Emmett St | >Re-PHOTO

Around Emmett Street, Limehouse: My walk in Limehouse on Sunday 6th January 1990 continued. The previous post from this walk is Three Colt Street & Limekiln Dock – 1990.

Datakeep, Emmet St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-13 — *Datakeep, Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-13*

You won’t find Emmett Street on a map of Limehouse now. It ran from the southern end of Three Colt Street to meet West Ferry Road a few yards to the north of the Limehouse Entrance and Limehouse Basin the the West India Docks. Along its west side were a number of wharves – Taylor’s Wharf, Aberdeen Wharf, River Plate Wharf etc, the dry docks of Limekiln Dockyard and Limehouse Dry Dock and a dock at Aberdeen Wharf. This area was Limehouse Hole and included Limehouse Stairs from which a ferry once ran to Rotherhithe from what later became called Limehouse Pier.

*Milligan St, Limehouse Causeway, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-15*

Dundee Wharf, Aberdeen Wharf and the River Plate Wharf were were all part of the Dunbar Wharves. They ran regular twice weekly services to Scotland as well as importing goods from around the world – including meat from Argentina, and Oxo cubes were at one time wrapped here.

*Datakeep, River Thames, Milligan St, Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-16*

Emmett Street had at some time been known as Limekiln Hill – and West Ferry Road was earlier Bridge Road. These names were still used on the 1870 OS map, although The Survey of London says it was known as Emmett Street about 1830.

*Datakeep, Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1c-63*

The land in this area was owned by the Emmett family who began selling it off in 1809 but their name remained on the street until it was completely obliterated with the building of the Limehouse Link Tunnel shortly after I made these pictures.

*Datakeep, Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1c-64*

Much of the area had been cleared earlier by wartime bombing and the some large warehouses were rebuilt in the following years. The remaining 1870s warehouses were demolished in 1971-2 and the rest destroyed for the building of the road tunnel and Canary Riverside including Westferry Circus. You can read a detailed and well-illustrated article Limehouse Hole by Mick Lemmerman on the Isle of Dogs web Site.

Datakeep set out to provide secure storage for computer backup tapes in the largest warehouse in the area, formerly use for tea and coffee. The company later stored all kinds of things, including a 1935 vintage Bentley and offered a wide range of services to companies for their stored items.

More from Limehouse in a later post.

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St Anne's Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-32-positive_2400 — *St Anne’s Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-32*

Church, Pyramid, Star of the East – More Limehouse
My walk around Limehouse came back to the area I think of as its heart, close to St Anne’s Church, one of the Queen Anne Churches built after the 1711 Act of Parliament and consecrated in 1730. St Anne’s is one of the six London churches by Nicholas Hawksmoor along with St Alfege’s Greenwich, St George’ Bloomsbury, Christ Church, Spitalfields, St George in the East Wapping andhis only church in the City of London, St Mary Woolnoth.

St Anne's Churchyard, St Anne's Passage, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-34-positive_2400 — *St Anne’s Churchyard, St Anne’s Passage, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-34*

I turned my back on the church to photograph the entrance gate to the churchyard.

Limehouse Pyramid, St Anne's Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-36-positive_2400 — *Limehouse Pyramid, St Anne’s Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-36*

The church has featured in many books and publications, including the work of psychogeographers and other more esoteric and mystical writers, and seems to have a special place in the works of believers in ley lines. I’ve not read or seen the film ‘Dark Lines Of London’, but a web page claims to give “Factual Information That Provides the Backdrop to the Story” and includes descriptions and photographs of 10 sites, all from centuries after that in which the story is set, along “a real ley line” one of which is this “Wisdom Of Solomon” Pyramid.

Princes Lodge, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-22-positive_2400 — *Princes Lodge, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-22*

THE 4TH CONFERENCE of the Situationist International was held in London, at a secret address in the East End, 24-28 September 1960, seventeen months after the Munich Conference (April 1959). The situationists assembled in London were: Debord, Jacqueline de Jong, Jorn, Kotányi, Katja Lindell, Jörgen Nash, Prem, Sturm, Maurice Wyckaert and H.P. Zimmer. In fact, to ensure that the proceedings were kept well away from any contact with London journalists or artistic circles, the conference took place at the British Sailors Society hall in Limehouse, “an area famous for its criminals”.
Internationale Situationniste #5

Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-23-positive_2400 — *Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-23*

Built in the early 19th century and Grade II listed the Star of the East was serving beer at least from 1845. More recently the building had deteriorated and closed as a pub around 2010, was reopened a couple of years later but closed again in 2016. The pub was then taken over and refurbished by the Old Spot Pub Co, who run around a dozen pubs re-opening again in 2019.

Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-11-positive_2400 — *Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-11*

You can read more about its recent transformation and see some photographs from London Pub Explorer. I’ve yet to return to see for myself. Back in 1988 part of the building was a separate restaurant, but I think the pub now occupies the whole building. The refurbishment appears to have kept at least some of the original interior features.

Bate St, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-14-positive_2400 — *Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-14*

Three Colt St, which has St Anne’s Church at its northern end is one of the oldest roads in the area, part of the route from Limehouse to Stepney and first recorded in 1362. In the Victorian era it was flanked by a number of shops and was something of a middle-class enclave surrounded on both sides by extreme poverty. Little remains from those times. The building here is the former London and Blackwall Railway station, probably dating from the opening of the railway in 1840. The station closed in 1926, but the line remained in use for goods traffic until the 1960s. When the line was reused for the Docklands Light Railway in 1987, Westferry station was built around 300 yards to the east.

Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-16-positive_2400 — *Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-16*

Not only this building but the street that it was in have disappeared since I made this picture. Emmett St was at the end of Three Colt St, roughly where the Limehouse Link tunnel entrance is now. Construction of the tunnel began in November 1989 and the project was officially opened in May 1993, at £293,000,000 the most expensive per mile road scheme ever built in the UK, a huge public subsidy to the Canary Wharf redevelopment.

When Mucho Macho released ‘The Limehouse Link’ in 1998 it had one of my pictures wrapped around both the CD and the 12″ LP, where it looked rather more impressive. But this image was from Poplar – and this is the full image from the Urban Landscapes web site and doesn’t show the Limehouse Link at all.

Clicking on any of the black and white images above will take you to a larger version in my 1988 London Photos from where you can browse the album.

Tag: Emmett St

Around Emmett Street, Limehouse 1990

Church, Pyramid, Star of the East – More Limehouse