Rich in renegade art, food and industry, today’s Bankside is London’s home of otherness. Visitors come for its rebellious past. Business and talent stay for its disruptive future. Bankside is home to Tate Modern, Shakespeare’s Globe, Borough Market and some of the most creative enterprises on the planet, with a thousand-year reputation as a pleasure district. Here, history isn’t a museum piece, it’s the backdrop for tomorrow’s astonishing ideas. Taking place as a neighbourhood for the very first time, our Open House programme brings together the old and the new, the built environment and heritage sites, walks and talks, allowing you to delve into many of the hidden gems of the area. Welcome to London’s Other Side.
Produced in partnership with Better Bankside.
Bankside was once a secluded powerhouse of Victorian London, a place that kept industry in and casual visitors out. Today, it boasts a network of arches and alleyways repurposed for public use. Led by a Bankside insider, this tour explores the history and reclamation of the arch as a usable space through an emerging urban trail – including the brand-new America Street redevelopment.
An architectural talk exploring the story of the historic Bankside Yards railway arches and their transformation into a new cultural destination on London’s Bankside. Now reopening after 150 years hidden from the public, the talk will offer an opportunity to discover how historic infrastructure can be reimagined to create vibrant new spaces while preserving the character and stories of the past.
PLP Architecture, 1864
Borough Yards is a vibrant cultural and retail quarter at the heart of London Bridge’s culinary and creative scenes. Set within historic railway arches and revived Victorian streets, Borough Yards is a neighbourhood designed to bring people together through shops, restaurants, pop-ups and year-round cultural programming.
Proudly carved over the door are the words ‘Facts not Opinions’. Inside, the authentic sight - and smell - of Kirkaldy’s Testing and Experimenting Works is a unique and direct link with an ingenious age of engineering.
Thomas Roger Smith, 1873
Built in 1907, The Ragged School SE1 has been part of the community for nearly 120 years. starting off as a poor school in the worst and first borough of London, the school aimed to transform lives of the ragged children that lined the streets. The church then took over the school to form a club, pass through developers into the hands of an artist. The White room will open for creative delight.
Step inside the Print Building at Timber Square, a former 1950s printworks reimagined as a modern, low-carbon workplace. Discover how industrial heritage, innovative timber construction and sustainable design have come together to create one of Bankside's most distinctive new workplace destinations.
Bennetts Associates, 2026