Three Colt St | >Re-PHOTO

Three Colt Street & Limekiln Dock: My walk in Limehouse on Sunday 6th January 1990 continued. The previous post from this walk is More from Narrow Street – 1990.

*Limekiln Wharf, Development, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-34*

Limehouse gets its name from the making of quicklime here, an industry dating back here into antiquity getting its first written reference in 1335. The newly developed flats of Limekiln Wharf and Dundee Wharf on the south side of Limekiln Creek (or Limekiln Dock) are probably on the site of old lime kilns (lime oasts) where chalk (calcium carbonate) brought by boats from Swanscombe or Northfleet or other areas of North Kent was brought ashore in the Creek and roasted to give quicklime (calcium oxide) the vital ingredient for cement, mortar and concrete and with many other uses. When water is then added it forms slaked lime (calcium hydroxide.)

Along the street are the late-Victorian buildings of the Dundee, Perth, and London Shipping Co. which were used by the London Docklands Development Corporation which was responsible for the redevelopment of docklands, over-riding the normal functions of the local authorities and still have the LDDC logo as a weathercock, though this was not in place in 1990.

*Limekiln Dock, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-36*

The always interesting ‘A London Inheritance‘ has a fascinating and very detailed account of the area, based on considerable research, Limekiln Dock and the Black Ditch.

The Black Ditch has been much mythologised as one of ‘London’s Lost Rivers‘ and its lower parts were after the 1855 replaced by the Limekiln Dock Sewer. I imagine the Black Ditch and this were both subsumed into Bazalgette’s grand designs in the 1860s and now flow to Beckton.

The view here is looking out towards the River Thames. Since 1996 there has been a swing bridge taking the Thames Path across the mouth of the creek. It had to be built as a swing bridge because of the ancient rights of navigation into the dock, though I would be surprised to find that it has ever needed to be swung to allow this.

*Limekiln Dock, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-25*

There seemed to be quite a lot of rubbish in the dock in 1990, but in earlier years things were much worse. The post in ‘A London Inheritance’ quotes a court case from 1893 where it is described as “the common receptacle for the sewerage of part of Fore-street, and also being a harbour for a large portion of the animal refuse of the Thames.”

*J R Wilson, Ship Stores, Limekiln Dock, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-26*

J R Wilson, Ship Stores at Limehouse Wharf has a frontage on Narrow Street and its back faces Limekiln Dock. I think the area from which I took this and the other pictures is no longer open to the public, but gave access to the Thames Path before the footbridge across the dock was built. In the foreground is the white-painted flood wall which was built around the Thames in London in the 1970s. Together with the Thames Barrier this has protected London from the serious floods of earlier years, but with rising sea levels will soon become inadequate.

*110, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-11*

The late-Victorian buildings of the Dundee, Perth, and London Shipping Co were in 1990 in use by D D Repro Limited, ‘Plain Paper & Dyeline Specialists. Their board on the building depicts the rough outline of the Thames from Tower Bridge around the Isle of Dogs and on to Beckton.

*The Enterprise, pub, Milligan St, 145, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-12*

The sign on the pub shows a three-masted ship caught in ice. The ships on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 search for the North-West Passage were last seen by the whaler ‘Enterprise’, and I think this picture may be a depiction of one of his two ships, which were abandoned after being ice-bound for over a year. It was a story that very much caught the Victorian imagination.

The pub is said to have closed in 1963, but was open again in 1990, It closed in 2001, the pub became an Indian restaurant but is now an estate agents with another floor added in recent years.

Still more to come from my Limehouse walk in 1990.

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St Anne's Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-32-positive_2400 — *St Anne’s Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-32*

Church, Pyramid, Star of the East – More Limehouse
My walk around Limehouse came back to the area I think of as its heart, close to St Anne’s Church, one of the Queen Anne Churches built after the 1711 Act of Parliament and consecrated in 1730. St Anne’s is one of the six London churches by Nicholas Hawksmoor along with St Alfege’s Greenwich, St George’ Bloomsbury, Christ Church, Spitalfields, St George in the East Wapping andhis only church in the City of London, St Mary Woolnoth.

