The children’s fun area is a nice idea, [32 computer controlled fountains] but this works better at Parc Citroen in Paris, and hasn’t stood up to British weather or use. We just don’t have the same level of upkeep in Newham as does the City of Paris. Competitions such as was carried out for this are a good idea, but only if the judges think rather more about what the result will look like in ten years time rather than on the sketches. It is also unfortunately not possible to enter the Green Dock at the ground level at the north end and walk through it (there is still an entry at the south end.)
[The park is managed by the Greater London Authority and was built on one of the most polluted sites in the country, the former PR Chemicals factory, which took years to decontaminate.]
The sides of the dock were lined by a metal fence with lower wires, which have currently been removed. In their place the fence is lined by normal street safety barriers, tied together with plastic bags. Although it may be effective, it is visually unacceptable and hopefully the fences are to be repaired and these removed.
The two buildings in the park have a Japanese feel. One usefully houses toilets and a café, while the other was erected by Newham in memory of the victims of war. Its undulating seating was intended to carry on the wave theme of the Green Dock, but is perhaps of more interest to skateboarders than for comfort.
Walk along the edge of the ‘Green Dock’ to the riverside.
The park gives an excellent view of the Thames Barrier. Silvertown was one of the areas to be flooded in 1953, though rather less disastrously than Canvey, although some 1130 homes here were flooded. It took until 1982 for the Thames Barrier to be completed. Estimates of how much longer it will remain effective with the sea level rise due to global warming vary widely, but certainly at the moment it is getting used rather more often than was envisaged.
Walk back along the other edge of the Green Dock to the cafe and/or the station.
It’s some years since I’ve been back to the park, and it would be interesting to see how it has changed over the years. Perhaps I’ll find time this summer.
This walk will continue in a later post with Part 10: Riverside which mainly looks at views from the DLR.
An elevated section of the Docklands Light Railway runs along the south side of North Woolwich Road. Opened in 2006, it currently runs to King George V station in North Woolwich, but tunnelling is in progress to take it under the Thames to Woolwich. [It opened in 2009]
DLR under construction from Silvertown Way – 2004.
Turn left and walk east along North Woolwich Road; roughly 100 meters on is a site entrance which includes a monument to the Silvertown Explosion.
The Brunner Mond chemical works opened here at Crescent Wharf in West Silvertown in 1893, producing first soda and then caustic soda. But by 1914 the works was idle, and the government needed a factory to purify TNT. This was known to be extremely dangerous and a process that should be carried out in a remote area, and not in this highly populated area such as this. Dr FA Freeth, Brunner Mond’s head chemist later made his views about the process clear:
“It worked but was manifestly dangerous. At the end of every month we used to write to Silvertown to say that their plant would go up sooner or later.” But the Government, at a safe distance in Whitehall, decided that the risk was worth taking. It was the people of Silvertown who were, largely unwittingly, taking it.
“Sooner or later” turned out to be Friday 19 January 1917 when a fire caused 50 tons of TNT to explode. They heard the bang in Cambridge and Guildford. Around 70,000 properties were damaged, costing £2.5 million. Over 70 people were killed (12 of the bodies were never found) and 400 injured. Because of war-time restrictions, it was 3 days before the news was in the papers.
This site is now under application for development as Minoco Wharf. In January 2005 the Mayor removed its safeguarded wharf status, which will allow more freedom in its development. [Renamed ‘Royal Wharf’ and recently completed it includes 3,385 new homes, a primary school, leisure facilities and retail and commercial office space.]
Tate & Lyle’s Plaistow wharf
A little to the west is Peruvian Wharf, which includes the site of the old guano works and Tate & Lyle’s Plaistow wharf. (Tate & Lyle have consolidated their activities at Thames Refinery to the east in Silvertown.)
The application to develop this site, which still has safeguarded wharf status, went to public enquiry and was refused in 2006. There are further applications, mainly for industrial use. The best views of these sites are from the DLR. [The site was bought by the Port of London Authority in 2016 and part leased to for an aggregate wharf and concrete batching plant.]
