In addition to its many manufacturing industries and bustling river trades, a strong non-conformist tradition thrived in Bankside to provide moral guidance, charity and education to local families. On a site in Zoar Street stood a chapel which was the earliest nonconformist school in London. Zoar Street is the site of one of three meeting houses in Bankside. “Zoar” means a place of sanctuary or refuge. In the year before he died in 1688, John Bunyan preached at the Zoar Chapel. The image reflects on Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the travails of Christian as he journeys from the City of Destruction to his deliverance at the Gates of the Celestial City. In the foreground is one of Bankside’s most formidable couples – Mr. Henry Thrale and his wife Hester Thrale, onetime owners of the Anchor Brewery in Deadman’s Place (Park Street).