Pictures ofBermondsey & Rotherhithe

The Story of the Bermondsey Artists' Group DVD

When the Surrey Docks closed in the 1970's the heart went out of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.  Warehouses and factories that once thrived with workers were now eerily deserted. The docks, once full of ships loading or unloading cargo were now vast, empty wastelands.  Houses that once held dock workers' families were abandoned as their former tenants moved out of the area to find work.

It was to this environment that poor, young graduate artists moved to take up residence in the cheap warehouse space along the river, and the dilapidated houses in the back streets.  In time they formed a group and took over the closed down, vandalised cafe in Southwark Park, where they began putting on art shows.  They became part of the redevelopment and regeneration of the dock area.

Thirty years on the members of the Bermondsey Artists' Group still live int he area and run the recently built Cafe Gallery on the same site in Southwark Park.

This is their story.

A film by Michael Holland

£9.99 only