A Flight Across the River

We took a cable-car from North Greenwich across to Silvertown a few months ago.  The views were amazing and we could use our Oyster card which was handy.  There are wonderful views from the London Eye of the centre of the city, but there is something about an aerial view of this developing part of London that is even more interesting - there are lots of old warehouses (such as Millennium Mills), and lots of building sites.  The area is being regenerated and constantly changed, and there is still evidence of industry along the river.  The view isn't neat and contained; it is messy and fragmented, and much more interesting for the artist!

The Millennium Dome (above).

Silvertown Way runs to the right of this industrial area.  This is a really interesting part of the working Thames.  We headed for Orchard Place (in the distance to the right).

Above - The Tidal Basin Tavern - bombed in WWII but didn't survive beyond 1990 due to structural problems - so it's obviously been sitting here on this roundabout for a long time.  I wonder what they will replace it with?

Old warehouses on Orchard Place with the Dome beyond.

Secrets of the Square Mile

The Secret City

I am planning to write a book about the secret alleyways, lanes, paths and courtyards of the City of London - it will consist of paintings and sketches of points of interest, concentrating on unusual and quirky facts.  The book will be split into different wards and will cover areas of interest in each ward.  There are so many fascinating snippets about the city to include - it will be hard to decide what to put in!  I don't think it will be designed as a walk, but there could be the option to include walks in the back of the book.

I first came to St Bartholomew the Great when there had just been a wedding and the porch was decorated with beautiful lilies and white roses.  The building above is the gatehouse to St Bartholomew the Great.  It had a Geogian facade until 1916 when the original 16th century frontage was revealed in a zeppelin raid.  This timber-framed frontage was restored after WWI.  These details came from Images of Lost London by Philip Davies - which is a stunning book about the history of the capital.

Alleyways

There are a collection of amazing alleyways between Gracechurch Street and Lombard Street which probably haven't changed for a long time.  My grandfather used to work in the city after the war and would go through these alleyways every lunchtime to get to the pub.  They are probably some of the most intact and unspoilt alleyways and courts in the city: Castle Court, Bengal Court, Ball Court, St Michael's Alley, St Peter's Alley and George Yard.  Modernity is encroaching on the city from all sides, but passing into Ball Court (below) is like stepping back into another age - Dickensian lighting and lamps, shady figures(!) and old barrels - very atmospheric.

There is a part of old Limehouse that still exists along the river - originally called Limekiln Dock.  To the left lies Wapping and Narrow Street behind Dunbar Wharf - to the right is the Isle of Dogs.  The Barley Mow Brewery lay along Ropemakers Fields to the north.  Just west along the river is Limehouse Basin (below):

Limehouse Cut runs north east from the basin up to an old towerblock which I think is being redeveloped.  Below, we look towards the Thames and on our right is Dunbar Wharf.  There was a Brewery Wharf next to this spot, presumably linked to the Barley Mow Brewery.

 

 

These wharfs have been very tastefully restored, and are an echo of those at St Saviour's Dock and Shad Thames.  In fact, once they were widespread along much of the Thames and walkways such as those we see at Shad Thames were very common (for example at Lambeth and Wapping).  Barrels could be rolled from wharf to warehouse without the need for crossing the busy road!  I believe that the large door spaces on these warehouses are called loopholes.  There were originally a lot more walkways at Shad Thames than there are now - my father took a picture of the street in the 1970s and there are far more bridges then than there are today - made from a variety of materials - not just the trendy metal ones we see now!

 

 

The view above is a mystery to me - it might be along Regent's Canal looking towards Limehouse Basin?  Below is a picture of Wesley reading an interpretation board!

North Greenwich Tate & Lyle

The structure above has been demolished recently - it had been one of the last industrial parts of the river left.  Owned by Syral, part of the French Tereos company - it processed wheat flour into starch - which gave an interesting smell to the area.  You could actually go under the silos - below:

We named the shore next to the silos 'Shoe Beach' because of the amount of shoes we found there - no clay pipes though sadly.

Millennium Mills

Millennium Mills is another old factory/warehouse/wharf site that is going to be redeveloped.  Though as of yet nothing has happened to it.  It isn't quite as atmospheric as the Chambers Wharf cold stores, as you could walk right up to them.  You can't get too close to the site unless you are feeling very intrepid.  Here is a view (sbove) from the bridge across the Albert and Victoria Docks.

