary, thus records the event:-"The ix day of Feybruary at after-none a-bowt iij of the cloke, v men wher hangyd at Sant Thomas of watherynges; one was captyn Jenkes, and (blank) Warde, and (blank) Walles, and (blank) Beymont, and a-nodur man, and they were browth [brought] up in ware [war] all their lyffes,-for a grett robere done."

Henry Machyn's Diary. 3rd October 1559. The iij day of October was sett up ij nuw payre of galows, one at sant Thomas of wattrynges [Map], and the thodur at the low-water marke at Wapyng.

Old and New London Volume 6 Chaper XIX The Old Kent Road. 3rd October 1559. On the 3rd of October, 1559, a "nuw payre of galows was sett up at Sant Thomas of Watering [Map];" and on the 12th of February, 1650-1, "was reynyd [arraigned] in Westmynster Hall v men, iij was for burglare, and ij were cutpurses, and cast to be hanged at Sant Thomas of Watering [Map]: one was a gentyllman."

One of the quarters of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was beheaded for rebellion in April, 1554, was exposed at this place;

Henry Machyn's Diary. 9th February 1560. The ix day of Feybruary at after-none, a-bowtt iij of the cloke, wher v [5] men wher hangyd at sant Thomas of watherynges [Map]; one was captayn Jenkes and (blank) Ward and (blank) Walles and (blank) Beymont and a-nodur man, and they wher browth up in ware [war] all ther lyffes,-for a grett roberre done.

Henry Machyn's Diary. 12th February 1561. The same day was reynyd in Westmynster hall v men, iij was for buglare [burglary], and ij were cuttpurses; and cast to be hangyd at sant Thomas of Wateryng [Map]; on was a gentyllman.

Old and New London Volume 6 Chaper XIX The Old Kent Road. 1593. John Henry, the author of some of the "Martin Mar-Prelate Tracts," was hung here [Map] in 1593; and Franklin, one of the agents implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury (age 12), was executed at the same place in 1615.

All About History Books

The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.

Annales of England by John Stow. The 18 of February [1601], lohn Pybushe, a Seminary priest, after seaven yeares imprisonment in the Kings bench, was hanged, boweled, and quartered at Saint Thomas Waterings [Map], for comming into England, contrary to the Statute of Anno 27 of the Quéene.

Old and New London Volume 6 Chaper XIX The Old Kent Road. 1740. The last persons executed at St. Thomas à Watering [Map] were a father and son, who suffered the penalty of the law for murder about the year 1740.

Old and New London Volume 6 Chaper XIX The Old Kent Road. St. Thomas à Watering [Map] was once the boundary of the City liberties, and in the "olden time," when the lord mayor and sheriffs "in great state" crossed the water to open Southwark Fair and to inspect the City boundaries, the City magistrates continued either to St. George's Church, Newington Bridge, or "to the stones pointing out the City liberties at St. Thomas à Watering." The precise situation was as near as possible that part of the Old Kent Road which is intersected by the Albany Road, and the memory of the place is still kept alive by St. Thomas's Road, close by, and by the tavern-signs in the neighbourhood. "At the commencement of the present century," writes Mr. Blanch, in his history of "Ye Parishe of Cam[b]erwell," "there was a stream here which served as a common sewer, across which a bridge was built; and in going from Camberwell into Newington or Southwark, it was not unusual for people to say they were going over the water. The current from the Peckham hills was at times so strong as to overflow at least two acres of ground."

St. Thomas à Waterings was situated close to the second milestone on the Old Kent Road, and was so called from a brook or spring, dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket. Chaucer's pilgrims, as we have seen in a previous chapter, passed it on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury:-

"And forth we riden a litel more than pas,

Unto the watering of Seint Thomàs,

And then our host began his hors arrest."

Ben Jonson, in The New Inn, makes mention of the spot in the following lines:-

"These are the arts

Or seven liberal deadly sciences,

Of pagery, or rather paganism,

Note A. the tides run! to which if he apply him,

He may perhaps take a degree at Tyburn

A year the earlier; come to read a lecture

Upon Aquinas at St. Thomas à Waterings."

This spot was in the old Tudor days the place of execution for the northern parts of Surrey; and here the Vicar of Wandsworth, his chaplain, and two other persons of his household, were hung, drawn, and quartered in 1539 for denying the supremacy of Henry VIII. in matters of faith.

In 1553 (January 3rd) "was caried from the Marshalleshe [Map] unto Saynt Thomas of Wateryng [Map] a talman, and went thedur with the rope a-bowt ys neke, and so he hanggd a whylle, and the rope burst, and a whylle after and then they went for a-nodur rope, and so lyke-wyss he burst ytt and fell to the ground, and so he skapyd with his lyffe."

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