Posts Tagged ‘Fish Island’

Cable Street, Fish Island & Hackney Wick

Sunday, October 2nd, 2022

Cable Street, Fish Island & Hackney Wick

On Sunday 2 October 2011 a march and rally celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable St, when when Mosley’s fascists were prevented from marching into London’s largely Jewish East End.

Cable Street, Fish Island & Hackney Wick

Over a thousand trade unionists and anti-fascists came to march along Cable St remembering the day, including the then TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O’Grady, and the marchers were led by Max Levitas who had been at the battle in 1936, then aged 21, and remained active as an anti-fascist until his death in 2018, including serving for a total of 15 years as a Communist coucillor in Stepney.

Cable Street, Fish Island & Hackney Wick

At the rally close to the fine Cable Street mural we were reminded that official bodies including the Board of Deputies of British Jews had advised people to stay away from Mosley’s march and that the local opposition was organised largely by the Communist Party of Great Britain, led by Phil Piratin, who nine ears later became Communist MP for Mile End. As well as large number of local people, both Jews and others, thousands of others opposed to fascism flocked in to defend the area.

An estimated 1-300,000 people gathered at all the roads leading into the East End, determined to stop the march on October 4th by 3,000 uniformed fascists. The fascists waited outside the Royal Mint while 7,000 Metropolitan Police, including their entire mounted section and an autogiro (a primitive form of helicopter with an unpowered rotor) overhead, attempted to clear a route for them.

When the anti-fascists heard the police were trying to force a route along Cable Street, Irish dockers, Jewish tailors and other anti-fascists built three barricades across the street with thousands arriving to stop the police clearing the street. Eventually Mosley abandoned the march and took his supporters back towards Hyde Park.

There were around 175 people injured, men, women and police and around 150 arrests. Most were charged with obstructing the police and received fines, typically of £5, but some thought to be ringleaders were sentenced to three months hard labour.

The event raised public awareness of the British Union of Fascists and led to the passage of the 1936 Public Order Act which prohibited the wearing of political uniforms in public except for ceremonial occasions, outlawed paramilitary organisations, banned offensive weapons at public meetings and gave power to the police to impose conditions on marches and arrest unruly counter-demonstrators. It also allowed the Home Secretary to ban protests in a area where serious disorder was likely and made it an offence to use “insulting words likely to cause a breach of the peace” in public speeches.

Mosley continued to have many supporters in the East End after the battle, and Bethnal Green was one of his strongholds. There were gangs of fascist youths in Mile End who assaulted Jews on the street and smashed the windows of Jewish homes and shops.

Hettie Bower (left)

Levitas was not the only veteran of the 1936 battle at the event, and there were other veteran antifacists taking part too. The oldest was was 106 year old Hetty Bower, still looking extremely well, and walking with the aid of a stick. Rather younger at 94, Beattie Orwell was still looking very sprightly and had been at the battle at the age of 19.

There were also banners from the Spanish Civil War which was also taking place 75 years ago, as well as those from many trade unions and political groups including those representing the newer communities of the area, with local activists reminding those present of the continuing need to fight against fascism and racism, and in particular the need to oppose the English Defence League, who just a few weeks earlier had attempted to march into Tower Hamlets but had been stopped by a popular mobilisation.

A short distance away in Grace Alley Wilton’s Music Hall, the oldest surviving Grand Music Hall in the world, was hosting a four day programme of events commemorating Cable St with various performances, book launches, exhibitions and stalls, street theatre and music along the alley outside.

Battle of Cable St – 75 Years.


Fish Island, Olympic Views & Hackney Wick

Olympic Stadium from Forman’s roof

I left Cable Street and took a bus to Bethnal Green, then walked along the Roman Road and and on across the motorway to Fish Island, on my way to visit the gallery space on the top floor of Forman’s, salmon smokers and one of the few local businesses that seems to have done well out of the Olympics.

Footbridge across the Hertford Union Canal to Hackney Wick

They had been moved from a factory more or less where the Olympic Stadium was being built to new modern premises on the opposite bank of the Lea navigation, designed and painted salmon pink to look like a lump of salmon and appropriately in the area known from its street names as Fish Island. As well as the smoking plant it also houses a restaurant and a large art space, with views over the Olympic site both from the front of the gallery and the adjoining roof terrace.

Shoreditch High St

After viewing the exhibition and taking some photographs there I walked from Fish Island over the footbridge to Hackney Wick, visiting a lively street market there and then walking along the Lea Navigation towpath to the Westway and back into Hackney Wick for a bus back though the City and on the Waterloo.

More pictures at Fish Island, Olympic Views & Hackney Wick.


