River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town
River
Lea/Bow Creek
The Lea winds itself generally southwards towards the Thames
TQ 39505 81448
Canning Town on the Essex bank of Lea/Bow Creek. This was, and is, a heavily industrialised area together with a very down market housing area with markets, shops, cinemas, pubs and many charitable and missionary organisations. In the 2000s public transport has been transformed and much housing renewed, and it is an area in a great deal of change.
Post to the west Poplar
Post to the north West Ham Station
Appleby Road
The road is named after a local ARP warden who was killed during the Blitz. A pre-war suburban ideal is demonstrated in this West Ham estate.
Barking Road
It was built by the Commercial Road Turnpike Trust from the East India Docks eastwards. Now the A124 it formed part of the original A13 before the building so the East Ham and Barking Bypass in 1928. It was widened as part of the plans for Silvertown Way and the new bridge over the Lea.
Tollgate. This stood at the Essex end of the bridge under the Turnpike Trust.
Canning Town Station. The original station was on the south side of Barking Road and was roughly on the site of the current station (which is in Silvertown Way). It was opened in 1847 having been built by the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway on their Stratford to North Woolwich line. The line had been built to carry coal from the Thames and this was the only station between Stratford and North Woolwich. It was called Barking Road. In 1873 it was rebuilt and renamed Canning Town after the new name for the area.
Canning Town Station. In 1888 it was resited by the Great Eastern Railway to a site on the north side of Barking Road This station had a small street level building on Barking Road and two platforms with another platform added in 1895 for Victoria Park services. There were also two through goods lines. In 1932 the street level building was replaced and embellished with carved stone panels with the company and station names. In 1979 this was demolished and a new building erected on the corner of Stephenson Street. This was demolished in 1994.
Signal box. Elevated
Canning Town Goods Depot. This was opened by the London & North Western Railway in 1881 and was east of the station. From 1950 it was called Canning Town North. This closed in 1967 although a private siding remained and the yard was taken over by scrap dealers. The site is now used for the Wickes and Carpet Eight stores with an infilled bridge at the back of their car park.
Canning Town Railway Goods Yard. Great Eastern Railway Goods and Coal Depot. This had a river frontage of 480 ft with accommodation for 12 barges. A siding went to Blackwall Goods Yard with branch onto the area which is now the Limmo and others to works on the east bank of Bow Creek.
Railway Bridge. This was rebuilt in the early 1930s as part of the scheme for Silvertown Way The bridge was built in reinforced concrete by Messrs. D.G. Somerville and Company Ltd.
Essoldo Cinema. This was on the corner of Victoria Dock Road. It had originally opened in 1875 as Ralf’s Music Hall, and later became the Royal Albert Music Hall. It was rebuilt in 1909 as the Imperial Palace of Varieties by John Farmer, and later became the Imperial Cinema. It burnt down in 1931 and Rebuilt in 1934 by C. Brett, it was then in an Art Deco style by George Coles and became the New Imperial Cinema. and organist Max Bruce played the Wurlitzer 2Manual/5Rank organ, transferred from the Tolmer Cinema, Kings Cross. The cinema had a fully equipped stage and four dressing rooms. It was taken over by the Essoldo Cinemas chain in 1955 and re-named. It was closed in 1963 with "The Quatermass Experiment" and became bingo club. It was demolished in 1967 for the flyover
14 The Liverpool Arms on the junction with Silvertown Way. It was a Charrington’s house and built before 1886. It had a reputation for ‘trouble’. It was demolished in the 1970s for road widening and the Canning Town Flyover.
Pylons
23 Bridge House pub. This was a major venue for rock music featuring bands for instance Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, and The Blues Band. It was closed in 1982 and demolished.
45 Canning Town fire station. Built 1897-8 to replace the fire station at Plaistow. Replaced in 1931. Site is now under the roundabout. After closure this may have been Emerson’s Garage, for private buses.
51 Sunny Smiles dentist. This was built as the London and County Bank by H Cheston & Perkin, 1897. It is in red brick with a tall gable and some Essex based decorative features.
67 Royal Oak Pub. Former Courage house, now an estate agent and flats. A big pub with built in 1848 and later rebuilt. It has a tiled entrance with lots of oak leaves in an oval frame over the door. The pub had a boxing ring and training area on the first floor run by Terry Lawless where Frank Bruno and others trained. The pub closed in 2002 after Lawless's retirement. It has been substantially rebuilt since, although the frontage remains.
79 St Margaret and All Saints, Roman Catholic Church. Founded 1859 and built 1875-6 by E. Tasker and additions following war damage. It is in brick with circular window and Star of David tracery.
Presbytery. Next to the church built 1884 by Tasker.
Church Centre by Ronald Wylde Associates.
81 Anchor House. Originally a Roman Catholic seamen's mission, built in 1962 by the Roman Catholic Apostleship of the Sea. Its original purpose was to provide temporary accommodation to out-of-work seafarers but with the closure of the London Docks it fell into disrepair nut then transformed itself into a residential life skills centre for the homeless. This is a six-storey residential slab block facing the road.
94 Sweetingham’s Cinema. Opened in the early 1900’s, closed by the local authority in 1909, for safety reasons. It was demolished in 1912, and the Grand Cinema was built on the site.
94 The Grand Cinema opened in 1913, Designed by Emden & Egan and owned by Kinematograph Properties Ltd. In 1928 it was taken over by Denman/Gaumont Theatres and sound equipment installed. It was bombed in 1940 and closed, never to re-open. It is now the site of the I Rathbone Street Market and an open-air car parking site.
103 Canning Town Library. In red brick and Portland stone with lots of carvings. It was the first library in West Ham and opened in 1893 with a contribution from Passmore Edwards who paid for the original stock of books. The inside was reconstructed after bombing which destroyed an array of technical gadgetry, devised by the Chief Librarian,
105 Community Links Trust in the Canning Town Public Hall and public library. This was built in 1893/4 on a site which had been used as a platform by local radical speakers. The first local public electricity supply generator was installed at the back of the hall by Lewis Angell, Borough Engineer. It used a dynamo driven by gas engine, and sold power to two customers. The Hall is in grandiose brick and stone with a massive pediment and balustrade and a lot of carving. The ground floor was intended for swimming baths but instead became a hall with a police court and offices.
110 Ordnance Arms
137 Imperial Bioscope Theatre. Burgoyne’s American Bioscope was in a converted shop. It was renamed Imperial Bioscope by George Gales. It was closed by the local authority in 1909, and did not fulfill the requirements of the Cinematograph Licencing Act.
143-147 The Mansfield House University Settlement founded by Mansfield College, Oxford in by E .W.Troup opened in former shops here, the ‘residents’ built a hall behind in 1898 for a boys club, which became known as Mansfield Hall. It had three storeys and was had a single-storey wing containing a galleried gymnasium designed by F. Troup. In 1897 this building became the Men’s Club of which Keir Hardie was a member of the Men’s Club.
146 Electroscope Cinema which opened pre 1909. It was re-named Coronet Electric theatre and was compulsorily closed in 1909 by the Council for safety reasons.
