Posts Tagged ‘Poplar’

More Around the Meridian – 1995 Colour – Part 3

Tuesday, January 21st, 2025

More around the Meridian – It’s seldom possible to actually walk for more than a few yards actually on the Greenwich Meridian in London and while planning my Meridian Walk I often wandered around considerably, having to make detours and also looking for the more interesting routes. So not all these images are exactly on the Meridian, but most were taken within a short distance from it.

Greenway, Abbey Lane, Abbey Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1151
Greenway, Abbey Lane, Abbey Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1151

When I began this project the Meridian was not marked on the Ordnance Survey or Street maps, and one of may first tasks was to get a ruler and pencil it on to them. In 1999 it was added to the OS maps of the area, but does not seem to be on the latest versions. In 1995 there were no smart phones with online maps and GPS which would have made things so much easier.

Greenway, Abbey Lane, Abbey Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1152
Greenway, Abbey Lane, Abbey Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1152

The Greenway was the recently rebranded path above the Northern Outfall Sewer which rans across East London from Hackney Wick to the sewage treatment plant at Beckton, going under the road here close the the bridge over Abbey Creek on the Channelsea River, where Abbey Lane becomes Abbey Road. You can see the bridge at the left of the picture.

Greenway, Channelsea River,  Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1153
Greenway, Channelsea River, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1153

The Greenway is a great traffic-free cycle route for pedestrians and cyclists, running straight and level and this picture gives some evidence of that.

Channelsea River, Long Wall, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1111
Channelsea River, Long Wall, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1111

I’m not sure what this pipe was for, perhaps for taking gas across the river. Not far away on the other side of this tidal creek was one of the largest gas works in London – and you can still see its listed gasholders, though the view is likely to change soon with the site being redeveloped.

But behind me when I made this picture was the Abbey Mills sewage pumping station and on the edge of the creek below were the storm outfalls where sewage would be released after heavy rains. With the changing tides it would flow downstream a little and then could be taken miles upriver along the Prescott channel and the River Lea.

Gasholders, Leven Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1332
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321

I think the Meridian went through the centre of the taller gas holder at Poplar Gas works.

Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321

Another view with the gasholders in the background.

Clove Crescent, East India, DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1273
Clove Crescent, East India, DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1273

My pencilled line for the Meridian shows it going through both the water in the dock and the brick building at left which was the former Blackwall Power Station in both of these pictures.

Clove Crescent, East India DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1263
Clove Crescent, East India DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1263

South of the East India Docks the line crosses the River Thames above and between the two bores of the Blackwall Tunnel, closer to the original western tunnel now used by northbound traffic. I couldn’t take photographs in the tunnel – though it was possible for those on foot to take a bus across, but these would have been rather boring in any case.

Blackwall Tunnel Entrance, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1672
Blackwall Tunnel Entrance, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1672

This picture shows the southern entrance to the tunnel with its 1897 Grade II listed gatehouse by the London County Council’s Superintending Architect Thomas Blashill. In front of it a less ornate red and white striped arch with heigh and weight restriction signs and hangers to hit any overtall vehicles and hopefully prevent damage to the gatehouse.

Dorringtons, Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1551
Dorringtons, Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1551

One picture not I think actually on the Meridian but not far from it, taken from the long footbridge over the Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach.

Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1762
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1762

My path continued south along the riverside path, with the Meridian going into the River Thames on the extreme left of this picture.

Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1742
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1742

I kept to the land continuing along a path I’ve walked many times and making a few more pictures.

Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1743
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1743

Like much of London’s riverside almost all of the industry has now gone, but some relics remain, though most of this part of my route is now lined by rather boring flats.

I rejoined the Meridian where it made landfall in Greenwich – where I made some of the pictures at the end of my earlier post.

More colour work from 1995 including some more panoramas in a later post.


FlickrFacebookMy London DiaryHull PhotosLea ValleyParis
London’s Industrial HeritageLondon Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.


Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia – 2005

Monday, December 9th, 2024

Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia: Text and pictures from a busy day in London on Friday 9th December 2005, exhumed, corrected and slightly polished from the depths of ‘My London Diary‘ with links to the many more pictures of each event there.


Fathers4Justice: 24 Days of Christmas Chaos – Westminster

Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia - 2005
Santas and Mama Santas protest at Church of England and Dept of Education & Skills, Westminster

I’ve photographed Fathers4Justice on several previous occasions. Today they were taking advantage of Christmas and the Father Christmas idea to protest against the Church of England. Being on a Friday, there were rather fewer father and mother Christmases (and Santa’s little helpers were mainly at school, though some of their dads behind the whiskers were pulling a sickie.) It was still an arresting sight to see so many figures dressed in red on the street, including some rather inflated figures in inflatable suits.

After rather a slow start events warmed up a bit outside the offices of the Church of England, and, a few yards down the road, the Department for Education and Skills. Of course our ‘serious crimes’ law now forbids the use of amplified sound in demonstrations, so the Fathers simply had to shout rather loud. The next place for a stop was of course opposite Downing Street, where there were more shouted comments. I left the march as it turned down Whitehall Place on its way to the Law Courts on Strand.
more pictures


Free Mehmet Tarhan – Turkish Airlines, Pall Mall

Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia - 2005
Tahan is a gay conscientious objector held and tortured in aTurkish jail

Outside Turkish Airlines at the bottom of Haymarket there was a picket protesting against Turkish imprisonment of protestors, in particular Mehmet Tarhan, a gay conscientious objector. Recently, his 4-year sentence for refusing military service was overruled on procedural grounds, and he is to be retried for ‘insistent insubordination with the intent of evading military service.’

Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia - 2005

London Transport – Last day for the Routemaster

Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters ,a Christmas Market and Ethiopia - 2005

The last proper bus service to use London’s signature Routemaster double-decker buses, route 159, ceased today, with its buses being replaced by more modern designs. I caught one of the last to run to take me down to Westminster, then photographed it. Although the official ‘last bus’ had already run, there were several others following on, with the final pair passing Big Ben 28 minutes after I made my picture.

