The brutal and cruel "sport" of bear-baiting continued to draw huge crowds to Bankside until the arenas were demolished in February 1655/6. Sadly in other areas, it continued until the 1830s.
Braun and Hogenberg’s map of London, dating to 1572, shows this site on the riverfront, with a bearbaiting pit directly behind it. Excavations here in 1987 found the 17th century cobbled surface of Bankside and remains of a medieval wall, which had been reused as the back wall of a ‘stew’.
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