The A2205 (Bermondsey Street) starts from the A100 (Tower Bridge Road) and heads north, quickly passing the A2198 at a set of traffic lights. Most of the A2205 is one-way from Long Lane/Abbey Street to Tooley Street.
Bermondsey Street was the original village street and has kept a lot of its character with several Georgian and Victorian warehouses and the attractive St Mary Magdalene Church on our right. Some of the warehouses are full of antiques for sale. We pass a small park called Bermondsey Playground on our right which was probably created from Second World War bomb clearance. There are reminders of Bermondsey's leather tanning industry with the former Leathermarket on the left which is now used as a small business centre, and Tanner Street on our right. Just past Tanner Street is Zandra Rhodes's Fashion & Textiles Museum. The A2205 goes straight on at the traffic lights with Crucifix Lane and St Thomas's Street which carries the westbound A200 traffic and was formerly the B200. There is a long tunnel under London Bridge Station and the A2205 finishes at Tooley Street which carries the eastbound A200 traffic. We're about halfway between London Bridge and Tower Bridge (although traffic is forced towards the latter).
History Lesson
Nearby is the site of Bermondsey Abbey which was founded in 1089 by Aylwin Child, a London Merchant, and dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1539. The new owner of the abbey soon demolished the building and all that remains are a set of very large hinges embedded in a house in Grange Walk which was the South gate of the Abbey. Most of the site of Bermondsey Abbey is now used by the New Caledonian antique market that was located near Caledonian Road in Islington and moved after the Second World War to its present site. The market starts trading at 2am and it is all over by 8am.