Transport for London continued to use a few Routemasters running in London on two special short ‘heritage routes’ both running past Trafalgar Square, thus retaining one of our tourist attractions.

[Routemasters were first introduced in 1956 and the two ‘TfL heritage routes’ were ended in 2019 though you still see them operated by private companies in a variety of guises. Routemasters jolt, rattle and jerk on London’s streets but I do very much miss the ability to jump off and board them at the many halts and delays in the increasingly congested streets.]
more pictures


Victorian Christmas Market – Chrisp St, Poplar

Hat Trick – Jim and Bev James Singing Chimney Sweeps

Chrisp Street Market was part of an early post-war public housing redevelopment, the Lansbury Estate, built for the 1951 Festival Of Britain in a Docklands area that had suffered considerable bomb damage. Fifty or so years later it was beginning to show its age and there has been some tidying up and its pedestrian precincts are now rather tidier than a few years ago.

The market is bustling with life, more so than usual when I visited, as there were two days of a special Victorian Christmas event. There were various special stalls in the market, and also entertainers wandering around and performing on a small stage. Kids from two local schools had also come to perform but unfortunately I had to leave before they had really started.

I’d hoped to return on the following day, Saturday, when things would have been livelier, but in the end i just couldn’t make it.
more pictures


The Ethiopian Tragedy – Stop UK Support – Marble Arch

At Marble Arch there was a crowd gathering of Ethiopians from across Europe, come to protest at the British government’s support of an oppressive communist regime in their country. [Others describe Ethiopia as an authoritarian regime with poor civil and human rights.]

More than 70,000 people are detained by the regime, being tortured and dying in concentration camps. Britain is spending £30 million of our money to support the regime that is violating human rights there. The protestors want the British public to urge their MPs to support motions on the situation in Ethiopia and demand an end to these crimes.
more pictures


FlickrFacebookMy London DiaryHull PhotosLea ValleyParis
London’s Industrial HeritageLondon Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.


Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou’s

Tuesday, August 1st, 2023

Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou’s: Thursday 1st August 2019 was a long and busy day for me with an Afrikan Emancipation Day protest, finishing a walk in North Woolwich I’d begun six months earlier and photographing an evening protest outside the exclusive Mayfair club LouLou’s.


Afrikans demand reparations – Brixton, London.

Afrikans demand Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou's

People of African origin met in Windrush Square in the morning to demand an end of the Maangamizi, the continuing genocide and ecocide of African peoples and Africa on Afrikan Emancipation Day.

Afrikans demand Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou's

After speeches & libations they marched from Brixton to Westminster with a petition calling for an end to acts of violence by Britain, the misuse of taxes and the stolen legacy plundered from Afrika under the British Empire and European Imperialism and demanding reparations.

Afrikans demand Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou's

The protest was supported by Extinction Rebellion XR Connecting Communities who marched in an Ubuntu Non-Afrikan Allies bloc.

Afrikans demand Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou's

I left the march as it went past Brixton Police Station on its way to protest outside the Houses of Parliament so I could have some lunch before going to take pictures elsewhere.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Afrikans demand reparations.


DLR – Bank to North Woolwich

DLR HQ at Poplar

I’d taken the tube back into central London to have a quick lunch before taking the DLR from Bank to London City to King George V Dock station for the final section of the walk I had begun in February but had run out of time to finish because I’d had to take a roundabout route to get there as the direct DLR services were suspended following an accident.

Bow Creek

This time the trains were running properly. They start from Bank and so come into the station empty and I was able to chose my seat and for once I found myself sitting next to a clean window on my way to North Woolwich and took a number of pictures.

Tate & Lyle

Later on my way back to Canary Wharf from King George V I was less lucky and the windows were rather grimy, but I still made a few images.

More at DLR – Bank to London City Airport.


North Woolwich, Royal Docks & the Thames

The footpath goes across these gates of the entrance lock to Albert Dock Basin

I took a few pictures as I walked from the elevated King George V station at North Woolwich to the King George V Dock entrance and joined the path by the river.

The lock here is huge, 243.8m long and 30.48m wide. I’d first photographed the area back in the 1980s as a part of a wider project on the Docklands following their closure, both in colour but mainly in black and white – in the album 1984 London Photographs. Although the docks themselves remain, much around them has changed, although there are still some derelict areas.

The riverside path here is part of the Capital Ring, and continues north and over lock at the Albert Dock entrance to the curiously desolate Armada Green Recreation Area.

Here the path ends, with beyond it the former site of the Beckton Gas Works, used as a location for at least 17 films and TV series since its closure, though best known as a stand-in for Vietnam in the 1987 Full Metal Jacket. Past that is the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works, set up in 1864 as part of Joseph Bazalgette’s scheme to treat London’s sewage and still receiving it from all of London north of the Thames.

I had to turn inland, through more recent development and the refurbished Gallions Hotel around Alber Dock Basin. I went briefly under the new bridge to see again the East London University student residences, then went back and across it, taking more pictures from the bridge and the road on my way back to King George V station.

Many more pictures at North Woolwich Royal Docks & Thames.


LouLou’s stop exploiting your workers – Mayfair

Finally I joined the IWGB Cleaners and Facilities Branch outside the exclusive Mayfair private club LouLou’s where they were picketing and protesting for kitchen porters to be paid a living wage, be treated with dignity, respect and given decent terms and conditions including proper sick pay, holidays and pension contributions. Recently outsourced to ACT, porters want to be returned to direct employment.

Among those supporting them were Class War, and in the picture above Ian Bone confronts a police office asking why they protect and support the rich. Needless to say the officer had no answer to the question. In general the protesters were reasonably behaved and acting within the law, but police and security hired by the club worked together to try and prevent their protest being effective.

There were angry scenes as staff escorted wealthy clients of the £1800 a year club past the picket, particularly when some roughly pushed the protesters. Police repeatedly warned the protesters but not the security men or customers who had assaulted them. The security also tried to prevent the picket from handing their flier to the customers.

As at previous protests outside of the club, none of the security staff were wearing the visible SIA door supervisor licences required under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, but the police refused to take any action over this.

More pictures at LouLou’s stop exploiting your workers.


