To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham, and to the north is Wapping across the River Thames.

[2] Though Bermondsey's earliest written appearance is in the Domesday Book of 1086, it also appears in a source which, though surviving only in a copy written at Peterborough Abbey in the 12th century, claiming "ancient rights" unproven purporting to be a transcription of a letter of Pope Constantine (708–715), in which he grants privileges to a monastery at Vermundesei, then in the hands of the abbot of Medeshamstede, as Peterborough was known at the time.

Its Domesday assets were recorded as including 13 hides, 'a new and handsome church', 5 ploughs, 20 acres (8 hectares) of meadow, and woodland for 5 pigs.

[6] The church mentioned in Domesday Book was presumably the nascent Bermondsey Abbey, which was founded as a Cluniac priory in 1082, and was dedicated to St Saviour.

The excavated foundations are visible next to Bermondsey Wall East, close to the famous Angel public house.

After the Great Fire of London, it was settled by the well-to-do, and took on the character of a garden suburb especially along the line of Grange Road and Bermondsey Wall East as it became more urbanised.

It was from the Bermondsey riverside that the painter J. M. W. Turner executed his famous painting of The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up (1839), depicting the veteran warship being towed to Rotherhithe to be scrapped.

It was immortalised in Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist, in which the villain, Bill Sikes, meets his end in the mud of 'Folly Ditch', in reference to Hickman's Folly, which surrounded Jacob's Island.

[10][11] Dickens provides a vivid description of what it was like:[12] ... crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it—as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Jacob's Island.Bermondsey vestry hall was built on Spa Road in 1881 but was severely damaged by bombing during the Blitz in 1941.

As in the East End, industries that were deemed too noisome to be carried on within the narrow confines of the City of London had been located here – one such that came to dominate central Bermondsey, away from the riverfront, was the processing and trading of leather and hides.

Hepburn and Gale's tannery (disused as of early 2007) on Long Lane is also a substantial surviving building of the leather trade.

In 1703 they had acquired a royal charter from Queen Anne to gain a monopoly of trading and training of apprentices for within 30 miles (50 kilometres) of the ancient parish, similar to a City livery company, the Bermondsey tanners.

They moved to a larger plant in Clements Road in 1866, leading to the nickname 'Biscuit Town' for Bermondsey, where they continued baking until the brand was discontinued in 1989.

[14][15][16] Bermondsey, specifically Blue Anchor Lane, was also the location of the world's first food canning business, established in 1812, by Donkin, Hall and Gamble.

[22] Following the success of the recruitment campaign for 'Kitchener's Army' in 1914, Lord Kitchener asked the mayors of the Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London if they could raise more 'Pals battalions' drawn from their localities.

[19][22] To the east of Tower Bridge, Bermondsey's 3+1⁄2 mi (5.6 km) of riverside were lined with warehouses and wharves, of which the best known is Butler's Wharf.

In 1997, US President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the area to dine at the Le Pont de la Tour restaurant at Butler's Wharf.

At the same time more everyday housing was constructed in the areas north of the Old Kent Road, including several council estates.

However, reorganisation of lines and temporary closure of stations left Bermondsey's transport links with the rest of London poorer in the late Twentieth Century.

Wee Willie Harris, known as "Britain's wild man of rock 'n' roll", came from Bermondsey[26] and had worked as a pudding mixer at Peek Freans.

[28] The first 'Bermondsey' is that known as the location of an Anglo-Saxon monastery, and known from later charters to be the area around the post-Conquest Bermondsey Abbey and its manor, which was in turn part of the medieval parish.

[[29]] A later, Victorian civil parish of Bermondsey did not include Rotherhithe or St Olave's; this was the arrangement under the Metropolis Management Act 1855.

The Borough's first Mayor was Samuel Bourne Bevington (1832–1907), leather producer and one of the area's largest employers; his statue still stands in Tooley Street.

Northbound services travel through the City of London, King's Cross St Pancras and Camden Town, towards Edgware or High Barnet.

Beyond London, trains travel direct to Gatwick and Luton airports, and destinations including Bedford, Brighton, Cambridge, Dover, Peterborough and Sevenoaks.

[41] A monitoring site on Old Kent Road registered an annual mean 22 μg/m-3 in 2017 for PM10 (particulates often found in exhaust), which meets national air quality objectives.

With several routes passing through Bermondsey, cycling infrastructure is maintained by both Transport for London (TfL) and Southwark Council.