164 -166 Holy Trinity National School, opened here in 1861. The Plaistow and Victoria Docks mission opened a new school in Barking Road in 1861 opposite the site of Holy Trinity church. A new building was built the following year. The boys and girls departments were closed in 1936–7 and the infants in 1940, rebuilt as comprehensive 1950s.
171 Mr.Iveys’ domestic machinery shop. He was the first customer of electricity from the Council In 1895-In 1908 a cinema was opened here in what was said to be an old sweet factory. It was opened by Arthur Gale as Gale’s Bioscope Show and had two screens. It was burnt down in 1909, but reopened in 1911 to designs by L. Jint as Gale’s Electric Theatre. It closed in 1914/1915. This is now a betting shop. It is also said that this was used as a Labour Exchange and a Council Electricity Department showroom
Holy Trinity Church. Built in 1867, it was damaged by bombing in 1941 but restored and reopened in 1942. However the church closed in 1948 and was later demolished It was built opposite the National School in Barking Road, (now the site of a McDonalds drive through Burger Bar), which was built by Sir Antonio Brady and had been used for worship since 1861. Holy Trinity was badly damaged by Bombing in 1941, but re-opened in 1942. It finally closed in 1948. The site was late sold to West Ham Council who built a block of flats on a part of the site. The site of the High Alter could not be built on and can been seen today as a small area of grass next the termination point for Buses at the junction of Hermit & Barking Road.
213a New South West Ham CIU Working Men’s Club
217 flats on the site of Essex House, which was a large house built in the late 19th In the 1950s it became the site of Grange Coaches
219 The Princess Alexandra
South West Ham Technical School. Built 1951-2 by T.E. North with R.B. Padmore and C. Macaree in the Modern style with a flat roof. It later became the Trinity Boys School, and then Cumberland school. It has now been demolished and a replacement for Rokeby School being built.
Beckton Road
Beckton Road. This formed the new approach from Barking Road to the by-pass, avoiding the tramlines and the long run through Plaistow and East Ham.
Canning Town Local Service Centre. Built on part of the school site taken up by MacDonald’s.
1 The Beckton Arms
Bidder Street
Named after George Parker Bidder, the calculating boy, and entrepreneur and engineer of much of the Royal Docks. The area consists largely of scrap yards
Bridge House 2. Music venue replacing the demolished Bridge House in Barking Road
162 Dartmouth Arms
Electra Business Park – on the site of some of the West Ham Power Station
Canning Town Board School was opened in 1877. It was reorganized in 1932 for juniors and infants and by 1939 for infants only. It was closed in 1945 and demolished. The site was added to that of the power station.
Universal Milling moved from Elland Road to here in 1953
Bow Creek
Embankment works along the Lea as it meanders in this section were built as an unemployment relief scheme in 1931.
Pipe Bridge. This bridge, of which one red brick pier remains, was a highly ornamental bridge built by the Gas Light and Coke Company as an outpost of their 1870s Beckton Works. It thus brought the gas, heroically and ornamentally, from Beckton into London. Demolished. (Why??)
The Iron Bridge. This was a 19th iron bridge. Designs submitted by the elder John Rennie in 1909 were not used but in 1810 a bridge was built to a design by James Walker and Alfred Burges for the Commercial Road Turnpike Trust. It was tolled with a toll house at the Essex end. The Trust was abolished in 1871. The bridge was damaged by a barge in 1887 and had to be shored up. It was demolished in 1896 . The name ‘Iron Bridge’ persisted in the names of other local features
New Iron Bridge. This was designed under Alexander Binnie, Chief Engineer to London County Council, and erected by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. 1893/1896
New Canning Town Bridge (aka Barking Road Bridge) constructed in 1932 as part of the improvements for riverside access which included Silvertown Way. This was on a new alignment to north of the Pipe Bridge. It was designed by Rendel, Palmer and Tritton wth a steel skew span, 200 feet long and 84 feet wide. It had a 57 foot wide carriageway and had two tram tracks down the centre. The contractors were Messrs. Shanks and McEwan.
Canning Town flyover. The westbound lanes and eastbound lane originate in the 1960s flyover, while the eastbound lanes were completed in 2002. It opened in its present form in 2004.
Jubilee Footbridge. This is on the alignment of the old iron bridge using some of its abutments. This is a combined foot bridge and pipe bridge
Railway bridge. Line from Thames Wharf to East India Dock. Eastern Counties and Thames Junction railway built a single track branch line from Stratford to Leamouth for the pepper warehouses of the East India Company Goods until 1848. This railway bridge is still there and is thought to date originally from 1848. It appears to have originally been a Drawbridge and then by the 1890s a Swing Bridge. By 1916 it appears to be a standard girder bridge, which it remains. It is supported on cast iron columns filled with concrete
Burke Street
66 The Huntingdon Arms. This was a former Charrington’s Brewery pub, present by 1896. Closed in 1986 and became a laundrette, which has also closed and the building is empty
River Christian Centre. The former swimming pool of the Mayflower Centre built with funds from Bernhard Baron, the philanthropic American tobacco magnate. Big thermal windows along each side and chimney disguised as a campanile.
Canning Town
Built from 1850 for dockworkers, and referring to a low quality housing area around Victoria Dock Road. It had, in, 1855 been called Hallsville after the landlord. The name is first recorded in 1848 and is probably named either from Sir Samuel Canning, an industrialist who had associations with the manufacturing firm of S. W. Silver & Co or from George Canning, an engineer associated with the development of the docks and railways here or the the prime minister of 1827 or his son who was Viceroy of India - or a nearby canning factory there. It also includes an area called Cherry Island – which had been market gardens, and was very squalid.
Caxton Street North
Goswell Bakeries Ltd. A wholesale bread baker started in 1950 with licenses for speciality breads. It produces a West Indian bread and unbranded bagels, light rye and Polish rye breads. Dr Vogel began making bread in the 1950s with muesli bread and Goswell's produced a mixed grain variety in 1972. They supply major supermarkets throughout the country. They also supply organic bread to vegetarian wholefood restaurants
KR Ocean House. Viking Life Saving Equipment Ltd.
Royal Docks House. Holy Ghost Christian Centre. Church originating in Nigeria. Paraclete Solution Centre. Previously office and warehouse
Moss Electrical Co. Moss Electrical was established in 1994 and has works with major suppliers to service electrical contractors,
Concorde House. Concorde Glass Ltd.
Peacock Gym. The Peacock gym was founded by Tony and Martin Bowers. Sam Bowers was a bare knuckle fighter in the 1860s; Tim Bowers, fought in the 1890’s and his son Dan organised prize fights; George won schoolboy championships in the 1930s and was a coach. Kevin won Championships in 1970s. Charles was an Army champion in rhea 1940s. Walter boxed in the 1950s. Jackie boxed in the 1950s and beat Terry Spinks twice. Tony and Martin got the use of a room in a tower block which became their first gym and they moved to larger premises and eventually at the Railway Tavern and then at the Peacock in Freemasons Road. Then they moved to an old canvas making factory in 1993 and developed it.
