10 Riverside
This is the final part of this walk.
Take the DLR from Pontoon Dock to East India Station. [There is now a train every 10 minutes during normal hours.]
From the platform level you get good views, both through the windows and at each end of the long platform, of the Park, Barrier Point, Royal Victoria Dock and elsewhere.
The train journey provides some of the best views of the riverside properties in this area, which otherwise are often impossible to access. It also gives a rapid overview of an area that is time-consuming to access on foot.
Barrier Point from the DLR
You should have no problem in identifying one of the Tate & Lyle buildings on the route, as well as Akzo Nobel, although you may recognise some of their brand-names – such as Crown, Bergger and International Paints, Sandtex and Sadolin – more easily. [I think only the Tate & Lyle Plaistow Wharf factory remains. Much was demolished to build Royal Wharf, as well as to the west of Plaistow Wharf where the land now remains empty.]
From the train you can also see the mouth of the River Lea and Trinity Buoy Wharf with its lighthouse and stack of containers in use as artists studios, as well of course as the Millennium Dome.
After Canning Town station, the line curves around the River Lea and climbs through the ecological reserve at Bow Creek and over the viaduct across Bow Creek. This section of the DLR was built in 1994 for the Becton extension.
From East India you have the choice continuing on the DLR towards the centre of London (change at Poplar for the DLR to Canary Wharf and the Jubilee Line), or taking a journey back to Canning Town.
If you have time and energy for a further walk, go north out of the station onto East India Dock Road and after crossing Bow Creek follow the path beside the creek to go over the Lower Lea Crossing. Again this elevated bridge gives good views across the Thames and Bow Creek to the south. [Now you can if you wish take a short cut by going out of the Bow Creek exit of the station, across the red bridge and through London City Island to the Lower Lea Crossing.]
When the bridge descends to a roundabout under the Silvertown Viaduct, you can either continue under it to Royal Victoria Station, or cross the road just before the roundabout and take the steps up to the top of the viaduct and walk to Canning Town station.
You can read the whole document as I published it in 2007 beginning here and see more pictures I took in 2007 on My London Diary at Canning Town, Victoria Dock, Silvertown West.
