Winchester Palace & The Clink: Sins of Southwark

Why is it significant?

Stop right in the cobblestone canyon of Clink Street and look up at the soaring stone wall of Winchester Palace. In the center of the medieval masonry, notice the breathtaking circular thirteenth-century rose window carved from Caen stone with delicate curved triangular tracery.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stop right in the cobblestone canyon of Clink Street and look up at the soaring stone wall of Winchester Palace. In the center of the medieval masonry, notice the breathtaking circular thirteenth-century rose window carved from Caen stone with delicate curved triangular tracery. This wall was the great dining hall of the Bishops of Winchester, among the wealthiest and most powerful prelates in England.

Why did the Bishop live south of the Thames? Southwark sat outside the jurisdiction of the puritanical City of London, meaning the Bishop of Winchester legally controlled—and taxed!—all the unlicensed taverns, bear-baiting pits, and brothels in the district. The local courtesans were sardonically known throughout Tudor London as the Winchester Geese.

Just steps along this dark alley stood The Clink, a notorious medieval debtor and heretic prison operational from eleven forty-four until seventeen eighty. The prison was so infamous for iron manacles and extortionate jailers that it became an English slang synonym for jail: being thrown in the clink.

Walk west along Bankside toward the wooden timber frame of Shakespeare's Globe.