Posts Tagged ‘Pura Foods’

More From Bow Creek, April 1989

Thursday, March 23rd, 2023

The second part of a short walk by Bow Creek on Friday 7th April 1989. The first part is at Bow Creek, East India Dock Way, April 1989.

London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-15
London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-15

I walked back a few yards to the west along the East India Dock Road and made this picture looking south down Bow Creek, again showing the stacked timber on the wharf. The closer of the two bridges visible was I think just a pipe bridge, probably to carry gas from the nearby gasworks from Poplar to Canning Town, and has since been removed.

The second bridge is a Dock Road Foot Bridge, more commonly called the Blue Bridge (a name it shares with several others in London), though it also carries pipes and is still in place. I think it was intended to provide a route for people living in South Bromley to Canning Town station, and it leads to a bridge taking the footpath over the DLR, but unfortunately this has been almost permanently locked. It has been at least partly rebuilt since I made this picture

Hidden by this bridge a few yards further downstream and fenced off is another bridge, Canning Town Old Railway Bridge, long disused which was built to carry a single rail track over the river.

Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c-61
Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c-61

I walked on across Bow Creek and took this picture of the pipe bridge. As you can see it was well fenced off and although there were steps up and a footway across I could not access this.

All this brickwork on the Middlesex side of the river has gone, I think when the road bridge here was widened and a link road provided to the Limehouse Link tunnel but the brick abutment remains on the Essex side. The bridge was built to give sufficient clearance for navigation.

Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c-63
Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c-63

At the centre of the river I had crossed from Newham into Tower Hamlets. My street atlas names this area as South Bromley, but I don’t think anyone now knows where that is, as there is no station of that name, the DLR having decided on East India instead.

A few yards on along waste ground I made another picture showing the pipe bridge and the river, before turning back to the East India Dock Road. I made two exposures and I wonder if I may have chosen the wrong one to digitise as it is just slightly unsharp.

London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4c-65
London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c-65

Across the water you can see much of the planks produced by the sawmill on the wharf, as well as stacks on a further wharf downriver between the building around 50 yards away on land but half a mile downstream round what is now the Bow Creek Ecology Park. Behind the cut timber you can see part of the Pura Foods edible oils factory on the opposite bank of the invisible river, and above that the top of the flood barrier across the river on the other side of the factory.

Timber was for many years a major industry on Bow Creek and along the Lea Navigation, as the Surrey Docks just across the Thames was mainly a timber dock, with large timber ponds. Boats and barges would have brought huge trunks to sawmills such as this, and the cut timber was also mainly transported further on by barge.

Pura Foods, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c-52
Pura Foods, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c-52

I walked further east and used a short telephoto lens to make this image of Pura Foods. Their factory processing vegetable oils here at Orchard Place had grown considerably over the years, as had the smells from it, and many locals were pleased when the factory moved out in 2006.

Almost all of my pictures at this time were taken with a 35mm lens, giving a moderate wide angle view. The Olympus Zuiko lens I used was unusual in being a shift lens, allow me to move the optical elements relative to the film to give additional control over the perspective. It made it possible for example to photograph taller buildings without tilting the camera which would have resulted in verticals that converged.

Lens design has improved considerably since, and so have our expectations of lenses. Many of my pictures made then have a lack of critical sharpness at the corners which we would now find unacceptable. Digital imaging in particular means we now routinely look at images on a much larger scale on screen than the prints we used to make.

West Ham Power Station, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989 89-4c-55
West Ham Power Station, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989 89-4c-55

I crossed to the other side of the busy East India Dock Road, going along Wharfside Road under it, and made this view looking north up Bow Creek. As you can see the West Ham Power Station was then being demolished. This was the last in a number of power stations on the site since 1904, when West Ham Council built one here to power its trams. This was West Ham B, built in 1951 and it used coal brought up Bow Creek as well as coke from the neighbouring Bromley Gas Works.

