Poplar | >Re-PHOTO

More Poplar 1988

More Poplar 1988 continues my walk Limehouse, Isle of Dogs & Poplar.

Chaplain’s house, East India Company, Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 198888-7p-31-positive_2400 — *Chaplain’s house, East India Company, Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 198888-7p-31*

The Survey of London has a long story about this house at 115 Poplar High Street, now a private residence oddly called Meridian House and built together with 26 new almshouses by the East India Company in 1801-2. They had first set up almshouses in Poplar for disabled and retired employees and their widows and orphans in1626, built partly using money seized from the estate of Hugh Greete after his death in 1619. Greete had been discovered to have been swindling the company while trading Indian diamonds and they seized his assets.

The old almshouse was demolished in 1802 replaced by the new buildings. After the Crown took direct control of India in 1858 the government took over these buildings as Poplar Marine Hospital, selling all except the chaplain’s house, burial ground and chapel to Poplar District Board of Works in 1866. They demolished the almshouses to become Poplar Recreation Ground.

The chapel became the Church of St Matthias with the Chaplains house as its vicarage – and it was further enlarged in the following years. When St Matthias was closed in 1976 the house was sold to become a private residence.

Former District Board of Works Offices, Poplar High St, Woodstock Terrace, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-32-positive_2400 — *Former District Board of Works Offices, Poplar High St, Woodstock Terrace, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-32*

This Grade II listed building from 1869-70 for the Poplar District Board of Works was the result of a competition for designs which attracted 43 entries and considerable controversy when the prize went to Walter Augustus Hills (c1834–1917) and Thomas Wayland Fletcher (1833–1901) of Bow, both former assistant surveyors to the board. One architectual magazine at the time described it as ‘terribly ugly’. They were obliged to cooperate with the second place pair of Arthur and Christopher Harston over a final design. Once constructed the building was found to have various problems, not least that in the boardroom ‘reverberation was so excessive as to make the speaker almost incomprehensible’.

Various alterations were made and in 1900 the building became the town hall of the new Metropolitan Borough of Poplar, who extended it and then replaced it in 1038 by a new town hall in Bow. It continued in various uses by the council and in 1987 became the Borough of Tower Hamlets’s Directorate of Housing.

Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-34-positive_2400 — *Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-34*

This small paved area is just off the High St between Norwood House and Holmsdale House and the block in the centre of the picture is Constant House on Harrow Lane, built by Poplar Council in 1936-7designed by the Borough Engineer and Surveyor, Rees J Williams. Both Holmsdale and Constant House were rehabilitated in 1986-7, with more work in recent years. Norwood House was added in the late 1960s and this paved area looks as if it may date from then.

Holmsdale House, Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-36-positive_2400 — *Holmsdale House, Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-36*

A similar style block to Constant House, also built for Poplar Council in 1937-8, designed by Rees J Williams.

The Resolute, pub, Harrow Lane, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-21-positive_2400 — *The Resolute, pub, Harrow Lane, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-21*

Built in 1937 on the corner of Poplar High St and Harrow Lane, to replace an earlier pub the Resolute survived until closed and demolished in 2011. The pub on this site was The Harrow from 1797 (or earlier) until renamed the Resolute Tavern around 1881.

The best-known ship of this name was fitted out for arctic service at nearby Blackwall Yard in 1850 and made several trips to the Arctic searching for the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin who had been searching for a North West Passage. Finally the Resolute got stuck in ice and was abandoned in May 1854, the crew escaping across the ice to a relief fleet.

The ship was found drifting by an American whaler over a thousand miles from where she was abandoned in September 1855 in perfect order and was sailed back to New London, Connecticut, arriving on Christmas Eve. Eventually she was bought by the US Congress, refitted and sailed back to be presented to Queen Victoria and rejoining the navy. The Resolute was retired from the Navy in 1879, possibly at the time the pub was renamed. Some of her timbers were then used to create a substantial desk presented by Queen Victoria to US President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. Moved out for some years it has been back in use by most presidents in the Oval Office since being replaced there by Jimmy Carter.

East End Snooker and Social Club, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-01-positive_2400 — *East End Snooker and Social Club, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-01*

This club was at 253 East India Dock Road and has since been converted into Poplar Central Mosque.

Blackwall Tunnel Approach, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-65-positive_2400 — *Blackwall Tunnel Approach, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-65*

The crunched rear end of D814 VRG presumably had its match on the front end of A506 DMX, but at least it appeared that there were no casualites in the collision at the north end of the Blackwall Tunnel, viewed by me from Poplar High St. A sign a little down the road says ‘Welcome to Tower Hamlets‘ though I think most of the tunnel is in the borough. At left is the unmistakable profile of Erno Goldfinger’s Balfron Tower, built in 1965-6 for the GLC and recently stolen from its residents by Poplar HARCA housing association and sold as luxury housing.

