bridge at each side and it was a familiar landmark to 'sewer people' in the tunnels. During the 19th century improvements 'the ancient relic was not injured by the new works but necessarily covered up again. 17th and 18th centuries Private homes and businesses began to be built on the former Abbey grounds and the water of the Neckinger attracted tanners to its banks. In the late 1700s competition for the water led to the tanners bringing a suit against the mill owner which was won on the argument of 'ancient usages of the district' which ensured the inhabitants had the right to a supply of tidal water. The Jacob's Island district was notoriously squalid from early Victorian times until the mid-20th century. It was described by Charles Dickens in 1838 as "the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London", and by the Morning Chronicle in 1849 as "The very capital of cholera" and "The Venice of drains". In Dickens' novel, Oliver Twist a branch of the Neckinger is given the name Folly Ditch and is the place where the book's Bill Sikes meets his death. In the 1790s Neckinger Mill was established to produce paper, which continued until 1805 when the site was sold to the leather manufacturers Bevingtons. In 1838, the construction of a new line for the London and Greenwich Railway divided the mill land into two uneven portions, with further railway works taking place in 1841 and 1850. Modern era In 1935, Bevingtons moved most of their business to Dartford, keeping the smaller section of their divided site as a warehouse, and selling the larger portion to the Bermondsey Borough Council. When Bevingtons sold the warehouse in early 1980s it was converted into a residential development, and it has since been joined by new blocks of flats, which coexist, with some friction, with the more bohemian houseboats moored offshore at Reed Wharf. See also Tributaries of the River Thames Subterranean rivers of London List of rivers in England References External links Course of the River Neckinger on Google Maps. "Walking The Neckinger" from Changing London, the magazine of the London City Mission [PDF]. Subterranean rivers of London 1Neckinger