Continue along North Woolwich Road and walk up the steps immediately behind Barrier Point into Barrier Park.
Barrier Point residential development, architects Goddard Manton Partnership (they took some ideas from their earlier Pierhead Lock at West India Docks) is in two parts, the ‘Seven Steps’ garden apartments occupied in 2000, and the landmark tower completed in 2001. It provides 252 “concierged apartments” and attracted various awards, making it “the most decorated contemporary housing development” in Britain. It forms an impressive wall at right-angles to the Thames, with suitably maritime railings and decks, although these perhaps give it too much of a 1930s international modern feel. The tower, a shining white lighthouse, is a grand effect.
This walk will continue in a later post with Part 9: Barrier Park
From the top of the bridge there is a splendid view in all directions. Starting at the ExCeL centre and moving clockwise we see:
ExCel, standing for Exhibition Centre London. This was an LDDC idea, but not completed and opened until 2000. It has attracted many hotels to the area – including the floating Sunborn Yacht hotel.
In the distance, you can see East London University, one of the developments on the Royal Albert Dock, which is worth a visit of its own, particularly for the group of cylindrical student residences, looking rather like oil storage tanks.
East London University and flight path beacons for City Airport, King George V Dock, North Woolwich
Closer than that, spanning the area and separating the Royal Victoria Docks from the two later Royal Albert and King George V docks is the Connaught Crossing, completed in 1990.
Millennium Mills and Eastern Quay
The large area on the right of the dock, including the area of water off from the main dock and the large bulk of Millennium Mills (built for Spillers flour in 1933) is the Silvertown Quays site, a £1.5 billion development that got planning permission in May 2007. This includes conversion of the mills into flats, 5,000 new homes, various community facilities, a lively town centre for Silvertown and the Biota! Project, a large aquarium designed by Terry Farrell & Partners for London Zoo. (though we don’t expect it to be anything like as good as The Deep in Hull!)
Close to the bridge is Eastern Quay (2003 Gardner Stewart Architects), constructed with a steel frame and is one of the first residential apartment blocks in the United Kingdom to have fully-glazed exterior walls. It uses advanced glazing technology to stop residents getting fried.
The large development, mainly of fairly small houses is Brittania Village, which began in 1994 with a Peabody development of 85 homes. The LDDC then made a deal with Wimpey for 777 more, along with some limited community facilities, including a primary school, in 1995. The area was completed with a few more Peabody trust and East Thames Housing Group properties.
Walk or take the lift down to dock level at the south end of the bridge, and walk through the arch at the centre of the semi-circular ring of shops.
Here there is a plaque marking the opening of the West Silvertown Urban Village by the government minister Selwyn Gummer in 1996.
Turn left and then right at the roundabout with a tall chimney and walk down Mill Road to the main road (North Woolwich Road.)
The large chimney in the middle of the roundabout dates from the 1930s. At the southern end of Mill Road are some workers cottages which appear to date from around 1900.
Cross the main road to the south side, taking great care. A suitably placed pedestrian crossing is only in planning application stage! [There is now a light-controlled crossing for pedestrians and cyclists.]
If you have plenty of time, you might like to make a detour to Lyle Park at this point, off Bradfield Road, a couple of hundred yards to the east. The park was presented to West Ham by Abraham Lyle & Son in 1924 and contains the fine metal gates from Harland & Wolff Ltd, ship builders, ship repairers and engineers in Woolwich Manor Way, Beckton from 1924-1972 (their actual shipyards were in Belfast and Govan.) The park also provides good views across the Thames to Greenwich Millenium Village and elsewhere.
This walk will continue in a later post with Part 8: North Woolwich Road.
Walk along the covered walkway leading to the ExCeLcentre, passing some Victorian dock buildings on your right. At ExCeL, go to your right and down into the open square.
