Lawrence Durrell was born in India and came to England when he was ten. From 1924 to 1926, when Durrell was eleven to thirteen years old, he was a student at St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School in Tooley Street on the south bank of the Thames near Tower Bridge in Bermondsey, London. The school has since moved to Orpington in Kent, but the building Larry knew remains - transfigured into an Indian-run luxury boutique hotel.
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| The original dining hall of the school is now the hotel restaurant. |
To get a sense of the neighbourhood you can click on Google Street View. The new bulbous London Mayor's building is straight ahead beyond the school. Turn left for the Shard, the tallest building in Europe. Turn right and then left for Tower Bridge.
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| The Lalit is an Indian-run hotel. The elephant was not here in Durrell's time but it would have been a welcome sight: Durrell was born in India. |
After leaving St Olave's Durrell continued his education at St Edmund's in Canterbury.
