Southwark Cathedral

Southwark Cathedral
Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie
Southwark Cathedral Shown within Central London
Coordinates: 51°30′22″N 0°5′23″W / 51.50611°N 0.08972°W / 51.50611; -0.08972
Location	Southwark London, SE1
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
Website	cathedral.southwark.anglican.org
Architecture
Style	Gothic, Gothic Revival
Years built	1106–1897
Administration
Diocese	Southwark (since 1905)
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Bishop(s)	Christopher Chessun
Dean	Andrew Nunn
Subdean	Michael Rawson, Canon Pastor
Precentor	Gilly Myers
Succentor	Vacant
Canon Chancellor	Mandy Ford
Canon Missioner	Stephen Hance
Canon Treasurer	Leanne Roberts
Curate(s)	Wendy Robins (Hon Canon and Cathedral Chaplain)
Laity
Director of music	Peter Wright
Organist(s)	Stephen Disley
Verger	Paul Timms, Simon Gutwein, James Collins, Robert Biden, Tom Griffiths

Southwark Cathedral (/ˈsʌðᵻk/) or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge. It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. It has been a place of Christian worship for more than 1,000 years, but a cathedral only since the creation of the diocese of Southwark in 1905.

Between 1106 and 1538 it was the church of an Augustinian priory, Southwark Priory, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, it became a parish church, with the new dedication of St Saviour's. The church was in the diocese of Winchester until 1877, when the parish of St Saviour's, along with other South London parishes, was transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The present building retains the basic form of the Gothic structure built between 1220 and 1420, although the nave is a late 19th-century reconstruction.

The 16th-century London historian John Stow recorded an account of the origins of the Southwark Priory of St Mary that he had heard from Bartholomew Linsted, who had been the last prior when the priory was dissolved. Linsted claimed it had been founded as a nunnery "long before the [Norman] Conquest" by a maiden named Mary, on the profits of a ferry across the Thames she had inherited from her parents. Later it was converted into a college of priests by "Swithen, a noble lady". Finally in 1106 it was refounded as an Augustinian priory.