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celebrated today one example being the shopping centres naval facade. For a thousand years it has been a natural port for London gaining its name from hryther hyth the Anglo-Saxon for landing-place for cattle. The first recorded use of this name was in 1105 as Rederheia. Perhaps the delivery point for farm animals transported from the Isle of Sheppey and the farms of Kent it was the watery gateway for food and trade into the capital. By 1350 King Edward III had a palace built on the marshy rivers edge although it could have been considered more of a hunting lodge for his falcons and a place to stay away from the plague- ridden London populous than a palace of luxury. The remains of the palace can still be seen modestly resting in an open grassy square at the waters edge at Bermondsey Wall East. Skip forward two or three hundred years to 1620 in front of the Mayflower pub then called the Shippe and you would have seen The Mayflower set sail to Southampton where it picked up 102 English Separatist passengers and headed off to the New World where they would become known as Americas founding Pilgrim Fathers. From these original travellers have come some surprising and hugely influential descendants including Presidents Franklin D Roosevelt George W. Bush and John Adams as well as entertainers Bing Crosby Clint Eastwood Richard Gere Orson Wells and Marilyn Monroe. More recently the docks at Surrey Quays and the tunnel to Wapping built under the Thames by the Isambard Brunel father and son team have carved Rotherhithe out as a port and hub central to Londons and the countrys industrial revolution. It remained this way until the outbreak of the war when on the first day of the Blitz Surrey Quays was heavily bombed the raid igniting over a million tonnes of timber in Quebec Yard causing the most intense single fire ever seen in Britain. It seems a long time to remain dormant but Rotherhithes history is huge and the seventy years that have passed since have not weakened it for the long term. Now from these ashes like a mythical Phoenix Rotherhithe is rising to be glorious again. Inside The Mayflower pub originally called The Shippe The Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower The remains of Rotherhithe Palace on Bermondsey Wall East The Mayflower picked up 102 English Separatists and headed off to the New World