Millennium Mills (dating from the 1930s like Chambers Wharf) was a flour mill.  You can still see some of the equipment through the open side of the building.  The Royal Docks (which includes the Victoria and Albert docks) closed in the early1980s.  One gets the feeling that this Art Deco building ought to be listed (as is the nearby D Silo) as it is one of the only old factories in this area.  It bears the name Spillers (remember them of Bermondsey and dog biscuits?) who built the current building.  An earlier factory on the site was built by Vernon & Sons.

You can see D Silo to the right of this picture.

St Saviour's Dock and environs

St Saviour's Dock in Bermondsey - looking towards Dockhead and Jamaica Road.  To the right is Shad Thames - to the left Jacob's Island (a notorious slum until recent times).

 

Looking back towards the Thames.  St Saviour basically means 'Jesus' and the dock is actually the mouth of the Neckinger River.  It was first used as a dock by the monks of Bermondsey Abbey.  'Neckinger' is an interesting name, derived from a gibbet hung at the mouth of the river - this was known as the 'Devil's Neckerchief'.  There used to be a pretend gibbet outside the Clink Prison Museum but this has been taken down now (presumably too mouldy).

 

 

Warehouses in Mill Street, Jacob's Island, ironically not a Victorian slum any more - now very expensive! 

 

 

 

Neckinger Mills, Bevington and Sons.  A leather factory up until the 1980s.  Bermondsey was the centre of the leather trade - messy trades such as leather tanning were kept at arms length from the rest of London.  If you look on old maps of this area, you can see the small square and rectangular tanning vats that surround the tanneries.  Just to give you an idea - here are some vats that I saw in Marrakech (below)!

 



Chambers Wharf redeveloped

Some old pictures of Chambers Wharf (possibly from 2006-7):

The image above is taken from the stub of Llewellyn Street looking towards Cloyne Row (today Chambers Street).  The little building on the right may have been part of a terrace the rest of which was demolished.  Llewellyn Street was reasonably big and had trees planted down it - originally called Llewellyn Grove.

It is interesting that the streets in this part of Bermondsey are all long and parallel to one another.  A series of parallel roads stretch from Jamaica Road to Bermondsey Wall.  On a map of 1795 these were recorded as: Nutkine Corner, Salisbury Lane and East Lane, and to the right were some 'rope walks'.  These perhaps hold the clue as to the orientation of the later roads on top of them.  Rope walks are lanes or paths where material was stretched out prior to being twisted into rope.  To the west of the rope walks was Jacob's Island - this is covered in a separate blog such is its extensive history!

Chambers Wharf itself was a series of cold stores that stretched between Cloyne Row and Llewellyn Street to the south, Loftie Street to the east, Bermondsey Wall and the Thames to the north and Channel Row and East Lane to the west.  When I first walked around this area I was interested in creating location drawings - sadly I didn't do any of Chambers Wharf before it was demolished, but I took lots of photos instead.  I was fascinated by the atmosphere that these huge buildings gave this riverside area - something that will never be seen again in this area.  I realised that these were some of the last industrial buildings here.  The buildings above are the cold stores, and the wharf itself was between the river and Bermondsey Wall.  A bit of the wharf may be pictured below - I couldn't quite work out which bit it was from the map, which shows a series of buildings!

The recently demolished cold stores were built in the 1930s, and this is obvious from their appearance which has an Art-Deco feel to it.  The facade almost reminds me of a cinema or bingo hall albeit more industrial looking!  Before the cold stores, in the late 19th century this area had lots of huge granaries, which seem to be roughly the same alignment and shape as the cold stores on the maps.

For many years Bermondsey and much of the Thames riverfront in this area was characterised by tall factories, wharfs, warehouses and cold stores like these.  Bermondsey had so many factories it was known as 'London's Larder' and elderly residents from the area remember the rich smells that infused the air here - particularly biscuits!  (Peek Freans, Jacobs and Spillers (dogs' biscuits) were all here.)  Vinegar, jam and custard were also made in the area, and added to this was the aroma of the important tanning industries of the area (less of a good smell!)  Old maps of the area show lots of rope walks and tanning yards to confirm this.  Below is Loftie Street and a warehouse that backs onto it - on the wall you can see the remains of another warehouse with arched windows that was attached to this (?)