Santas, a Gay Objecter, Routemasters, Victorian Christmas & Ethiopia

Friday, December 9th, 2022

Seventeen years ago on Friday December 9th 2005 I sspent the day photographing in London, and posted an account on My London Diary. Like all posts in the first few years of the site the text was entirely lower case, an affection I now regret, and so rather hard to read, and although there were plenty of pictures they weren’t well-connected with the text, a design fault that I only finally corrected in posts from 2007 on. So I thought today I would put things right for that one day. This is the post from 2005 in normal case and with a few typos and other minor corrections, with text and pictures connected and I hope not too many new mistakes.


Fathers4Justice: 24 Days of Christmas Chaos – Westminster, 9 Dec 2006

Santas, a Gay Objecter, Routemasters, Victorian Christmas & Ethiopia
Santas and Mama Santas protest at Church of England and Dept of Education & Skills, Westminster

I’ve photographed Fathers4justice on several previous occasions. Today they were taking advantage of Christmas and the Father Christmas idea to protest against the Church of England. being on a Friday, there were rather fewer Father and Mother Christmases (and Santa’s Little Helpers were mainly at school, though some of their dads behind the whiskers were pulling a sickie.) It was still an arresting sight to see so many figures dressed in red on the street, including some rather inflated figures in inflatable suits.

After rather a slow start events warmed up a bit outside the offices of the Church of England, and, a few yards down the road, the Department for Education and Skills. Of course our ‘serious crimes’ law now forbids the use of amplified sound in demonstrations in Westminster, so the fathers simply had to shout rather loud. The next place for a stop was of course opposite Downing Street, where there were more shouted comments. I left the march as it turned down Whitehall Place on its way to the law courts in the Strand.
more pictures


Free Mehmet Tarhan – Turkish Airlines, Pall Mall, Dec 9, 2005

Santas, a Gay Objecter, Routemasters, Victorian Christmas & Ethiopia

Outside Turkish Airlines at the bottom of Haymarket there was a picket protesting against Turkish imprisonment of protesters, in particular Mehmet Tarhan, a gay conscientious objector.

Santas, a Gay Objecter, Routemasters, Victorian Christmas & Ethiopia

Recently, his 4-year sentence for refusing military service was overruled on procedural grounds, and he is to be retried for insistent insubordination with the intent of evading military service.


London Transport – Last day for the Routemaster, 9 Dec 2005

Santas, a Gay Objecter, Routemasters, Victorian Christmas & Ethiopia
One of the last regular service journeys by a London Routemaster bus

The last proper bus service to use London’s signature Routemaster double-decker buses, route 159, ceased today, with its buses being replaced by more modern designs. I caught one of the last to run to take me down to Westminster, then photographed it. Although the official ‘last bus’ had already run, there were several others following on, with the final pair passing Big Ben 28 minutes after I made my picture.

There will still be a few Routemasters running in London on two special short ‘heritage routes’ both running. [The last of these came to an end in 2021 – and there is now a private company running ‘Route A’ at £5 for a day ticket – not covered by your Oyster or Travelcard.]

More pictures of this and other London Transport related images


Victorian Christmas Market – Chrisp St, Poplar, Dec 9, 2005

Hat Trick – Jim and Bev James Singing Chimney Sweeps

Chrisp street market was part of an early post-war public housing redevelopment, the Lansbury estate, built for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Fifty or so years later it was beginning to show its age and there has been some tidying up and its pedestrian precincts are now rather tidier than a few years ago.

The market is bustling with life, more so than usual when I visited, as there were two days of a special Victorian Christmas event. There were various special stalls in the market, and also entertainers wandering around and performing on a small stage. There were kids from two local schools who had come to perform but unfortunately I had to leave before they had really started.

I’d hoped to return on the Saturday, when things would have been livelier, but in the end I just couldn’t make it.

more pictures


The Ethiopian Tragedy – Stop UK Support – Marble Arch, Dec 9, 2005

Ethiopians from across Europe protest against Ethiopian concentration camps and ask for end to UK support.

At Marble Arch there was a crowd gathering of Ethiopians from across Europe, come to protest at the British government’s support of the oppressive communist regime in their country.

More than 70,000 people are detained by the regime, being tortured and dying in concentration camps. Britain is spending £30 million of our money to support the regime that is violating human rights there. The protesters want the British public to urge their MPs to support motions on the situation in Ethiopia and demand an end to these crimes.

more pictures


Independent Living Ends, Robin Hood Gardens

Thursday, June 30th, 2022

Independent Living Ends, Robin Hood Gardens. On Tuesday 30th June 2015 I joined disabled people at Downing St marking the ending of the Independent Living Fund before going to Robin Hood Gardens, a brutalist estate in Poplar doomed for demolition.


DPAC’s ILF Closing Ceremony – Downing St to Old Palace Yard

Disabled people and supporters of DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, met outside Downing St to bring a petition with over 25,000 signatures calling for a continuation of this essential support for the disabled.

Sophie Partridge, disabled Actor, Writer & Workshop artist

The Independent Living Fund which was coming to an end on that day had given them to money to employ support to enable them to live with dignity and for many to continue in work and make a contribution to society. Without it they fear they will simply be shut away and left to rot, many fearing they will now be left for many hours at a time in incontinence pads.

Paula Peters

Outside the gates of Downing Street they wrote slogans on incontinence pads; Paula Peters of DPAC had a message for Iain Duncan Smith, then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions responsible for the ending of support, ‘I want dignity – I want to be treated as a human – You wear one of these I. D. S. They are awful’.

A campaigner dressed as Brittania was among those who had come to hand in the petition which had gained support from a video by the stars of Coronation Street and the Graeae Theatre Company’s 2014 UK Tour of The Threepenny Opera. One of those stars spoke in front of the gates of Downing Street.

John Kelly as Schimmel leads the march

From Downing Street the campaigners marched the quarter mile or so to Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament, led by John Kelly as Schimmel, the equine star and proud battle horse of the Threepenny Opera.