On our right is a range of dock buildings, K Warehouse, built 1859, used for some years as a store for the Museum of London and now housing a restaurant. On our left is the ExCeL centre (Exhibition Centre London) used for various conferences and business events. [Including controversially every two years DSEi, the worlds largest arms fair, which attracts many protests.]
W warehouse from 1883 was originally more or less on the dockside, which had a number of wide jetties coming out from it towards the centre of the main dock, more or less as far as the current waterline. Ships were moored on each side of these for loading and unloading. Probably most of the buildings on these were fairly simple and temporary, and the number of these bays changed over the years. The docks were given an extensive makeover in the 1930s and 40s, and also needed considerable work to repair war damage.
In later years, these jetties were removed and the dock narrowed, with larger warehouses by its edge.
The Royal Docks were at their busiest around 1960, but the decline after this was rapid. Cargo handling methods were rapidly changing, with containerisation and bulk handling techniques, and ships were getting larger.
Considerable investment was needed and the PLA rightly decided to make this at Tilbury. Traffic congestion was a major problem at the Royals (the 1930’s road improvements linked into London’s congested road system) while Tilbury had the prospect of excellent connections to the M25 and the rest of the expanding motorway system. It was also closer to the sea, and avoided a longer journey through relatively narrow channels upriver, with greater tidal limitations.
Weighbridge office, King George V Dock, Royal Albert Dock, Newham, 1984 84-7l-25
The Royal Docks closed in 1981, and a year or two later I photographed them as a ghost town. There were abandoned offices with half-drunk cups of tea, cobwebbed jackets hanging on hooks, paperwork and rubber stamps left on desks. [There are many pictures from that project on Flickr, in the albums 1984 London Photographs and 1984 Docklands Colour. I also published pictures from the project as The Deserted Royals and you can view an extensive preview online.]
Royal Victoria Square was developed by the GLA’s London Development Agency and opened by Ken Livingstone in 2001. It cost £3.5million. The fountains are apparently quite nice should they ever be working. Computer controlled and coloured by fibre optics to give a wave effect. Apparently.
The square is at its best in bright sun, when the shadows of the closely planted trees create interesting effects, and the dark stone contrasts with the light paving. It is a pleasant place to sit and relax, although the modern hotel buildings hardly add to that pleasure.
The ExCeL centre also looks better in sun, which adds shadows from its external spars, as well as a glow from its white surfaces, and brings out its geometries. The idea came from the LDDC, but it was not completed and opened until 2000. Its presence has attracted many hotels to the area – including the floating Sunborn Yacht hotel.
Walk down to the dockside, where deck hangs out over the water for a view of the bridge.
The bridge was designed by Lifschultz Davidson as a very slender structure, representing the sailing heritage of the dock, and cost £3.9 million. Six masts support the bridge varying from almost 30m at one end to 10.6m at the middle. Originally there had been talk of a transporter bridge, but this is I think both more elegant and more practical. While the docks were in use, there was a ferry service across the dock at this location.
Walk to the bridge and go to the high level either by the steps or lift.*
This walk continues in a later post with Part 7: Royal Victoria Dock from the footbridge.
[* You may find the footbridge is closed or the lifts are not working. If you cannot access the bridge you can continue the walk by walking on the dockside path around the west end of the dock.]
Pass through the station barrier and go up the two escalators to the DLR platform. Until the Bow Creek Walkway is opened this gives some of the best views of this part of Bow Creek.
Pura Foods
Across the railway track and the Bow Creek is the former site of Pura Foods, a large factory site which filled almost the whole of the area in the bend of the river north of the Lower Lea Crossing, and gave the area both a distinctive appearance and smell.
Pura site in 2004 from the SW.
Pura, a leading supplier of edible oils and fats to the UK and for export, began as the Pure Lard Company, but is now a part of a large American company ADM. It moved out of the area probably because of the development value of the site, although there were some years of pressure from local residents in TELCO to improve its environmental act. It continues to process oils on sites further downstream, including Belvedere. Ships used to bring oils to Brunswick Wharf, close by on the Thames, with a pipeline connection to the site, filling the shining storage tanks.
