entrance lock | >Re-PHOTO

Ratcliff Highway and Limehouse Basin: My first photographic walk in 1990 came at the end of the Christmas and New Year season on 6th January 1990 when I returned to Limehouse for another walk. I’d taken quite a few pictures there back in 1984 and I thought it was time for another extensive visit. Getting there was easier now that the DLR ran to Limehouse. I left the station and walked down Branch Road.

*Scout HQ, Branch Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 89-12d-46*

Obviously not built as a Scout HQ, but something rather more official, and this was built in 1898 as the Stepney Borough Coroner’s Court.

Branch Road was apparently earlier called Horseferry Branch Road and led to a ferry across the Thames here – and Branch Road still leads to a road called Horseferry Rd. An ancient ferry ran from Ratcliff Cross Stairs and would have taken horses and carts as well as people across to Rotherhithe. You can still go down to the foreshore here from Narrow Street down the Grade II listed stairs but of course there is no ferry. The listing is probably more for the historic interest of the site – the stairs themselves are are relatively modern concrete replacement and the ancient causeway here apparently disappeared around 2000.

*Tubular Barriers, The Queens Head, The Highway, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 89-12d-34*

At 491 The Highway – formerly known as Ratcliffe Highway – close to the corner with Butcher Row – the Queens Head pub to the right of this view – was demolished soon after I made this picture in 1990, along with the rest of these buildings. At the left is a sign for the Limehouse Link tunnel, built between 1989 and 1993 and I think this was a storage yard for the work. The western end of the tunnel is a short distance to the east.

*Electrocute Murdoch, Tubular Barriers, 493, The Highway, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 89-12d-35*

Another part of the Tubular Barriers site on The Highway which I think I photographed mainly for the graffiti ‘ELECTROCUTE MURDOCH’ on its wall. I think this was at the corner with Butcher Row. Though the company name also made me think of the Mike Oldfield album Tubular Bells.

There had been a particularly bitter and hard fought (sometimes literally) fight over the opening of Murdoch’s News International print works at Wapping in 1986, following the dismissal of all 6000 of the print workers at the previous Fleet Street hot metal print plant.

*Works, 503-9, The Highway, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 89-12d-25*

Control of the development of the Docklands areas was in 1981 taken away from the local authorities and given to the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) a quango agency set up by Margaret Thatcher’s Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine. Although this resulted in a faster regeneration of the area this was largely driven by the interests of global capital and often went against the interests and needs of the local communities. This whole area was demolished around 1990. I did wonder if the three-storey building might be a former pub.

*Works, 503-9, The Highway, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 89-12d-12*

Notices on the shop-front at right read

‘DOCKLANDS LOCAL
PLUMBERS & ELECTRICIANS

CAN THE LDDC LEGALLY
STEAL OUR LAND?
57 MEN
TO LOSE THEIR JOBS’

The LDDC had wide ranging powers and legalised thefts such as this. It was an area in need of redevelopment and the LDDC got this moving at pace, but it would have been far better to have found ways to retain former businesses and provide more social housing and other community assets.

Limehouse Dock, Redevelopment, 1990, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 90-12d-14 — *Limehouse Basin, Redevelopment, 1990 Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 89-12d-14*

Much of the area around Limehouse Basin was derelict in 1990 as this view from the south shows. At the right is St Anne’s Limehouse.

*Entrance Lock, River Thames, Limehouse Basin, Narrow St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1a-63*

Considerable building work was taking place around the lock linking Limehouse Basin to the River Thames.

This is the ship lock and there had once been two narrower barge locks a short distance west. The ship lock was built slantwise to make for and easier entry by larger ships (up to 2000 tons) from the river and was a part of its enlargement in 1869. The lock had two compartments with three gates. In 1990 the outer gates to the Thames were still in place (in pictures not yet digitised) but no longer in use and the other two replaced by this much narrower single lock, suitable for the smaller vessels now using the Basin as a Marina.

*Entrance, Limehouse Basin, Narrow St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1a-53*

A building for Limehouse Waterside and Marina on the corner of the 1869 Ship Lock and Limehouse Basin. Running across on the opposite side of the water is London’s third oldest railway viaduct, built in 1840 for the London and Blackwall Railway and now in use for the DLR.

More from Limehouse in a later post.

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Manchester Holiday: Friday 3rd August 2018. Manchester perhaps isn’t everyone’s idea of a holiday destination, but we spent a very enjoyable short break there at the start of August 2018. It was a nostalgia trip for me and Linda, as this was the city we met in and lived for a couple of years after our marriage, though since we’d only returned for an occasional conference usually somewhere in its outskirts and seen little of the city.

On My London Diary you can read a long and rather profusely illustrated account of our 2018 visit, when we stayed in a budget hold overlooking the Ashton canal a short walk from the city centre. But here I’ll just post a few details and pictures of our activities on the Friday we were there.

After a rather long buffet breakfast we walked into the centre and caught a bus to East Didsbury for a walk beside the River Mersey there. Didsbury is a suburb and an area we knew well although we had only lived a couple of miles closer to the city centre in Rusholme, an inner city area.

We had once or twice in the 60’s walked by the Mersey, I think then rather covered with detergent foam. This time it was clearer and cleaner looking, but despite having a walk leaflet and a map we managed to get rather lost. Fortunately we eventually managed to find our way to Fletcher Moss where the gardens are worth a visit, though I found the cafe something of a disappointment. After a quick visit across the road to Parsonage Gardens we caught a bus back into Manchester.

We got off the bus at Oxford Road station and walked across to see a show at a trendy art gallery close to Deansgate station, where as I commented “the most interesting thing on the walls were the 13 amp sockets.” Walking further on we crossed the “hidden footbridge” over the canal to another gallery where I found work more to my taste. This whole Castlefields area is one that when we lived in the city was a commercial area around the canals, more or less hidden from the public and has now changed completely.

Here now is one of Mancester’s largest and most interesting museums, where we had spend some time the previous day, but now made another short visit before continuing to follow “a published but extremely vague walk around the area” which took us to the developing ‘St John’s Quarter’ which was then expected to be completed by 2022.

For me one of the highlights of our visit was the overgrown entrance lock to the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal, built in 1839 to let boats pass from the Irwell to the Rochdale Canal without having to pay the exorbitant tolls on the Bridgewater Canal. It was also a more convenient route from the Manchester, Bolton and Bury canal which ran into the Irwell around 130 metres downstream.

Much of the canal was underground and is still there, although navigation became impossible in 1875 when Central Station was built. The lock here was rebuilt in the 1980s and given a bascule bridge at its entrance to the Irwell as an attractive feature in front of the new Victoria and Albert Hotel, but has since again become derelict.

We continued to follow the walk to St John’s Gardens, where there the family grave and two memorials to the founder of Owen’s college, the forerunner of Manchester University and then on to the former Owens College Building before before walking back into the centre to follow a little of an architectural trail which took us to the Town Hall and then to a Wetherspoon’s named after its architect.

After dinner there was enough time for a little more of the trail before we made our way back to the hotel tired after a long day. We should have given ourselves a week or more rather than just three nights stay to revisit the city.

Longer descriptions and many more pictures on My London Diary at Manchester Visit

Tag: entrance lock

Ratcliff Highway and Limehouse Basin – 1990

Manchester Holiday – 2018