Here they were joined by others including Labour MP John McDonnell who spoke at the rally marking the end of the Independent Living Fund, at the end of which a wreath with the message’s ‘RIP ILF’ was laid.

DPAC’s ILF Closing Ceremony


Robin Hood Gardens – Poplar

Two walls of flats protect an inner garden area

The ILF protest had ended a little before 1pm and it was a fine day and I decided to take another visit to Robin Hood Gardens in Poplar, where demolition had begun after the refusal to list the site. Listing had been recommended for listing by the advisory committee of English Heritage in 2009, but the then Minister of Culture Andy Burnham had issued a certificate of immunity against listing which expired in 2014.

These are large and desirable properties, but often have been used to house difficult residents

A further attempt was then made to have the site listed, supported by almost every well-known British architect, but Historic England, now responsible for listing buildings rejected this.

A wall at left screens the estate and there is a lower service and parking area

An open letter signed by many leading architects including Richard Rogers made clear the value of the site, and I quoted from this in My London Diary.

The buildings, which offer generously sized flats that could be refurbished, are of outstanding architectural quality and significant historic interest, and public appreciation and understanding of the value of Modernist architecture has grown over the past five years, making the case for listing stronger than ever.”

The end of the ‘street in the sky’

The refusal to list on both occasions was clearly a political one, almost certainly driven by the huge profits demolition and rebuilding on the site would make for the developers.

As with the award-winning Heygate Estate in Southwark, and the fine Central Hill Estate at Gypsy Hill, Lambeth, the local council, Tower Hamlets, was keen to get rid of the estate and had carried out what I described as “a well funded campaign of vilification“, seeing it “only as a large area with potential for redevelopment at a higher density“, working with “developers who see any area of social housing in London as rich pickings for redevelopment and sale to the rich.”

A large enclosed playground at the south end of the site

By the end of June 2015 most of the west block seemed empty and boarded up and I was unable to gain entry. But I could roam the large garden in the centre of the estate, now let to grow wild, and went inside the still occupied east block, going up to the highest public level, a ‘street in the sky’ built rather less wide than the architects had originally intended, overlooking the Blackwall Tunnel approach. From there I took a number of pictures of the views from the block looking towards the east.

The south end of Robin Hood Gardens was on Poplar High St

As on a couple of previous visits I talked briefly with some of the residents who all told me they were pleased to be living in the block and sad they would have to leave – though some did complain about the lifts (I think only one of the two at the entrance I went in was working.)

Knocking down buildings like these which are structurally in good condition is inexcusable in terms of the huge carbon footprint involved in their construction, demolition and rebuilding. The estate could and should have been refurbished at relatively low cost and would have continued to provide good quality homes for many years. Its replacements – the west section already built – are of lower quality and will almost certainly not last as long as this could have done. The advantage of their roughly three times higher density is at the expense of possible amenity.

As well as walking in and around the estate I also took some pictures of it from the surrounding area, and some other pictures you can see on My London Diary, including a few when I stopped at Canning Town station and took a few pictures of people on the new footbridge across Bow Creek.

Robin Hood Gardens


Spratt’s, Far Famed Cakes and Bromley by Bow

Thursday, March 3rd, 2022

Spratt’s, Far Famed Cakes and Bromley by Bow. My walk on 31st February 1988 was coming to an end as I made my way towards Bromley-by-Bow District Line station to begin my journey home. You can see the previous part at Lansbury, Brownfield, Teviot and St Leonards Road.

Footbridge, Railway, Spratt's Patent, Clutton St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-15-positive_2400
Footbridge, Railway, Spratt’s Patent, Clutton St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-15

St Leonard’s Road beyond Langdon Park becomes Uamvar St, an odd name whose origin I can’t find. It used to be a little west of its current route and I think with St Leonard’s Road used earlier to be Bow Lane. I soon turned left onto Clutton St and climbed onto the footbridge over the railway. The bridge has now been replaced by a metal structure on which it would be rather harder to write ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘I Love You’.

The railway line here carries the Docklands Light Railway line from Poplar to Stratford, but had been a part of the North London Railway (founded in 1846 as the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway.) The Spratt’s Patent Limited Offices Fenchurch St are still there, with an entrance from Fawe St.

Farfamed Cake Company, Fawe St, Footbridge, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-16-positive_2400
Far Famed Cake Company, Fawe St, Footbridge, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-16

The Far Famed Cake Company began in 1881, and was bought by Fitch Lovell in 1950. They merged it with another company to form Hales Trent Cakes in 1962. In 1974 this was bought by Lyons. The factory had employed around 320 people. I think this site is now occupied by a large new block of flats with some shops on Morris Road.

Spratt's Patent Limited, Fawe St, Poplar, 1988 88-8a-62-Edit_2400
Spratt’s Patent Limited, Fawe St, Poplar, 1988 88-8a-62

Separated by a long yard from the block of Spratt’s Patent beside the DLR is another block of Spratt’s Patent Limited, still there and now the A B Fine Art Foundry.

Foresters Arms, pub, St Leonards Road , Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-63-Edit_2400
Foresters Arms, pub, St Leonards Road , Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-63

The Foresters Arms at 253 St Leonards Road, on the corner with Clutton St, a former Charrington & Co pub closed in 2004 and was sold. It was extended and converted to 6 flats in 2005. There had been a pub on this site since before 1856. It still has an address on St Leonards Road lthough my map calls the road huere Uamvar St.

Limehouse Cut, Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-64-Edit_2400
Limehouse Cut, Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-64

I continued my walk up Uamver St and on to the Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, and this picture was taken beside Tweed House, part of which can be seen at the extreme left. The buildings in the centre have now been replaced by a lower-rise redevelopment but that visible above the wall at the right of the picture is still there.

This section of the Limehouse Cut towpath was then rather overgrown and little used. It is now much busier, with a new floating section taking the path from Bow Locks under the busy tunnel approach road.

Nursery, Flats, Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-52-Edit_2400
Nursery, Flats, Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-52

I photographed this mural on a nursery and clinic in the flats beside the Blackwall Tunnel North Approach close to Devas St. This was part of the Coventry Cross West Estate, built by the LCC in the early 1950s as an addition to their 1935 Coventry Cross Estate. The name Coventry Cross came from a long-closed pub in the area since 1690 – at 68 St Leonards Street in 1861. The estate passed to the GLC and then TOwer Hamlets before after consultation and vote they joined Poplar HARCA.