Demolition of the works started around October 2006 and are now (June 2007) virtually complete. A revised planning application seems likely to be approved, if with some revisions. The proposed development is to be mixed use, including a primary school as well as up to 1800 residential units (mainly flats), offices, shops and restaurants, as well as other commercial, community and leisure space. It will be very different from the old site. [London City Island – which has a new bridge across Bow Creek, close to the riverside exit from Canning Town Station. You can now walk through the development and on down to Trinity Buoy Wharf at the mouth of Bow Creek]
Thames Ironworks
These occupied most of the land on the Essex side of Bow Creek, some of which you can see from the platform, as well as parts of the other side closer to the Thames.
Thames Ironworks occupied most of the land adjoining Bow Creek
Board a train for Beckton, getting off at Custom House
From the Train: Silvertown Way
Look through the windows on the left side of the train. You will see it passes the entrance and ventilation towers for the Jubilee Line tunnel under the Thames to North Greenwich. Beyond this, it runs alongside the largely derelict buildings behind Silvertown Way, before going under this to Victoria Dock Station.
Royal Victoria Square
Silvertown Way was the first flyover to be built in Britain, and was completed in 1934. It was followed in 1935 by the Silvertown Bypass, another similar concrete structure, distinguished by a fine bowstring bridge. Unfortunately this was demolished in the 1990s.
My picture from 1984
The increasing use of road transport was already leading to impressive congestion in the area around the Royal Docks, and these developments were necessary to keep the traffic moving.
[Construction of the London Cable Car began here in 2011 and it opened in 2012. Worth a ride as a tourist attraction it makes no significant contribution to travel in the area. The Crystal, completed in 2012, was commissioned by Siemens and designed by WilkinsonEyre as an exhibition centre and a think tank and since 2022 has been London’s City Hall.]
I’ll post Part 5 Custom House and Canning Town later, again with a few more pictures and comments. You can see the whole walk still on the former London Art Café web site.
The walk starts at the top of the stairs leading up from the Station to the Bus Station. Here there is a memorial to the Thames Ironworks.
C J Mare’s shipbuilding firm did not prosper and was soon bought out by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, whose works soon occupied most of the Essex shore of Bow Creek as well as areas close to the Thames on the Middlesex side. Over the years it built at least 650 ships (some sources say 900) as well as bridges and other iron structures.
Frank Hills
Its greatest fame came under the ownership of Frank Hills who bought the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in 1880, when it was struggling to retain employment for its 6,000 men in face of competition from larger yards on the Clyde, Tyne and Mersey.
Thames Ironworks occupied most of the land on the east of Bow Creek and some on the far side.
Hills, educated at Harrow was a Christian, a fine sportsman, English champion in the mile and 3 miles, an Oxford football blue, and played for England when they beat Scotland 5-4 in 1879. He was also the first President of the London Vegetarian Society (1888) and the Vegetarian Cycling and Athletic Club, and also served as President of a London Vegetarian Rambling Club. He also founded The Vegetarian, an independent magazine, and founded the Vegetarian Federal Union (1889), becoming President. He was also a member of the Temperance (total abstinence) union.
As an employer he was described as an “enlightened patriarch” who cared deeply for the welfare of his workers. For some years he lived among them in a small house in the East India Dock Road. Despite this, relations at work were not always good, especially when he engaged non-union workers, and some of the workforce went out on strike at the time of the dock strike of 1889.
Hills was one of the first employers to set up a bonus scheme – in 1892 – and he voluntarily introduced an eight-hour day in 1894 at a time when many employers demanded 10 or 12 hour days. He tried to get his workers to “sign the pledge” and take healthy exercise – and set up clubs of all kinds to keep them out of the pubs. These included a temperance league, cycling club, cricket club, an amateur operatic society and a brass band as well as a football club, the Thames Ironworks Football Team set up in 1895. In 1900, Hills put up the money to fund a merger with another local side, the Old Castle Swifts, and they became West Ham Football Club. The nickname the Hammers comes from the tools they used in building ships.
