a walk around wapping
DESCRIPTION
An article by FROG member Solange La Rose about a recent trip to WappingTRANSCRIPT
A Walk around Wapping
It was a sunny Saturday morning and Paul Talling, author of Derelict London and London’s Lost
Rivers, was meeting a group of keen explorers outside Wapping tube station, for a walk around
Wapping. Paul has a real interest in the overlooked and unloved elements of London, and even in
this area, now the haunt of estate agents, there are still some secrets to discover.
We started off with a peek down some of the watermen’s stairs (the tide was too high for a
foreshore visit), a little bit of the history of the area, and a look at a couple of the (still) derelict
buildings that featured in Paul’s book, then we set off in earnest.
First we headed away from the river, passing the former St. John’s Church and St. John’s Old School,
and on the way Paul pointed out such landmarks as St. Patrick’s Church, one of the locations from
the film The Long Good Friday, and The Turk’s Head pub (now a café), said to be where those on
their way to execution stopped for a last drink.
We then walked back along Wapping High Street and stopped at Hermitage Gardens for a look along
and across the river. Here you can see one of the surviving depth markers from the days when this
was the entrance to the Hermitage Basin, a busy route into the London Docks for smaller vessels,
opened in 1809, but now a quiet housing complex.
We continued along the edge of the Western Dock, catching a first glimpse of ‘Fortress Wapping’,
and along to Tobacco Dock. This was one of those speculative retail developments that ended up as
a bit of a ghost town. The shopping centre has a real ‘80s look about it, and comes complete with
fake pirate ships, fake boar’s head and fake barrels of rum. It’s now deserted except for its
occasional use to host The International London Tattoo Convention.
Round on the other side of Tobacco Dock is something so tantalising, yet so innocuous, you could
walk past it a hundred times and not give it a second look. In an old car park, behind a padlocked
fence, are the excavated remains of a Roman bath house. Part of the site was dug in 2002/3, but
more recent excavations have made it clear that this is one of those sites that is delivering above all
expectations and is likely to keep on giving, so keep looking out for news.
We continued up to the Ratcliffe Highway, now called The Highway, and the location for a series of
particularly grisly murders in the early nineteenth-century. Due to the murders of seven people,
terror gripped the public, helped along by the scandalized headlines of the press. A suspect, John
Williams, was taken into custody, on pretty shaky evidence, but he never came to trial because he
was found hanging in his cell having apparently committed suicide.
From the noise of The Highway, we then entered the quiet churchyard of St. George-in-the-East.
From the outside this looks like a classic Hawksmoor church, albeit with a few of its own quirks, like
the ‘pepperpot’ turrets. However, bombing during the Second World War resulted in the total
destruction of the interior of the building. A new modern interior was incorporated into the still-
standing shell, and the (still-functioning) Anglican church is now a well-used local community facility.
In the grounds are two particularly notable features. First is an old disused mortuary building. Built
in 1876 to house the bodies of local people prior to burial, it was converted into a nature study
centre at the beginning of the twentieth century, but closed during WW2. Paul did say that there
have been several attempts to raise funds to restore the building to its former glory (and it is a lovely
little building), but to date these have all come to nothing.
The second feature is the huge mural commemorating the Battle of Cable Street. We had fun with
this mural, pointing out some of the quirky features like the golden shower issuing from an upstairs
window, falling all over Hitler.
From there we made our way back down to the docks, and into Shadwell Basin. Although it is now
surrounded by modern housing, well, 1980s housing, from our vantage point we could still see
features of the basin’s past; the Wapping Hydraulic Pumping Station; a red bascule bridge and the
spire of St. Paul’s Church, Wapping. There’s also a great view out to Docklands and several of those
smart-looking duck/swan islands so coveted by our politicians.
At the end of the walk we all retired to the Captain Kidd on Wapping High Street for some well-
earned refreshments. The walk lasted about 3 hours, as Paul doesn’t really have a time limit on his
tours and he tends to keep going for as long as the people on the tour want to. He is repeating this
walk in September, and he does several other walks, including ‘Lost River’ walks. According to his
website (http://www.londonslostrivers.com/authors-guided-walks.html) he is planning a tour of the
Woolwich Docks and the Royal Arsenal Canal, so those are ones to watch out for.