Memorial to Bradley Stone. Stone was a young boxer who died two days after winning a fight in Bethnal Green, which had won him the British Super Bantamweight title in 1994
Cliff Walk
Cliff Walk Evangelical Church. This has services and input in Portuguese.
Hallsville Road
Hallsville Tavern one of the few pubs left. Built 1840 with curly bargeboards, possibly the sole survivor of the earliest developments in Canning Town
Jude Street
St Luke's Centre. This was St. Luke’s church built in 1873-5 by Giles & Gone. By 1985 it was vandalized, but saved from demolition by a local group, and converted for community uses by Peter Eley. Inside, five floor levels are provided but keep some of the drama of the full height. There is a cafe, and mosaics of 1893 with the Twelve Apostles and the Ascension, with angels and foliage
Kier Hardie Estate
This was named for West Ham’s, and Parliament's, first Labour M.P. it was one of the first redevelopment areas in Britain and demonstrated successes and failures of post-war planning. It incorporated existing churches, community centres and pubs. The population was kept to seventy people per acre although later phases were denser and, eventually, higher.
Killip Close
This was Wilberforce Street
St Fidelis Friary. Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. This opened in 1999 and runs Friar Bennet's Kitchen and a night shelter for homeless men. This was the Great War memorial church of Our Lady of Sorrows, built in 1925 as a chapel of ease for the Tidal Basin area and had links with the Franciscan missionaries of who added a chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in1931. In 1966 the church was reconstructed as Bennett Hall for St. Margaret's Youth Club
Limmo Peninsula
Ecology Park. A small linear park formed by a bend in Creek. It features small streams, interlinked ponds and meadows, with the tidal Creek nearby. It is linked by a riverside walkway to East India Dock Basin Nature Reserve and is run by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. It has nationally rare invertebrates
Newham Way A13
At the crossing of the Lea the road changes character dramatically, becoming a dual three-lane expressway which continues to the Greater London Boundary. The dual carriageway section through Newham is Newham Way which is part of the East Ham & Barking Bypass, and originally dualled by the 1960s. This section is built to high standards, but was subject to a 40 mph speed limit, and 50 mph in 2011.
Orchard Place
The Peninsula lies inside one of the convolutions of Bow Creek/River Lea as it flows towards the Thames. It was once called Goodluck Hope and there was one building in the mid 18th called Handle Hall at the south end. Orchard Place once ran straight up the Peninsula from the south, and was heavily industrialised. It is now largely a construction site for Crossrail
‘The Chartered’ Gas Light and coke Company Tar Works. In 1817 the Chartered decided to open its own tar works in a site bought from Wigram. Mr, Dalton, who had been foreman caulker with Wigram, was put in charge. As an expert in the use of tar for shipping he had already given evidence to a Parliamentary enquiry. The works expanded and more equipment was bought. Dalton prepared information about the use of tar on ships to a poor reception from the Navy Board and some hostility from Royal Dockyard workers who objected to the smell. Sadly the works closed due to falling demand in 1833. It was sold to Turner, Shakell and Hopkinson
Samuel Turner. Mr. Turner had been making tar for ten years when he bought the Orchard Place works from the Gas Light and Coke Company and was still there in 1850s making varnish, Roman cement, naphtha, Paraffin and ammonia. In the later 1850s Blewitt took over the works and it later became known as Jubilee Wharf
Samuda Works. Shipbuilder Jacob Samuda first set up here in 1843 and remained until the mid 1850s.
W. W. Howard Brothers & Co. in Jubilee Wharf. The main known structures on the site were two large open sided timber storage sheds built in 1936–7, with Belfast Truss roof construction. Demolished in 1993 for the Pura car park
Blackwall Galvanised Iron Co. makers of roofing and kegs established 1882 from 1902 they were part of Baldwins Ltd.
Mission Hall, at the southern corner of Orchard Place and Leamouth Road, in what was once known as Wrights Buildings or Terrace.
School opened in 1874, in a converted warehouse at the corner of Duke Street
Bow Creek London Board School. In 1894, The London School Board bought part of the old glass works site, and built a new school with a hall, four classrooms, two infant schoolrooms, and a generous sized playground. It opened in 1896. In 1936 the pupils transferred to Oban Street School but the building was still standing in 1956. Now demolished
Pura Foods. In the 1960s-70s Pura was part of Acatos and Hutcheson who made edible oils and fats. On this site they were Pure Lard Ltd with a large refining and deodorising plant. But became Pura Foods in 1988 and new plant was installed at Leamouth including for hydrogenation of fats and a plant for making PVC bottles.
Thames Plate Glass Works, which covered the entire north end of the peninsula 1835 - 1874. It was the only plate glass manufacturer in southern England, and supplied around 12% of the national market. They employed women polished the plate glass for mirrors. The factory cast one of the 28-inch blanks for a ‘scope on Wandsworth Common and this was a record sized lens for 18 years. The firm was relaunched in 1864 with H.Bessemer as the largest shareholder. In 1866 there were two 2 engine houses, grinding and polishing shops and a manager's house. Closed following liquidation 1874
Crown Wharf. This was a barge building site from 1871 for William Cox. Later Vokins & Company Ltd, lightermen and barge-repairers, from around 1915 and remained there until 1970s. Vokins had been on a number of sites in the area from the mid 1880s and continued until taken over in the 1970s. William Vokins himself was prominent in the Watermen’s Company, funding almshouses in Ditchling. The site later became part of Pura Foods.
9 Crown Public House. On site from the late 1840s to the mid 1930s
Bow Creek Mills, seed crushers and oil refiners 1884. They were W. H. Stead, a Liverpool-based firm. They built an oil-crushing mill, and a refinery with boiler-house, engine-room and chimney. In 1901 they were taken over to become part of British Oil and Cake Mills Ltd and in the 1930s by Ocean Harvest Ltd part of the Lever Empire and making animal food from whale meat and this continued into the 1940s.
Upper Wharf. Patent Stamped Railway Axle Box Company here 1889 -1894. They had a factory with three furnaces, a chimney shaft, and offices. The company went out of business in 1894
Upper Wharf from 1894 this was used for the manufacture of Petrifite a white cement which bound together any old rubbish to make cheap blocks. This went out of business in 1902.
Upper Wharf. From 1902 this was Fowler Brothers, sugar merchants refinery and makers of yummy black treacle. They had originally been on Glasshouse Wharf, which they kept. They built a new refinery designed by specialists John Clarkson. They remained on site into the 1970s when they were taken over by Manebre, and then Tate and Lyle.
Cooperage Wharf at the north end developed after 1902 with engineering
Davies Wharf. Site of Thames Sack & Bag Company. Burnt down in fires in 1912 and 1935.
Rathbone Market
The market was created here in the early 1960s as part of development plans when market stalls which had been in a number of partly ad hoc locations in the area were encouraged into a newly created market area. A great deal of Canning Town had been destroyed in Second World War bombing and the entire area to the south was replanned in a scheme planned as early as 1944 as part of Forshaw and Abercrombie's Greater London plan and the West Ham Development Plan. The market was designed by by T.E.North, the then Borough Architect as a wedge-shaped market place, with covered stalls, enclosed by low flat shops and a ten-storey slab block. Much of this has now been demolished in preparation for a new round of regeneration.
