St George the Martyr, Anglican church in Borough district, London, England
St George the Martyr is an Anglican church on Borough High Street in Southwark, London, built in red brick with Portland stone detailing and a tower topped by a weather vane. The interior is structured around rows of Ionic columns that support upper galleries on both sides of the nave.
A church on this site was recorded as early as 1122, when Thomas of Ardern granted it to Bermondsey Abbey, but the building visitors see today was constructed between 1734 and 1736. It replaced a medieval structure that had fallen into disrepair, as part of a wider effort to rebuild London's churches during that period.
The church is closely tied to Charles Dickens, who featured it in his novel Little Dorrit, where a character finds shelter there and is later married in it. A small stained-glass window inside depicts Little Dorrit herself, giving visitors a direct reminder of that connection.
The church stands at a busy junction in the Borough area and is easy to spot from the street. It is close to several other points of interest, so a visit fits naturally into a walk through the neighborhood.
Although the church sits at the heart of a famous novel, it was Dickens' own childhood experience that shaped that connection: as a boy, he is said to have slept in the church while his father was held in the nearby Marshalsea debtors' prison. That personal memory gave the story its emotional core.
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