St Anne's Churchyard, St Anne's Passage, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-34-positive_2400 — *St Anne’s Churchyard, St Anne’s Passage, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-34*

I turned my back on the church to photograph the entrance gate to the churchyard.

Limehouse Pyramid, St Anne's Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-36-positive_2400 — *Limehouse Pyramid, St Anne’s Church, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-36*

The church has featured in many books and publications, including the work of psychogeographers and other more esoteric and mystical writers, and seems to have a special place in the works of believers in ley lines. I’ve not read or seen the film ‘Dark Lines Of London’, but a web page claims to give “Factual Information That Provides the Backdrop to the Story” and includes descriptions and photographs of 10 sites, all from centuries after that in which the story is set, along “a real ley line” one of which is this “Wisdom Of Solomon” Pyramid.

Princes Lodge, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-22-positive_2400 — *Princes Lodge, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-22*

THE 4TH CONFERENCE of the Situationist International was held in London, at a secret address in the East End, 24-28 September 1960, seventeen months after the Munich Conference (April 1959). The situationists assembled in London were: Debord, Jacqueline de Jong, Jorn, Kotányi, Katja Lindell, Jörgen Nash, Prem, Sturm, Maurice Wyckaert and H.P. Zimmer. In fact, to ensure that the proceedings were kept well away from any contact with London journalists or artistic circles, the conference took place at the British Sailors Society hall in Limehouse, “an area famous for its criminals”.
Internationale Situationniste #5

Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-23-positive_2400 — *Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-23*

Built in the early 19th century and Grade II listed the Star of the East was serving beer at least from 1845. More recently the building had deteriorated and closed as a pub around 2010, was reopened a couple of years later but closed again in 2016. The pub was then taken over and refurbished by the Old Spot Pub Co, who run around a dozen pubs re-opening again in 2019.

Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-11-positive_2400 — *Star of the East, Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-11*

You can read more about its recent transformation and see some photographs from London Pub Explorer. I’ve yet to return to see for myself. Back in 1988 part of the building was a separate restaurant, but I think the pub now occupies the whole building. The refurbishment appears to have kept at least some of the original interior features.

Bate St, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-14-positive_2400 — *Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-14*

Three Colt St, which has St Anne’s Church at its northern end is one of the oldest roads in the area, part of the route from Limehouse to Stepney and first recorded in 1362. In the Victorian era it was flanked by a number of shops and was something of a middle-class enclave surrounded on both sides by extreme poverty. Little remains from those times. The building here is the former London and Blackwall Railway station, probably dating from the opening of the railway in 1840. The station closed in 1926, but the line remained in use for goods traffic until the 1960s. When the line was reused for the Docklands Light Railway in 1987, Westferry station was built around 300 yards to the east.

Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-16-positive_2400 — *Emmett St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-16*

Not only this building but the street that it was in have disappeared since I made this picture. Emmett St was at the end of Three Colt St, roughly where the Limehouse Link tunnel entrance is now. Construction of the tunnel began in November 1989 and the project was officially opened in May 1993, at £293,000,000 the most expensive per mile road scheme ever built in the UK, a huge public subsidy to the Canary Wharf redevelopment.

When Mucho Macho released ‘The Limehouse Link’ in 1998 it had one of my pictures wrapped around both the CD and the 12″ LP, where it looked rather more impressive. But this image was from Poplar – and this is the full image from the Urban Landscapes web site and doesn’t show the Limehouse Link at all.

Clicking on any of the black and white images above will take you to a larger version in my 1988 London Photos from where you can browse the album.

Tag: Three Colt St

Three Colt Street & Limekiln Dock – 1990

Church, Pyramid, Star of the East – More Limehouse