12 Rathbone Clinic
Rathbone Street
Point blocks. The first to be built by West Ham Council in 1961-4 of eleven storeys
76 The Flying Scud, This Charrington’s house dated from 1872 and closed in 1995. Now housing.
38a The Prince Arthur Pub, This was known as Drakie but demolished before 1980.
Rogers Road
62 The Ground Rent Tavern. This was a Watney's house demolished in 2006 and housing built on the site
Ruscoe Road
St.Luke’s Primary School. Opened in 2000 along with the new church
St. Luke’s Church. Built 1999-2000 by Ronald Wylde Partnership replacing the older church which is in community use. The new church also provides spaces to be used by the school. In the chapel are six stained glass windows from the Royal Marine Chapel, Deal.
29 New Shakespeare’s House. This was The Shakespeare’s Head pub which closed in 2002 to become flats. It dates from before 1862 and was a Watney’s House.
Shirley Street
3 United Methodist Church. Founded in 1853 and a church and schoolroom here in 1873. It was destroyed in bombing in 1940; the site was sold to the council for housing in 1963 was.
15 Streeties. Old Watney's pub with a bare, ramshackle interior.
36 Stage and Go. Theatre school
78 The Rose of Denmark was a Watney’s pub that dated back to 1867. It closed in 1993 and was demolished in the late 2000s. Before the closure of the docks it had opened at 6am.
G. Pidduck and Co. Sheet metal and thermal insulation on site here from 1877. Now dissolved.
Silvertown Way
Road built for access to the docks and to by pass Victoria Dock Road. It was built in in 1934 and linked Barking and North Woolwich Roads running above Victoria Dock Road, the railway and the dock entrance. The section crossing the Royal Victoria Dock is a long viaduct with a beam and slab construction and reinforced concrete columns. Consulting engineers were Rendell, Palmer and Tritton and contractors were Dorman Long. The road allowed the western entrance of the Royal Victoria Dock to be closed. To achieve thus 3,600 were rehoused in an estate in West Ham. It was opened by Hore Belisha in 1934.
Canning Town Station. Opened in 1999 it runs between North Greenwich and West Ham on the Jubilee Line and between East India Station and Royal Victoria on the Docklands Light Railway; and also between East India and West Silvertown on the Docklands Light Railway. There is also a bus interchange. The station was moved here from north side of Barking Road where it had been since 1888. The new station is by John Sly & Partners, who won the job as Troughton McAslan. It is in glass, concrete and aluminium. Link for three rail lines and bus interchange with essentially two stations in parallel, with double-deck train platforms raised on concrete pillars above a submerged third storey with a staircase to the underground ticket hall. There is a panel from the hull of HMS Warrior, the first warship, built locally in 1860 and there is also reference to the hammers, of West Ham United. The inscription was carved by Richard Kindersley. It is on the site of the Essoldo cinema.
Holiday Inn Express
Silvocea Way
This new road and the vehicle test station at its north end are the site of East India Company warehouses. Built 1808-1820 but had previously used for the production of building materials for the dock itself. After the company’s demise in the 1830s they were sold to the East India Dock Company, and in the 1840s they were bought by the Eastern Counties Railway Company with which they remained. Some buildings were destroyed by bombing. In 1983 the London Docklands Development Corporation bought the area. The buildings were known as the pepper warehouses and some were designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell. Under the East India Dock Company they were used for grain but found to be uneconomic. The Railway Company built a line into the area from their Canning Town Goods yard and it became known as the Blackwall Goods Yard handling coal and coke. It closed in 1968. It has since used as a depot and works department by Tower Hamlets Council.
Star Lane
So called because it led to Star Field. The eastern end of the road is now Newhaven Lane and the length of the road broken up by green areas and small parks
Star Lane Park. Green park area formed by the demolition of a number of streets to the south of Star Lane since the 1980s.
Stephenson Street
Industrial and trading sites
Durham Pub. Appears to be still open. It dates from at least the mid-1850s
VP . The company was founded in Harrogate in 1954 as a plant hire company called Vibratory Roller and Plant Hire Limited.
Gillian House. TKO Gym – boxing venue including women and young people’s coaching
St Gabriel church. This stood on the west side of the street fronting on to a side road, Wellington Street, and was consecrated in 1876, it was bombed in the Second World War and demolished din the 1950s
Tarling Road
The Recreation Ground was opened in 1892 and is named after James Keir Hardie, who was returned as the first Labour MP by the constituency of West Ham South in 1892.
Trinity Gardens
Housing built post war on the site of the bombed Trinity Church which had been designed by Banks & Barry in 1867.
Vincent Street
River Christian Centre - in 2003, River Church was formed by merging the Elim Way Fellowship and Mayflower Family Centre Churches, The Mayflower Family Centre, Built by Geoffrey Raymond 1923-30, extended and remodelled by Stillman Eastwick Field c. 1977-80. It was founded as the Malvern College Mission in 1894 in a row of terraced houses but expanded 1918 by Sir Reginald Kennedy-Cox as a Dockland Settlement after 1958 as the Mayflower. It has Tudor style buildings for residences, club rooms and chapel arranged around a quadrangle. The main entrance is in a two-storey range for residential workers with an added Youth Centre With a vandal-proof, interior. The Chapel of St. George and St. Helena was built in 1929- with an interior covered by a hammer beam roof with angels on the beam-ends and many art works including scenes of 1930s workers and their families with Christ against a background of Thames dockside by Reginald Bell. A second residential range dates from 1930. The Family Centre was established by Rev David Sheppard in January 1958, helped by David being a internationally known cricketer and he was followed by other dedicated workers, In 1990, a leadership team was formed, with the desire to establish Mayflower as a church on biblical principles rather than an institution but lost grant funding for their work. In 2003 they merged with the Elim church and 'River Church' has become an established part of the Canning Town, East London Community.
Wharf Road
Whitford Armstrong Structural Co., 1910-1967
Sources
Bird. The Geography of the Port of London
Bow Creek School website
Business cavalcade of London,
Carr. Docklands
Carr. Docklands History Survey
Cinema Theatre Association newsletter
Cinema Treasures web site
Closed Pubs web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Connor. Branch Lines Around North Woolwich
Connor and Halford. The Forgotten Stations of Greater London
Co-partners Magazine.
Curwen. Old Plaistow
Disused Stations web site
East London History Society Newsletter
East of London. Old and New
Field. Place names of London,
Glassmaking in London. Web site
GLIAS Newsletter
London Railway Record
London's Industrial Archaeology
Mills. Gas and Chemicals in East London
Nature Conservation in Newham
Peacock Gym website
Pevsner and Cherry. East London
Pewsey. Stratford. A Pictorial History
Port of London Magazine
River Christian Centre web site
Sainsbury. History of West Ham
Survey of London. Leamouth
Taylor. Blackwall,
The Lea winds itself generally southwards towards the Thames
TQ 39505 81448
Canning Town on the Essex bank of Lea/Bow Creek. This was, and is, a heavily industrialised area together with a very down market housing area with markets, shops, cinemas, pubs and many charitable and missionary organisations. In the 2000s public transport has been transformed and much housing renewed, and it is an area in a great deal of change.
