River side north bank, east of the Tower. Limehouse
Riverbank north bank east of the Tower
Limehouse
The posting only covers sites on the north bank of the river. On the south bank is Rotherhithe, Nelson Dock.
Riverside area where numerous wharves were the sites of trading and manufacturing industries from at least the 17th century. Some important shipbuilding sites. These are now covered with late 20th housing, much of it in gated areas and some completely inaccessible to anyone but the occupants. Some other industry - all of course gone - including breweries. The area was accessed by two canals - the very early Limehouse Cut coming into the area from the Lea Valley and the Lea Navigation, and the Regents Canal accessing the west London, the midlands and the national canal network. The Regents Canal Dock provided a river entrance and facilities - now known as the Limehouse Dock its area is encroached by 20th century 'exclusive' housing developments. There are the remains of older housing and social support systems.
The riverside area on this square is complex. Some sites have had multiple works and areas have changed. Some have frontages both to the river and the street. On many there is real difference between the riverside working wharf and the block of modern flats now in the premises. An attempt has been made at cross referencing – but it is far from ok. Contributions and corrections welcomed. Edith would like to congratulate the heroes at the Survey of London which covers the eastern part of this square – and is grateful and impressed by the amount of detail.
Aberdeen Square
The site of this development of offices is now under Canary Riverside.
Bekesbourne Street
1a John Scurr Community Centre.
Bowley Street
The road is named after a James Bowley who had a shipyard in Emmett Street. Most of the area was taken up with housing built by the London County Council. In 1931 the south side of the road was cleared by Poplar Borough Council. The road itself has now disappeared under West Ferry Circus and Canary Riverside.
Bridge Road Iron Works. The site had been the Baker and May felt depot in 1870. From 1886 to around 1909 Robinson & Dodd, used the site as boat builders. Later J. Kimpton & Sons used it as an iron and brass foundry and whose manhole covers can be found around the area.
Elliott's Metal Company. This engineering firm was in the corner with Bridge Road from the late 1870s
Alfred Masson, seed and cereal warehouse from 1869. The business was removed in 1946 for an electricity sub station.
Thomas Stickells. Brass foundry from 1880.
Branch Road
This is now part of the approach road to the Rotherhithe Tunnel. It was once called Horseferry Branch Road. There had been a ferry across the Thames at Limehouse for centuries, To give access to this ferry, the Commercial Road Company intended to build a road which would have passed right through the middle of the present Limehouse Basin. The Commercial Road Company moved their road to the ferry so it lay west of the dock. It is then connected by a west to east road to Horseferry Road which runs parallel to it to the former ferry terminal.
9 Finnish Seamen’s Mission. Now converted to housing having been rebuilt behind its façade
Two telephone boxes. This is of the sort designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1927 in cast iron – K2 square kiosks.
Stepney Borough Coroner's Court. This was set up in 1898 plus a building for a steam disinfecting apparatus, a mortuary, and a disinfecting station. There was also a temporary shelter to provide Accommodation for the use of families during disinfection and a flat for a caretaker. These have since been demolished.
Courtyard at the junction with Narrow Street. There is a fountain with mosaic surround plus two mosaic covered seats.
London Street. Before Branch Road was built London Street ran through this area with reference to London Field. In 1380 John Philpot, Lord Mayor of London, proposed to build a tower on each side of the Thames, and stretch a chain between them as a defensive measure. He had however already bought the land at Ratcliff which he then gave to the City Corporation. This land was called London Field and roughly lay between Stepney Station and the river
Bridge Road
Bridge Street was an earlier name for the stretch of West Ferry Road which is on this square. It was an initiative of the Emmet family and the West India Docks co who in 1807 had the road built. The work was undertaken by Thomas Morris, the company's engineer
Colonial Produce Company, bass and fibre dressing works for this fruit importer from the 1890s-1930. The site had previously been a mast, anchor, rope- and sail makers
Hoare, Marr & Company, hemp merchants warehouse 1890s to 20. They were sailcloth, bunting and flag manufacturers based in the City but originating in Dundee in the 1870s. They later moved to Deptford although Walter Marr had retired in 1915.
Midland Railway Company. They had a goods depot here in the early 1860s. This replaced a warehouse owned by ships’ chandlers Robley, Tennant & Company.
Office building for Fletcher Son & Fearnall built in the late 19th by Andrews & Peascod as architects.
Fletcher Villas. Built for shipuilders' workers, demolished in 1988,
Brightlingsea Place
Faraday House. This is a refurbished tenement, built by B.J. Belsher for Stepney Borough Council in 1931 as part of the Limehouse Fields clearance scheme. Modernistic with curved a stair tower
Brightlingsea Building. Built by the London County Council in 1904 demolished in 1982
Housing by Proctor Matthews 1992 on the site of Stepney Power Station.(see Narrow Street)
Canary Riverside
This development area on the west side of Canary Wharf and West Ferry Road covers the sites of Emmett Street, Thames Place, Bowley Street, Aberdeen Square and North Garden. It is on the site of what was Union Docks – (under Riverside and West Ferry Circus below).
The Canary Riverside development was a joint project between Canary Wharf Group plc, Pidemco Land Limited and Hotel Properties Limited. Since 2000 the site has been owned by Canary Wharf Group. It is a private, gated complex. It has a communal garden and manned security is present on site.
Four Seasons Hotel “a low rise ten storey building” and Philippe Starck-designed. Selling ‘luxury’ and ‘privacy’. Corporate palatial.
Virgin Active –‘health’ club and gym.
Circus Apartments. Said to be the only residential accommodation at Canary Wharf. Security watches all the time and ‘luxury’ everywhere.
Canary Wharf Pier. Owned by the Canary Wharf Management Group it is used by commuter river services
Dundee Wharf
Dundee Wharf. This is on is on the riverside on the south side of what was Limekiln dock and on the northern side of the old Poplar Borough Boundary. There are modern residential buildings now on the site of Limekiln Dockyard. In the 17th and early 18th there were many different small works here –Joseph Dent, a shipwright, Edward Terrett, a joiner, Michael Upston, a blockmaker, Hudson's Bay Company warehouses, boat builders and mast maker.
Dundee wharf was used by the Dundee, Perth & London Shipping Company to operate a twice-weekly service between Leith and London. The area was known as The Dunbar Wharves. - Dundee, Aberdeen, Caledonia and Dunbar. Their office building is by the entrance in Three Colt Street. In 1835 their paddle steamers SS London and SS Perth operated a twice weekly passenger service to Dundee. In 1909 it was said to handle Carcasses of beef, and potatoes. A wharf with electric cranes was opened here in the 1930s. The wharf was destroyed during the blitz, rebuilt in the 1950s when it was a “fortress like warehouse” trading in general goods. It closed in 1969. It was demolished to allow construction of the Limehouse Link before the current housing was built.
The Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Company was founded in 1826 to carry passengers and cargo. They operated passenger steamer services to London until the outbreak of the Second World War and also maintained cargo shipping routes to St Petersburg and the Mediterranean until 1962. As the DP&L Group they have been connected to the Chalmers family for 80 years and bought put by them in 1993. In 2014 they were sold to Alick Bisset
Dundee Wharf is a group of buildings built in 1997 by Ballymore Properties to designs by the architect Piers Gough, a partner at Campbell Zogolvich Wilkinson and Gough (CZWG).
River Plate Wharf. This was part of Dundee Wharf and between 1912 and 1929 used by the London Trading Company for wrapping Oxo cubes.
Emmett Street
This is now covered by Canary Riverside. It once ran from Westferry Road to meet Three Colt Street. This was a road which led from Limehouse to the riverfront to the south. It was called Emmett Street from about 1830 – named after a family who had owned land here in the 18th. Some of the area which it ran through and served was traditionally known as Limehouse Hole. Many of the sites alongside the street were river trades with river frontages and they are below under Riverside.
Providence Cottages. Found to be unhealthy by the London County Council and so demolished by the Borough in 1931
Providence House – this was a block of flats built by Poplar Borough Council in 1932 to replace the cottages and designed by the Borough Engineer and Surveyor, Harley Heckford. It was had a line of concrete balconies and jazzy decorations. Some flats were damaged in the Second World War. It was demolished by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1981.
12 United Brothers' beerhouse. This was opened in the late 19th and closed in 1935.
The Royal Oak public house. This was to the east of the distillery
The Antigallican public house. This was here until the 1850s.
Gut House. In the early 1730s William Waterbury, a butcher, built a public house. It was displaced by the West India Export Dock in 1806.
Shipwrights Arms. This pub was built originally in 1788 by Thomas Wright near the entrance to Hill and Mellish's dockyard. It was compulsorily purchased in 1800 for the building of the West India Docks.
Arnold's Buildings, a six-storey block of artisans' dwellings, was put up in 1884–5 by E. Nathan, with a frontage to Emmett Street, opposite Aberdeen Wharf, In 1902 Limehouse & Poplar Workmen's Homes Ltd was set up to convert Arnold's Buildings into a hostel but the site was cleared instead.
Gill Street
29 Lord Nelson. Pub. Closed and gone
109 Royal Sovereign Pub. Closed and long gone
Railway bridge, date unknown but the abutments are 1839. Concrete decking is by the Docklands Light Railway.
Grenade Street
This was once called Gunnell Lane
20 Duke of Cornwall Pub. Closed and gone
38 Carpenters Arms. Pub, Closed and gone
Railway bridge, date unknown but the abutments are 1839. Concrete decking is by the Docklands Light Railway.
Horseferry Road
This appears to have previously been Medland Road. However it is cut off at the west end because of the insertion of the Limehouse link. Thus the biscuit works and the brewery would not have been in Horseferry Road.
Phoenix Biscuit Works - dog and ships biscuit works owned by Walker and Harrison. They made Phoenix" (carbonated) meat biscuit for dogs. They were on site in the 1880s and remained there until at least the late 1930s.
Brewery. The Brewery in Medland Street was apparently known in the early 19th as the Ratcliffe Cross Brewery – but may have been older. It seems to have been owned or managed by a George Richmond and by the 1830s by Strong and Larchin as ale and porter brewers – it is mentioned as a ‘famous old porter brewery’. In the 19th it appears as The Queens Head Brewery and by 1842 a Peter Armstrong and George Taylor were involved. By 1900 it is said it had been owned ‘over a long period of time’ by Francis and Charles Alexander, and called the London and Burton Brewery. However it does not appear to have had a connection with a brewery of that name in based Burton which was sold to Charringtons in 1871. The Ratcliffe Brewery site was later taken over by Witney, Combe, Reid and Co. Ltd. and eventually closed.
61 White Hart Pub. Long gone
Medland Hall. This shelter provided meals and night shelter to 100s of destitute people. It was opened in 1893 in a hall owned by the London Congregational Union. Originally, it opened at 11 p.m. and inmates —were allowed to stay until 6 a.m. the next morning. By the early 1900s, it was offering accommodation for a week at a time. by mid-afternoon a long queue would form. By 7 o'clock, its 450 bunks would have been allocated.
Island Row
This road went to the Island Lead Works which was on a piece of land between what was originally two docks – the Regents’ Canal Basin, at the end of the Regent’s Canal and the Limehouse Basin, at the end of the Limehouse Cut.
Island Lead Works. The works dated from at least 1817 when it have belonged to a Thomas Preston described as a lead merchant with a works in Tooley Street. The Horwood Plan of 1799 shows a substantial building on the site. George Key is listed here in 1830 and By 1834 Thomas Key who ran it until 1851. It was then passed to Edward and Alfred Pitchford. The works produced blue lead products and also lead shot, white lead, and the described themselves as lead ash smelters and metal refiners. In 1874 it was advertised for sale and was purchased by the Farmiloes. From the 1880s George Farmiloe & Sons Ltd and T & W Farmiloe Ltd had interests here. Tea-chest lead was made there and other products which were related to the building trade. About 100 people were employed there in the 19th but by 1951 there were only 50 employees. The buildings have since been demolished and the site has vanished following the redevelopment of the Regent's Canal Dock and building of the Limehouse Link Road.
Limehouse Causeway
Limehouse Causeway is an ancient pathway, and very very narrow. Cantonese people lived there – and it has been described as the ‘original Chinatown’ - but Stepney Borough Council 'slum cleared' the area and realigned the road in 1904.
Saunders Close was originally called Potter Dwellings. The block was built by Stepney Borough Council - three-stories block in yellow and red brick. It was apparently named after Henry Potter, once mayor of Stepney. It was later renamed “Saunders Close’ which may have been for a Mr. Saunders, because of his role during the Blitz.
Cyril Jackson School. This primary school seems to be on the site of Gill Street School which was a London School Board School dating from the 1880s. It appears to have been rebuilt in 1991 by Robert Byron Architect, possibly with London Docklands Development Corporation support. Cyril Jackson was a British educationist, who lives and worked in the east end and was inspector-general of schools in Western Australia in 1896 Northey Street School was renamed The Cyril Jackson Primary School in recognition of his work and dedication to public service.
Limehouse Youth Centre. The original Limehouse youth club was demolished for the building of the Limehouse Link Road. It was rebuilt here by the Squires Practice for the London Docklands Development Corporation. It is designed round a central hall and is a large and prominent building said to give substance to the idea of “community architecture”.