From here is was a short distance to the end of my walk at Bromley-By-Bow District line station – from where I began my next walk in early August 1988

This had been an good walk for me and I hope readers will have found the pictures and text about them interesting. There are some more pictures from it in my album 1988 London Photos including some from earlier in the day at Petticoat Lane, in Whitechapel and Tower Hamlets cemetery before I started the walk proper.


Lansbury, Brownfield, Teviot and St Leonards Road

Tuesday, March 1st, 2022

Lansbury, Brownfield, Teviot and St Leonards Road. My previous post in the series on this walk, Back to Poplar in 1988 contained information about George Lansbury, a leading politician in Poplar and around from when first elected as an MP in 1910 to his death in 1940. From 1932-35 leader of the Labour Party he was forced to resign because he stuck to his principles.

Lodore St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-45-positive_2400
Lodore St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-45

Because of its closeness to the docks and the River Thames Poplar had been one of the worst hit areas by bombs from German Zeppelins and bombers in World War I, but suffered far great damage in WW2, with almost a quarter of the buildings in the area being destroyed.

Redvelopment of the area after the war was slow, although part was finished in time to be included as the Live Architecture Exhibition section of the 1951 Festival of Britain, development of the whole of the area designated as the Lansbury Estate, between the East India Dock Road, Burdett Road, Limehouse Cut, and the North London railway line was only completed in the 1980s. The area at the south-east of this was developed by the GLC as an eastern extension to Lansbury, now known as the Brownfield Estate, designated in 1958.

By then its nature had changed with the original and highly praised plans begun under Patrick Abercrombie in 1943 and carried forward by Frederick Gibberd and the LCC Architect’s Department for the Festival being greatly modified, particularly after the Conservative Government which came to power in 1950 altered the housing priorities to provide more homes – which meant more high-rise.

From the GLC, the Lansbury estate passed to Tower Hamlets Council and was badly affected by Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ and other policies against council housing. Much was transferred in 1988 to Poplar HARCA.

Balfron Tower, Willis St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-46-positive_2400
Balfron Tower, Willis St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-46

The iconic block of Balfron Tower is one of three – Balfron Tower, Carradale House
and Glenkerry House – listed blocks by architect Erno Goldfinger on the Brownfield Estate and dates from 1965-8. His development of Carradale House was held back so displaced local residents could be housed in Balfron and it was comleted in 1967-8, with Glenkerry House by Goldfinger’s studio being completed in 1972-5.

Goldfinger and his wife lived in one of the flats in Balfron for 8 weeks after completion. Balfron passed from Tower Hamlets to Poplar HARCA in 2007, promising residents to refurbish the building and re-house them there. They reneged on that promise, converting the block to luxury flats sold at market prices.

St Leonard's Arms, St Leonard's Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-32-positive_2400
St Leonard’s Arms, St Leonard’s Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-32

The St Leonard Arms at 162 St Leonards Rd is said to have closed in 1988 and was later converted to flats, probably in 2002. It had been there at least since 1861, when its address was 17 Wilson Terrace and St Leonard’s Road was then Bow Lane. In my picture from 1988 it looks as if it had closed some time earlier.

At the left the Grade II listed St Michael and All Angels, built 1864-5 is undergoing extensive building work – probably part of its conversion to flats as St Michael’s Court.

Five Ways Mission, War Memorial, St Leonard's Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-33-positive_2400
Five Ways Mission, War Memorial, St Leonard’s Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-33

Close to the church is an impressive war memorial with the “Christ with one hand raised in blessing and the other holding a wreath above the head of a kneeling warrior in the armour of a crusader“, sculptor A R Adams erected in 1920 with funds from a public “appeal, a football match and tickets for a special matinee performance at the queen’s theatre, high street on Saturday 24 April 1920“.

On the opposite side of the road is the former Fiveways Mission and a car hire service. This building is now smartened and extended at right as private housing.

Five Ways Mission, St Leonard's Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-34-positive_2400
Five Ways Mission, St Leonard’s Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-34

A closer, head-on view of the properties at 161-165 St Leonard’s Rd, with some light flare.

St Leonard's Rd, Bright St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-36-positive_2400
St Leonard’s Rd, Bright St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-36

A view of from the side of the two properties and the adjoining former London Cooperative Society with a fading and crumbling advertisement for BALSAM for COUGHS and Colds (perhaps the word FRIARS’ had already gone.) Above the shuttered frontage is the word HEADACHES.

St Leonard's Rd, Bright St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-22-positive_2400
St Leonard’s Rd, Bright St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-22

On the side of the building is a giant sign for the TEVIOT FESTIVAL, OPEN TO ALL and an arrow pointing in its direction. I also photographed this sign in colour. Much of this area was redeveloped as the Teviot Estate, which is now being redeveloped by Poplar HARCA. It is now often called Langdon Park, a green area at the end of Bright St where there is a newish DLR station.

Teviot Festival, Bright St, Poplar, 1988TQ3881-001

My walk will continue in a later post.


Back to Poplar in 1988

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022

My previous post, Around Devons Road, Bow 1988, ended outside Spratt’s Patent Limited on Morris Road on the south bank of the Limehouse Cut. My walk continued south down Chrisp St to the East India Dock Road, then turning east for around 350 yards and then back up the next main route north, St Leonards Road.

Plaque, George Lansbury, Poplar Councillors, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-66-positive_2400
Plaque, George Lansbury, Poplar Councillors, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-66-positive_2400

This ‘blue plaque’ is actually and appropriately a red one, placed here by Tower Hamlets Environment Trust with the text ‘Near this place on July 29th 1921 George Lansbury led the people and councillors of Poplar on their march to the high court for the equalisation of rates to poor boroughs.’