Appleby Road
The road is named after a local ARP warden who was killed during the Blitz. A pre-war suburban ideal is demonstrated in this West Ham estate.
Barking Road
It was built by the Commercial Road Turnpike Trust from the East India Docks eastwards. Now the A124 it formed part of the original A13 before the building so the East Ham and Barking Bypass in 1928. It was widened as part of the plans for Silvertown Way and the new bridge over the Lea.
Tollgate. This stood at the Essex end of the bridge under the Turnpike Trust.
Canning Town Station. The original station was on the south side of Barking Road and was roughly on the site of the current station (which is in Silvertown Way). It was opened in 1847 having been built by the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway on their Stratford to North Woolwich line. The line had been built to carry coal from the Thames and this was the only station between Stratford and North Woolwich. It was called Barking Road. In 1873 it was rebuilt and renamed Canning Town after the new name for the area.
Canning Town Station. In 1888 it was resited by the Great Eastern Railway to a site on the north side of Barking Road This station had a small street level building on Barking Road and two platforms with another platform added in 1895 for Victoria Park services. There were also two through goods lines. In 1932 the street level building was replaced and embellished with carved stone panels with the company and station names. In 1979 this was demolished and a new building erected on the corner of Stephenson Street. This was demolished in 1994.
Signal box. Elevated
Canning Town Goods Depot. This was opened by the London & North Western Railway in 1881 and was east of the station. From 1950 it was called Canning Town North. This closed in 1967 although a private siding remained and the yard was taken over by scrap dealers. The site is now used for the Wickes and Carpet Eight stores with an infilled bridge at the back of their car park.
Canning Town Railway Goods Yard. Great Eastern Railway Goods and Coal Depot. This had a river frontage of 480 ft with accommodation for 12 barges. A siding went to Blackwall Goods Yard with branch onto the area which is now the Limmo and others to works on the east bank of Bow Creek.
Railway Bridge. This was rebuilt in the early 1930s as part of the scheme for Silvertown Way The bridge was built in reinforced concrete by Messrs. D.G. Somerville and Company Ltd.
Essoldo Cinema. This was on the corner of Victoria Dock Road. It had originally opened in 1875 as Ralf’s Music Hall, and later became the Royal Albert Music Hall. It was rebuilt in 1909 as the Imperial Palace of Varieties by John Farmer, and later became the Imperial Cinema. It burnt down in 1931 and Rebuilt in 1934 by C. Brett, it was then in an Art Deco style by George Coles and became the New Imperial Cinema. and organist Max Bruce played the Wurlitzer 2Manual/5Rank organ, transferred from the Tolmer Cinema, Kings Cross. The cinema had a fully equipped stage and four dressing rooms. It was taken over by the Essoldo Cinemas chain in 1955 and re-named. It was closed in 1963 with "The Quatermass Experiment" and became bingo club. It was demolished in 1967 for the flyover
14 The Liverpool Arms on the junction with Silvertown Way. It was a Charrington’s house and built before 1886. It had a reputation for ‘trouble’. It was demolished in the 1970s for road widening and the Canning Town Flyover.
Pylons
23 Bridge House pub. This was a major venue for rock music featuring bands for instance Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, and The Blues Band. It was closed in 1982 and demolished.
45 Canning Town fire station. Built 1897-8 to replace the fire station at Plaistow. Replaced in 1931. Site is now under the roundabout. After closure this may have been Emerson’s Garage, for private buses.
51 Sunny Smiles dentist. This was built as the London and County Bank by H Cheston & Perkin, 1897. It is in red brick with a tall gable and some Essex based decorative features.
67 Royal Oak Pub. Former Courage house, now an estate agent and flats. A big pub with built in 1848 and later rebuilt. It has a tiled entrance with lots of oak leaves in an oval frame over the door. The pub had a boxing ring and training area on the first floor run by Terry Lawless where Frank Bruno and others trained. The pub closed in 2002 after Lawless's retirement. It has been substantially rebuilt since, although the frontage remains.
79 St Margaret and All Saints, Roman Catholic Church. Founded 1859 and built 1875-6 by E. Tasker and additions following war damage. It is in brick with circular window and Star of David tracery.
Presbytery. Next to the church built 1884 by Tasker.
Church Centre by Ronald Wylde Associates.
81 Anchor House. Originally a Roman Catholic seamen's mission, built in 1962 by the Roman Catholic Apostleship of the Sea. Its original purpose was to provide temporary accommodation to out-of-work seafarers but with the closure of the London Docks it fell into disrepair nut then transformed itself into a residential life skills centre for the homeless. This is a six-storey residential slab block facing the road.
94 Sweetingham’s Cinema. Opened in the early 1900’s, closed by the local authority in 1909, for safety reasons. It was demolished in 1912, and the Grand Cinema was built on the site.
94 The Grand Cinema opened in 1913, Designed by Emden & Egan and owned by Kinematograph Properties Ltd. In 1928 it was taken over by Denman/Gaumont Theatres and sound equipment installed. It was bombed in 1940 and closed, never to re-open. It is now the site of the I Rathbone Street Market and an open-air car parking site.
103 Canning Town Library. In red brick and Portland stone with lots of carvings. It was the first library in West Ham and opened in 1893 with a contribution from Passmore Edwards who paid for the original stock of books. The inside was reconstructed after bombing which destroyed an array of technical gadgetry, devised by the Chief Librarian,
105 Community Links Trust in the Canning Town Public Hall and public library. This was built in 1893/4 on a site which had been used as a platform by local radical speakers. The first local public electricity supply generator was installed at the back of the hall by Lewis Angell, Borough Engineer. It used a dynamo driven by gas engine, and sold power to two customers. The Hall is in grandiose brick and stone with a massive pediment and balustrade and a lot of carving. The ground floor was intended for swimming baths but instead became a hall with a police court and offices.
110 Ordnance Arms
137 Imperial Bioscope Theatre. Burgoyne’s American Bioscope was in a converted shop. It was renamed Imperial Bioscope by George Gales. It was closed by the local authority in 1909, and did not fulfill the requirements of the Cinematograph Licencing Act.
143-147 The Mansfield House University Settlement founded by Mansfield College, Oxford in by E .W.Troup opened in former shops here, the ‘residents’ built a hall behind in 1898 for a boys club, which became known as Mansfield Hall. It had three storeys and was had a single-storey wing containing a galleried gymnasium designed by F. Troup. In 1897 this building became the Men’s Club of which Keir Hardie was a member of the Men’s Club.
146 Electroscope Cinema which opened pre 1909. It was re-named Coronet Electric theatre and was compulsorily closed in 1909 by the Council for safety reasons.
164 -166 Holy Trinity National School, opened here in 1861. The Plaistow and Victoria Docks mission opened a new school in Barking Road in 1861 opposite the site of Holy Trinity church. A new building was built the following year. The boys and girls departments were closed in 1936–7 and the infants in 1940, rebuilt as comprehensive 1950s.