16 Royal Oak Pub. Gone and demolished
Railway Bridge. This is a new concrete bridge built for the Docklands Light Railway in 1986
Limehouse Basin - Regents Canal Dock.
Limehouse Basin is a body of water built as a dock which stood between the River and the Regents’ Canal which it was there to serve. Its real name is the Regent’s Canal Dock. It was built to provide an entrance to the Regent's Canal – as it still does - and thus prove access to the whole of the national canal network. It now also functions as a marina surrounded by housing of the 1980s and later. In recent years the dock has seen many alterations, a new entrance lock and the building of the Limehouse Link Road beneath it. The Regent's Canal Dock was never part of the Port of London Authority but remained in the control of its parent canal and eventually the British Waterways Board. In 1835 three-quarters of the Regent Canal's traffic came through the dock from the Thames. The canal was completed in 1820. The entrance lock was built to the west of the ferry road – now known as Branch Road - built by the Commercial Road Company.. Where a canal joins a tidal river a small basin would be built so that craft could await the right state of the tide before using the locks. At the Regent Dock it was felt necessary to admit sea going vessels and plans were upgraded to allow for a laager basin. James Morgan, the canal engineer, had planned two basins, a ship dock, and a barge basin. The plan was rejected in favour of a single basin and a slope to the quays. The Regent's Canal Dock was the first, and for many years the only dock to allow in colliers from north-east England. Coal was be transhipped into lighters in the dock for shipping to the new gas works being built alongside the canal. As competition from railways began so the dock was enlarged and projecting timber jetties with hydraulic cranes were added. A granary and warehouses were built to attract new custom to the dock ad there were four jetties at which colliers could unload. Coal traffic fell off in the years before the Great War and and a new larger concrete jetty equipped with six high capacity electric grab cranes was built out from the north-east quay. The Dock closed, in 1969 but in in 1968 the Limehouse Cut was diverted into the dock and lighters continued to use until the 1980s. The Basin was ‘redeveloped’ from 1983 by the London Docklands Development Corporation's including the construction of the Limehouse Link tunnel under the north side of the basin in the early 1990s. Housing around the Basin was built partly by Bellway Homes in various phases of development. The Cruising Association has a purpose-built headquarters here and the dock is now usually described as a ‘marina’.
Medland Wharf was to the south west. It was equipped with electric luffing cranes to handle fruit cargoes from Spain.
Old Ship Lock. This was the original lock which could handle big sailing ships. This was partly in-filled to provide when the new lock was built to provide a new riverside quay called Chinnock's Wharf. A pumping station was built over the old ship lock by Sir John Wolfe-Barry as part of the improvements to Dock and Canal authorized by Parliament under an Act of 1895. ,
The New Ship Lock was built in 1868 so that steam colliers could enter the dock. W G Armstrong & Co. built a swing bridge to carry Narrow Street over the New Ship Lock entrance to the Dock. The Present Lock was built in 1988-9 is within the former ship lock of 1869. Across the dock entrance is a Swing Bridge of steel box-girder construction, by Husband &' Company, built in 1962.
Barge Lock. In the 184Os an entrance lock for barges from the River was built to the east of the Old Ship Lock west end of the South Quay. This was kept as a water-saving device -Water shortage was a perennial problem with the Regent's Canal in the 19th. It was infilled in stages after 1919. The entrance is now covered over and used as a car park for office workers. .
Commemoration Stone by the steps on the South East Quay – this commemorated Sir John Wolfe Barry's improvements of 1898-99 "This stone was set 20th June 1899 James Staats Forbes Chairman". Have no reason to believe this is still there.
Harbour Master's Station. This is a timber and brick pagoda of 1989 by Peter White and Jayne Holland of the British Waterways Board. Near it a bronze relief map of the basin, from 1986, commemorates this first phase of redevelopment.
South Quay and land west of the dock entrance was developed to encourage general trade to the dock. Part was used from 1870 for the London and Liverpool Steamship Co.
Limehouse Cut
The Limehouse Cut is a canal which comes into this area from the north east and which once ended in a canal basin and then went into the Thames but which now enters the dock which is now known as Limehouse Basin. It was built 1767-70 by Yeoman upon the recommendations of John Smeaton. In 1854, the Regents Canal Company took control of Limehouse Cut and built a connecting link into the Regents Canal Dock although this was closed soon after. The lock that connected the cut to the Thames was rebuilt in 1865, after the closing of the link to the Regents Canal Dock, and the design had included massive timber ties over the top to prevent bulging of the walls. These were eventually replaced with a steel cage, which served the same purpose. The gates were operated by winches and chains. In 1965 this needed replacement but commercial activity would have been severely disrupted by the construction of a new lock. So the link to the Regents Canal Dock was reconsidered and a new length of canal was built and opened in 1968. The old lock was then filled in but one of the winches was saved and was put on display at Hampstead.
Remains of the entrance lock. There is a disused bell-mouthed entrance to the entrance lock visible from in Narrow Street. Part of the lock is also preserved on the side of Narrow Street as a shallow water feature, lined by a late 19th row of cottages
Bridge - The Cut’s opening into Regent’s Dock was crossed by a wrought-iron girder bridge of 1865.
Island Lead Mills (see above) on the north side of the Cut
Norway Yard. The site was that of T. & W. Forrest Lifeboat builders, who were originally established in 1788 to build ships, boats and yachts. During the 19th century, nearly 90% of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution fleet was built by yards on the Thames. Forrest & Son of Limehouse built more than 115 lifeboats at their yard after 1864. They moved to Wivenhoe in 1911.
Lea Wharf. William Gibbs 1911
Albion Wharf. This wharf was probably owned by a chemical company in the 19th, making dyes or paint.
Finland Wharf. This was a timber wharf, owned by the Chalk family in the early 20th.
Limehouse Link
The Limehouse Link is a long tunnel which links the Highway running eastwards from Tower Bridge with a series of road heading into Essex. It was built between 1989 and 1993 by the London Docklands Development Corporation and was the most expensive road scheme in Britain per mile, it is also the second largest road tunnel in the UK. The designers were Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners and the design of the tunnel approaches and portal buildings was by Anthony Mears and Rooney O'Carroll Architects. At the time it was the second biggest engineering project in Europe. It consists is twin parallel tunnels built under waterways so it was built bottom-up behind temporary cofferdam walls. On the western portal is Zadok Ben-David's circle of silhouettes, Restless Dream, and the eastern portal has an untitled abstract by Nigel Hall.
Limekiln Dock (for details of buildings see Dundee Wharf, Narrow Street and Three Colt Lane)
This is a small tidal inlet. It is sometimes thought to be the outfall of the Black Ditch – a stream which is said to have run through Whitechapel and Stepney from Holywell Row in Norton Folgate. It is an 18th dock which now has mainly, brick walls on the north side, and concrete facing on south side. There are some wooden buttresses.
Lime. Recorded as ‘The Lymhostes’ in 1367 that is "the lime oasts or kilns' and limeburners are mentioned in this area from the late 14th. Lime was made from chalk or limestone heating it kilns and was used in a number of other local industries
Footbridge designed by YRM/Anthony Hunt Associates for the LDDC in 1996. It takes the Thames path across the mouth of Limekiln Dock and is stayed by a single mast. Said to be designed by Piers Gough.
Graves Ship Yard. Graves built warships for the navy in the 17th and 18th here and in Deptford. This site became part of Dundee Wharf. (See Dundee above)
Narrow Street
Narrow Street. The road follows the river for nearly half a mile. The eastern section was once called Fore Street
22-28 these blocks were among the first warehouses converted for residential use in Docklands. This was done by designer Roe Hoffenberg with architects Berman & Guedes. Here industrial zoning had to be overturned to permit change of use. (See Riverside)
24 This is another early conversion, completed in 1980. It is now known as Roneo Wharf –Roneo were the copying apparatus makers. They are also listed as having both inland and riverside property here. (See Riverside)
St George’s Square. This appears to be on the sites of the Ratcliffe Brewery and the Phoenix Biscuit works described under Medland Street above.
28 London Wharf. John Cooper, wharfinger (see Riverside) converted to housing in the 1980s.
29 G.Moore & Sons Ltd, glass bottle manufacturers. Moore’s made glass bottles, possibly for medicines, at their works at Blyth on the Tyne, from where they were shipped to London. They had another works at Wombwell in Yorkshire.
30 Sun Wharf. This is a conversion by Scott, Brownrigg & Turner done in 1983, originally for the filmmaker David Lean, who eventually died here. It is said to have the same approach to derelict industrial building popular in Europe. It took four 19th warehouses, two of which were burnt-out and created a house and garden. 30 was also known Crown Mill wharf which was also used by John Cooper (see Riverside) it was once another flour mill
32-40 Wharves converted to housing. (See Riverside)
Goodhart Place. Speculative housing by Richard Seifert & Partners, part of a never-completed scheme for offices and houses by that architect, 1985-6.
Regents Canal Dock. This is the main entrance from river. W G Armstrong & Co, built swing bridge which carried Narrow Street over the New Ship Lock, new bridge by Husband & Company, 1962. (See Limehouse basin)42 Chinnocks Wharf. Redevelopment into housing by Michael Squires Assoc in 1997. (See Riverside)
44 The Narrow. Restaurant with a TV chef. The building dates from 1905-1910 by the Regents Canal Company as a purpose-built Customs/Dock Master’s house serving the Regents Dock. It is by the south entrance lock and is a red brick building. It became a pub in 1989 and was at first called The Barleymow for the local Barley Mow brewery where Taylor Walker first started brewing in.1730. There are some decorative capstans
Regents Canal Wharf - Borough of Stepney Stone yard, North of Narrow Street the ship lock was kept in water to provide a quay serving a timber yard which was called Regent’s Canal Wharf. In time this became the Council stone yard and later a general a Council depot. (See Riverside)
46 Victoria Wharves. This wharf is built on land between the present Limehouse Basin entrance lock and the entrance to the Limehouse Cut. It was acquired by the Regents Dock Company as part of improvements in 1869 and was a speculative development by them. Now converted to housing. (See Riverside)
Entrance from the river to the Limehouse Cut and now disused. (See Limehouse Cut)
18th house by the entrance to the tidal lock to the Limehouse Cut
Kidney Stairs. These were once called White’s Stairs and dated from before 1635. (See Riverside)
65 Bricklayers Arms. Pub, long closed and demolished
Papermill Wharf. This was the wharf for the Limehouse paper board mills. Hough;s wharf. It has a simplified Italianate tower as a reconstruction of Hough's Wharf. Hough’s incorporated some of the outer walls of the 19th Dover Wharf. Site occupied earlier by Curling's Shipyard – who are also said to have been at Duke Shore.
Bridge Dry dock. In 1892 this was Dawson & Son. (See Riverside)
67 Limehouse Paperboard Mills Ltd. Robert Hough Ltd was established in 1860 as a paper merchant. The Limehouse Mill opened in 1912 recycling waste paper and board to manufacture grey board. It was the first mill in England to make paperboard from waste paper. Waste paper was beaten with warm water into a pulp which was sent to a machine to make a wet board. This was dried, then, calendared and reeled. The site included two steam engines, both there till the end. They closed in 1986 due to the pressures of the Docklands redevelopments – basically because the site wasn’t pretty or tidy. The original plan was to convert it into ‘luxury’ flats, but it was demolished for new flats. Houghs originally moved to Bermondsey but are now at Witham in Essex with a different name. It was built on the site of a derelict late 16th century dry dock, the remains of which were noted in the cellars of the paper mill and Hough's wharf.
Dover Wharf had been the site of Pintsch Patent Lighting works in the early 20th. They made lamps and lighting systems for Pullman Railway cars, lighthouses etc using compressed oil or other gas.
Curling Shipyard. The Curling family built ships on various sites in this area. They built East and West Indiamen and, from the late 1830s, large merchant steamships, all of them of timber.
Borough of Stepney Electricity Station. Stepney Borough Council built this at Blyth Wharf in 1907 to supply power to station Stepney and Bethnal Green. A single tall brick chimney was constructed in 1937 which dominated the area. The station continued until the early 1970s and has since been demolished.
Blyth’s Wharf. John and Alfred Blyth had a steam engine and steam ship works from the early 19th. This appears to have remained until acquired for the local authority power station.
The Watergarden. This was previously called Roy Square. It is built on the site of the Stepney Power Station by Ian Ritchie Architects in 1988. It is a long, courtyard of flats, with the car park below. The entrance leads to steps which `lead onto a garden, with a canal. Opens out into open space done by the LDDC in 1994, with Indian bean trees and seats.
70 Sunshine Custard Co. This was a custard powder manufacturer.
76 The Grapes pub. This claims to be pub ‘Jolly Fellowship Porters’ as described by Charles Dickens. It is also said to be where the Gang of Four planned their exit from the Labour Party. The current building dates from the 1720s and is on the site of a pub built in 1583. In the 1930s it sold beer from the nearby Taylor Walker brewery. Dickens is said to have sat here and there is a complete set of Dickens in the back parlour. On the wall is an oil painting, Limehouse Barge Builders, by Napier Hemy and also watercolours of Limehouse Reach by Louise Hardy; and Dickens at The Grapes by Nick Cuthell
78-90 a ten-bay, row of four early 18th houses, apparently built by Thomas Wakelin of Ratcliffe.