Leamouth, 1992. Thames Ironworks formerly occupied all the land to the left of Bow Creek at its mouth and some parts in the centre of the picture.
The Albion Disaster
Disaster struck at the Ironworks in 1898 at the launch of HMS Albion. The Duchess of York (later Queen Mary) tried 3 times to break the champagne bottle on the steel hull, but it just bounced off. Despite this bad omen, the launch went ahead. The 12,950 tons batleship, then the largest of the ship ever built on Bow Creek and the wave it created as it slipped into the water smashed a temporary jetty between it and a ship under construction for the Japanese navy.
A huge crowd had turned up to watch the launch, and a large number had managed to get onto this jetty (which hadn’t been intended for such use.) 26 people were awarded Royal Humane Society Broze Medals for their attempts to save those in the water, but despite their bravery, 38 were killed. Hills was devastated. He personally visited the families of the bereaved and paid the funeral expenses, as well as contributing generously to the West Ham Council fund for the survivors.
In 1911, the Ironworks built the Thunderer, at 22,500 tons the Navy’s largest dreadnought and the last great ship (and the largest) to be built on the Thames. It was an order that broke the yard. Hills, his health gravely effected by the Albion disaster in 1891, had a stroke shortly before its launch. The company closed at the end of the year, but Hills lived on until 1927, dying a few days short of his 70th birthday.
Flat-pack Steamers
Should you visit Lake Titicaca in Peru, (The Sacred Lake and legendary birthplace of the Incas), you can see the steamship Yavari, now the only ‘working’ single-screw iron passenger ship in the world.
Ordered from Boulton & Watt in Birmingham by the Peruvian government as one of a pair of cargo-passenger ‘gunboats’, her iron hull (and that of her sister ship) was built in Bow Creek, in numbered pieces, none weighing more than 3.5 cwt, the heaviest that a mule could carry. The two ships were completely fitted out here, then carefully stripped down, numbered and colour-coded and crated for transit.
In 1862, they travelled on a ship around the Horn accompanied by 8 British engineers to Ordered from Boulton & Watt in Birmingham by the Peruvian government as one of a pair of cargo-passenger ‘gunboats’, her iron hull (and that of her sister ship) was built in Bow Creek, in numbered pieces, none weighing more than 3.5 cwt, the heaviest that a mule could carry. The two ships were completely fitted out here, then carefully stripped down, numbered and crated for transit. In 1862, they travelled by sea around the Horn accompanied by 8 British engineers to Arica, Peru, where the railway (the oldest in South America) took them the first 37 miles of the journey. The remaining 190 miles were to be by mule, and over mountain passes higher than anything in Europe up to the lake at 12, 500 ft, across the driest desert in the world. Meanwhile the engineers went ahead to build a jetty and machine shop on the lake. It took over 7 years for all the parts to arrive, and the Peruvian Navy in the meanwhile helped itself to the guns, which never made it.
Eventually the rest was there and the first ship, the Yavari was launched on Christmas day 1870. There was still a problem. There was no coal at Titicaca for the steam engines; the only fuel available was dried llama dung, and a simple journey along the 100 mile lake and back took 1,400 sacks. Its perhaps not surprising that the steam engine was replaced by a diesel in 1914. The ship continued in regular service until the 1950s. It was rediscovered in 1982, and found to be in excellent condition, thanks to the clean fresh water and high altitude of the lake, and is now preserved by a Peruvian charity.
The Memorial
At the top of the stairs leading down to the station barriers at Canning Town is a memorial to the Thames Ironworks by Richard Kindersley, unveiled by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1998. The large cast iron plate across its top is from the first iron Royal Navy vessel with a full iron hull, HMS Warrior, built around a quarter of a mile south of her by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in 1860.
