Bankside is a district of the London Borough of Southwark, located on the southern bank of the River Thames. Now dominated by the imposing Tate Modern Gallery, a building that once housed the Bankside Power Station, the area has been reborn as a cultural hub of London.

Situated outside the jurisdiction of the City of London, Bankside became the playground for a variety of dubious pastimes during the Elizabethan period. Gambling dens, bearbaiting and brothels all flourished amongst the medieval palaces that once lined the banks of this stretch of the River Thames. More notably however, was the proliferation of playhouses in the area with Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre opening its doors in 1598.

By the late 19th Century with the onset of the industrial revolution, the brothels and theatres had long disappeared. In their place were a gas works, an iron foundry, glass making, a coconut fibre works, a vinegar distillery and breweries. Wharves lined the river and 90,000 people were crammed in the poverty ridden Bankside ward, full of alleyways, factories and slums.

The urban de-industrialisation of the 20th Century coupled with heavy bombing in WWII brought decline to the area. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s Bankside Power Station, built after the war, briefly became a symbol of regeneration but soon became obsolete as technological change became inevitable. It was in the 1980s that the Tate Modern took over at the magnificent but disused structure and brought Bankside back out of the shadows to become the vibrant place it is today.

The picture was taken on the shore of Bankside nearby the Millenium Bridge that crosses the river towards St Paul’s Cathedral.