According to a long article in Wikipedia, as a youth Lansbury was a supporter of the Liberal Party and particularly Gladstone, but while campaigning for the party he became greatly influenced by leading socialists including William Morris, Eleanor Marx, John Burns and Henry Hyndman, and resigned in 1892, joining the Social Democratic Federation. He worked for a short period as the SDF paid national organiser, leaving that job to return to Bow to take over the running of the sawmill owned by his wife’s family.

Lansbury was first elected to Poplar Borough council in 1903 and in 1910 became MP for Bow and Bromley. He resigned in 1912 in order to fight a by-election in the constituency standing as the ‘Women’s Suffrage and Socialist’ candidate, and although neither Labour nor Liberal parties put up candidates to oppose him he lost to a Conservative candidate with the name of Blair. Reginald Blair had campaigned under the slogan “No Petticoat Government”.

Earlier in 1912 Lansbury had campaigned with others to found a daily socialist newspaper, the Daily Herald, and became editor in 1914. Under his editorship the paper opposed the 1914-18 Great War with Germany and supported the 2017 Russian Revolution.

Lansbury and 29 fellow Poplar councillors were jailed in 1921 for refusing to pay unfair sums from the rates to fund the London County Council, Metropolitan police and other London-wide bodies, instead using the money to support the local poor. Their imprisonment led to public outcry and they were released after six weeks, with a law hastily passed to make richer London boroughs pay their fair share. The campaign made Lansbury a popular hero, and the following year he was elected as local MP with a large majority, holding the seat until his death in 1940.

From 1932 to 1935 Lansbury was the Leader of the Labour Party, but was forced to resign because his Christian pacifist principles became increasingly unacceptable as war with Germany and Italy looked increasingly inevitable. Ernest Bevin put in the final knife, pointing out at conference that his beliefs contradicted the party policy to oppose fascist aggression. Lansbury resigned a few days later, his deputy Clement Atlee becoming leader.

The Falcon, pub, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-51-positive_2400
The Falcon, pub, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-51

The Falcon was at 202a East India Dock from 1869 until it closed in 1985. In my picture you can see some of the windows are boarded up inside and one in Bullivant Street is broken. The first building here was around 1819 and was owned by a Poplar wine merchant, so it may have been a pub earlier. The Truman, Hanbury & Buxton building in the picture dates from 1911 and was demolished shortly after I took this picture.

The A13 here has been widened and nothing on the south side of the road here remains. There are flats on the corner of Bullivant St, a few yards further south than the front of the former pub.

Chinese, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-52-positive_2400
Chinese, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-52

I think this heavily metal shuttered frontage was a Chinese restaurant on the north side of East India Dock Road, probably in the block opposite Bullivant St. Unfortunately I can’t read the two Chinese characters but was intrigued by them and the hanging curtain behind them in this small aperture at the bottom of the doorway.

Tunnel Furnishers Ltd, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-53-positive_2400
Tunnel Furnishers Ltd, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-53

Tunnel Furnishers, a furniture warehouse, was as few doors along East India Dock Road east from The Falcon pub on the corner of Bullivant St. A rather fine 1930s building, this was also lost in the widening of the road not long after I photographed it.

It looks rather like a cinema, but was built in 1938 for the Borough of Poplar as Electricity Showrooms and Offices, replacing an earlier showroom on the site. Closed in 1972, the upper floors continued to be used for training by the London Electricity Board until 1975, after which it was sold for commercial use. Like the rest of the block it was demolished in 1991.

Lodore St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-55-positive_2400
Lodore St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-55-positive_2400

My walk took me into what is now the St Frideswide’s Mission House Conservation Area, where a couple of days earlier I had photographed the Follett St Seamen’s Mission, and I took another, very similar picture of that building, before going further along the street and turning into Lodore St.

The view above is I think from Follett St, and shows the rear of one of the buildings of St Frideswide’s on Lodore St, but I think the archway, probably part of the chapel, has been demolished.

Christ Church, Oxford was originally the church of St. Frideswide’s priory, and St Frideswide’s Mission was set up by members of Christ Church College led by the father of Alice in Wonderland, Dean Liddell. A church was built here around 1892, with the Mission house opened in 1893, devoted to a girl’s and mother’s group.

St Frideswide's, Mission House, Lodore St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988  88-7t-41-positive_2400
St Frideswide’s, Mission House, Lodore St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-41

The building was paid for by Miss Catherine Phillimore (1847-1929) , who I think was then well-known as an author as well as a translator of Italian books on artists, a wealthy spinster living at Shiplake House in Henley-on-Thames. A number of her books have been reprinted in recent years and are still available.

St Agnes House, Follett Street Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-43-positive_2400
St Agnes House, 18, Follett Street Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7t-43

This was built to allow the work of the mission to expand in 1899, and also paid for by Catherine Phillimore. In 1900 it became the Hostel of the Poplar Association for Befriending Girls. The washing on the balcony shows it was still in use in 1988.

St Frideswide’s was the inspiration for the TV series ‘Call the Midwife’ and there is a good article on the Poplar London web site which praises the accuracy of the series and its depiction of the Religious Sisters of Saint John the Divine and their midwives, though complaining that it unfairly makes the residents of Poplar look dirty.


My walk will continue in a later post. You can see larger versions of the pictures by clicking on any of them, which will take you to the album where you can browse more.


East India Dock Road to Bow Common

Monday, February 7th, 2022

More pictures continuing my walk on 31st July 1988 – the previous post is Bow Common to West India Dock Road, so this returns to close to where that started. Like most of my walks it was more about exploring a neighbourhood than getting anywhere.

East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-61-positive_2400
East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-61

East India Dock Road was built as its name suggests when the East India Docks were opened in 1806 to provide a more direct and less congested route than Poplar High Street to them from the end of the Commercial Road, also then recently built in Limehouse. It is now part of the A13 and this section in Poplar has in turn been largely bypassed by the Limehouse Link and Aspen Way opened in 1993. Traffic was still very heavy along it in 1988.