92 The Waterman’s Arms, later called Booty’s Bar. It is now closed as a pub. In the 18th this was an engineering shop for the barge builders, Sparkes. By the 1870s it had become a pub owned by Taylor Walker. It later became used by the Woodward Fisher, a lighterage firm which was latterly managed by Dorothea Fisher.
106 Duke Shore Wharf. Flats by Barnard Urquhart Jarvis 1985-8.
110 -112 Essex Wharf. Hay & Co Ltd, caramel and filter pump makers
114 & 116 Anchor Wharf. British & Foreign Bottle Co Ltd Makers and distributors of bottles and jars with a works in Queenborough, Sheppey.
121 Rowan A & Brother Ltd, disinfectant manufacturers
133 Barley Mow Pub. Long gone.
136-40 Dunbar Wharf. Converted to flats. These early 19th warehouses belonged to Duncan Dunbar & Sons, who ran a fleet of fast sailing ships to India, Australia and North America. The wharf backed on the Limekiln Dock. Dunbar, who settled here in 1780, built ships in Calcutta.. He lived in 138. 1796 The business was developed by his son into a leading shipping company serving, primarily, the Indian and Australian routes. It later became Dunbar Wharf Holdings Ltd. which worked in freight forwarding, warehousing through E.W.Taylor & Co. They had been Established in 1857 as a lighterage company, and used Dunbar Wharf for the larger cargos. It functioned as a working wharf until the rise of containerisation in the 1970’s.
142 St Dunstan's Wharf. Built in 1878 at with a decorative moulded brick front where St.Dunstan grabs the devils nose with pincers. The rest has been rebuilt; Juniper berries used for the manufacture of London gin were stored here. It was also used by Gardner & Gardner, hay & straw salesmen
143 In the 1920s works for Sterry Dunnell, aerated water manufacturer. In 1943 this was Alfred Harris, Plastic waste, Ebonite Celluloid Vulcanite Cellulose Acetate Wax, and Rosin
Herring Gull. Sculpture of acreaming gull in copper on a coil of rope by J Jane Ackroyd, 1994. This is in a wedge of open space, part of Ropemakers Fields.
148-50 Limehouse Wharf. Another warehouse conversion
Newell Street
This was once Church Row
25-27 offices for Tower Hamlets Community Transport. The building was originally an engineering works
Sunday School. This was presumably connected to the Brunswick Chapel which stood to its rear in Three Colt Lane.
Barley Mow Brewery. This was Taylor Walker's Barley Mow Brewery, which stood nearby which produced a dark ale known as 'Main Line'. The brewery apparently dated from at least the 1730s and the original instigators were members of the Hare and Salmon families – both with brewery interests elsewhere. The brewery then fronted on to Fore Street – now part of Narrow Street. In the late 18th Quakers Taylor and Harford became involved and by the early 19th the Walker family were also present. The brewery may have been rebuilt in the 1820s and a new complex was erected in 1889 designed by the brewery architects Inskipp & Mackenzie. This building fronted onto the road now called Newell Street and was known as the Barleymow Brewery. The firm they began a programme of take overs of smaller breweries throughout the early 20th. It was heavily bombed in the Second World War. The brewery closed following a merger in with Ind Coope 1959 and was later demolished.
Northey Street
Quayside. Big blocks of flats by John Thompson & Partners.
1 CA House. Cruising Association Offices. Built 1997. The Association has a membership of cruising sailors. Founded in 1908 they provide information, help and advice
Bridge. This lies over the now defunct lock area of the Limehouse Cut where some water remains for decorative purposes. There are the preserved parapets of the bridge of 1865 which took the road across the north end of the lock
30 Northey Arms. Pub. Long gone and demolished
Northey Street School. This was a London School Board school which may have opened around 1886. An infants' school was opened in 1896. The school was renamed Cyril Jackson School in 1930 because of the work done locally towards education by Jackson. The school appears to have moved to its current site, of Gill Street School, in the 1950s. GKC 973 using space under railway arches.
Northey Street Boys Club. This was run by Cyril Jackson and opened in 1875
Oak Lane
Malting House. Local authority built 15 storey block.
Risby House. This was a 15 storey block demolished in 1988 because it was thought to be in danger of collapse
Risby’s Rope Walk. Was parallel to and in the area of what is now Oak Street. In 1782 a street here was called Risby's Rope Ground. Captain Henry Risby had a house and property locally. He was an Elder Brethren of Trinity House and connections with the East India Company.
North Country Pink. Pub extant in the area in the 19th
School. Extension to Northey Street School built in the 1880s
Oak Lane Foundry. 1843 belonged to Samuel Hodge where they made steam engine boilers, trunks and pans. Hodge was in West Ferry Road by the 1890s and remains now based in Sheffield as the Samuel Hodge Group.
Oak Lane Chemical Works. Hope Hartop & Co. The works was here in the early 20th and the company was also based in Leicester. They made carbolic acids, fluids, & creosotes
Finland Wharf. This wharf fronted onto the Limehouse Cut (above)
Albion Wharf. This wharf fronted onto the Limehouse Cut (above)
Rich Street
14 Lord Hood Pub. Long closed and gone
Railway Bridge. Built on the London and Blackwall Railway this is their standard bridge of 1939/40. With three railing posts in the later parapet above. The top course were installed for the Docklands Light Railway.
Riverside
Ratcliffe Cross Wharf. In 1909 said to handle flour, potatoes, anchovies and lemons.
Ratcliffe Cross Stairs. These run from the west end of Narrow Street. Stone slipway to River Thames – the name reflecting a lost riverside hamlet.
Phoenix Wharf. The works relates to the inland biscuit works where ‘Phoenix’ dog biscuits were made. In the early 20th it was partly occupied by G.Crump, sailmaker. Another part of the wharf was occupied by Luralda, tea chest makers, who were importing plywood.(See Narrow Street)
Trinity Ballast Wharf. This is among a block of early warehouse conversions in Narrow Street. The Corporation of Trinity House had premises here from 1618. The Ballast office was to administer a tax on ballast. In the 1930s D. T. Miller and Sons, ship repairers had an engineering and barge repair here.
Marriage's Wharf. Jacob Marriage and Co Ltd, were flour merchants. In the 19th, this wharf and its neighbour were Ratcliffe Cross Flour Mill and alongside it the Globe Flour Mill. Later taken over by Marriage. They survived the changes in milling technology by specialising in animal feeds, and by taking advantage of the move back to stone-ground flour. Marriages also had a wharf in West Ham where they were know for their opium clippers.
Roneo Wharf. This was operated in the 1920s by the copying apparatus makers. Earlier it had been part of Ratcliffe Cross Flour Mill and Globe Flour Mill
London Wharf. Used by John Cooper John, wharfinger – Cooper handled mainly canned goods, and was active on several other wharves on this stretch. In 1909 it was said that two-thirds of the canned goods landed on this wharf belong to the Government and are inspected by the Government Officials only. It has now been converted to flats.(See Narrow Street)
28 Sewer outfall below Mean High Water - large circular outfall of an early 19th sewer by 28 Narrow Street
Crown Mill Wharf. Also used by John Cooper. (See Narrow Street)
Eagle Wharf. In 1909 said to handle flour, beef and pork in casks
New Sufferance Wharf. In 1909 said to handle fresh cabbages, fruit pulps and vegetables in brine for pickle making.
New Sun Wharf. In the mid 19th this was a factory for Brian Cocoran, makers of machine wires, driving bands, dandy rolls, etc. At some time in the 19th a twice weekly hoy service ran between here and Sheerness. In the 1920s this was part of the Free Trade Wharf Co Ltd, wharfingers. It was badly damaged on the first night of the blitz. In 1909 it was said that the general trade of the wharf was to take fruit out of tins and to put it into bottles.
Godwell Stairs. Shown on 18th maps.
Oporto Wharf. This wharf was used by Cooper’s, wharfingers handling, in 1909, all classes of canned goods, flour and dried milk. In the 1950s it was occupied by Stepney Cleansing Department and rubbish was taken from here to a tip at Pitsea. (See Narrow Street)
Old Sun Wharf. This was also used by Stepney Cleansing Department in the 1950s (See Narrow Street)
Regents Canal Wharf. Used by the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney Cleansing Dept (See Narrow Street)
Chinnock's Wharf. Chinnock was an importer of china clay (See Narrow Street)
Regents Canal Dock Entrance. (See Limehouse Basin above)
Victoria Wharf. In 1909 the wharf is said to have handled onions, potatoes, flour and pork.
Limehouse Cut Entrance (see Limehouse Cut)
Hough’s Wharf (see Narrow Street)
Dover Wharf (see Narrow Street above)
Kidney Stairs, There was a small dock here or access way which was infilled by 1635 and replaced with a stair — White’s Stairs, later Kidney Stairs—leading onto the foreshore.
Jetty - Stepney Borough council. Limehouse Generating Station jetty built in 1923 remains as a decorative feature.
Broadway Wharf. This is at the rear of the Grapes Public House. There are statues by Anthony Gormley off the wharf in the river.
Sparks Wharf. Early 19th barge-building works in use until the early 1950s. A timber-mould loft used to straddle the yard on the riverside. This was owned by William Sparks.
Duke Shore Stairs was the lowest point on this side of the river for passenger embarkation. Pepys came here in 1660 to be ferried upriver to the Tower of London.
Duke Shore Porcelain factory. This was owned by Joseph Wilson and Co. from 1745. In the 18th they sold Limehouse Ware - sauce-boats, tea-pots etc. It had closed by 1748. The site's location has since been confirmed by archaeology.
Duke Shore Wharf. Borough of Stepney. This was another wharf used for rubbish removal by the borough of Stepney. It is also said to have been a ship yard and this was another site said to have been used by the Curling family.
Limekiln Dock (see Limekiln above)
Dundee Wharf (see Dundee above)
Limehouse Hole – this is the area south of Dundee Wharf up to Westferry Circus. It was a plying place for watermen from the 17th, In 1843 watermen erected a floating pier at Limehouse Hole Stairs. In 1860, the Thames Conservancy built new stairs projecting on to the foreshore.
Limehouse Pier. This was erected by the Thames Conservancy in 1870 and was a walkway on three pontoons, designed by Stephen William Leach, the Board's engineer. It was removed in 1901 for the building of Dundee Wharf. In 1905–6 the London County Council built a pier as a lattice-girder walkway to a pontoon the 'Penny Steamer' service. It was removed by them in 1948.
Margetts's Ropeyard Site. In 1650 the northern part of what became Dundee Wharf was George Margett's rope yard. In 1664 Samuel Pepys arranged for them supply Deptford Dockyard with rope. By the late 18th there was also a sail maker there. In the meantime the site had been used by a number of others a block maker, a shipwright and the Hudson Bay Company, among others. John Burford - in 1694 had a warehouse to store fruit for cider-making. This was on part of the Margett’s site where the ropeyards itself continued with a number of different operators. In the 1860s it became a wire works and closed in the 1880s.
Poplar Commissioners of Sewers. In 1664 they had a depot here for workers maintaining the river wall. This was on part of the Margett’s site.
Pier Wharf. This was south of the ropeyard and was developed in 1875–6, by Tomkins, Courage & Cracknell, malt factors who had a granary here.
River Plate Wharf. This is now part of Dundee Wharf
Staples Distillery. This was a malt distillery built in 1692 below Limehouse Hole Stairs and subsequently expanded with a number of owners. It was rebuilt by new lessees Lefevre and Ayre around 1775–6. Joseph Bramah rented warehouses around 1799 and used them for hay-pressing. Around 1800 Garford took on part of the site for a seed pressing business.
Garford Wharf. The distillery was later taken by Thomas Bowman and John Garford, and it which became a seed-crushing mill and oilcake and seed-cake warehouse. Until 1877 the Graford family produced oilcake. A. E. Burrell & Son had a paint factory here from 1874. This was on the distillery site
Taylor Wharf. The main buildings of the distillery were used by William Taylor as a paint factory. This was on the distillery site
Limehouse wharf. R.J.Hanbury used the distillery warehouse for storing rice, wheat, tapioca and hops.