The Warrior had 3 masts, two funnels and a screw propeller. When under fire, wooden ships splintered terribly and it was flying wood splinters that resulted in most injuries and deaths, and the use of iron cut this down. Other navies soon followed the example. The ship is restored and can be seen at Portsmouth.
The elegant engraving on the stonework in the middle of the stairway tells some of the story of the company. You can see a part of the company site (now empty) from the station platform.
3: Canning Town Transport Interchange
From Thames Ironworks memorial, look through the large glass windows towards the station, with its two level platforms. Walk along to see the bus station (which includes toilets) before taking the escalator down into to the bottom level of the station.
Canning Town DLR and Jubilee Line stations. Bus is in Bus Station
One of the better aspects of the LDDC, responsible for development from 1981-98 was the creation of the DLR and some other aspects of transport infrastructure. Widely derided as a ‘toy train’, the DLR has demonstrated the use of light railway technology.
The new Canning Town station replaced one to the north of the A13 on the North London Line, and opened as a DLR and Silverlink station in 1994, to close after a few months for a couple of years for the building of the Jubilee line. The station reopened – together with the adjoining bus station – in 1999.
North London Line services stopped in December 2006 in preparation for the DLR extension to Stratford International. The station has three levels; at the bottom is the booking hall and barriers, above that are the Jubilee line platforms, with the former NLL platforms at the same level to the east. The DLR lines and platforms are above those of the Jubilee Line.
This is perhaps the best example, indeed one of very few examples of an integrated transport interchange in London.
Bow Creek Walkway
As you walk past the ticket machines and office, in front you will see the exit from the station to the Bow Creek Walkway, completed in the 1990s, but still not open to the public.
Weeds on the walkway – now open but still incomplete
Newham has at least one other example of an expensively constructed foot path in a similar limbo. In this case the reason is said to be that the various parties involved, which include Tower Hamlets and Newham have been unable to reach an agreement about the ownership and liabilities involved.
Canning Town & West Silvertown: Recently I published here a few pictures from a walk in this area in 2006. On 23 June 2007 I led a group visit around the area for London Arts Cafe, LAC, an organisation that ceased to exist a few years later, then devoted to “viewing, expressing and discovering all forms of urban art“.
Although the LAC has long been wound up, I had been responsible for its website, and decided to leave it online – with a clear message that the organisation no longer existed – as a historical record which still contained much interesting material – including the backgrounds of notes that I wrote for the walk I led around the area in June 2007.
As I wrote on My London Diary in 2007, “there was much to look at, including public art, relics of the docks and the new developments that make this one of the largest of current regeneration areas.”
You can still read the ‘Canning Town Walk (June 2007)’ in full on the LAC web site, beginning here and split into ten sections, each with its own page. You are welcome to print it out and follow it for your own walk around what is still a very interesting area of London, though you will note some changes. Here I’ll include the few pictures from these pages, mainly taken on 21 June on my final planning trip for the walk a few days later with a few others, mainly from the same era.
Bow Creek from Canning Town Station DLR platform
It’s a walk that like many I made in the area was based around the Docklands Light Railway which had made transport to the area much simpler. The area has changed in many ways since 2007, not always as I expected, but I think the walk is still a good guide to the area.
Canning Town Walk (June 2007)
1 Introduction
The walk starts at the top of the stairs leading up from Canning Town Station to the Bus Station.
The DLR runs south, to Beckton and North Woolwich (now to Woolwich Arsenal). At left is the tunnel entrance for the Jubilee Line
You can read this on your way to Canning Town Transport Interchange, served by various bus routes, the Jubilee Line and the Docklands Light Railway (DLR.)
DLR platforms and buses in the bus station at Canning Town
Canning Town is in the London Borough of Newham. The latest census showed the population of Newham to be 61% non-white – the highest proportion for any British borough. 41% of the population are under 24 – the highest figure in England and Wales. It has the second highest proportion in the country of three ethnic groups, Asians, Bangladeshis and Black Africans.