Bank, London Bridge, Fish Island, Hackney Wick

Sunday, May 15th, 2022

Bank, Victoria Park, Fish Island, Hackney Wick: In 1988 I was still teaching a full timetable at the sixth-form and community college where I worked, but because I took an evening class on Tuesdays I was able to finish the week’s teaching at noon on Friday. As a union rep I had persuaded my members against national union advice to some deviations from the national conditions that suited the peculiar circumstances of the college and made such arrangements possible.

Most of the pictures I made back in 1988 were either taken during the college holidays – we kept more or less normal school terms – or at weekends, but at noon on some Fridays I would rush down to the caretakers stores where I kept my bike, pedal home furiously, dump the bike, pick up my camera bag and rush to the station for a train to London. Until the clocks went back at the end of October there was then time for a few hours walking and taking pictures – in late October sunset is around 5.45pm. I think the pictures in this post were probably taken on the last occasion that year that my journey was worthwhile.

Doorway, Bank Station, Bank, City, 1988 88-10d-25-Edit_2400
Doorway, Bank Station, Bank, City, 1988 88-10d-25

I didn’t make many pictures on this Friday afternoon – around 16 black and white frames and perhaps two or three in colour, perhaps partly because I broke my journey to make this picture. Rather than taking the train from Richmond to Homerton or Hackney Wick, I went up to Waterloo and took the Waterloo & City line to Bank. I’d some time earlier photographed this doorway at Bank station and had for reasons now unknown to me decided I needed another and different image. Possibly I’d been reminded of it when the earlier picture, a closeup of the three heads, was used on a bookjacket.

It perhaps took me a few minutes at Bank to find the doorway still there on King William Street on the side of the splendid Hawksmoor church of St Mary Woolnuth. Having make the single exposure shown here, I made my way to a bus stop for a No 8 bus to Bethnal Green and then walked up Grove Road to Victoria Park.

Old London Bridge, stone alcove, Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10d-26-Edit_2400
Old London Bridge, stone alcove, Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10d-26

I’d realised when I got home from my previous walk that I had not photographed the shelters which were stone alcoves from the Old London Bridge. That bridge, built in 1176-1209 had until 1760 been cluttered with houses and shops, leaving only a narrow path across the river. These were cleared in 1760-63, more than doubling the width of the bridge, and seven stone alcoves were installed along each side.

The bridge was demolished in 1831, but these alcoves were sold and two found there way to Victoria Park when it was opened in 1845. Another is in a courtyard at Guy’s Hospital and two ended up on an estate in East Sheen along with some of the balustrade, though only one now remains in the grounds of some 1930s flats at Courtlands, close to the 1st Richmond Scouts HQ.

Percy Dalton, Dace Rd, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-9h-46
Percy Dalton, Dace Rd, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-9h-46

From Victoria Park I walked across the footbridge over the East Cross Route to Hackney Wick, then turning south and making my way down Wansbeck Road to the Northern Outfall Sewer on Wick Lane. Steps there took me down to Dace Road and along to Old Ford Locks. Unfortunately although I took a few picture on the walk, none are among those I’ve digitised. So here’s one I took in 1990 on Dace Road of Percy Dalton’s peanut factory.

Loading Bay, Lock, Old Ford, Lea navigation, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-61-Edit_2400
Loading Bay, Lock, Old Ford, Lea navigation, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-61

I walked across the gates at Old Ford Lock and took a few pictures there, including this one of the loading bay at Swan Wharf.

Bridge, White Post Lane, Lea Navigation, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-62-Edit_2400
Bridge, White Post Lane, Lea Navigation, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-62

The I walked north on the towpath. Now there are two new bridges on this stretch, from Stour Road and Monier Road, but in 1988 the next crossing was at White Post Lane.

Bridge, White Post Lane, Lea Navigation, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-65-Edit_2400
Bridge, White Post Lane, Lea Navigation, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-65

At left is the splendid 1913-14 Queen’s Yard works, part of the Clarke, Nickolls & Coombs Ltd “Clarnico” sweet and chocolate factory, formerly the largest employer in the area. Much of their five works were damaged or destroyed by wartime bombing and this building needed some restoration. The company was bought by Trebor in 1969 and the works closed. The white building fronting the canal beyond the bridge was the cocoa bean roasting factory built around 1900.

I walked over the bridge and along to Hackney Wick station for a train to Richmond on my way home.


Thunderbird, Olympic Park & Transphobia at the Mail

Tuesday, October 19th, 2021

On Friday 19th October 2018 ‘Commander Neil Godwin Tracy’ of International Rescue came from Tracy Island carrying his ship Thunderbird 2 to the Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in London to offer his organisation’s assistance to produce policies which which recognise the desperate need to cut carbon emissions to avoid disastrous global warming and climate change by banning all fracking.

Campaigners say BEIS has spent more time on changing its name than developing sensible policies, and the ministry refused his generous offer of health, and security removed the International Rescue poster he tried to past to the front wall. Police requested he remove a second poster with the message ‘Fracking Awful Business’.