Buchanan’s Wharf. P. R. Buchanan & Company, tea merchants, acquired Venesta Wharf in 1921. They built new warehouses designed by Charles Dunch & Son. The wharf was badly bombed in the Second World War. It was rebuilt I in 1950–2 by A. J. Thomas and G. Hartley Goldsmith in reinforced-concrete. Buchanan's Wharf was cleared in 1990 for the Limehouse Link road. This was on the distillery site
Venesta Wharf. Venesta had the wharf 1900 - 1921 and much of the distillery area was recombined. They were packing-case makers. This was on the distillery site
The Aberdeen Wharf Site. This was part of Gray's and Heydon's Dockyard. Edward Gray, a mast maker leased the site in 1678, as a mast- and timber-yard. He added a dry dock and a house also a mast- and timber wharf. Heydon, a shipwright, took some of Gray's site and built another dry dock in 1686. By 1742 there was a single and a double dock where warships were built, Haydon made a slipway in 1694. He was succeeded at the yard by George Fowler 1696–1711 and the dockyard and house were also briefly in the hands of William Johnson and others before passing to William Hoskins
Batson's Yard. T. Robert Carter took the yard in 1737 and he was building ships for the Royal Navy in the 1740s. He was succeeded by his nephews, John and Robert Batson. Baltic timber, imported for the building of warships and East Indiamen From c1770 Robert Batson new smiths' shop and, in 1778. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Curling, Young & Company (Limehouse Dockyard). In 1800 Batson's yard was transferred to Cox, Curling & Company, shipbuilders, enlarged the dry docks and demolished the house. From 1820 the firm was known as Curling, Young & Company. They built East and West Indiamen and, later large merchant steamships, all in timber. The yard became Limehouse Dockyard. The managers from 1855 were Young, Son & Magnay and The firm continued to build large timber ships. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Limehouse Dockyard was bought by the newly formed London Quays & Warehouses Company, to provide wharfage and warehouses around a new dock. Sidney Young & Company operated the lower section of the dockyard until 1874. William Walker & Company, shipbuilders, in 1869. As Limehouse Dry Dock it was occupied by James Turner and others until 1901. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Aberdeen Wharf. The Aberdeen Steam Navigation Company, acquired part of Limehouse Dockyard in 1874, and filled in the dry dock. They built a brick-lined tidal dock and warehousing designed by George Judge. The wharf was used for the storage of goods from Scotland, notably tinned salmon. The engineer was J. J. Robson and the builders were George Monday & Son. The warehouses, had Columbia fire-proof flooring
J. Spurling Ltd. in 1912 Spurling took the three 1870s warehouses to store strawboard and paper. The area was renamed Spurling's Lower Wharf, or Lower Aberdeen Wharf. The wharf was badly damaged in the Blitz; the remains of the riverside warehouses were cleared in 1948–9, and the Emmett Street house and offices in 1956. A transit shed was built in 1950 and a brick Customs Office also. In 1956 the firm took over the whole wharf. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
P. Bork & Company Ltd (later P. Bork Shipping Ltd), timber agents, acquired the wharf in 1962, for the storage of veneers. Aberdeen Wharf was cleared in the late 1980s for use by contractors working on West ferry Circus and other parts of the Canary Wharf site. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Union Wharf site. (See Westferry Circus below)
The Breach, Poplar Gut and the Gut House. The medieval river wall below Limehouse was breached in 1660. The Poplar Commissioners of Sewers repaired the damage and rebuilt other sections of defective wall. The new section of wall was back from the river leaving a stretch of unprotected foreland called The Breach. This came to be called the Great Gut, or Poplar Gut. Union Wharf site. (See Westferry Circus for the riverside in this area)
The Breach Dockyard, 1707–1818. The foreland formed by the breach of 1660 was used for storing timber but was leased in 1707 by John Winter, a London shipwright. He built two dry docks. In 1715 William Hoare, became manager and then took it over himself... in 1740 it was let to Thomas Snellgrove, who built ships for the Royal Navy. In 1753 the yard was sold to John Smart, a malt distiller who had built a distillery, and served by the two windmills also pigsties and a bacon house. But by 1774 Smart leased to James Menetone, a shipwright, who used it as a dockyard. The yard was then let to Almon Hill and Robert Mellish, and they built warships and East Indiamen. The West India Dock Company bought the dockyard in 1818, to enlarge the Limehouse Basin. Union Wharf site.
Ropeyard - John Lyney constructed a ropeyard in 1788–91, with a warehouse and an open ropewalk. This was taken over in 1800 for the building of the West India Docks. Union Wharf site.
Limehouse Entrance. The West India Docks' Limehouse entrance lock became unusable when the Limehouse Basin was infilled in 1927–8
Ropemaker's Fields
Open space named for the several ropewalks that were once in the area. It was laid out for the London Docklands Development Corporation on derelict land plus land above the Limehouse Link Tunnel by landscape architects Churchman Associates. There are rope moulded railings. There are rope designs on railings and bollards with a rope motif. The landscape includes grass and trees including Indian bean trees, with paths. Bandstand which incorporates cast-iron columns saved from one of the former warehouses at St Katharine Docks
27 The House They Left Behind. Now a restaurant called The House ex 19th pub
Roy Square (see Narrow Street above)
Thames Place
This led to Limehouse Pier (see Riverside above)
This short road was cleared of buildings on the north side in 1950 Dundee Wharf was built. It has now completely disappeared under Canary Riverside
Horns and Chequers Pub. There from before 1810 to the 1920s. Near the stairs there was a public house, perhaps known as the White Lion in the late 17th , later called the Chequers, and then the Horns and Chequers.
Three Colt Street
One of the original streets of Limehouse – the Lime House was at its southern end.
Mitre Buildings. Residential. Some sort of meeting place attached to Brunswick chapel.
Railway Bridge. Date unknown. Plate girder with concrete decking by the Docklands Light Railway.
Limehouse Station. This opened in 1840 on the London and Blackwall Railway and was closed in 1926. It is the only remaining original station building still extant from the London and Blackwall. It is on the north side of the viaduct side although remains are evident to the south and there is a name plate to it. The platforms and their associated structures were largely built of wood and were apparently removed about 1929. In 1840 there were buildings and staircases either side of the line with the booking hall under the viaduct. The up side exit and gents are of unknown date. A third floor was added in 1900 but it has now gone.
Brunswick Methodist Chapel. The trustees of the chapel dated back to at least 1831 and there were associated Mitre Schools from 1847 and Mitre buildings.. There was also the Limehouse Wesleyan Sunday School of the Seamen's Mission. There was a burial ground at the back of the chapel, popular with dissenters in the area. by 1895 The Seamen's Mission took over the premises and a sailors' bible class was started, There was a flourishing Sunday school, a children’s meeting on Thursday night, often attended by over 1,000 children, a 'cripples' parlour'. a factory girls' bible class and a social club. In 1931 Dr Harold Oatley from the London Hospital set up a Sunday school for Chinese children. In 1937 the Chapel was condemned as unsafe, and in 1939, the Shaftesbury Society was told that the Limehouse Ragged School here was closed. The building was sold to the London County Council in 1965.
20 Tower Hamlets Housing Office
51 Cyril Jackson School. Three Colt Lane site.
Barleymow Estate. This was built in the 1960s on the site of Taylor Walker's Barley Mow Brewery by the Greater London Council. There was an energy-efficient refurbishment by BCD Architects for the LDDC and Tower Hamlets in 1989-93.
80 Kings Head. Pub dating from at least 1839. Also known as the Old Kings Head. Current building is 1850 and built as a public house. Has an angel over the door. Now housing.
94 Limekiln Wharf. The wharf is now a group of warehouses, overlooking the dock. It is now flats, houses and some offices
Door in the boundary wall of Limekiln Dock. This is a replica of the doorway from the Lime House, built in 1705 and demolished in 1935 with the last remaining limekiln which was adjacent. The original door was salvaged and taken to the Ragged School Museum,
110 Dundee Wharf. A late 19th office building, in red and yellow brick, for the Dundee, Perth, and London Shipping Co. There is a Galleon in the pediment. It is extended behind with a sheet steel clad box on stilts and alongside the entrance to the housing development called Dundee Wharf (See Dundee Wharf)
115 Around Poplar Children’s Centre
145 Enterprise pub. Closed and was latterly Entice, an Indian restaurant. This is now an estate agent
Trinidad Street
This was previously called South Street
The railway crossing here was on the original London and Blackwall Railway 1840. Here dwellings were built into the railway arches by the Railway Company. These were arches 312 and 313. There are railings posts in the parapet above.
Westferry Circus
This square covers only a small portion of the western side of the circus. It consists of two roundabouts one above the other to provide access to different levels of Canary Wharf. the upper roundabout is in the open air, the lower roundabout is in a tunnel. It was built from 1991.
The White Lead Factory and Timber Yards. The flood wall here was rebuilt following a breach in 1660. At that time it was the site of a mast master’s works, William Wood, and from 1698 Philip Dyson, a shipwright.
Star, a timber-built public house.
White Lead Yard. This is on John Rocque's map of 1746. This was the works of the London (Quaker) Lead Company, which had lead mines on the Greenwich Hospital's estate in the northern Pennines.In 1717 William Rice had had a works here for the production of white lead by the stack process with a windmill, and a draw dock. In 1734 the site was sold to the London (Quaker) Lead Company. They left in 1780 and the site became a timber-wharf and yard owned by a Richard Hank. From about 1727 the southern end of the lead site was used by another timber merchant John Satchell. John Tucker, of Weymouth, had part of this frontage as a stone-wharf, presumably for Portland stone. All of these properties were compulsorily purchased for the formation of the west entrance lock to the West India Docks and the buildings were demolished.
Emmett Street Wharf. Curling, Young & Co took over part of the white lead site for a timber-yard. By the 1860s it was a scrap-iron wharf used by James Thomas Jago. In the 1870s Sidney Young & Company a shipwrights' and joiners' installed a sawmill. In 1885 Thomas Smith, County Durham opened the Emmett Street Foundry and Wharf and they made sash weights, columns, fire bars, sanitary castings etc'. The company was wound up in 1916 when it was purchased by William Mallinson & Co timber merchants, who stored aeroplane timber here. In the 1960s it was used by Jack Summers Ltd, timber merchants but in the 1870s was cleared and is now under Westferry Circus. (Also see Emmett Street)
The Union Docks. These were owned by Fletcher Son & Fearnall 1818–1925 and the site draw dock that became the Limehouse Slipway. They were steamship builders who also repaired shipping using the West India Dock, specialising in river and excursion vessels. They built a dry-dock in the hull of the Canton, an East Indiaman. The Union Docks eventually occupied most of Limehouse Breach stretching over the whole river front between the two Limehouse entrance locks, and was one of the largest private yards on the Thames. They gradually took on general engineering work, although the Great War brought them some shipbuilding work. Fletcher, Son & Fearnall Ltd was wound up in 1925. For a decade the Union Docks site remained vacant. (See Riverside and Bridge Road)
Locke's Wharf and Union Dock Wharf. In 1871 some of the land of the white lead site was leased to Locke, Lancaster & Company, lead merchants. They had been established in 1854, premises in Bermondsey. In 1872 F. W. May of Camberwell built a lead-refining works on the site, with two blast-furnaces. A third blast furnace added in 1892 was reputedly the first mechanically charged lead blast-furnace in the country. There were three cupellation furnaces producing about three tons of silver per week. The firm merged with W W & R Johnson & Sons in 1894. They remained here until 1930.
Lamb, Beal & Son, chain-cable makers and anchor-smiths. They were on part of Union Dock Wharf until the early 1920s.
Union Dry Dock. This is the lower dry dock and the gridiron. In 1940, the Admiralty requisitioned it for wartime work managed by R. & H. Green & Silley Weir until 1951. In 1955–6 the Thames Dry Dock & Engineering Company, which was part of the General Lighterage (Holdings) Group, converted the dry dock into a double slipway for the building and repair of small tugs and barges but the slipway was used only until 1965. In the late 1960s it became Cargo Fleet Wharf and the Union Dry Dock was used for processing of sand and gravel. The northern section was taken for the building of Westferry Circus. The remainder was cleared in 1991
Bridge Wharf. In 1929 the lock and its pier heads were let to J. J. Prior Ltd, sand and ballast wharfingers. They infilled the lock and leased the old Dock Company's gatekeeper's house. They built a tar plant. Bridge Wharf was taken over by Merediths Ltd, timber importers, in 1962. The site is now under Westferry Circus.
The Limehouse Slipway. An old ship-breaking yard south of the entrance lock was used by the West India Dock Company for the deliveries while the docks were being built. The frontage was later bricked up leaving a draw dock for repairs by the dock company. The surrounding area was taken over by Thomas Johnson & Son, who rebuilt the draw dock with stairs in 1822–3. The site was leased to Charrington, Gardner, Locket & Company in 1925, for a barge repair business. The slipway was rebuilt in concrete in 1938–9 to take two barges but the site was destroyed in the bombing of 1940. The Port of London Authority took the site in 1962 for barges repairs. They sold it in 1972 and it was used by Robbins (Marine) as a barge- and yacht-repair yard. It is now under Westferry Circus.
Westferry Road
The eastern services building for the Limehouse Link has artwork commissioned from leading UK artist and sculptor Michael Kenny (1941–1999), a relief work in Kilkenny limestone called On Strange and Distant Islands.
Railway Bridge. This is a replacement concrete bridge built for the Docklands Light Railway. The previous bridge dated from 1959 and itself replaced viaducts arches built for the London and Blackwall Railway.
Sources
Aldous. Village London
Banbury. Shipbuilders of the Thames and Medway
Bird. The Geography of the Port of London
Bloch. MS on glass imports to London.