171 Mr.Iveys’ domestic machinery shop. He was the first customer of electricity from the Council In 1895-In 1908 a cinema was opened here in what was said to be an old sweet factory. It was opened by Arthur Gale as Gale’s Bioscope Show and had two screens. It was burnt down in 1909, but reopened in 1911 to designs by L. Jint as Gale’s Electric Theatre. It closed in 1914/1915. This is now a betting shop. It is also said that this was used as a Labour Exchange and a Council Electricity Department showroom
Holy Trinity Church. Built in 1867, it was damaged by bombing in 1941 but restored and reopened in 1942. However the church closed in 1948 and was later demolished It was built opposite the National School in Barking Road, (now the site of a McDonalds drive through Burger Bar), which was built by Sir Antonio Brady and had been used for worship since 1861. Holy Trinity was badly damaged by Bombing in 1941, but re-opened in 1942. It finally closed in 1948. The site was late sold to West Ham Council who built a block of flats on a part of the site. The site of the High Alter could not be built on and can been seen today as a small area of grass next the termination point for Buses at the junction of Hermit & Barking Road.
213a New South West Ham CIU Working Men’s Club
217 flats on the site of Essex House, which was a large house built in the late 19th In the 1950s it became the site of Grange Coaches
219 The Princess Alexandra
South West Ham Technical School. Built 1951-2 by T.E. North with R.B. Padmore and C. Macaree in the Modern style with a flat roof. It later became the Trinity Boys School, and then Cumberland school. It has now been demolished and a replacement for Rokeby School being built.
Beckton Road
Beckton Road. This formed the new approach from Barking Road to the by-pass, avoiding the tramlines and the long run through Plaistow and East Ham.
Canning Town Local Service Centre. Built on part of the school site taken up by MacDonald’s.
1 The Beckton Arms
Bidder Street
Named after George Parker Bidder, the calculating boy, and entrepreneur and engineer of much of the Royal Docks. The area consists largely of scrap yards
Bridge House 2. Music venue replacing the demolished Bridge House in Barking Road
162 Dartmouth Arms
Electra Business Park – on the site of some of the West Ham Power Station
Canning Town Board School was opened in 1877. It was reorganized in 1932 for juniors and infants and by 1939 for infants only. It was closed in 1945 and demolished. The site was added to that of the power station.
Universal Milling moved from Elland Road to here in 1953
Bow Creek
Embankment works along the Lea as it meanders in this section were built as an unemployment relief scheme in 1931.
Pipe Bridge. This bridge, of which one red brick pier remains, was a highly ornamental bridge built by the Gas Light and Coke Company as an outpost of their 1870s Beckton Works. It thus brought the gas, heroically and ornamentally, from Beckton into London. Demolished. (Why??)
The Iron Bridge. This was a 19th iron bridge. Designs submitted by the elder John Rennie in 1909 were not used but in 1810 a bridge was built to a design by James Walker and Alfred Burges for the Commercial Road Turnpike Trust. It was tolled with a toll house at the Essex end. The Trust was abolished in 1871. The bridge was damaged by a barge in 1887 and had to be shored up. It was demolished in 1896 . The name ‘Iron Bridge’ persisted in the names of other local features
New Iron Bridge. This was designed under Alexander Binnie, Chief Engineer to London County Council, and erected by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. 1893/1896
New Canning Town Bridge (aka Barking Road Bridge) constructed in 1932 as part of the improvements for riverside access which included Silvertown Way. This was on a new alignment to north of the Pipe Bridge. It was designed by Rendel, Palmer and Tritton wth a steel skew span, 200 feet long and 84 feet wide. It had a 57 foot wide carriageway and had two tram tracks down the centre. The contractors were Messrs. Shanks and McEwan.
Canning Town flyover. The westbound lanes and eastbound lane originate in the 1960s flyover, while the eastbound lanes were completed in 2002. It opened in its present form in 2004.
Jubilee Footbridge. This is on the alignment of the old iron bridge using some of its abutments. This is a combined foot bridge and pipe bridge
Railway bridge. Line from Thames Wharf to East India Dock. Eastern Counties and Thames Junction railway built a single track branch line from Stratford to Leamouth for the pepper warehouses of the East India Company Goods until 1848. This railway bridge is still there and is thought to date originally from 1848. It appears to have originally been a Drawbridge and then by the 1890s a Swing Bridge. By 1916 it appears to be a standard girder bridge, which it remains. It is supported on cast iron columns filled with concrete
Burke Street
66 The Huntingdon Arms. This was a former Charrington’s Brewery pub, present by 1896. Closed in 1986 and became a laundrette, which has also closed and the building is empty
River Christian Centre. The former swimming pool of the Mayflower Centre built with funds from Bernhard Baron, the philanthropic American tobacco magnate. Big thermal windows along each side and chimney disguised as a campanile.
Canning Town
Built from 1850 for dockworkers, and referring to a low quality housing area around Victoria Dock Road. It had, in, 1855 been called Hallsville after the landlord. The name is first recorded in 1848 and is probably named either from Sir Samuel Canning, an industrialist who had associations with the manufacturing firm of S. W. Silver & Co or from George Canning, an engineer associated with the development of the docks and railways here or the the prime minister of 1827 or his son who was Viceroy of India - or a nearby canning factory there. It also includes an area called Cherry Island – which had been market gardens, and was very squalid.
Caxton Street North
Goswell Bakeries Ltd. A wholesale bread baker started in 1950 with licenses for speciality breads. It produces a West Indian bread and unbranded bagels, light rye and Polish rye breads. Dr Vogel began making bread in the 1950s with muesli bread and Goswell's produced a mixed grain variety in 1972. They supply major supermarkets throughout the country. They also supply organic bread to vegetarian wholefood restaurants
KR Ocean House. Viking Life Saving Equipment Ltd.
Royal Docks House. Holy Ghost Christian Centre. Church originating in Nigeria. Paraclete Solution Centre. Previously office and warehouse
Moss Electrical Co. Moss Electrical was established in 1994 and has works with major suppliers to service electrical contractors,
Concorde House. Concorde Glass Ltd.
Peacock Gym. The Peacock gym was founded by Tony and Martin Bowers. Sam Bowers was a bare knuckle fighter in the 1860s; Tim Bowers, fought in the 1890’s and his son Dan organised prize fights; George won schoolboy championships in the 1930s and was a coach. Kevin won Championships in 1970s. Charles was an Army champion in rhea 1940s. Walter boxed in the 1950s. Jackie boxed in the 1950s and beat Terry Spinks twice. Tony and Martin got the use of a room in a tower block which became their first gym and they moved to larger premises and eventually at the Railway Tavern and then at the Peacock in Freemasons Road. Then they moved to an old canvas making factory in 1993 and developed it.
Memorial to Bradley Stone. Stone was a young boxer who died two days after winning a fight in Bethnal Green, which had won him the British Super Bantamweight title in 1994
Cliff Walk
Cliff Walk Evangelical Church. This has services and input in Portuguese.
