Bermondsey in the Rain

Crossed Tower Bridge, turned onto Bermondsey Street. Raining, which is to say it was a Tuesday in London. The fine mist coats your jacket and makes every brick gleam like fresh lacquer. Bermondsey in the rain is Bermondsey at its most honest.

The old tanneries have been hollowed out and refilled — coffee roasters, design studios, a cheese shop with a Dutch still-life window display. Fuckoffee (yes, real name) does a flat white that justifies the bravado. The Fashion and Textile Museum is painted Zandra Rhodes orange and pink, looking like a birthday cake that wandered from a party. The Bermondsey Arts Club occupies a former public toilet — a fact announced with cheerful pride — candlelit, velvet seats, Negroni mixed with liturgical precision.

The Friday antiques market in Bermondsey Square: Victorian spectacles, RAF medals, first editions, a taxidermied owl watching proceedings with permanent mild surprise. Bermondsey is not Shoreditch performing its coolness. It's a working neighborhood that happens to contain extraordinary things between its railway arches and council estates.