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Canning Town Walk (2007): 10

10 Riverside

This is the final part of this walk.

Take the DLR from Pontoon Dock to East India Station. [There is now a train every 10 minutes during normal hours.]

Canning Town Walk (2007): 10 Riverside C) 2007, Peter Marshall

From the platform level you get good views, both through the windows and at each end of the long platform, of the Park, Barrier Point, Royal Victoria Dock and elsewhere.

The train journey provides some of the best views of the riverside properties in this area, which otherwise are often impossible to access. It also gives a rapid overview of an area that is time-consuming to access on foot.

Canning Town Walk (2007): 10 Riverside C) 2007, Peter Marshall
Barrier Point from the DLR

You should have no problem in identifying one of the Tate & Lyle buildings on the route, as well as Akzo Nobel, although you may recognise some of their brand-names – such as Crown, Bergger and International Paints, Sandtex and Sadolin – more easily. [I think only the Tate & Lyle Plaistow Wharf factory remains. Much was demolished to build Royal Wharf, as well as to the west of Plaistow Wharf where the land now remains empty.]

From the train you can also see the mouth of the River Lea and Trinity Buoy Wharf with its lighthouse and stack of containers in use as artists studios, as well of course as the Millennium Dome.

After Canning Town station, the line curves around the River Lea and climbs through the ecological reserve at Bow Creek and over the viaduct across Bow Creek. This section of the DLR was built in 1994 for the Becton extension.

From East India you have the choice continuing on the DLR towards the centre of London (change at Poplar for the DLR to Canary Wharf and the Jubilee Line), or taking a journey back to Canning Town.

If you have time and energy for a further walk, go north out of the station onto East India Dock Road and after crossing Bow Creek follow the path beside the creek to go over the Lower Lea Crossing. Again this elevated bridge gives good views across the Thames and Bow Creek to the south. [Now you can if you wish take a short cut by going out of the Bow Creek exit of the station, across the red bridge and through London City Island to the Lower Lea Crossing.]

When the bridge descends to a roundabout under the Silvertown Viaduct, you can either continue under it to Royal Victoria Station, or cross the road just before the roundabout and take the steps up to the top of the viaduct and walk to Canning Town station.

You can read the whole document as I published it in 2007 beginning here and see more pictures I took in 2007 on My London Diary at Canning Town, Victoria Dock, Silvertown West.

Canning Town Walk (2007): 7

7 Royal Victoria Docks from the footbridge

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.

Canning Town Walk (2007): 7 Royal Victoria Docks from the footbridge

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.

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.

You can read the whole document as I published it in 2007 beginning here and see more pictures I took in 2007 on My London Diary at canning town, victoria dock, silvertown west.

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Stratford & Silvertown – 2006

Newham

Stratford & Silvertown: One of the shorter posts I wrote on My London Diary was about my trip to Silvertown and Stratford in East London on 21st June 2006. Here it is in full, just as I published it then:

on wednesday 21st i took the DLR to stations in silvertown, taking pictures from the train, the platforms and around the stations. then i went to stratford to make more pictures there.

I left home in mid-afternoon and began photographing from the DLR a little after 4pm. It was a fine day and I was going to join a walk around Stratford in the evening by the Greater London Industrial Archaelogy Society and had a couple of hour before I was to meet with them at Stratford Station.

It was almost a year since London had been awarded the 2012 Olympics and I had made a number of visits to the Olympic area to record it before the huge changes that were about to take place.

The DLR extension to King George V station in North Woolwich had opened in December 2005, but had yet made little impact on the surrounding area. Construction had already begun on its extension under the River Thames to Woolwich Arsenal which opened in January 2009.

The line is largely elevated on a concrete viaduct which gives extensive views of the area. As the trains are driver-less I was able to sit at the front of the train and photograph through the front window. Then the DLR was relatively little used and at least on schooldays there was little competition for the front seats – and I think the train windows were usually cleaner.

Trains on the line were then reasonably frequent so I was able to get off at various stations to walk around a little and then return to the station to continue my journey, including a visit to Lyle Park with views across the River Thames.

The station platforms also provide elevated viewpoints to photograph the area. I went as far as Silvertown station and then made my way back to Stratford.

Here I left the train to join the GLIAS walk around the area to the south of the Olympic site, including the Carpenters Estate, a popular council estate close to the station which Newham were then trying to empty and sell off against local opposition, Stratford High Street and the Waterworks River.

By the time this evening walk ended although it was the middle of June the light was fading, though I think this picture exaggerates this a little.

There are quite a few more pictures on My London Diary, beginning here, but I took many more that day, particularly on the evening walk. Perhaps I will post more from this here some time.

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