DLR – Connaught Rd & Bow Creek 1994. Continuing my panoramic images made along the path of the DLR in July 1994.
The road layout in this area has changed completely since 1994, but you can see at right the DLR Beckton branch going over the concrete lead-up to the Connaught Bridge. I think GATE 30 at extreme left is to the Excel site and the Connaught Tavern is hidden by the trees in the centre of the picture – and so this road was the old Connaught Road which led to the old swing bridge. I think where I was standing is now the middle of a hotel car park.
I moved around a mile and a half west and four stops along the DLR line to Canning Town and one of my favourite areas around Bow Creek, which here does two more or less 180 degree turns before flowing into the Thames. These two ‘bridges’ are a few yards south of East India Dock Road and I think both were built as pipe bridges to carry gas across the river.
Only the brick end supports of first remain on each bank. The metal bridge in the centre of the image is also a footbridge, now painted blue and leading across the river to the ecology park. Just beyond it, almost completely hidden is a third bridge, a long disused rail bridge. At left are the sheds of a timber yard.
Further East on the East India Dock Road I made this panorama with a sawmill in Wharfdale Road. Beyond that road is a train on the DLR line, and over the top of this you can see the Pura Foods factory on the site where London City Island now is.
A few yards further east on East India Dock Road gave this view of Bow Creek, curving 180 degrees around Pura Foods. Locals were pleased to see this London City Island factory go as you could smell it across much of Canning Town.
And a similar view but including a DLR train.
A few yards away I used a crane to frame the image of Pura Foods on its not quite island site. At right of the picture is a bridge across the DLR leading to a riverside walk to Canning Town Station. Although I managed to walk across Reuben’s Bridge several times, it has been mainly locked for the last thirty years, despite being a useful short cut to the riverside station entrance.
Apparently it was closed because people were throwing stones from it onto the DLR, and more recently in 2019 a survey determined that it is non-compliant with current Health & Safety Legislation, Building Regulations, British Standards and associated supplementary guidance.
The initial plans were for the riverside walkway to lead all the way to Trinity Buoy Wharf at the mouth of Bow Creek – and a competition was held and awarded for a new footbridge to enable this – but then the plans were dropped. Until a new bridge was built for London City Island the riverside entrance to Canning Town station only led to two dead ends.
More to come.
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