Cuckold's Point
Cuckold's Point, also Cuckold's Haven, is part of a sharp bend on the River Thames on the Rotherhithe peninsula, south-east London, opposite the West India Docks and to the north of Columbia Wharf. The name is associated with a post surmounted by a pair of horns that used to stand at the location, a symbol commemorating the starting point of the riotous Horn Fair, which can also symbolise a cuckold.
History
The Horn Fair was a procession which led to Charlton. It is said that King John, or another English monarch, gave the fair as a concession, along with all the land from the point to Charlton, to a miller whose wife he had seduced after a hunting trip, though this story is disputed.Cuckold's Haven is first mentioned in writing on 15 May 1562, in The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London; the entry reads "Was set up at the cuckold haven a great May-pole by butchers and fisher-men, full of horns; and they made great cheer". Only two years later, however John Taylor (the Water Poet), lamented the marker's absence — in verse. It may have been a temporary or occasional structure, therefore.
Cuckold's Haven appears on a 1588 government map of London's river defences at the time of the Spanish Armada; in the context, it is a shown as recognised landmark for mariners.
Cuckold's Point was also the location of a riverside gibbet, where the bodies of executed criminals were displayed as a deterrent to others, while it also gave its name to an adjacent shipyard during the 18th century.
Literary and artistic links
For some reason English Renaissance drama was fascinated by the subject of cuckoldry, and Cuckold's Haven featured in many a play, including The London Prodigal ; Eastward Ho! ; Northward Ho! ; The Isle of Gulls; and The Witch of Edmonton, which contains the lineCuckold's Point is mentioned in the diaries of Samuel Pepys. On Friday 20 February 1662/63, Pepys described a river journey from Woolwich back to The Temple:
In William Hogarth's print Industry and Idleness, Plate V, the Idle Apprentice, sent to sea in disgrace, is depicted in a boat off Cuckold's Point; in allusion, he defiantly makes the sign of the horns.