Power production at the station dropped off from the late 1960s and it closed in 1983. By 1989 its two 300ft cooling towers had already been demolished and the rest of the station was following.

West Ham Power Station, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989 89-4c-56
West Ham Power Station, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989 89-4c-56

A second view shows more of the Newham (or Essex) bank south of the main power station building and the closer parts are again full of stacked timber.

Newham Council together with Tower Hamlets has plans for a number of new bridges in the area providing links across Bow Creek, at Lochnagar St, Poplar Reach near to Cody Dock and Mayer Parry connecting the Leven Road former gasworks site to roughly where the old power station was, now the SEGRO industrial park.

It had been a short and interesting walk and I made my way to Canning Town station for the slow journey home. Canning Town is much easier to get to since the Jubilee Line opened at the end of 1999.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in LondonPhotos, My Own Work | No Comments »

Bow Creek, East India Dock Way, April 1989

Tuesday, March 21st, 2023

I only had time for a short walk on Friday 7th April 1989, cycling home furiously from the college where I was teaching at noon as I had no afternoon classes, picking up my camera bag and rushing to catch a train into London.

Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-31
Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-31

Canning Town, where I was heading, was on the other side of London and not then the easiest of places to get to before the DLR and Jubilee lines were completed. My journey involved a slow transit around North London on the line from Richmond on the North London Line to the old Canning Town station immediately north of the A13 East India Dock Road, next to Stephenson Street.

Bow Creek, East India Dock Way

If you are not familiar with the geography of this area, a small clip from OpenStreetMap, slightly enhanced, will help. The East India Dock Road on this map is labelled Newham Way, which is here a flyover above the road itself. The former station I used was just to the north of this. Pura Foods was inside the loop which is now London City Island and there was no bridge across the river at the top of the bend.

Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-34
Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Flood Barrier, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-34

A subway close to the station entrance took me to the other side of this busy road, where I had a view of Bow Creek, northern end of its loop dominated by Pura Foods, looking across waste ground where the DLR would shortly run. The flood barrier on Bow Creek became redundant when the Thames Barrier was built.

Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-35
Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-35

I moved slowly west along the East India Dock Road, stopping to take occasional images. There was a considerable amount of waste including old tires dumped here, but it was also a working industrial area, with workers cars parked alongside the river.

Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-26
Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, Pura Foods, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-26

The main business on this side of the river appeared now to be the sawmill, though I also photographed the sign board for Haughton Engineering, but I’m unsure whether they were still in business.

Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-11
Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-11

It seemed to me an area which cried out for some panoramic images, and I took a set of three overlapping handheld pictures – the left of the set above – intending to combine them – which back then would have involved cutting and pasting the three together, but later I found I couldn’t quite get them to match up. Even when it became possible to do this digitally I found I hadn’t quite made these precisely enough.

Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-12
Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-12

It was experiences like this that led me a couple of years later to save up and buy a proper panoramic camera – I think the first one cost me around a month’s wages.

London Sawmills, Bow Creek, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-13
London Sawmills, Bow Creek, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-13

I continued walking west, the road on a low viaduct giving me a good view of the area to the south, coming to a timber yard where Bow Creek flowed into the area, going down south towards Orchard Place before turning north to go back towards the East India Dock Road where I had taken the earlier images.

London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-15
London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-15

I’ll post about the second and final part of this short walk later.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in LondonPhotos, My Own Work | No Comments »

Bow Creek Panoramas – 1992

Thursday, February 18th, 2021

DLR Viaduct, Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1992 92-1j61pr_2400

At the end of 1991 I finally bought my first panoramic camera, a Japanese Widelux F8 which I couldn’t really afford. It was a camera that took around 21 pictures on a 36 exposure film, with the film curved around a part of a cylindrical path with the lens pivoting around the centre of the cylinder.