British History. Poplar. On Line
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Cruising Association. Web site
Derelict London. Web site
Docklands Light Railway. Trail
Dundee Wharf. Web site
Ellmers and Werner. London’s Lost Riverscape
Essex Lopresti. Exploring the Regent’s Canal
Francis. History of the Cement Industry,
GLIAS Newsletter
Guildhall Historical Association. Web site
Kay. London's Railway Heritage
Lea Valley Walk
Limehouse Basin. Wikipedia Web site
Limehouse Cut. Wikipedia Web site
Limehouse Link. Wikipedia Web site
London Gardens Online. Web site
Morris. Archives of the Chemical Industry
Port of London Magazine
Pub History. Web site
Rolt. Brunel
Skyscraper News. Web site
Smyth. Citywildspace
Survey of London. Poplar
Workhouses. Web site
Zythophile. Web site
Limehouse
The posting only covers sites on the north bank of the river. On the south bank is Rotherhithe, Nelson Dock.
Riverside area where numerous wharves were the sites of trading and manufacturing industries from at least the 17th century. Some important shipbuilding sites. These are now covered with late 20th housing, much of it in gated areas and some completely inaccessible to anyone but the occupants. Some other industry - all of course gone - including breweries. The area was accessed by two canals - the very early Limehouse Cut coming into the area from the Lea Valley and the Lea Navigation, and the Regents Canal accessing the west London, the midlands and the national canal network. The Regents Canal Dock provided a river entrance and facilities - now known as the Limehouse Dock its area is encroached by 20th century 'exclusive' housing developments. There are the remains of older housing and social support systems.
The riverside area on this square is complex. Some sites have had multiple works and areas have changed. Some have frontages both to the river and the street. On many there is real difference between the riverside working wharf and the block of modern flats now in the premises. An attempt has been made at cross referencing – but it is far from ok. Contributions and corrections welcomed. Edith would like to congratulate the heroes at the Survey of London which covers the eastern part of this square – and is grateful and impressed by the amount of detail.
Aberdeen Square
The site of this development of offices is now under Canary Riverside.
Bekesbourne Street
1a John Scurr Community Centre.
Bowley Street
The road is named after a James Bowley who had a shipyard in Emmett Street. Most of the area was taken up with housing built by the London County Council. In 1931 the south side of the road was cleared by Poplar Borough Council. The road itself has now disappeared under West Ferry Circus and Canary Riverside.
Bridge Road Iron Works. The site had been the Baker and May felt depot in 1870. From 1886 to around 1909 Robinson & Dodd, used the site as boat builders. Later J. Kimpton & Sons used it as an iron and brass foundry and whose manhole covers can be found around the area.
Elliott's Metal Company. This engineering firm was in the corner with Bridge Road from the late 1870s
Alfred Masson, seed and cereal warehouse from 1869. The business was removed in 1946 for an electricity sub station.
Thomas Stickells. Brass foundry from 1880.
Branch Road
This is now part of the approach road to the Rotherhithe Tunnel. It was once called Horseferry Branch Road. There had been a ferry across the Thames at Limehouse for centuries, To give access to this ferry, the Commercial Road Company intended to build a road which would have passed right through the middle of the present Limehouse Basin. The Commercial Road Company moved their road to the ferry so it lay west of the dock. It is then connected by a west to east road to Horseferry Road which runs parallel to it to the former ferry terminal.
9 Finnish Seamen’s Mission. Now converted to housing having been rebuilt behind its façade
Two telephone boxes. This is of the sort designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1927 in cast iron – K2 square kiosks.
Stepney Borough Coroner's Court. This was set up in 1898 plus a building for a steam disinfecting apparatus, a mortuary, and a disinfecting station. There was also a temporary shelter to provide Accommodation for the use of families during disinfection and a flat for a caretaker. These have since been demolished.
Courtyard at the junction with Narrow Street. There is a fountain with mosaic surround plus two mosaic covered seats.
London Street. Before Branch Road was built London Street ran through this area with reference to London Field. In 1380 John Philpot, Lord Mayor of London, proposed to build a tower on each side of the Thames, and stretch a chain between them as a defensive measure. He had however already bought the land at Ratcliff which he then gave to the City Corporation. This land was called London Field and roughly lay between Stepney Station and the river
Bridge Road
Bridge Street was an earlier name for the stretch of West Ferry Road which is on this square. It was an initiative of the Emmet family and the West India Docks co who in 1807 had the road built. The work was undertaken by Thomas Morris, the company's engineer
Colonial Produce Company, bass and fibre dressing works for this fruit importer from the 1890s-1930. The site had previously been a mast, anchor, rope- and sail makers
Hoare, Marr & Company, hemp merchants warehouse 1890s to 20. They were sailcloth, bunting and flag manufacturers based in the City but originating in Dundee in the 1870s. They later moved to Deptford although Walter Marr had retired in 1915.
Midland Railway Company. They had a goods depot here in the early 1860s. This replaced a warehouse owned by ships’ chandlers Robley, Tennant & Company.
Office building for Fletcher Son & Fearnall built in the late 19th by Andrews & Peascod as architects.
Fletcher Villas. Built for shipuilders' workers, demolished in 1988,
Brightlingsea Place
Faraday House. This is a refurbished tenement, built by B.J. Belsher for Stepney Borough Council in 1931 as part of the Limehouse Fields clearance scheme. Modernistic with curved a stair tower
Brightlingsea Building. Built by the London County Council in 1904 demolished in 1982
Housing by Proctor Matthews 1992 on the site of Stepney Power Station.(see Narrow Street)
Canary Riverside
This development area on the west side of Canary Wharf and West Ferry Road covers the sites of Emmett Street, Thames Place, Bowley Street, Aberdeen Square and North Garden. It is on the site of what was Union Docks – (under Riverside and West Ferry Circus below).
The Canary Riverside development was a joint project between Canary Wharf Group plc, Pidemco Land Limited and Hotel Properties Limited. Since 2000 the site has been owned by Canary Wharf Group. It is a private, gated complex. It has a communal garden and manned security is present on site.
Four Seasons Hotel “a low rise ten storey building” and Philippe Starck-designed. Selling ‘luxury’ and ‘privacy’. Corporate palatial.
Virgin Active –‘health’ club and gym.
Circus Apartments. Said to be the only residential accommodation at Canary Wharf. Security watches all the time and ‘luxury’ everywhere.
Canary Wharf Pier. Owned by the Canary Wharf Management Group it is used by commuter river services
Dundee Wharf
Dundee Wharf. This is on is on the riverside on the south side of what was Limekiln dock and on the northern side of the old Poplar Borough Boundary. There are modern residential buildings now on the site of Limekiln Dockyard. In the 17th and early 18th there were many different small works here –Joseph Dent, a shipwright, Edward Terrett, a joiner, Michael Upston, a blockmaker, Hudson's Bay Company warehouses, boat builders and mast maker.
Dundee wharf was used by the Dundee, Perth & London Shipping Company to operate a twice-weekly service between Leith and London. The area was known as The Dunbar Wharves. - Dundee, Aberdeen, Caledonia and Dunbar. Their office building is by the entrance in Three Colt Street. In 1835 their paddle steamers SS London and SS Perth operated a twice weekly passenger service to Dundee. In 1909 it was said to handle Carcasses of beef, and potatoes. A wharf with electric cranes was opened here in the 1930s. The wharf was destroyed during the blitz, rebuilt in the 1950s when it was a “fortress like warehouse” trading in general goods. It closed in 1969. It was demolished to allow construction of the Limehouse Link before the current housing was built.
The Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Company was founded in 1826 to carry passengers and cargo. They operated passenger steamer services to London until the outbreak of the Second World War and also maintained cargo shipping routes to St Petersburg and the Mediterranean until 1962. As the DP&L Group they have been connected to the Chalmers family for 80 years and bought put by them in 1993. In 2014 they were sold to Alick Bisset
Dundee Wharf is a group of buildings built in 1997 by Ballymore Properties to designs by the architect Piers Gough, a partner at Campbell Zogolvich Wilkinson and Gough (CZWG).
River Plate Wharf. This was part of Dundee Wharf and between 1912 and 1929 used by the London Trading Company for wrapping Oxo cubes.
Emmett Street
This is now covered by Canary Riverside. It once ran from Westferry Road to meet Three Colt Street. This was a road which led from Limehouse to the riverfront to the south. It was called Emmett Street from about 1830 – named after a family who had owned land here in the 18th. Some of the area which it ran through and served was traditionally known as Limehouse Hole. Many of the sites alongside the street were river trades with river frontages and they are below under Riverside.
Providence Cottages. Found to be unhealthy by the London County Council and so demolished by the Borough in 1931
Providence House – this was a block of flats built by Poplar Borough Council in 1932 to replace the cottages and designed by the Borough Engineer and Surveyor, Harley Heckford. It was had a line of concrete balconies and jazzy decorations. Some flats were damaged in the Second World War. It was demolished by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1981.
12 United Brothers' beerhouse. This was opened in the late 19th and closed in 1935.
The Royal Oak public house. This was to the east of the distillery
The Antigallican public house. This was here until the 1850s.
Gut House. In the early 1730s William Waterbury, a butcher, built a public house. It was displaced by the West India Export Dock in 1806.
Shipwrights Arms. This pub was built originally in 1788 by Thomas Wright near the entrance to Hill and Mellish's dockyard. It was compulsorily purchased in 1800 for the building of the West India Docks.
Arnold's Buildings, a six-storey block of artisans' dwellings, was put up in 1884–5 by E. Nathan, with a frontage to Emmett Street, opposite Aberdeen Wharf, In 1902 Limehouse & Poplar Workmen's Homes Ltd was set up to convert Arnold's Buildings into a hostel but the site was cleared instead.
Gill Street
29 Lord Nelson. Pub. Closed and gone
109 Royal Sovereign Pub. Closed and long gone
Railway bridge, date unknown but the abutments are 1839. Concrete decking is by the Docklands Light Railway.
Grenade Street
This was once called Gunnell Lane
20 Duke of Cornwall Pub. Closed and gone
38 Carpenters Arms. Pub, Closed and gone
Railway bridge, date unknown but the abutments are 1839. Concrete decking is by the Docklands Light Railway.
Horseferry Road
This appears to have previously been Medland Road. However it is cut off at the west end because of the insertion of the Limehouse link. Thus the biscuit works and the brewery would not have been in Horseferry Road.
Phoenix Biscuit Works - dog and ships biscuit works owned by Walker and Harrison. They made Phoenix" (carbonated) meat biscuit for dogs. They were on site in the 1880s and remained there until at least the late 1930s.
Brewery. The Brewery in Medland Street was apparently known in the early 19th as the Ratcliffe Cross Brewery – but may have been older. It seems to have been owned or managed by a George Richmond and by the 1830s by Strong and Larchin as ale and porter brewers – it is mentioned as a ‘famous old porter brewery’. In the 19th it appears as The Queens Head Brewery and by 1842 a Peter Armstrong and George Taylor were involved. By 1900 it is said it had been owned ‘over a long period of time’ by Francis and Charles Alexander, and called the London and Burton Brewery. However it does not appear to have had a connection with a brewery of that name in based Burton which was sold to Charringtons in 1871. The Ratcliffe Brewery site was later taken over by Witney, Combe, Reid and Co. Ltd. and eventually closed.
61 White Hart Pub. Long gone
Medland Hall. This shelter provided meals and night shelter to 100s of destitute people. It was opened in 1893 in a hall owned by the London Congregational Union. Originally, it opened at 11 p.m. and inmates —were allowed to stay until 6 a.m. the next morning. By the early 1900s, it was offering accommodation for a week at a time. by mid-afternoon a long queue would form. By 7 o'clock, its 450 bunks would have been allocated.
Island Row
This road went to the Island Lead Works which was on a piece of land between what was originally two docks – the Regents’ Canal Basin, at the end of the Regent’s Canal and the Limehouse Basin, at the end of the Limehouse Cut.
Island Lead Works. The works dated from at least 1817 when it have belonged to a Thomas Preston described as a lead merchant with a works in Tooley Street. The Horwood Plan of 1799 shows a substantial building on the site. George Key is listed here in 1830 and By 1834 Thomas Key who ran it until 1851. It was then passed to Edward and Alfred Pitchford. The works produced blue lead products and also lead shot, white lead, and the described themselves as lead ash smelters and metal refiners. In 1874 it was advertised for sale and was purchased by the Farmiloes. From the 1880s George Farmiloe & Sons Ltd and T & W Farmiloe Ltd had interests here. Tea-chest lead was made there and other products which were related to the building trade. About 100 people were employed there in the 19th but by 1951 there were only 50 employees. The buildings have since been demolished and the site has vanished following the redevelopment of the Regent's Canal Dock and building of the Limehouse Link Road.
Limehouse Causeway
Limehouse Causeway is an ancient pathway, and very very narrow. Cantonese people lived there – and it has been described as the ‘original Chinatown’ - but Stepney Borough Council 'slum cleared' the area and realigned the road in 1904.
Saunders Close was originally called Potter Dwellings. The block was built by Stepney Borough Council - three-stories block in yellow and red brick. It was apparently named after Henry Potter, once mayor of Stepney. It was later renamed “Saunders Close’ which may have been for a Mr. Saunders, because of his role during the Blitz.