Dockside cranes – the Royal Docks closed to commercial traffic in 1981.
Unemployment in Newham is 6.7%, higher than any London borough other than Hackney. Youth unemployment is particularly high, as is the number of unemployed single parents. Canning Town has in the past been one of the most deprived areas of the borough on most social measures.
Demolition at Pura Foods on Bow Creek in September 2006. Bow Creek runs around three sides of the site
Canning Town has Bow Creek – the lower reaches of the River Lea – at its western edge. The Lea is the traditional border between civilisation (Middlesex) and Essex and when the London Building Act of 1844 proscribed noxious industries from London, a more over the river found a laxer regime.
Demolition of Pura Foods, a noxious edible oils works, was almost complete in 2007
The 1840s were also the age of rail building, and the railway companies saw the potential of this riverside area, known as the Plaistow levels, several miles of empty marsh between Bow and Barking Creeks. One of them bought up the area at a knock-down price, and started making plans for docks that their railway could service.
Tate & Lyle originally built two competing sugar works; later the two businesses joined.
The first major industry to move onto a riverside location was C J Mare’s shipbuilding firm in 1846, soon followed by a glass factory owned by the brothers Howard. In 1852, S W Silver & Co, the Cornhill outfitters, set up a factory on the Thames to make rubber coated garments (an idea they borrowed from a Mr Charles Mackintosh.)
More detail about the Thames Ironworks in the Part 2 of my June 2007 Canning Town walk document which will be a later post.
One of the best-known businesses in the area was the ship-builders Thames Ironworks who were founded to take over Mare’s several sites in the area in 1857. They were the last of the London shipbuilders, specialising in their later years in building warships and mail steamers. The company finally closed in 1912-3, but the football club set up by managing director and philanthropist Arnold Hills for its workers in 1895 had changed its name in 1900 to West Ham United.
Last week I was pleased to attend the opening of a heritage pavilion, the Boat House, at Cody Dock on Bow Creek, which uses the fully restored Frederick Kitchen lifeboat as its roof. This is thought to have been the last craft completed by the Thames Ironworks in 1913.
More detail about the Thames Ironworks in the next part of my June 2007 Canning Town walk document.
1994 London Colour – City, Limehouse & Canning Town: More of my colour pictures made in July or the start of August 1994, in the City of London, Limehouse and at the Royal Victoria Dock in Canning Town.
Red Chairs, London, 1994, 94-722-51
I can no longer remember where I saw this circle of chairs, left after a celebration of some kind. Reflected in the background I can see myself looking in, probably from one of the highwalks in the City, with a whole range of buildings behind me, none of which I can immediately recognise. I am standing in sunlight, which shines on the foreground chairs, but the back of the room is in fluorescent lighting, giving it an unnatural blued-green tint. A single empty glass on the decorated table and a stubbed out cigarette on the floor remain from the earlier gathering.
Fleet Place, City, 1994, 94-722-26
Fleet Place is immediately east of City Thameslink Station and this is one of London’s private pedestrian areas – like Broadgate and Canary Wharf – where various activities, including photography are not permitted.
Fleet Place, City, 1994, 94-723-61
I took a few pictures in Fleet Place on several occasions but was usually then approached by the private security men and told that photography was not allowed. But I generally work fairly quickly, though using the panoramic camera is rather slower than a normal camera as it needs careful levelling. But usually by the time I was told I could not take photographs I had already done so and was happy to leave the premises. But I think I took this in rather a hurry and underexposed it – perhaps seeing the man approaching.
A skeleton around the spine of a tower block in Limehouse, with the wall paper and paint of the flats that were once attached.
Car Sales, Royal Navy, pub, 53 Salmon Lane, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1994, 94-803-44
Car sales and the typical bunting around them on the corner of Condor Street aand Salmon Lane. The Royal Navy pub at 53 Salmon Lane was open by 1856 but closed permanently in 1999 and was converted into flats four years later.