Follett St Seamen's Mission, Follett St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-66-positive_2400 — *Follett St Seamen’s Mission, Follett St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-66*

Just on the edge of the elaborate interchange between the East India Dock Road and the Blackwall Tunnel Approach is this small Seamen’s Mission, built in 1898 a Christ Church House and a part of the St Frideswide’s Mission House Conservation Area, but this building only locally listed. The mission here was set up by members of Christ Church College Oxford who in 1881 decided to support missions in the East End. Now converted into six flats.

My 1988 walk in Poplar will continue in a later post.

Limehouse, Isle of Dogs & Poplar

Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-63-positive_2400 — *Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-63*

Limehouse, Isle of Dogs & Poplar

This post starts where my previous post on the walk left off, on Emmett Street, no longer present, a victim of both the Limehouse Link tunnel and the edge of the Canary Wharf development at Westferry Circus. I think it this was taken just a little further south than the previous picture and the view between buidlings with several cranes is to the luxury flats being built on the Limehouse bank of the Thames.

Westferry Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-65-positive_2400 — *Westferry Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-65*

A little further south on Westferry Road, with the high dock wall at the left and Cascades Tower, designed by the architects Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson and Gough (CZWG) in the distance ahead. This unusual block of luxury flats built in 1985–88 was the first private high rise block in Docklands. Going down Westferry Road was entering a huge building site – and the graffiti on the bus shelter states WORLDEXIT (though its actually where a bus would take you back into the world.) When built the flats were almost impossible to sell or rent and Tower Hamlets council let them to teachers at £17 a week. Now they are rather more expensive, at around £400 per week for a one bed flat, and selling for around £500,000 and no teachers can afford to live there.

I think the slight rise in the road, which also bends slightly is possibly the former Limehouse Basin entrance and this section of Westferry Road was perhaps what had previously been Bridge Road.

Westferry Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-66-positive_2400 — *Westferry Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-66*

George Baker & Sons (Millwall) Ltd, builders and joiners, were according to the Survey of London only at this site from 1985 until it was cleared in 1987-8. But the name here looks older and this is the remains of a fairly elegant three-storey building, a photograph of which from 1987 is in the Survey of London. It was built on what was then Emmett St in the 1860s for Thomas Dominick James Teighe and Frederick Smith, sailmakers and ship-chandlers, and from 1902 to the early 1980s occupied by Fitch & Son, provision merchants.

Westferry Rd, Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-53-positive_2400 — *Westferry Rd, Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-53*

Considerable building work taking place close to Westferry Circus, with Cascades Tower visible in the distance.

South Dock Entrance, Westferry Rd, Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-41-positive_2400 — *South Dock Entrance, Westferry Rd, Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-41*

Sand and gravel works on the north side of the former South Dock Entrance, with a view across the River Thames to Columbia Wharf in Rotherhithe.

Westferry Rd, Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-43-positive_2400 — *Westferry Rd, Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-43*

A bus stop at left on Westferry Road, the Island Car Service, much needed as the bus service was poor and unreliable and Timber Merchant John Lenanton & Sons Ltd on the corner of Manilla St, with the Anchor & Hope public house part visible at the right edge, and behind one of the towers of the Barkantine Estate. The car service was in the shop at 31 which for many years was Wooding’s newsagents. The Anchor & Hope had been opened since at least the 1820s, and possibly as it until recently stated on its frontage was established 1787. The building is still there though it closed as a pub in 2005. It was extensively refurbished for residential use in 2015 and the ground floor later became a gym.

Ming St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-44-positive_2400 — *Ming St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-44*

I walked back north to Ming St in Poplar, part of London’s first Chinatown, and renamed to reflect this in 1938 when many of London’s streets were renamed to avoid confusion – previously it had been since 1820 one of many King Streets. This was part of the Limehouse of Sax Rohmer‘s racist imaginings of opium dens and crime in his 18 book Dr Fu Manchu series, begun in 1913 and continued after Rohmers death by his biographer and assistant Cay Van Ash.

His work brought wealthy upper-class slum-tourists to the area, where they perhaps enjoyed meals in restaurants such as Wah Ying, but they will have found little evidence of Fu Manchu and his team of assassins, human traffickers and drug traders of the dreaded Sci-Fan secret society. Chinatown was one of the more law-abiding areas of the East End, and the Chinese certainly more law abiding than most.