Cyril Jackson School. This primary school seems to be on the site of Gill Street School which was a London School Board School dating from the 1880s. It appears to have been rebuilt in 1991 by Robert Byron Architect, possibly with London Docklands Development Corporation support. Cyril Jackson was a British educationist, who lives and worked in the east end and was inspector-general of schools in Western Australia in 1896 Northey Street School was renamed The Cyril Jackson Primary School in recognition of his work and dedication to public service.
Limehouse Youth Centre. The original Limehouse youth club was demolished for the building of the Limehouse Link Road. It was rebuilt here by the Squires Practice for the London Docklands Development Corporation. It is designed round a central hall and is a large and prominent building said to give substance to the idea of “community architecture”.
16 Royal Oak Pub. Gone and demolished
Railway Bridge. This is a new concrete bridge built for the Docklands Light Railway in 1986
Limehouse Basin - Regents Canal Dock.
Limehouse Basin is a body of water built as a dock which stood between the River and the Regents’ Canal which it was there to serve. Its real name is the Regent’s Canal Dock. It was built to provide an entrance to the Regent's Canal – as it still does - and thus prove access to the whole of the national canal network. It now also functions as a marina surrounded by housing of the 1980s and later. In recent years the dock has seen many alterations, a new entrance lock and the building of the Limehouse Link Road beneath it. The Regent's Canal Dock was never part of the Port of London Authority but remained in the control of its parent canal and eventually the British Waterways Board. In 1835 three-quarters of the Regent Canal's traffic came through the dock from the Thames. The canal was completed in 1820. The entrance lock was built to the west of the ferry road – now known as Branch Road - built by the Commercial Road Company.. Where a canal joins a tidal river a small basin would be built so that craft could await the right state of the tide before using the locks. At the Regent Dock it was felt necessary to admit sea going vessels and plans were upgraded to allow for a laager basin. James Morgan, the canal engineer, had planned two basins, a ship dock, and a barge basin. The plan was rejected in favour of a single basin and a slope to the quays. The Regent's Canal Dock was the first, and for many years the only dock to allow in colliers from north-east England. Coal was be transhipped into lighters in the dock for shipping to the new gas works being built alongside the canal. As competition from railways began so the dock was enlarged and projecting timber jetties with hydraulic cranes were added. A granary and warehouses were built to attract new custom to the dock ad there were four jetties at which colliers could unload. Coal traffic fell off in the years before the Great War and and a new larger concrete jetty equipped with six high capacity electric grab cranes was built out from the north-east quay. The Dock closed, in 1969 but in in 1968 the Limehouse Cut was diverted into the dock and lighters continued to use until the 1980s. The Basin was ‘redeveloped’ from 1983 by the London Docklands Development Corporation's including the construction of the Limehouse Link tunnel under the north side of the basin in the early 1990s. Housing around the Basin was built partly by Bellway Homes in various phases of development. The Cruising Association has a purpose-built headquarters here and the dock is now usually described as a ‘marina’.
Medland Wharf was to the south west. It was equipped with electric luffing cranes to handle fruit cargoes from Spain.
Old Ship Lock. This was the original lock which could handle big sailing ships. This was partly in-filled to provide when the new lock was built to provide a new riverside quay called Chinnock's Wharf. A pumping station was built over the old ship lock by Sir John Wolfe-Barry as part of the improvements to Dock and Canal authorized by Parliament under an Act of 1895. ,
The New Ship Lock was built in 1868 so that steam colliers could enter the dock. W G Armstrong & Co. built a swing bridge to carry Narrow Street over the New Ship Lock entrance to the Dock. The Present Lock was built in 1988-9 is within the former ship lock of 1869. Across the dock entrance is a Swing Bridge of steel box-girder construction, by Husband &' Company, built in 1962.
Barge Lock. In the 184Os an entrance lock for barges from the River was built to the east of the Old Ship Lock west end of the South Quay. This was kept as a water-saving device -Water shortage was a perennial problem with the Regent's Canal in the 19th. It was infilled in stages after 1919. The entrance is now covered over and used as a car park for office workers. .
Commemoration Stone by the steps on the South East Quay – this commemorated Sir John Wolfe Barry's improvements of 1898-99 "This stone was set 20th June 1899 James Staats Forbes Chairman". Have no reason to believe this is still there.
Harbour Master's Station. This is a timber and brick pagoda of 1989 by Peter White and Jayne Holland of the British Waterways Board. Near it a bronze relief map of the basin, from 1986, commemorates this first phase of redevelopment.
South Quay and land west of the dock entrance was developed to encourage general trade to the dock. Part was used from 1870 for the London and Liverpool Steamship Co.
Limehouse Cut
The Limehouse Cut is a canal which comes into this area from the north east and which once ended in a canal basin and then went into the Thames but which now enters the dock which is now known as Limehouse Basin. It was built 1767-70 by Yeoman upon the recommendations of John Smeaton. In 1854, the Regents Canal Company took control of Limehouse Cut and built a connecting link into the Regents Canal Dock although this was closed soon after. The lock that connected the cut to the Thames was rebuilt in 1865, after the closing of the link to the Regents Canal Dock, and the design had included massive timber ties over the top to prevent bulging of the walls. These were eventually replaced with a steel cage, which served the same purpose. The gates were operated by winches and chains. In 1965 this needed replacement but commercial activity would have been severely disrupted by the construction of a new lock. So the link to the Regents Canal Dock was reconsidered and a new length of canal was built and opened in 1968. The old lock was then filled in but one of the winches was saved and was put on display at Hampstead.
Remains of the entrance lock. There is a disused bell-mouthed entrance to the entrance lock visible from in Narrow Street. Part of the lock is also preserved on the side of Narrow Street as a shallow water feature, lined by a late 19th row of cottages
Bridge - The Cut’s opening into Regent’s Dock was crossed by a wrought-iron girder bridge of 1865.
Island Lead Mills (see above) on the north side of the Cut
Norway Yard. The site was that of T. & W. Forrest Lifeboat builders, who were originally established in 1788 to build ships, boats and yachts. During the 19th century, nearly 90% of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution fleet was built by yards on the Thames. Forrest & Son of Limehouse built more than 115 lifeboats at their yard after 1864. They moved to Wivenhoe in 1911.
Lea Wharf. William Gibbs 1911
Albion Wharf. This wharf was probably owned by a chemical company in the 19th, making dyes or paint.
Finland Wharf. This was a timber wharf, owned by the Chalk family in the early 20th.
Limehouse Link
The Limehouse Link is a long tunnel which links the Highway running eastwards from Tower Bridge with a series of road heading into Essex. It was built between 1989 and 1993 by the London Docklands Development Corporation and was the most expensive road scheme in Britain per mile, it is also the second largest road tunnel in the UK. The designers were Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners and the design of the tunnel approaches and portal buildings was by Anthony Mears and Rooney O'Carroll Architects. At the time it was the second biggest engineering project in Europe. It consists is twin parallel tunnels built under waterways so it was built bottom-up behind temporary cofferdam walls. On the western portal is Zadok Ben-David's circle of silhouettes, Restless Dream, and the eastern portal has an untitled abstract by Nigel Hall.
Limekiln Dock (for details of buildings see Dundee Wharf, Narrow Street and Three Colt Lane)
This is a small tidal inlet. It is sometimes thought to be the outfall of the Black Ditch – a stream which is said to have run through Whitechapel and Stepney from Holywell Row in Norton Folgate. It is an 18th dock which now has mainly, brick walls on the north side, and concrete facing on south side. There are some wooden buttresses.
Lime. Recorded as ‘The Lymhostes’ in 1367 that is "the lime oasts or kilns' and limeburners are mentioned in this area from the late 14th. Lime was made from chalk or limestone heating it kilns and was used in a number of other local industries
Footbridge designed by YRM/Anthony Hunt Associates for the LDDC in 1996. It takes the Thames path across the mouth of Limekiln Dock and is stayed by a single mast. Said to be designed by Piers Gough.
Graves Ship Yard. Graves built warships for the navy in the 17th and 18th here and in Deptford. This site became part of Dundee Wharf. (See Dundee above)
Narrow Street
Narrow Street. The road follows the river for nearly half a mile. The eastern section was once called Fore Street
22-28 these blocks were among the first warehouses converted for residential use in Docklands. This was done by designer Roe Hoffenberg with architects Berman & Guedes. Here industrial zoning had to be overturned to permit change of use. (See Riverside)
24 This is another early conversion, completed in 1980. It is now known as Roneo Wharf –Roneo were the copying apparatus makers. They are also listed as having both inland and riverside property here. (See Riverside)
St George’s Square. This appears to be on the sites of the Ratcliffe Brewery and the Phoenix Biscuit works described under Medland Street above.
28 London Wharf. John Cooper, wharfinger (see Riverside) converted to housing in the 1980s.
29 G.Moore & Sons Ltd, glass bottle manufacturers. Moore’s made glass bottles, possibly for medicines, at their works at Blyth on the Tyne, from where they were shipped to London. They had another works at Wombwell in Yorkshire.
30 Sun Wharf. This is a conversion by Scott, Brownrigg & Turner done in 1983, originally for the filmmaker David Lean, who eventually died here. It is said to have the same approach to derelict industrial building popular in Europe. It took four 19th warehouses, two of which were burnt-out and created a house and garden. 30 was also known Crown Mill wharf which was also used by John Cooper (see Riverside) it was once another flour mill
32-40 Wharves converted to housing. (See Riverside)
Goodhart Place. Speculative housing by Richard Seifert & Partners, part of a never-completed scheme for offices and houses by that architect, 1985-6.
Regents Canal Dock. This is the main entrance from river. W G Armstrong & Co, built swing bridge which carried Narrow Street over the New Ship Lock, new bridge by Husband & Company, 1962. (See Limehouse basin)42 Chinnocks Wharf. Redevelopment into housing by Michael Squires Assoc in 1997. (See Riverside)
44 The Narrow. Restaurant with a TV chef. The building dates from 1905-1910 by the Regents Canal Company as a purpose-built Customs/Dock Master’s house serving the Regents Dock. It is by the south entrance lock and is a red brick building. It became a pub in 1989 and was at first called The Barleymow for the local Barley Mow brewery where Taylor Walker first started brewing in.1730. There are some decorative capstans
Regents Canal Wharf - Borough of Stepney Stone yard, North of Narrow Street the ship lock was kept in water to provide a quay serving a timber yard which was called Regent’s Canal Wharf. In time this became the Council stone yard and later a general a Council depot. (See Riverside)
46 Victoria Wharves. This wharf is built on land between the present Limehouse Basin entrance lock and the entrance to the Limehouse Cut. It was acquired by the Regents Dock Company as part of improvements in 1869 and was a speculative development by them. Now converted to housing. (See Riverside)
Entrance from the river to the Limehouse Cut and now disused. (See Limehouse Cut)
18th house by the entrance to the tidal lock to the Limehouse Cut
Kidney Stairs. These were once called White’s Stairs and dated from before 1635. (See Riverside)
65 Bricklayers Arms. Pub, long closed and demolished
Papermill Wharf. This was the wharf for the Limehouse paper board mills. Hough;s wharf. It has a simplified Italianate tower as a reconstruction of Hough's Wharf. Hough’s incorporated some of the outer walls of the 19th Dover Wharf. Site occupied earlier by Curling's Shipyard – who are also said to have been at Duke Shore.
Bridge Dry dock. In 1892 this was Dawson & Son. (See Riverside)
67 Limehouse Paperboard Mills Ltd. Robert Hough Ltd was established in 1860 as a paper merchant. The Limehouse Mill opened in 1912 recycling waste paper and board to manufacture grey board. It was the first mill in England to make paperboard from waste paper. Waste paper was beaten with warm water into a pulp which was sent to a machine to make a wet board. This was dried, then, calendared and reeled. The site included two steam engines, both there till the end. They closed in 1986 due to the pressures of the Docklands redevelopments – basically because the site wasn’t pretty or tidy. The original plan was to convert it into ‘luxury’ flats, but it was demolished for new flats. Houghs originally moved to Bermondsey but are now at Witham in Essex with a different name. It was built on the site of a derelict late 16th century dry dock, the remains of which were noted in the cellars of the paper mill and Hough's wharf.
Dover Wharf had been the site of Pintsch Patent Lighting works in the early 20th. They made lamps and lighting systems for Pullman Railway cars, lighthouses etc using compressed oil or other gas.
Curling Shipyard. The Curling family built ships on various sites in this area. They built East and West Indiamen and, from the late 1830s, large merchant steamships, all of them of timber.
Borough of Stepney Electricity Station. Stepney Borough Council built this at Blyth Wharf in 1907 to supply power to station Stepney and Bethnal Green. A single tall brick chimney was constructed in 1937 which dominated the area. The station continued until the early 1970s and has since been demolished.
Blyth’s Wharf. John and Alfred Blyth had a steam engine and steam ship works from the early 19th. This appears to have remained until acquired for the local authority power station.
The Watergarden. This was previously called Roy Square. It is built on the site of the Stepney Power Station by Ian Ritchie Architects in 1988. It is a long, courtyard of flats, with the car park below. The entrance leads to steps which `lead onto a garden, with a canal. Opens out into open space done by the LDDC in 1994, with Indian bean trees and seats.