Bow Creek, Bridges, Leamouth Rd, Tower Hamlets, 1992 92-3a42a_2400

The lens is a 26mm f2.8, though it needs to be stopped down to around f8 for most pictures as the camera is fixed focus at around 6 ft and only gets sharp at infinity when stopped down. Winding on the film winds up a clockwork motor and returns the lens to its starting position. On pressing the shutter the lens swings around through about 140 degrees, exposing the film through a slit at its back which swings across close to the film. It has 3 shutter speeds, 1/15, 1/125, and 1/250th, but even at the fastest speed it still takes rather longer to actually complete the exposure.

92-3b38_2400

The design keeps lens to film distant constant – at around 26mm – right to the edge of the film across a negative 24mm x 56mm. If this was flat, the distance to the corner would be more like 40mm and so objects at the edges get stretched to around 1.5 times actual size. This camera eliminates this distortion, but at the expense of introducing its own which you can see in these pictures. This becomes particularly noticeable in the curvature of most straight non-vertical lines.

Pura Foods, Bow Creek, M & J Reuben, London Sawmills, Wharfside Rd, Newham, 1992 92-3b52_2400

In particular, horizons become curved unless the camera is kept absolutely level. The pictures of Bow Creek were made with the camera on a sturdy tripod and with the help of a spirit level. There is one on the top plate of the camera, but I found a larger separate one more useful.

Bow Creek, Orchard Place, River Thames, Lower Lea Crossing, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1992 92-1n12_leamouth_2400

Although the angle of view is often stated as 140 degrees this is perhaps misleading and I think probably is the angle across the diagonal. Rather more useful is the horizontal angle of view, which I think is just slightly over 120 degrees. Theoretically it would be possible to create a full 360 degree view in three exposures, but practically it needed four, though I don’t think I ever succeeded on the few occasions I tried to make one.

Later I made many more panoramas here and around London, particularly with a similar Russian camera, the Horizon or Horizont which was rather more convenient to use, as well as a few with a much larger medium format version. I also used a Hassleblad X-Pan, a nice camera which was panoramic only in format, with a similar negative size, 58x24mm, but using rectilinear lenses which can’t acheive a really wide angle of view.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in LondonPhotos, My Own Work, Technical | No Comments »

Bow Creek: Priors to Pura Foods

Monday, February 15th, 2021

Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1982 36v-23_2400

Goiong down Leamouth Road roughly south and parallel to the river there were a few places where you could look back up to the East India Dock Road and the disused railway bridge that crossed the creek a little to the south of the road. The bridge had carried a line which came from where Canning Town Station now is along the route now followed by the DLR but continuing across the river to pepper warehouses for the East India Docks opposite the docks on the eastern side of Leamouth Road, still shown on my 1939 Philip’s A B C Pocket Atlas-Guide to London and its Outer Districts.

J J Prior, Ship Repairs, Orchard Wharf, Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, 1982 36v-36 (2)_2400

Where the river swung around the Limmo Peninsula – now the Bow Creek Ecology Park – the view was wide open with the river only separated from the road by an open fence. Close to the bend to the west was Orchard Wharf, where J J Prior were still carrying out ship repairs. The flats in the background are on the other side of the East India Dock Road.

Pura Foors, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36v-21_2400

Looking up the creek on the eastern side of the peninisula was the west bank of the second peninsula, occupied by a large edible oil factory, Pura Foods, the smells from which were often rather noticeable. There were local campaigns to have this factory shut down, and eventually it did move out, relocating a few miles down-river. This peninsula is now redeveloped as City Island.

Pura Foods, Orchard Place, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, 1982 32f-33_2400

Roads in this area were disrupted when the Lower Lea Crossing was built – it opened in 1991. When I first went to photograph the area, Leamouth Road (historically called Orchard St) continued to meet Orchard Place at a T-junction, with Orchard Place going north to the Pura Food site and south, then turning east to Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Pura Foods, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c52_2400

Although there were still high walls along the northern section of Leamouth Rd, there was a clear view of Bow Creek looking south from the East India Dock Road only around a hundred yards east of where the river, here flowing roughly north, went under the bridge in the opposite direction.