Ming St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-45-positive_2400 — *Ming St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-45*

The Peking was another remnant of the Chinatown past, mostly now moved away to Soho, though there is still a Chinese restaurant on the East India Dock Road, along with the Chun Yee Society. Dockland Light Railway trains now run across the bridge in the distance. The building at right with a dome was Charlie Brown’s pub on West India Dock Road. All this is now demolished.

The White Horse, pub, Saltwell St, Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-46-positive_2400 — *The White Horse, pub, Saltwell St, Poplar High St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7p-46*

Going east along Ming St takes you to Poplar High St, and on the corner of Saltwell St where the High Street begins you can still see a large white horse on top of a wooden post, though it seems rather smaller now than in my picture, and is closer to the street corner. There had been a White Horse pub on this site since 1690 though I think the building in this picture is probably from the 1920s when it was taken over by Truman’s Brewery. They sold it in 2003 and it was demolished and replaced by a block of flats. According to the Lost Pubs Project, “In 1740 it was, scandalously, run by a Mr & Mrs Howes, both of whom were actually female. ”

The horse was Grade II listed in 1973 and has the shortest listing text I’ve come across: “C18 wooden carving of a white horse on post in forecourt.” The lower part of the sign with the pub name fell down and has been removed, but the horse has been repainted since my picture.

Click on any of the images to see a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos from where you can browse the album.

Bow Creek: Priors to Pura Foods

Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1982 36v-23_2400

Goiong down Leamouth Road roughly south and parallel to the river there were a few places where you could look back up to the East India Dock Road and the disused railway bridge that crossed the creek a little to the south of the road. The bridge had carried a line which came from where Canning Town Station now is along the route now followed by the DLR but continuing across the river to pepper warehouses for the East India Docks opposite the docks on the eastern side of Leamouth Road, still shown on my 1939 Philip’s A B C Pocket Atlas-Guide to London and its Outer Districts.

J J Prior, Ship Repairs, Orchard Wharf, Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, 1982 36v-36 (2)_2400

Where the river swung around the Limmo Peninsula – now the Bow Creek Ecology Park – the view was wide open with the river only separated from the road by an open fence. Close to the bend to the west was Orchard Wharf, where J J Prior were still carrying out ship repairs. The flats in the background are on the other side of the East India Dock Road.

Pura Foors, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36v-21_2400

Looking up the creek on the eastern side of the peninisula was the west bank of the second peninsula, occupied by a large edible oil factory, Pura Foods, the smells from which were often rather noticeable. There were local campaigns to have this factory shut down, and eventually it did move out, relocating a few miles down-river. This peninsula is now redeveloped as City Island.

Pura Foods, Orchard Place, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, 1982 32f-33_2400

Roads in this area were disrupted when the Lower Lea Crossing was built – it opened in 1991. When I first went to photograph the area, Leamouth Road (historically called Orchard St) continued to meet Orchard Place at a T-junction, with Orchard Place going north to the Pura Food site and south, then turning east to Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Pura Foods, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c52_2400

Although there were still high walls along the northern section of Leamouth Rd, there was a clear view of Bow Creek looking south from the East India Dock Road only around a hundred yards east of where the river, here flowing roughly north, went under the bridge in the opposite direction.

Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Essex Wharf, Wharfside Rd, East India Dock Rd, Newham, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4b12_2400

Wharfside Road comes in a short tunnel under the East India Dock Road on which I was standing to take this picture, leading to Essex Wharf and the saw mills for the timber yard. The Docklands Light Railway now runs along here on the route of the the former rail line to the pepper warehouses, just in front of the line of parked cars in this picture.

There is now a footbridge across the DLR leading to a riverside path, built at around the same time as the new railway, the gates to the bridge were kept locked for most of its first twenty years but now seem to be permanently opened, and it provides a good short cut to Canning Town Station, whose riverside entrance was also locked for years after it was built, as well as to a new footbridge to City Island which replaced the factory here. You can also now walk or cycle down here to the right to visit the Bow Creek Ecology Park. Although very different it is still an interesting area in which to walk.

Clicking on any of the above images will take you to larger versions in my Flickr album on the River Lea. A further post will start at Wharfside Road and look at my pictures moving along Bow Creek towards the Thames.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

South of Bow Locks – the 1980s

Bow Creek, Bow Locks, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36v-52_2400

Back in the 1980s it wasn’t possible to walk beside Bow Creek from Bow Locks south to the East India Dock road, as the banks were occupied by various industrial and commercial sites, including two gas works and West Ham power station. And although there have been plans by the councils for many years, even today you can only walk down on the Newham bank as far as Cody Dock, on a path opened to the public some years ago with the ridiculous name of the Fatwalk, but since renamed. There is a tantalising walkway visible continuing past the dock along the former power station bank, but this is still closed to the public.