The Tidal Basin Pumping Station designed by Richard Rogers and built in 1998 is one of the three pumping stations that prevent the former marshy areas to the north of the Royal Docks from flooding, pumping out surface water into the Thames, allowing their redevelopment by the LDDC. It was built in a colourful post-modern fashion in a deliberate attempt to provide a colourful accent in the area.
Warehouses, Royal Victoria Dock, Canning Town, Newham, 1994, 94-723-25
The part of the dock in the left foreground has now been built over, but six cranes remain on the dockside.
Royal Victoria Dock, Canning Town, Newham, 1994, 94-803-61
Spillers Millenium Mills were “designed and built by millers William Vernon & Sons of West Float, Birkenhead in 1905” and were the last of the large mills built on the dock, following those of the Cooperative Wholesale Society and Joseph Rank. All the mills were damaged by the 1917 Silvertown explosion. Spillers took over the mill in 1920 and rebuilt it “as a 10-storey concrete art deco building in 1933.” Badly damaged by bombing it was again rebuilt after the war, reopening in 1953. The dock closed in 1981, and the other buildings in the picture have since been demolished.
Bow Creek and Poplar Panoramas: It was before Christmas that I posted the previous set of panoramic images I made in July 1994 along the DLR between Poplar and Beckton, DLR – Connaught Rd & Bow Creek 1994. Here is the final set I made then.
Another picture taken from the East India Dock Road, looking down at Wharfside Road and the sawmills with their address on Barking Road. The road layouts here have changed with the building of Newham Way flyover and I think Barking Road which earlier began at the ‘Iron Bridge’ over Bow Creek now only starts at the roundabout about 250 yards or so to the east.
As the noticeboard states the entrance to the site is from Wharfside Road on the opposite side of the road, and any driver unfortunate to read the sign would be faced with a long detour to reach it.
M&J Reuben Ltd was founded in 1895 and seems to have moved from the area in 2004 when the then managing director David Reuben retired. London Sawmills Ltd also had timber sheds at Hercules Wharf in Orchard Place closer to the mouth of Bow Creek.
Bow Creek appears on both sides of this roughly 130 degree view, upstream at right, flowing under the bridges and in a long loop and coming up at the left past Pura Foods where London City Island now is, before turning round the other side of Pura foods to flow down to the Thames.
Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1994, 94-720-12
Moving a few yards to the west along East India Dock Road I made this picture standing on the bridge. The Iron Bridge, built in 1810, was the first road bridge to use cast-iron columns and made a new lower route across Bow Creek. It has now been replaced and the current bridge is concrete.
On the left of the river is Essex Wharf, with the sawmills out of picture to the left. The first bridge on the river, a pipe bridge for a large gas pipe, was demolished soon after, but its brick piers remain. The second bridge is now the ‘Blue Bridge’ though in my picture it is grey. A third, a disused single track rail bridge, is hidden by those in front.
Construction work, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1994, 94-721-62
A little further on but I think still on or close to the East India Dock Road I made this picture looking across a construction site, the DLR, Bow Creek and Pura Foods. I think that the tunnel which connects East India Dock Road to Aspen Way is under the site here.
Aspen Way, East India DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1994, 94-720-51
East India Dock Station on Aspen Way, looking west. At left is the Telehouse South and the Blackwall Tunnel ventilation shafts. Then along the horizon some 1930s council flats and buildings aroudn Canary Wharf including the tower. On the other side of the DLR viaduct is the Grade II listed former hydraulic pumping station in Naval Row and over the dock wall the ugly 1990s buildings on the former East India Dock.
DLR, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1994, 94-721-11
Finally a view through the rear window of a DLR train on its way from Poplar to Canary Wharf. Poplar Station can just be seen under the long footbridge across the DLR and the Wes India Dock Road. At left is the DLR line towards Tower Gateway.
The next post in this series of my colour pictures will feature pictures made in July 1994 here and elsewhere using a normal camera.
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.
Bridges, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, East India, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1994, 94-719-61
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.
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.