The picture with rubbish on the pavement and gutters, a small rather derelict shop to let gave a picture of a run-down area which contrasted with the word Wonderful on what seems a rather faded fabric on a restaurant at right. Buddleia is growing in front of the billboard, always a sign of dereliction. Interestingly the the advert is for a low alcohol lager, hardly a thing back then when most drivers on the streets after closing time were drunk, although the breathalyser had come in back in twenty-one years earlier. But even the introduction of Kaliber in 1986 had not really galvanised the market – but low alcohol beers are now a massive growth area, and some are even drinkable.

There is still a Chinese restaurant in the building at the right of this picture, and rather surprisingly that small shack is still in place in front of Amory Place, now a minicab office.

Chun Yee Society, East India Dock Rd, Birchfield St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-62-positive_2400
Chun Yee Society, East India Dock Rd, Birchfield St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-62

There are still traces of London’s first Chinatown in Limehouse, which began in the area around 1900, but the centre of the Chinese community had moved to Soho in the 1950s, partly because of extensive bomb damage in Limehouse, but also because of dirt-cheap rents in an area with a bad reputation where few then wanted to live in central London.

Chun Yee Society, East India Dock Rd, Birchfield St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-63-positive_2400
Chun Yee Society, East India Dock Rd, Birchfield St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-63

The house on the corner of Birchfield St still has the sign for the Chun Yee Society – Chinese School on Sundays over its doorway. not along with a larger and newer version with fewer Chinese characters. Like many similar societies it began as a Tong, variously described as a criminal gang or a semi-masonic bortherhood, and organised various festivals including those commemorating the dead. Founded in 1906 it was a shelter for Chinese sailors as well as providing a Chinese Sunday school for children and is now largely an old peoples centre. Possibly some of the games of dominoes may have got a little out of hand, but the criminality was largely in the mind of Sax Rohmer, his readers and the sensationalist press.

St Mary & St Joseph, Catholic Church, Upper North St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-51-positive_2400
St Mary & St Joseph, Catholic Church, Upper North St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-51

The Roman Catholic Church of SS Mary and Joseph, Poplar impresses mainly by its scale. Built in 1951-4, its architect Adrian Gilbert Scott (1882-63) was the brother of the better-known Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, both from a distinguished family of architects. I always think of it as an ecclesiastical version of Battersea Power Station, without the chimneys but with a rather odd green pyramid on its roof, but that’s rather unfair as it is a very individual design, sometimes described as Byzantine jazz gothic.

According to the Grade II listing text this is a camel arch, and a similar arch appears at the top of the main windows, supposedly inspired by Persian buildings. The church replaced one on the site behind me as I made the picture which was destroyed by bombing – the site is now a Catholic school. I think I chose an interesting viewpoint, but one that needed a slightly wider lens and a more upright photographer.

Flats, GLC, Temporary Housing, Brabazon St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-53-positive_2400
Flats, GLC, Temporary Housing, Brabazon St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-53

The second of these LCC temporary buildings has a sign proclaiming it as ‘LANSBURY WORKS OFFICE’ and giving its address in Brabazon St. The street got its name not from the huge white elephant civil airliner that made a few flights in the 1950s before it and the project was scrapped in 1953, but from the 1882 founder of the Metropolitan Gardens Association, the 12th Earl of Meath, Lord Brabazon.

Work began on the layout of the London County Council’s Lansbury Estate in 1949 on a large area devastated by wartime bombing, and its best-known feature, Chrisp Street Market was built the following year and became an integral part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. But construction of the estate continued for many years and was only said to be completed in 1982, by which time it had been transferred first to the GLC and then Tower Hamlets. Since 1998 it has been owned by Poplar HARCA.

But as this picture shows, this part was still not completed in 1988. The large 11-storey tower block Colebrook House with 42 flats was part of the Barchester Street Scheme by the LCC Architects department and completed in 1957-8, named after a shop built at nearby Blackwall Yard. Brabazon St now has a small park to the left of my picture and a row of neat two-story houses along the right side.

Limehouse Cut, Upper North St, Poplar, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-54-positive_2400
Limehouse Cut, Upper North St, Poplar, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-54

Bow Common Bridge, an iron bridge replacing the earlier bridge here in 1929, is where Upper North Street meets Bow Common Lane across the Limehouse Cut and the factory building here on the north-west side has now been replaced by a block of offices and flats built in 2008-2011, with the 13 storey Ingot Tower at one corner of the largely five storey development. This large site alongside the Limehouse Cut was formerly a chemical works between the Cut and Thomas St (now Thomas Road.)

Phoenix Business Centre, Limehouse Cut, Upper North St, Poplarm Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-55-positive_2400
Phoenix Business Centre, Limehouse Cut, Upper North St, Poplarm Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-55

Wikipedia recounts that this area had become popular with chemical manufacturers as they could discharge waste into the Cut, and this bridge from at least 1819 was known as Stinkhouse Bridge and the area around became a huge fire risk, culminating in a great fire in 1866. The bridge was also a popular choice for suicides, with a local coroner in 1909 noting he had held over 50 inquests on them there. As Wikipeida comments ‘ In a derisory attempt to enhance its image it was renamed Lavender Bridge.’ But the old name stuck at least until the 1950s.

The Phoenix Business Centre on the north east corner of the bridge has also been demolished and replaced by tower blocks around 2008-2010.

The Sanitas Company Ltd, Council Depot, Watts Grove, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-44-positive_2400
The Sanitas Company Ltd, Council Depot, Watts Grove, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7s-44

The Sanitas Company Limited proudly put their name across the top of their 1914 building in Watts Grove, and it remained written in stone (or at least render) for a hundred years until the building was demolished and replaced by a rather blander building completed in 2017, part of a large development on Watts Grove and the new Pankhurst Avenue.

Previously the site stretching down to Yeo Street annd Glaucus Street had been occupied as it was when I made this photograph as a council depot by various of Tower Hamlet’s Councils municipal services (latterly Veolia.)

The Sanitas Company Limited was a local company which specialised in disinfectant and soap-based products. So far as I’m aware they had no connection with other and now better known companies using the name Sanitas, the Latin for Health.


My walk will continue in a later post.

Clicking on any of the pictures will take you to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos from where you can browse the album.


Poplar To Limehouse 1988

Wednesday, January 26th, 2022

Poplar To Limehouse 1988 – my walk continued on the East India Dock Road.