East India Dock Road
Blackwall Goods Depot. This opened in 1848 and served a network of sidings on the west side of the Creek. It had originally been intended to provide rail access to the East India Dock Company’s Wharf and Pepper Warehouses, which the railway themselves purchased in the 1880s. The line left the North Woolwich Line south of the then Canning Town Station going eastwards at first and then turning on a steep gradient towards the creek. Inside the depot horses were initisally used to move stock although they were replacved in time by electric capstans. Hallsville Road
Hallsville Tavern one of the few pubs left. Built 1840 with curly bargeboards, possibly the sole survivor of the earliest developments in Canning Town
Jude Street
St Luke's Centre. This was St. Luke’s church built in 1873-5 by Giles & Gone. By 1985 it was vandalized, but saved from demolition by a local group, and converted for community uses by Peter Eley. Inside, five floor levels are provided but keep some of the drama of the full height. There is a cafe, and mosaics of 1893 with the Twelve Apostles and the Ascension, with angels and foliage
Kier Hardie Estate
This was named for West Ham’s, and Parliament's, first Labour M.P. it was one of the first redevelopment areas in Britain and demonstrated successes and failures of post-war planning. It incorporated existing churches, community centres and pubs. The population was kept to seventy people per acre although later phases were denser and, eventually, higher.
Killip Close
This was Wilberforce Street
St Fidelis Friary. Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. This opened in 1999 and runs Friar Bennet's Kitchen and a night shelter for homeless men. This was the Great War memorial church of Our Lady of Sorrows, built in 1925 as a chapel of ease for the Tidal Basin area and had links with the Franciscan missionaries of who added a chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in1931. In 1966 the church was reconstructed as Bennett Hall for St. Margaret's Youth Club
Limmo Peninsula
Ecology Park. A small linear park formed by a bend in Creek. It features small streams, interlinked ponds and meadows, with the tidal Creek nearby. It is linked by a riverside walkway to East India Dock Basin Nature Reserve and is run by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. It has nationally rare invertebrates
Newham Way A13
At the crossing of the Lea the road changes character dramatically, becoming a dual three-lane expressway which continues to the Greater London Boundary. The dual carriageway section through Newham is Newham Way which is part of the East Ham & Barking Bypass, and originally dualled by the 1960s. This section is built to high standards, but was subject to a 40 mph speed limit, and 50 mph in 2011.
Orchard Place
The Peninsula lies inside one of the convolutions of Bow Creek/River Lea as it flows towards the Thames. It was once called Goodluck Hope and there was one building in the mid 18th called Handle Hall at the south end. Orchard Place once ran straight up the Peninsula from the south, and was heavily industrialised. It is now largely a construction site for Crossrail
‘The Chartered’ Gas Light and coke Company Tar Works. In 1817 the Chartered decided to open its own tar works in a site bought from Wigram. Mr, Dalton, who had been foreman caulker with Wigram, was put in charge. As an expert in the use of tar for shipping he had already given evidence to a Parliamentary enquiry. The works expanded and more equipment was bought. Dalton prepared information about the use of tar on ships to a poor reception from the Navy Board and some hostility from Royal Dockyard workers who objected to the smell. Sadly the works closed due to falling demand in 1833. It was sold to Turner, Shakell and Hopkinson
Samuel Turner. Mr. Turner had been making tar for ten years when he bought the Orchard Place works from the Gas Light and Coke Company and was still there in 1850s making varnish, Roman cement, naphtha, Paraffin and ammonia. In the later 1850s Blewitt took over the works and it later became known as Jubilee Wharf
Samuda Works. Shipbuilder Jacob Samuda first set up here in 1843 and remained until the mid 1850s.
W. W. Howard Brothers & Co. in Jubilee Wharf. The main known structures on the site were two large open sided timber storage sheds built in 1936–7, with Belfast Truss roof construction. Demolished in 1993 for the Pura car park
Blackwall Galvanised Iron Co. makers of roofing and kegs established 1882 from 1902 they were part of Baldwins Ltd.
Mission Hall, at the southern corner of Orchard Place and Leamouth Road, in what was once known as Wrights Buildings or Terrace.
School opened in 1874, in a converted warehouse at the corner of Duke Street
Bow Creek London Board School. In 1894, The London School Board bought part of the old glass works site, and built a new school with a hall, four classrooms, two infant schoolrooms, and a generous sized playground. It opened in 1896. In 1936 the pupils transferred to Oban Street School but the building was still standing in 1956. Now demolished
Pura Foods. In the 1960s-70s Pura was part of Acatos and Hutcheson who made edible oils and fats. On this site they were Pure Lard Ltd with a large refining and deodorising plant. But became Pura Foods in 1988 and new plant was installed at Leamouth including for hydrogenation of fats and a plant for making PVC bottles.
Thames Plate Glass Works, which covered the entire north end of the peninsula 1835 - 1874. It was the only plate glass manufacturer in southern England, and supplied around 12% of the national market. They employed women polished the plate glass for mirrors. The factory cast one of the 28-inch blanks for a ‘scope on Wandsworth Common and this was a record sized lens for 18 years. The firm was relaunched in 1864 with H.Bessemer as the largest shareholder. In 1866 there were two 2 engine houses, grinding and polishing shops and a manager's house. Closed following liquidation 1874
Crown Wharf. This was a barge building site from 1871 for William Cox. Later Vokins & Company Ltd, lightermen and barge-repairers, from around 1915 and remained there until 1970s. Vokins had been on a number of sites in the area from the mid 1880s and continued until taken over in the 1970s. William Vokins himself was prominent in the Watermen’s Company, funding almshouses in Ditchling. The site later became part of Pura Foods.
9 Crown Public House. On site from the late 1840s to the mid 1930s
Bow Creek Mills, seed crushers and oil refiners 1884. They were W. H. Stead, a Liverpool-based firm. They built an oil-crushing mill, and a refinery with boiler-house, engine-room and chimney. In 1901 they were taken over to become part of British Oil and Cake Mills Ltd and in the 1930s by Ocean Harvest Ltd part of the Lever Empire and making animal food from whale meat and this continued into the 1940s.
Upper Wharf. Patent Stamped Railway Axle Box Company here 1889 -1894. They had a factory with three furnaces, a chimney shaft, and offices. The company went out of business in 1894
Upper Wharf from 1894 this was used for the manufacture of Petrifite a white cement which bound together any old rubbish to make cheap blocks. This went out of business in 1902.
Upper Wharf. From 1902 this was Fowler Brothers, sugar merchants refinery and makers of yummy black treacle. They had originally been on Glasshouse Wharf, which they kept. They built a new refinery designed by specialists John Clarkson. They remained on site into the 1970s when they were taken over by Manebre, and then Tate and Lyle.
Cooperage Wharf at the north end developed after 1902 with engineering
Davies Wharf. Site of Thames Sack & Bag Company. Burnt down in fires in 1912 and 1935.
Rathbone Market
The market was created here in the early 1960s as part of development plans when market stalls which had been in a number of partly ad hoc locations in the area were encouraged into a newly created market area. A great deal of Canning Town had been destroyed in Second World War bombing and the entire area to the south was replanned in a scheme planned as early as 1944 as part of Forshaw and Abercrombie's Greater London plan and the West Ham Development Plan. The market was designed by by T.E.North, the then Borough Architect as a wedge-shaped market place, with covered stalls, enclosed by low flat shops and a ten-storey slab block. Much of this has now been demolished in preparation for a new round of regeneration.