Bow Creek, Pura Foods, Essex Wharf, Wharfside Rd, East India Dock Rd, Newham, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4b12_2400

Wharfside Road comes in a short tunnel under the East India Dock Road on which I was standing to take this picture, leading to Essex Wharf and the saw mills for the timber yard. The Docklands Light Railway now runs along here on the route of the the former rail line to the pepper warehouses, just in front of the line of parked cars in this picture.

There is now a footbridge across the DLR leading to a riverside path, built at around the same time as the new railway, the gates to the bridge were kept locked for most of its first twenty years but now seem to be permanently opened, and it provides a good short cut to Canning Town Station, whose riverside entrance was also locked for years after it was built, as well as to a new footbridge to City Island which replaced the factory here. You can also now walk or cycle down here to the right to visit the Bow Creek Ecology Park. Although very different it is still an interesting area in which to walk.

Clicking on any of the above images will take you to larger versions in my Flickr album on the River Lea. A further post will start at Wharfside Road and look at my pictures moving along Bow Creek towards the Thames.

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.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in LondonPhotos, My Own Work | No Comments »

Bow Creek from East India Dock Road

Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

Bow Creek, West Ham Power Station, East India Dock Rd, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c55_2400
Bow Creek, West Ham Power Station, East India Dock Rd, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989

Bow Creek truly became magical as it passed under the East India Dock Road, and although it has now lost much of the interest on its banks, the incredible flattened S-shape as it curves before reaching the Thames remains impressive.

Bow Creek, West Ham Power Station, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989 89-4c56_2400
Bow Creek, West Ham Power Station, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989

The creek bends almost 90 degrees to flow roughly south under the road at Ironbridge Wharf (the iron bridge long replaces by more modern concrete structures) only to take a hairpin 180 degree bend to return almost back to the road before sweeping another 180 degrees down to go over the elevated Lower Lea Crossing. From there its convolutions continue with a 90 turn to the east and another to the south before entering the Thames as Leamouth, around 900 metres away as the gull flies, but 1900 by boat.

Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 198232f-24_2400
Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1982

Its course defines two very different peninsulas; to the west on largely undeveloped and now a nature reserve, with the DLR crossing to it on a viaduct and running up it, and on the east an industrial site, then occupied by the edible oil company Pura Foods (earlier Acatos & Hutcheson) and now the site of the City Island development.

Timber yard, Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c51_2400
Timber yard, Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, Tower Hamlets, 1989

On the eastern bank of the river south of Canning Town station is another so-called peninsula, the Limmo Penisula, which became a major Crossrail works site and is now a housing development. The name was previously used for the whole area around this part of Bow Creek and the nature reserve, now the Bow Creek ecology park was first called the Limmo Peninsula ecological park. It is an area of confusing names, with the new development south of the Lower Lea Crossing taking its name, Goodluck Hope, from the area now called City Island. It was also easy to get a little confused by the area itself with the wandering of the river, and even when writing this post I had problems sorting out pictures just from the appropriate area.

Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c63_2400
Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989

The pipe bridge possibly carried gas from the nearby Poplar Gas works to Canning Town; downstream was a disused railway bridge. A new ‘blue bridge’ was later erected between these two (it appears in my 1992 pictures) and the pipe bridge was taken down though its brick piers left in place – now only the eastern one remains.

Timber Yard, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c65_2400
Timber Yard, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989

The pictures in this post were all taken on or close to the East India Dock Road where it crosses Bow Creek, beginning with a couple looking up river and with the rest looking towards the south. In later posts I’ll cover the area further down Bow Creek which played an important part in the industrial (and footballing) history of the nation, and return with the creek back almost to the road.

Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1982 32f-36_2400
Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1982

The pictures here are from visits to the area in 1982 and 1989, but I also took some in 1983, and returned again in 1992, mainly to make some panoramic views, which I’ll write about in a later post. You can see more of my pictures in my Flickr album – this area is on page 4 – and clicking on any of the above pictures will also take you to the larger version there.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in LondonPhotos, My Own Work | No Comments »