East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-51-positive_2400
East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-51

From the posters in the window this was clearly a video rental store, a relatively new thing back in 1988 – the first Blockbuster Video store only opened in Dallas, Texas in 1985. Home video recording only began to be popular after the introduction of Betamax in 1975, followed in 1977 by VHS (along with other formats.) By 1988 VHS had become the dominant format.

But my attention was caught by the notice on the door, ‘NO DOGS OR BIKES ALLOWED’ with a very small ‘Thankyou’ and the two bikes (I think a BMX and a racer) flung down on the pavement outside unlocked by their two young owners.

Poplar Labour Party, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-53-positive_2400
Poplar Labour Party, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-53

Poplar Labour Party, led by George Lansbury, gained control of Poplar Borough Council in 1919. Poplar was one of the poorest areas of the country and so rateable values there were low. With councils then being responsible for supporting the unemployed and poor, council rates thus had to be set at a much higher level than in wealthy boroughs, which was clearly unfair on boroughs like Poplar who had so many more people needing support. Their rates were the highest in London, twice as high as in the wealthy borough of Kensington.

Poplar Labour had come into office to make changes, to provide greater support for the poor, to set a higher minimum wage for council workers and to pay women equally to men. When a demand from government came in 1921 to increase contributions for cross-London authorities Poplar council refused to pay, instead voting to use the money for the local poor. The authorities took them to court, and 30 councillors marched there with two thousand supporters. All of the councillors were sentenced to prison, where one of the six women, Minnie Lansbury, died, only 32.

Public outcry with large demonstrations and some riots – and other councils following Poplar’s lead – led to the councillors being released with an Act being rushed through Parliament to make the system more fair, with richer boroughs contributing more and the poorer less.

Their protest had clearly been illegal, but was clearly justified, and it led to a much-needed reform. It’s a lesson which still has relevance, particularly with such current matters as statues and the Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

Richard Green, statue, Poplar Baths, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-54-positive_2400
Richard Green, statue, Poplar Baths, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-54

The statue of Richard Green still stands outside Poplar Baths, a Grade II listed building from 1933, replacing an earlier baths from 1852. The baths were largely to provide washing facilities when few homes had bathrooms in this poor area of the city. As well as ‘slipper baths’ there were also vapour baths, showers and laundry facilities. The new baths in 1933 was a huge building including these facilities and two swimming pools, the larger of which could be covered over and used as a dance hall, theatre and sports hall.

The baths reopened in 1947 after the war despite considerable damage and was closed and converted into a training centre in 1988. My picture from 1988 shows a board advertising the support of the London Docklands Development Corporation in providing disabled access.

The building later became derelict but after a strong local and national campaign for its restoration work began on its redevelopment in 2014 and it reopened again as Poplar Baths Leisure Centre and Gym, along with 100 new homes, in 2016.

Richard Green (1803-63) was a local shipowner, shipbuilder and philanthropist, supporting a Sailors’ Home, schools, an orphanage and hospitals in the area, some of which had been founded by his father, George Green. His Blackwall Yard built many ships for the East India Company and for trade with Australia and China. His company, R & H Green in 1919 joined with Silley Weir as R. and H. Green and Silley Weir, with large premises at the Royal Albert dry docks and others and continued in business until sold to become a part of the government owned River Thames Shipbuilders in 1977.

George Green School, East India Dock Rd, Sturry St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-43-positive_2400
George Green School, East India Dock Rd, Sturry St, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-43

George Green (1767-1849) was the father of Richard Green whose statue with his dog still sits outside Poplar Baths. George married the boss’s daughter and made the reputation of the Blackwall Shipbuilding Yard, building many whalers.

As well as this school dating from 1828 on the East India Dock Road the older Green also endowed schools in Chrisp Street and Bow Lane. The current huilding from 1883 is part of Tower Hamlets College. George Green School in new buildings on Manchester Road became the secondary school for the Isle of Dogs with its first comprehensive intake in 1975.

Poplar Recreation Ground Memorial, schoolchildren, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-44-positive_2400
Poplar Recreation Ground Memorial, schoolchildren, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-44

The War memorial to the children of Upper North Street School is https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101065215-war-memorial-to-the-children-of-upper-north-street-school-poplar-ward Grade II* listed and includes the inscription: ‘IN MEMORY OF/ 18 CHILDREN/ WHO WERE KILLED/ BY A BOMB/ DROPPED FROM A/ GERMAN AEROPLANE/ UPON THE L.C.C./ SCHOOL UPPER/ NORTH STREET/ POPLAR ON THE/ 13TH OF JUNE 1917./ ALFRED H. WARREN O.B.E./ MAYOR/ J. BUTEUX SKEGGS,/ TOWN CLERK. ‘

There is a fuller story at the link above about the first mass German raid on London by Gotha bombers on 13 June 1917 which killed 162, including these 18 children mainly aged 5 or 6. At least 37 other children at the school were among the 432 injured by the raid.

St Mathias, church, Woodstock Terrace, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-45-positive_2400
St Mathias, church, Woodstock Terrace, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-45

St Mathias Church is also Grade II* listed, with a number of Grade II listed monuments. Poplar’s oldest church, it was built in 1766 as the Chapel of the East India Company, and became St Mathias as a parish church in 1866. You can see the company’s arms in the roof, and allegedly its columns came from wrecks of the Spanish Armada.

The exterior of the church was altered and enlarged by Teulon in 1875. The church closed in 1976 and was restored for community use by the LDDC in 1990.

Grieg House, Garford St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-36-positive_2400
Grieg House, Garford St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7q-36

Built in 1902–3 as an officers’ annexe to the Scandinavian Sailors’ Temperance Home, founded by Swedish Free Church missionary Agnes Hedenstrom (1849–1928) who began her mission in the East End in the 1870s, opening the home here in 1888. The mission was taken over by the Salvation Army in 1930.

This was I think the last picture I took on my way to Westferry station where I returned a couple of days later for another walk – and the subject of a later post.


Click on any image to see a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos from where you can browse other images.