At the entrance to Horsedown from Tooley Street, or, as it was formerly called, Horselydown Lane, there was a gate, as appearing on the plan; showing that there was then no public road across the down from St. Olave's Street to Dockhead, but the way was down Bermondsey Street and Crucifix Lane.
By the kindness of Mrs. Allen, widow of my late esteemed friend George Allen, Esq., architect, and of Messrs. Snooke and Stock, his professional successors, I am enabled to exhibit two drawings, representing the exterior and interior of the old Artillery Hall of the Southwark trained bands, which was erected on Horseydown in the unhappy reign of King Charles I.
This building, which stood on the site of the present workhouse, in Parish Street, was pulled down about twenty years since. It was erected in 1639, as appears from a date on the keystone of the portal, and also over the windows on each side of it.
The governors of the grammar school, on the 17th of June, 1633, granted a lease to Cornelius Cooke, and others, of a piece of ground forming part of Horseydown, and enclosed with a brick wall, to be employed for a martial yard, in which the Artillery Hall was built.
In 1665 the governors granted a lease to the churchwardens of part of the martial yard, for 500 years, for a burial-ground; but they reserved all the ground whereon the artillery-house then stood, and all the herbage of the ground, and also liberty for the militia or trained bands
collated a successor; and as those persons devoted themselves to some act of charity, it does not appear so extraordinary that we find hermits living upon bridges, and by the sides of roads, and being toll-gatherers, as numerous records indubitably prove.—Tomlins' Yseldon, p. 35.
The Hermit of Horseydown, or Dockhead, perhaps received a toll for keeping in repair the road across the Bermondsey Marshes from Southwark towards Rotherhithe and Deptford.