70 Sunshine Custard Co. This was a custard powder manufacturer.
76 The Grapes pub. This claims to be pub ‘Jolly Fellowship Porters’ as described by Charles Dickens. It is also said to be where the Gang of Four planned their exit from the Labour Party. The current building dates from the 1720s and is on the site of a pub built in 1583. In the 1930s it sold beer from the nearby Taylor Walker brewery. Dickens is said to have sat here and there is a complete set of Dickens in the back parlour. On the wall is an oil painting, Limehouse Barge Builders, by Napier Hemy and also watercolours of Limehouse Reach by Louise Hardy; and Dickens at The Grapes by Nick Cuthell
78-90 a ten-bay, row of four early 18th houses, apparently built by Thomas Wakelin of Ratcliffe.
92 The Waterman’s Arms, later called Booty’s Bar. It is now closed as a pub. In the 18th this was an engineering shop for the barge builders, Sparkes. By the 1870s it had become a pub owned by Taylor Walker. It later became used by the Woodward Fisher, a lighterage firm which was latterly managed by Dorothea Fisher.
106 Duke Shore Wharf. Flats by Barnard Urquhart Jarvis 1985-8.
110 -112 Essex Wharf. Hay & Co Ltd, caramel and filter pump makers
114 & 116 Anchor Wharf. British & Foreign Bottle Co Ltd Makers and distributors of bottles and jars with a works in Queenborough, Sheppey.
121 Rowan A & Brother Ltd, disinfectant manufacturers
133 Barley Mow Pub. Long gone.
136-40 Dunbar Wharf. Converted to flats. These early 19th warehouses belonged to Duncan Dunbar & Sons, who ran a fleet of fast sailing ships to India, Australia and North America. The wharf backed on the Limekiln Dock. Dunbar, who settled here in 1780, built ships in Calcutta.. He lived in 138. 1796 The business was developed by his son into a leading shipping company serving, primarily, the Indian and Australian routes. It later became Dunbar Wharf Holdings Ltd. which worked in freight forwarding, warehousing through E.W.Taylor & Co. They had been Established in 1857 as a lighterage company, and used Dunbar Wharf for the larger cargos. It functioned as a working wharf until the rise of containerisation in the 1970’s.
142 St Dunstan's Wharf. Built in 1878 at with a decorative moulded brick front where St.Dunstan grabs the devils nose with pincers. The rest has been rebuilt; Juniper berries used for the manufacture of London gin were stored here. It was also used by Gardner & Gardner, hay & straw salesmen
143 In the 1920s works for Sterry Dunnell, aerated water manufacturer. In 1943 this was Alfred Harris, Plastic waste, Ebonite Celluloid Vulcanite Cellulose Acetate Wax, and Rosin
Herring Gull. Sculpture of acreaming gull in copper on a coil of rope by J Jane Ackroyd, 1994. This is in a wedge of open space, part of Ropemakers Fields.
148-50 Limehouse Wharf. Another warehouse conversion
Newell Street
This was once Church Row
25-27 offices for Tower Hamlets Community Transport. The building was originally an engineering works
Sunday School. This was presumably connected to the Brunswick Chapel which stood to its rear in Three Colt Lane.
Barley Mow Brewery. This was Taylor Walker's Barley Mow Brewery, which stood nearby which produced a dark ale known as 'Main Line'. The brewery apparently dated from at least the 1730s and the original instigators were members of the Hare and Salmon families – both with brewery interests elsewhere. The brewery then fronted on to Fore Street – now part of Narrow Street. In the late 18th Quakers Taylor and Harford became involved and by the early 19th the Walker family were also present. The brewery may have been rebuilt in the 1820s and a new complex was erected in 1889 designed by the brewery architects Inskipp & Mackenzie. This building fronted onto the road now called Newell Street and was known as the Barleymow Brewery. The firm they began a programme of take overs of smaller breweries throughout the early 20th. It was heavily bombed in the Second World War. The brewery closed following a merger in with Ind Coope 1959 and was later demolished.
Northey Street
Quayside. Big blocks of flats by John Thompson & Partners.
1 CA House. Cruising Association Offices. Built 1997. The Association has a membership of cruising sailors. Founded in 1908 they provide information, help and advice
Bridge. This lies over the now defunct lock area of the Limehouse Cut where some water remains for decorative purposes. There are the preserved parapets of the bridge of 1865 which took the road across the north end of the lock
30 Northey Arms. Pub. Long gone and demolished
Northey Street School. This was a London School Board school which may have opened around 1886. An infants' school was opened in 1896. The school was renamed Cyril Jackson School in 1930 because of the work done locally towards education by Jackson. The school appears to have moved to its current site, of Gill Street School, in the 1950s. GKC 973 using space under railway arches.
Northey Street Boys Club. This was run by Cyril Jackson and opened in 1875
Oak Lane
Malting House. Local authority built 15 storey block.
Risby House. This was a 15 storey block demolished in 1988 because it was thought to be in danger of collapse
Risby’s Rope Walk. Was parallel to and in the area of what is now Oak Street. In 1782 a street here was called Risby's Rope Ground. Captain Henry Risby had a house and property locally. He was an Elder Brethren of Trinity House and connections with the East India Company.
North Country Pink. Pub extant in the area in the 19th
School. Extension to Northey Street School built in the 1880s
Oak Lane Foundry. 1843 belonged to Samuel Hodge where they made steam engine boilers, trunks and pans. Hodge was in West Ferry Road by the 1890s and remains now based in Sheffield as the Samuel Hodge Group.
Oak Lane Chemical Works. Hope Hartop & Co. The works was here in the early 20th and the company was also based in Leicester. They made carbolic acids, fluids, & creosotes
Finland Wharf. This wharf fronted onto the Limehouse Cut (above)
Albion Wharf. This wharf fronted onto the Limehouse Cut (above)
Rich Street
14 Lord Hood Pub. Long closed and gone
Railway Bridge. Built on the London and Blackwall Railway this is their standard bridge of 1939/40. With three railing posts in the later parapet above. The top course were installed for the Docklands Light Railway.
Riverside
Ratcliffe Cross Wharf. In 1909 said to handle flour, potatoes, anchovies and lemons.
Ratcliffe Cross Stairs. These run from the west end of Narrow Street. Stone slipway to River Thames – the name reflecting a lost riverside hamlet.
Phoenix Wharf. The works relates to the inland biscuit works where ‘Phoenix’ dog biscuits were made. In the early 20th it was partly occupied by G.Crump, sailmaker. Another part of the wharf was occupied by Luralda, tea chest makers, who were importing plywood.(See Narrow Street)
Trinity Ballast Wharf. This is among a block of early warehouse conversions in Narrow Street. The Corporation of Trinity House had premises here from 1618. The Ballast office was to administer a tax on ballast. In the 1930s D. T. Miller and Sons, ship repairers had an engineering and barge repair here.
Marriage's Wharf. Jacob Marriage and Co Ltd, were flour merchants. In the 19th, this wharf and its neighbour were Ratcliffe Cross Flour Mill and alongside it the Globe Flour Mill. Later taken over by Marriage. They survived the changes in milling technology by specialising in animal feeds, and by taking advantage of the move back to stone-ground flour. Marriages also had a wharf in West Ham where they were know for their opium clippers.
Roneo Wharf. This was operated in the 1920s by the copying apparatus makers. Earlier it had been part of Ratcliffe Cross Flour Mill and Globe Flour Mill
London Wharf. Used by John Cooper John, wharfinger – Cooper handled mainly canned goods, and was active on several other wharves on this stretch. In 1909 it was said that two-thirds of the canned goods landed on this wharf belong to the Government and are inspected by the Government Officials only. It has now been converted to flats.(See Narrow Street)
28 Sewer outfall below Mean High Water - large circular outfall of an early 19th sewer by 28 Narrow Street
Crown Mill Wharf. Also used by John Cooper. (See Narrow Street)
Eagle Wharf. In 1909 said to handle flour, beef and pork in casks
New Sufferance Wharf. In 1909 said to handle fresh cabbages, fruit pulps and vegetables in brine for pickle making.
New Sun Wharf. In the mid 19th this was a factory for Brian Cocoran, makers of machine wires, driving bands, dandy rolls, etc. At some time in the 19th a twice weekly hoy service ran between here and Sheerness. In the 1920s this was part of the Free Trade Wharf Co Ltd, wharfingers. It was badly damaged on the first night of the blitz. In 1909 it was said that the general trade of the wharf was to take fruit out of tins and to put it into bottles.
Godwell Stairs. Shown on 18th maps.
Oporto Wharf. This wharf was used by Cooper’s, wharfingers handling, in 1909, all classes of canned goods, flour and dried milk. In the 1950s it was occupied by Stepney Cleansing Department and rubbish was taken from here to a tip at Pitsea. (See Narrow Street)
Old Sun Wharf. This was also used by Stepney Cleansing Department in the 1950s (See Narrow Street)
Regents Canal Wharf. Used by the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney Cleansing Dept (See Narrow Street)
Chinnock's Wharf. Chinnock was an importer of china clay (See Narrow Street)
Regents Canal Dock Entrance. (See Limehouse Basin above)
Victoria Wharf. In 1909 the wharf is said to have handled onions, potatoes, flour and pork.
Limehouse Cut Entrance (see Limehouse Cut)
Hough’s Wharf (see Narrow Street)
Dover Wharf (see Narrow Street above)
Kidney Stairs, There was a small dock here or access way which was infilled by 1635 and replaced with a stair — White’s Stairs, later Kidney Stairs—leading onto the foreshore.
Jetty - Stepney Borough council. Limehouse Generating Station jetty built in 1923 remains as a decorative feature.
Broadway Wharf. This is at the rear of the Grapes Public House. There are statues by Anthony Gormley off the wharf in the river.
Sparks Wharf. Early 19th barge-building works in use until the early 1950s. A timber-mould loft used to straddle the yard on the riverside. This was owned by William Sparks.
Duke Shore Stairs was the lowest point on this side of the river for passenger embarkation. Pepys came here in 1660 to be ferried upriver to the Tower of London.
Duke Shore Porcelain factory. This was owned by Joseph Wilson and Co. from 1745. In the 18th they sold Limehouse Ware - sauce-boats, tea-pots etc. It had closed by 1748. The site's location has since been confirmed by archaeology.
Duke Shore Wharf. Borough of Stepney. This was another wharf used for rubbish removal by the borough of Stepney. It is also said to have been a ship yard and this was another site said to have been used by the Curling family.
Limekiln Dock (see Limekiln above)
Dundee Wharf (see Dundee above)
Limehouse Hole – this is the area south of Dundee Wharf up to Westferry Circus. It was a plying place for watermen from the 17th, In 1843 watermen erected a floating pier at Limehouse Hole Stairs. In 1860, the Thames Conservancy built new stairs projecting on to the foreshore.
Limehouse Pier. This was erected by the Thames Conservancy in 1870 and was a walkway on three pontoons, designed by Stephen William Leach, the Board's engineer. It was removed in 1901 for the building of Dundee Wharf. In 1905–6 the London County Council built a pier as a lattice-girder walkway to a pontoon the 'Penny Steamer' service. It was removed by them in 1948.
Margetts's Ropeyard Site. In 1650 the northern part of what became Dundee Wharf was George Margett's rope yard. In 1664 Samuel Pepys arranged for them supply Deptford Dockyard with rope. By the late 18th there was also a sail maker there. In the meantime the site had been used by a number of others a block maker, a shipwright and the Hudson Bay Company, among others. John Burford - in 1694 had a warehouse to store fruit for cider-making. This was on part of the Margett’s site where the ropeyards itself continued with a number of different operators. In the 1860s it became a wire works and closed in the 1880s.
Poplar Commissioners of Sewers. In 1664 they had a depot here for workers maintaining the river wall. This was on part of the Margett’s site.
Pier Wharf. This was south of the ropeyard and was developed in 1875–6, by Tomkins, Courage & Cracknell, malt factors who had a granary here.
River Plate Wharf. This is now part of Dundee Wharf
Staples Distillery. This was a malt distillery built in 1692 below Limehouse Hole Stairs and subsequently expanded with a number of owners. It was rebuilt by new lessees Lefevre and Ayre around 1775–6. Joseph Bramah rented warehouses around 1799 and used them for hay-pressing. Around 1800 Garford took on part of the site for a seed pressing business.
Garford Wharf. The distillery was later taken by Thomas Bowman and John Garford, and it which became a seed-crushing mill and oilcake and seed-cake warehouse. Until 1877 the Graford family produced oilcake. A. E. Burrell & Son had a paint factory here from 1874. This was on the distillery site
Taylor Wharf. The main buildings of the distillery were used by William Taylor as a paint factory. This was on the distillery site
Limehouse wharf. R.J.Hanbury used the distillery warehouse for storing rice, wheat, tapioca and hops.