I had another event to cover later in the day and took the opportunity of the several hours between the two to pay a visit to the Olympic Park in Stratford, walking from the station through Stratford Westfield, a vast shopping centre I described as a 21st century version of Hell to do so.

I came out at the back of John Lewis and walked along the road towards the park, over the railway which takes Eurostar speeding through Stratford International station. There are more local trains that stop but I’ve yet to feel a need to go to either Ebbsfleet or Ashford (Kent) a place that has always seemed to me only to exist to confuse those who really want to go to Ashford, Middlesex, now called by the railway Ashford (Surrey).

The part of the park called the Waterglades was actually looking rather good, with the trees beginning to change colour, and I took rather a lot of pictures.

The lake was looking a very bright green. Soon I found I was at a dead end and needed to retrace my steps to cross the River Lea and make my way towards my destination through some of the more arid and desolate areas of the park.

There is a useful bridge now across the Lea Navigation to Hackney Wick where I had time to wander round and photograph some of the graffiti as I made my way to Fish Island and then on over the East Cross Route to catch a bus on Old Ford Road to Bethnal Green tube station.

Sister Not Cister UK had organised a protest outside the Daily Mail building in Kensington after articles demonising trans people, particularly trans women, in The Metro which they publish, and their printing an advertisement campaign for the hate group, “Fair Play for Women”.

The protesters, including many trans people, say that these attacks on the trans community will hurt the most marginalised – trans women, working class trans people and trans people of colour – who are also the most likely to be in need of the services that such hateful campaigners seek to deny them. More were arriving to join the protest when I decided I needed to leave for home.

Mail group end your transphobic hate
Olympic Park walk
BEIS refuse International Rescue help


Fish Island, Hertford Union & Old Ford

Sunday, January 3rd, 2021

Roach Road, Old Ford, Tower Hamlets, 1990  90-9h24_2400
Roach Rd, 1990

The Hertford Union Canal is a short canal which links the Lea Navigation at Hackney Wick to the Grand Union Canal in Bethnal Green, and so to the canal system across England and Wales. Just across the canal at the south of Hackney Wick was a largely industrial area with several street names – Dace Rd, Roach Rd, Bream St – gave it the name ‘Fish Island’. Always somewhat isolated with canals on two sides of a triangle, it became even more so with the building of the A12 East Cross Route effectively severing it on the third side. A new footbridge across the Hertford Union now makes it more accessible from Hackney Wick.

Hertford Union Canal, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36n-31_2400
Hertford Union, Fish Island, 1983

There were several timber yards along the Hertford Union, some still at work in the 1980s, although no longer served by the canal.

Hertford Union Canal, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36n-32_2400
Herford Union, 1983

There were still a few barges moored at some wharves in 1983.

Hertford Union Canal, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36n-34_2400
Hertford Union , 1983

Though most of the wharves – like this one with a roof extending over the canal – were empty. There were no boats moving on the canal when I walked beside it, and little wind to disturb the reflections.

Isle of Dogs Youth, Hertford Union Canal, Old Ford, Tower Hamlets, 1983t 36n-24_2400
Hertford Union , 1983

I’d seen the boat belonging to the Isle of Dogs Youth project moving on the Lea Navigation, but here it was moored, I think outside about the only former industrial building along the whole length of the canal which has not been replaced by flats, the Chisendale works, built in 1942-3 by Maurice Cohen as a factory, CHN Veneers, to glue together layers of wood to make parts for fighters and bombers, including Spitfire propellors. The factory closed in 1972 and was bought by Tower Hamlets Council and left empty. In 1980 they leased it to artists who had been evicted from Butlers Wharf close to Tower Bridge. It took them two years of work to clear the building and make it useable with two dance studios, 40 artists workshops and a public gallery as Chisenhale Art Place.

Hertford Union Canal, Old Ford, Tower Hamlets, 1983t 36n-22_2400
Hertford Union, 1983
A F Suter & Co, Swan Wharf, Dace Road, Old Ford, Tower Hamlets, 1990  90-9h35_2400
Dace Rd, 1990

A F Suter & Co’s building at Swan Wharf is in Dace Road at the south east of Fish Island, close to Old Ford Lock on the Lea Navigation.

Mural, Wick Lane, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36o-31_2400
Mural, Wick Lane, 1983

Wick Lane is one of two roads which lead out from Fish Island, both along its west edge, with Wansbeck Rd leading north to Hackney Wick and Wick Lane taking you across the East Cross Route to Bow. Pedestrians can also leave by crossing the Lea Navigation at Old Ford Lock or on the Northern Outfall Sewer (aka Greenway) or a footbridge across the East Cross Route to Old Ford.

All these pictures are in my Flickr album River Lea – Lea Navigation 1981-1992. You can also find them with other later pictures of the area on my web site: River Lea/Lee Valley.


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.