Clinic, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1983 35v-35_2400

While this was a limitation, it was also an opportunity to explore the two areas where roads ran close (or not too close) to Bow Creek to both the east in West Ham and west in Bromley and Poplar, and I was rewarded by some images I found interesting, though parts of my walks were along fume laden streets with heavy traffic.

Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, Tweed House, view, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1983 35v-3pan_2400

Tweed House, a tall block of council flats on the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road next to the Limehouse Cut enabled me to take some pictures which I more recently stitched together to create two panoramas of the area – the individual pictures are also in the Flickr album. Click to see the larger versions on Flickr.

Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, Tweed House, view, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1983 35v-4-pan_2400

From various places both on to the east and west of Bow Creek I found rather satisfyingly bleak views of the distant power station, including one with a young mother with a small baby in a pram.

Lochnagar St, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36v-42_2400

Others were emptier still, like this

Lorry Park, Gillender St, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1982 32e-42_2400

or more minimal and just occasionally rather threatening; some streets around here featured in crime films and TV dramas of the era, gangster London.

Lochnager St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1982 32e-34_2400

But there was also a little chance for fun, with a cafeteria with two giant cooling towers to take away the cooking fumes and the unlikely name of Oasis.

Oasis, Cafeteria, Cafe, Bidder St, West Ham, Newham, 1983 36v-12_2400

Poplar Gas Works was on a rather smaller scale to Bromley-by-Bow, but its gas holders still dominated the working class housing around it. Two young girls playing on the grass came to see what I was doing and insisted on being photographed, though I perhaps should have stepped back a foot or two to avoid cropping their feet to get the gasholder in the frame.

Girls, Gasholder, Poplar Gas Works, Rutland Terrace, Oban St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1983 35v-55_2400

At East India Dock Road I was able to return to Bow Creek – and things got even more interesting (and although very different they still are) as I hope to show you in the next installment of my work from the Flick album River Lea – Lea Navigation – 1981-92 – the pictures above are all on Page 4.

Clicking on any of the images above should take you to a larger version on Flickr, and you can also go on to explore the album from there.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Meridian 2

Continuing with pictures from my walk along the Greenwich Meridian in Greater London in 1984-6.

Stratford Bus Station – Peter Marshall, 1995

My walks took me as close to the line of the Meridian I had pencilled on my 1983 1:25000 OS map as possible, though that line may not have been quite exact. I think it goes through the area at the extreme left of the picture above, here just a few yards east of the roadway. My series of walks kept as close as possible to the pencil line, but it often runs through private property, buildings, across rivers etc and many detours, some quite lengthy were required.

Barge carries contaminated earth from Poplar gasworks site, Peter Marshall, 2011

One of those fairly lengthy detours was north from Poplar, where the line ran through the gas works site and across Bow Creek. It wasn’t until 2011 that I was able to go onto the former gas works site, having been engaged to photograph the use of a barge to carry away the heavily contaminated soil from the site. The line crosses the river here, going through the left end of the large shed close to the opposite bank, near to Cody Dock. This is also part of a private business estate, though you can now walk along the roadways in it. There are several such areas I have been able to photograph in later years, but I won’t add any other later pictures to these posts.

Stratford Station – Peter Marshall, 1995

The line continues through the east end of Stratford Station.

Thinking of the line of the Meridian, I had decided it was appropriate to use a panoramic format, and these pictures were all taken with a swing lens panoramic camera. I think at the time I owned two such cameras, an expensive Japanese model and a cheap Russian one. The Russian was a little more temperamental and it was sometimes difficult to wind on the film, but had a much better viewfinder and I think was probably used for most of these. Both give negatives which are roughly the width of medium format film – 55-58mm – but only 24mm high, the limit of 35mm film, giving a roughly 2.3:1 aspect ratio. There is no discernible difference in image quality.

Langthorne Rd, Leyton – Peter Marshall, 1995

Both used 35mm film and curve it in the horizontal plane around a little over a third of the outside of a circle, with the lens pivoting roughly 130 degrees around the centre of that circle during the exposure. This keeps the distance between the centre of the lens and film constant, avoiding the distortion produced by using flat film, where the edges of the film are further from the lens node. This gives a very noticeable distortion with ultra-wide lenses, limiting them to an angle of view (horizontal) of roughly 100 degrees.

Swing lens cameras are limited in angle of view only by the mechanical limitations and can generally cover 130-140 degrees. But the curvature of the film does produce its own unique view. Assuming you keep the camera upright, straight vertical lines remain straight as the film is not curved vertically, but non-vertical lines show curvature, increasingly so as you move away from the centre of the film. You can see this clearly in the shop window in Langthorne Rd.

To be continued…