Buchanan’s Wharf. P. R. Buchanan & Company, tea merchants, acquired Venesta Wharf in 1921. They built new warehouses designed by Charles Dunch & Son. The wharf was badly bombed in the Second World War. It was rebuilt I in 1950–2 by A. J. Thomas and G. Hartley Goldsmith in reinforced-concrete. Buchanan's Wharf was cleared in 1990 for the Limehouse Link road. This was on the distillery site
Venesta Wharf. Venesta had the wharf 1900 - 1921 and much of the distillery area was recombined. They were packing-case makers. This was on the distillery site
The Aberdeen Wharf Site. This was part of Gray's and Heydon's Dockyard. Edward Gray, a mast maker leased the site in 1678, as a mast- and timber-yard. He added a dry dock and a house also a mast- and timber wharf. Heydon, a shipwright, took some of Gray's site and built another dry dock in 1686. By 1742 there was a single and a double dock where warships were built, Haydon made a slipway in 1694. He was succeeded at the yard by George Fowler 1696–1711 and the dockyard and house were also briefly in the hands of William Johnson and others before passing to William Hoskins
Batson's Yard. T. Robert Carter took the yard in 1737 and he was building ships for the Royal Navy in the 1740s. He was succeeded by his nephews, John and Robert Batson. Baltic timber, imported for the building of warships and East Indiamen From c1770 Robert Batson new smiths' shop and, in 1778. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Curling, Young & Company (Limehouse Dockyard). In 1800 Batson's yard was transferred to Cox, Curling & Company, shipbuilders, enlarged the dry docks and demolished the house. From 1820 the firm was known as Curling, Young & Company. They built East and West Indiamen and, later large merchant steamships, all in timber. The yard became Limehouse Dockyard. The managers from 1855 were Young, Son & Magnay and The firm continued to build large timber ships. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Limehouse Dockyard was bought by the newly formed London Quays & Warehouses Company, to provide wharfage and warehouses around a new dock. Sidney Young & Company operated the lower section of the dockyard until 1874. William Walker & Company, shipbuilders, in 1869. As Limehouse Dry Dock it was occupied by James Turner and others until 1901. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Aberdeen Wharf. The Aberdeen Steam Navigation Company, acquired part of Limehouse Dockyard in 1874, and filled in the dry dock. They built a brick-lined tidal dock and warehousing designed by George Judge. The wharf was used for the storage of goods from Scotland, notably tinned salmon. The engineer was J. J. Robson and the builders were George Monday & Son. The warehouses, had Columbia fire-proof flooring
J. Spurling Ltd. in 1912 Spurling took the three 1870s warehouses to store strawboard and paper. The area was renamed Spurling's Lower Wharf, or Lower Aberdeen Wharf. The wharf was badly damaged in the Blitz; the remains of the riverside warehouses were cleared in 1948–9, and the Emmett Street house and offices in 1956. A transit shed was built in 1950 and a brick Customs Office also. In 1956 the firm took over the whole wharf. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
P. Bork & Company Ltd (later P. Bork Shipping Ltd), timber agents, acquired the wharf in 1962, for the storage of veneers. Aberdeen Wharf was cleared in the late 1980s for use by contractors working on West ferry Circus and other parts of the Canary Wharf site. This is the Aberdeen Wharf site
Union Wharf site. (See Westferry Circus below)
The Breach, Poplar Gut and the Gut House. The medieval river wall below Limehouse was breached in 1660. The Poplar Commissioners of Sewers repaired the damage and rebuilt other sections of defective wall. The new section of wall was back from the river leaving a stretch of unprotected foreland called The Breach. This came to be called the Great Gut, or Poplar Gut. Union Wharf site. (See Westferry Circus for the riverside in this area)
The Breach Dockyard, 1707–1818. The foreland formed by the breach of 1660 was used for storing timber but was leased in 1707 by John Winter, a London shipwright. He built two dry docks. In 1715 William Hoare, became manager and then took it over himself... in 1740 it was let to Thomas Snellgrove, who built ships for the Royal Navy. In 1753 the yard was sold to John Smart, a malt distiller who had built a distillery, and served by the two windmills also pigsties and a bacon house. But by 1774 Smart leased to James Menetone, a shipwright, who used it as a dockyard. The yard was then let to Almon Hill and Robert Mellish, and they built warships and East Indiamen. The West India Dock Company bought the dockyard in 1818, to enlarge the Limehouse Basin. Union Wharf site.
Ropeyard - John Lyney constructed a ropeyard in 1788–91, with a warehouse and an open ropewalk. This was taken over in 1800 for the building of the West India Docks. Union Wharf site.
Limehouse Entrance. The West India Docks' Limehouse entrance lock became unusable when the Limehouse Basin was infilled in 1927–8
Ropemaker's Fields
Open space named for the several ropewalks that were once in the area. It was laid out for the London Docklands Development Corporation on derelict land plus land above the Limehouse Link Tunnel by landscape architects Churchman Associates. There are rope moulded railings. There are rope designs on railings and bollards with a rope motif. The landscape includes grass and trees including Indian bean trees, with paths. Bandstand which incorporates cast-iron columns saved from one of the former warehouses at St Katharine Docks
27 The House They Left Behind. Now a restaurant called The House ex 19th pub
Roy Square (see Narrow Street above)
Thames Place
This led to Limehouse Pier (see Riverside above)
This short road was cleared of buildings on the north side in 1950 Dundee Wharf was built. It has now completely disappeared under Canary Riverside
Horns and Chequers Pub. There from before 1810 to the 1920s. Near the stairs there was a public house, perhaps known as the White Lion in the late 17th , later called the Chequers, and then the Horns and Chequers.
Three Colt Street
One of the original streets of Limehouse – the Lime House was at its southern end.
Mitre Buildings. Residential. Some sort of meeting place attached to Brunswick chapel.
Railway Bridge. Date unknown. Plate girder with concrete decking by the Docklands Light Railway.
Limehouse Station. This opened in 1840 on the London and Blackwall Railway and was closed in 1926. It is the only remaining original station building still extant from the London and Blackwall. It is on the north side of the viaduct side although remains are evident to the south and there is a name plate to it. The platforms and their associated structures were largely built of wood and were apparently removed about 1929. In 1840 there were buildings and staircases either side of the line with the booking hall under the viaduct. The up side exit and gents are of unknown date. A third floor was added in 1900 but it has now gone.
Brunswick Methodist Chapel. The trustees of the chapel dated back to at least 1831 and there were associated Mitre Schools from 1847 and Mitre buildings.. There was also the Limehouse Wesleyan Sunday School of the Seamen's Mission. There was a burial ground at the back of the chapel, popular with dissenters in the area. by 1895 The Seamen's Mission took over the premises and a sailors' bible class was started, There was a flourishing Sunday school, a children’s meeting on Thursday night, often attended by over 1,000 children, a 'cripples' parlour'. a factory girls' bible class and a social club. In 1931 Dr Harold Oatley from the London Hospital set up a Sunday school for Chinese children. In 1937 the Chapel was condemned as unsafe, and in 1939, the Shaftesbury Society was told that the Limehouse Ragged School here was closed. The building was sold to the London County Council in 1965.
20 Tower Hamlets Housing Office
51 Cyril Jackson School. Three Colt Lane site.
Barleymow Estate. This was built in the 1960s on the site of Taylor Walker's Barley Mow Brewery by the Greater London Council. There was an energy-efficient refurbishment by BCD Architects for the LDDC and Tower Hamlets in 1989-93.
80 Kings Head. Pub dating from at least 1839. Also known as the Old Kings Head. Current building is 1850 and built as a public house. Has an angel over the door. Now housing.
94 Limekiln Wharf. The wharf is now a group of warehouses, overlooking the dock. It is now flats, houses and some offices
Door in the boundary wall of Limekiln Dock. This is a replica of the doorway from the Lime House, built in 1705 and demolished in 1935 with the last remaining limekiln which was adjacent. The original door was salvaged and taken to the Ragged School Museum,
110 Dundee Wharf. A late 19th office building, in red and yellow brick, for the Dundee, Perth, and London Shipping Co. There is a Galleon in the pediment. It is extended behind with a sheet steel clad box on stilts and alongside the entrance to the housing development called Dundee Wharf (See Dundee Wharf)
115 Around Poplar Children’s Centre
145 Enterprise pub. Closed and was latterly Entice, an Indian restaurant. This is now an estate agent
Trinidad Street
This was previously called South Street
The railway crossing here was on the original London and Blackwall Railway 1840. Here dwellings were built into the railway arches by the Railway Company. These were arches 312 and 313. There are railings posts in the parapet above.
Westferry Circus
This square covers only a small portion of the western side of the circus. It consists of two roundabouts one above the other to provide access to different levels of Canary Wharf. the upper roundabout is in the open air, the lower roundabout is in a tunnel. It was built from 1991.
The White Lead Factory and Timber Yards. The flood wall here was rebuilt following a breach in 1660. At that time it was the site of a mast master’s works, William Wood, and from 1698 Philip Dyson, a shipwright.
Star, a timber-built public house.
White Lead Yard. This is on John Rocque's map of 1746. This was the works of the London (Quaker) Lead Company, which had lead mines on the Greenwich Hospital's estate in the northern Pennines.In 1717 William Rice had had a works here for the production of white lead by the stack process with a windmill, and a draw dock. In 1734 the site was sold to the London (Quaker) Lead Company. They left in 1780 and the site became a timber-wharf and yard owned by a Richard Hank. From about 1727 the southern end of the lead site was used by another timber merchant John Satchell. John Tucker, of Weymouth, had part of this frontage as a stone-wharf, presumably for Portland stone. All of these properties were compulsorily purchased for the formation of the west entrance lock to the West India Docks and the buildings were demolished.
Emmett Street Wharf. Curling, Young & Co took over part of the white lead site for a timber-yard. By the 1860s it was a scrap-iron wharf used by James Thomas Jago. In the 1870s Sidney Young & Company a shipwrights' and joiners' installed a sawmill. In 1885 Thomas Smith, County Durham opened the Emmett Street Foundry and Wharf and they made sash weights, columns, fire bars, sanitary castings etc'. The company was wound up in 1916 when it was purchased by William Mallinson & Co timber merchants, who stored aeroplane timber here. In the 1960s it was used by Jack Summers Ltd, timber merchants but in the 1870s was cleared and is now under Westferry Circus. (Also see Emmett Street)
The Union Docks. These were owned by Fletcher Son & Fearnall 1818–1925 and the site draw dock that became the Limehouse Slipway. They were steamship builders who also repaired shipping using the West India Dock, specialising in river and excursion vessels. They built a dry-dock in the hull of the Canton, an East Indiaman. The Union Docks eventually occupied most of Limehouse Breach stretching over the whole river front between the two Limehouse entrance locks, and was one of the largest private yards on the Thames. They gradually took on general engineering work, although the Great War brought them some shipbuilding work. Fletcher, Son & Fearnall Ltd was wound up in 1925. For a decade the Union Docks site remained vacant. (See Riverside and Bridge Road)
Locke's Wharf and Union Dock Wharf. In 1871 some of the land of the white lead site was leased to Locke, Lancaster & Company, lead merchants. They had been established in 1854, premises in Bermondsey. In 1872 F. W. May of Camberwell built a lead-refining works on the site, with two blast-furnaces. A third blast furnace added in 1892 was reputedly the first mechanically charged lead blast-furnace in the country. There were three cupellation furnaces producing about three tons of silver per week. The firm merged with W W & R Johnson & Sons in 1894. They remained here until 1930.
Lamb, Beal & Son, chain-cable makers and anchor-smiths. They were on part of Union Dock Wharf until the early 1920s.
Union Dry Dock. This is the lower dry dock and the gridiron. In 1940, the Admiralty requisitioned it for wartime work managed by R. & H. Green & Silley Weir until 1951. In 1955–6 the Thames Dry Dock & Engineering Company, which was part of the General Lighterage (Holdings) Group, converted the dry dock into a double slipway for the building and repair of small tugs and barges but the slipway was used only until 1965. In the late 1960s it became Cargo Fleet Wharf and the Union Dry Dock was used for processing of sand and gravel. The northern section was taken for the building of Westferry Circus. The remainder was cleared in 1991
Bridge Wharf. In 1929 the lock and its pier heads were let to J. J. Prior Ltd, sand and ballast wharfingers. They infilled the lock and leased the old Dock Company's gatekeeper's house. They built a tar plant. Bridge Wharf was taken over by Merediths Ltd, timber importers, in 1962. The site is now under Westferry Circus.
The Limehouse Slipway. An old ship-breaking yard south of the entrance lock was used by the West India Dock Company for the deliveries while the docks were being built. The frontage was later bricked up leaving a draw dock for repairs by the dock company. The surrounding area was taken over by Thomas Johnson & Son, who rebuilt the draw dock with stairs in 1822–3. The site was leased to Charrington, Gardner, Locket & Company in 1925, for a barge repair business. The slipway was rebuilt in concrete in 1938–9 to take two barges but the site was destroyed in the bombing of 1940. The Port of London Authority took the site in 1962 for barges repairs. They sold it in 1972 and it was used by Robbins (Marine) as a barge- and yacht-repair yard. It is now under Westferry Circus.
Westferry Road
The eastern services building for the Limehouse Link has artwork commissioned from leading UK artist and sculptor Michael Kenny (1941–1999), a relief work in Kilkenny limestone called On Strange and Distant Islands.
Railway Bridge. This is a replacement concrete bridge built for the Docklands Light Railway. The previous bridge dated from 1959 and itself replaced viaducts arches built for the London and Blackwall Railway.
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