12 Rathbone Clinic
Rathbone Street
Point blocks. The first to be built by West Ham Council in 1961-4 of eleven storeys
76 The Flying Scud, This Charrington’s house dated from 1872 and closed in 1995. Now housing.
38a The Prince Arthur Pub, This was known as Drakie but demolished before 1980.
Rogers Road
62 The Ground Rent Tavern. This was a Watney's house demolished in 2006 and housing built on the site
Ruscoe Road
St.Luke’s Primary School. Opened in 2000 along with the new church
St. Luke’s Church. Built 1999-2000 by Ronald Wylde Partnership replacing the older church which is in community use. The new church also provides spaces to be used by the school. In the chapel are six stained glass windows from the Royal Marine Chapel, Deal.
29 New Shakespeare’s House. This was The Shakespeare’s Head pub which closed in 2002 to become flats. It dates from before 1862 and was a Watney’s House.
Shirley Street
3 United Methodist Church. Founded in 1853 and a church and schoolroom here in 1873. It was destroyed in bombing in 1940; the site was sold to the council for housing in 1963 was.
15 Streeties. Old Watney's pub with a bare, ramshackle interior.
36 Stage and Go. Theatre school
78 The Rose of Denmark was a Watney’s pub that dated back to 1867. It closed in 1993 and was demolished in the late 2000s. Before the closure of the docks it had opened at 6am.
G. Pidduck and Co. Sheet metal and thermal insulation on site here from 1877. Now dissolved.
Silvertown Way
Road built for access to the docks and to by pass Victoria Dock Road. It was built in in 1934 and linked Barking and North Woolwich Roads running above Victoria Dock Road, the railway and the dock entrance. The section crossing the Royal Victoria Dock is a long viaduct with a beam and slab construction and reinforced concrete columns. Consulting engineers were Rendell, Palmer and Tritton and contractors were Dorman Long. The road allowed the western entrance of the Royal Victoria Dock to be closed. To achieve thus 3,600 were rehoused in an estate in West Ham. It was opened by Hore Belisha in 1934.
Canning Town Station. Opened in 1999 it runs between North Greenwich and West Ham on the Jubilee Line and between East India Station and Royal Victoria on the Docklands Light Railway; and also between East India and West Silvertown on the Docklands Light Railway. There is also a bus interchange. The station was moved here from north side of Barking Road where it had been since 1888. The new station is by John Sly & Partners, who won the job as Troughton McAslan. It is in glass, concrete and aluminium. Link for three rail lines and bus interchange with essentially two stations in parallel, with double-deck train platforms raised on concrete pillars above a submerged third storey with a staircase to the underground ticket hall. There is a panel from the hull of HMS Warrior, the first warship, built locally in 1860 and there is also reference to the hammers, of West Ham United. The inscription was carved by Richard Kindersley. It is on the site of the Essoldo cinema.
Holiday Inn Express
Silvocea Way
This new road and the vehicle test station at its north end are the site of East India Company warehouses. Built 1808-1820 but had previously used for the production of building materials for the dock itself. After the company’s demise in the 1830s they were sold to the East India Dock Company, and in the 1840s they were bought by the Eastern Counties Railway Company with which they remained. Some buildings were destroyed by bombing. In 1983 the London Docklands Development Corporation bought the area. The buildings were known as the pepper warehouses and some were designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell. Under the East India Dock Company they were used for grain but found to be uneconomic. The Railway Company built a line into the area from their Canning Town Goods yard and it became known as the Blackwall Goods Yard handling coal and coke. It closed in 1968. It has since used as a depot and works department by Tower Hamlets Council.
Star Lane
So called because it led to Star Field. The eastern end of the road is now Newhaven Lane and the length of the road broken up by green areas and small parks
Star Lane Park. Green park area formed by the demolition of a number of streets to the south of Star Lane since the 1980s.
Stephenson Street
Industrial and trading sites
Durham Pub. Appears to be still open. It dates from at least the mid-1850s
VP . The company was founded in Harrogate in 1954 as a plant hire company called Vibratory Roller and Plant Hire Limited.
Gillian House. TKO Gym – boxing venue including women and young people’s coaching
St Gabriel church. This stood on the west side of the street fronting on to a side road, Wellington Street, and was consecrated in 1876, it was bombed in the Second World War and demolished din the 1950s
Tarling Road
The Recreation Ground was opened in 1892 and is named after James Keir Hardie, who was returned as the first Labour MP by the constituency of West Ham South in 1892.
Trinity Gardens
Housing built post war on the site of the bombed Trinity Church which had been designed by Banks & Barry in 1867.
Vincent Street
River Christian Centre - in 2003, River Church was formed by merging the Elim Way Fellowship and Mayflower Family Centre Churches, The Mayflower Family Centre, Built by Geoffrey Raymond 1923-30, extended and remodelled by Stillman Eastwick Field c. 1977-80. It was founded as the Malvern College Mission in 1894 in a row of terraced houses but expanded 1918 by Sir Reginald Kennedy-Cox as a Dockland Settlement after 1958 as the Mayflower. It has Tudor style buildings for residences, club rooms and chapel arranged around a quadrangle. The main entrance is in a two-storey range for residential workers with an added Youth Centre With a vandal-proof, interior. The Chapel of St. George and St. Helena was built in 1929- with an interior covered by a hammer beam roof with angels on the beam-ends and many art works including scenes of 1930s workers and their families with Christ against a background of Thames dockside by Reginald Bell. A second residential range dates from 1930. The Family Centre was established by Rev David Sheppard in January 1958, helped by David being a internationally known cricketer and he was followed by other dedicated workers, In 1990, a leadership team was formed, with the desire to establish Mayflower as a church on biblical principles rather than an institution but lost grant funding for their work. In 2003 they merged with the Elim church and 'River Church' has become an established part of the Canning Town, East London Community.
Wharf Road
Whitford Armstrong Structural Co., 1910-1967
Sources
Bird. The Geography of the Port of London
Bow Creek School website
Business cavalcade of London,
Carr. Docklands
Carr. Docklands History Survey
Cinema Theatre Association newsletter
Cinema Treasures web site
Closed Pubs web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Connor. Branch Lines Around North Woolwich
Connor and Halford. The Forgotten Stations of Greater London
Co-partners Magazine.
Curwen. Old Plaistow
Disused Stations web site
East London History Society Newsletter
East of London. Old and New
Field. Place names of London,
Glassmaking in London. Web site
GLIAS Newsletter
London Railway Record
London's Industrial Archaeology
Mills. Gas and Chemicals in East London
Nature Conservation in Newham
Peacock Gym website
Pevsner and Cherry. East London
Pewsey. Stratford. A Pictorial History
Port of London Magazine
River Christian Centre web site
Sainsbury. History of West Ham
Survey of London. Leamouth
Taylor. Blackwall,
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