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When London Became An Island

Part 1 - Section 4

Bethnal Green to Limehouse

Returning to the towpath turn left and pass Old Ford lock (1), and the old lock keeper's cottage and outbuildings, which are still in use. Originally there were stables here and also a pumping station that facilitated water on the lower pound to be pumped back to the upper one. After passing under Old Ford Road bridge, the towpath begins to rise for it has to cross the entrance to the Hertford Union Canal (2). This was constructed as a link to the Lee Navigation and was also known as Duckett's Canal after Sir George Duckett, who built it. As you reach the apex of the bridge note the Bow Wharf development to the left, which is popular on a night time.

After the towpath returns to canal level there is an opportunity to walk parallel to the towpath through a park. From here right down to Limehouse you will find yourself with plenty of open space to your left, which is the result of the adoption, over the past half century or so, of the principles of a visionary 'green space' plan produced in the Second World War, which was greatly influenced by Sir Patrick Abercrombie. During the war a considerable amount of open space was created by bombing and rocket attacks, much of it in the East End, which created opportunity as well as devastation.

Abercrombie was not the first person to suggest how the needs for open spaces in London could be met. Nine years after the opening of the Regents Canal John Loudon suggested that the centre of London should be surrounded by concentric rings of 'country' interspersed with rings of 'town'. As Regents Park, Islington and Bethnal Green would have been in the country and Loudon suggested that the rings should be varied according to local circumstances it might well have been that, had the plan been carried through, the Regents Canal would have been maintained as a 'country' canal in perpetuity. Instead its banks became almost wholly industrialised and commercialised. I suppose now we can say now that they are well on their way to being residentialised.

After passing under Roman Road bridge you will see an unusual signpost, which indicates that you are now in an Ecology Park (3). You have the opportunity to walk through this as you continue towards Mile End as the park path, although it meanders a little bit, will bring you back to the towpath. As you cross a wooden bridge you will, perhaps, hear the whirring of the windmill before arriving at the palm trees which stand by the side of the Palm Tree pub (4).

After rejoining the towpath you will pass under a new footbridge and, close by, see three pieces of public artwork. One represents a barge horse (5), one Sylvia Pankhurst, who worked in Mile End during the First World War helping the poor, and the other Ledley King, the Tottenham and England player who grew up locally. The artwork was erected by Sustrans, a cycle charity.

The entrance to the Mile End Climbing Wall is to the left and a railway bridge ahead. The railway crosses Grove Road a couple of hundred yards away where a plaque indicates the first V1 flying bomb landed in London in 1944. Three years earlier the East End had been subjected to the Blitz and unexploded bombs from that air offensive are still turning up, a large one being found close to the canal in May 2007. There was great apprehension of the effects of bombing on London prior to the war and huge numbers of metal stretchers were produced to carry casualties. When the war was over these were usually scrapped, but a few are still dotted about, put to other uses. The one in photograph 6 is in Hackney, a few hundred yards south of the Cat and Mutton bridge. It serves as a climbing frame for plants.

Passing under the railway bridge will take us close to the Queen Mary campus of London University and to Mile End locks (7) and Mile End bridge. The old lock keeper's cottage at Mile End lock is now used by the university and a meeting room has been built on the side (8). It is, perhaps, not an addition that will meet with the full approval of all those interested in canal architecture. On the towpath side of the canal there is what looks like an Iron Age barrow. It is not, but there are seats on the top where you can rest after the climb (9) and look over the surrounding area (10). Signboards give a little information about the pleasure gardens created here after the canal was built. The entrance was by the New Globe tavern, which stood (and still stands) on the Mile End Road. If you walk to the front of the tavern and look closely at the facade you will see a plaque bearing the date 1820, so this may be one of the very first buildings to have been built with bricks transported along the canal. As at Camden today some of the first barges going through the Mile End locks were probably observed by those enjoying their leisure hours.

Rather than continue along the towpath why not take a walk over the Green Bridge? There are two paths over this, one for pedestrians, one for cyclists. Right on the top you will be able to look down at traffic going and coming from town. You will also be able to see the modern New Globe, which, from the outside, appears not too different to that of the early C19th. There is a globe on the top too. As in Hackney Road, the area around Mile End locks was built up soon after the arrival of the canal. Many of the bricks were evidently imported from Kent, particularly brickworks on the River Medway. On Mile End Road, a short distance from the Green Bridge, I took photograph 11 of the corner of one of the remaining terraces. A little further along the block, signs in windows indicated concerns about Crossrail, a new rail line that, it is anticipated, will link east and west London. Crossrail will run through a tunnel under the East End. I wonder if the owners of any houses that suffer from subsidence will get the kind of immediate attention Morgan gave to the residents of Islington when the Regents Canal tunnel was built? Crossrail will be an expensive project, as is the construction of the 2012 Olympic site. In 1816, when the shareholders of the Regents Canal faced the fact that the initial cost projections of the project had been far too low, they were told that the extra money required for completion would be less in proportion than has occurred in almost every instance of great works of the same nature. The London Docks, Liverpool Docks, Bristol Docks and Strand Bridges were cited as examples. Cost overruns are nothing new.

Continuing over the Green Bridge to return to the canal you are sure to notice the park lamps with their electricity generating windmills and solar panels. All part of the park's sustainable design.

Johnson's lock is a little way along the canal and on this stretch there always seem to be plenty of birds, mostly moorhens and Canada geese (12), but swans may be seen occasionally and a heron too (13).

A short distance after the lock you will come to the Ragged School Museum (14). It is a very popular attraction where old fashioned lessons are given to new fashioned children. They go down a storm and I am sure Dr Barnardo would have approved. The museum is open to the general public and access to the museum cafe is from the towpath. The cafe is open Wednesday and Thursday from 10 to 5 and on the first Sunday of each month from 2 to 5.

Passing under Ben Jonson Road bridge will take you by the side of a small open area from which you will get a good view of the towers of Canary Wharf. There are mooring posts here, one of which has been painted with an exhortation (15). To be honest I never knew they were divided. The tall chimney hard by the towpath (16) was built to serve one of the tunnels that fed into Joseph Bazalgette's Northern Outfall Sewer, constructed to carry London sewage away to the east. The canal swerves to the right now, dictating the curve of a row of new terrace houses, and passes beneath a railway bridge that always seems to be busy with C2C trains. At Salmon Lane lock (17) I spotted the feathers of the Prince of Wales, much like those painted on the gondola of Mr Saddler's balloon when he drifted over this area in 1811. On Salmon Lane itself, close by the bridge, there is actually a portrait of the prince (18). I do hope that generations of patrons have raised a glass every August 12th to his memory.

After passing under Salmon Lane bridge we will come to the unusual twin arched bridge carrying Commercial Road (19). Commercial Road was an important link between the new docks, which were established at the turn of the C19th, and the City. When the first railway link was built it followed much the same route and the viaduct which carried it may be seen just beyond the last lock on the canal. Today, the viaduct carries the Docklands Light Railway (20).

Once under the viaduct we arrive at Limehouse Dock. No longer a freshly dug basin awaiting its first collier nor a busy commercial dock handling goods from every corner of the earth it now gives service as a twenty first century leisure marina. If you would like to terminate the walk at this point you can walk over the footbridge immediately ahead and carry on by the side of the viaduct until you see Limehouse Docklands Light Railway station. Alternatively, walking along either side, make your way to the far side of the dock where a lock allows access to the Thames.

If you exit from the dock at the Thames lock you will find yourself on Narrow Street. Turn left and walk along to a little triangle where you will see a giant bird and the 'Grapes' and 'Booty's' and then turn right onto the Thames Path. The entrance is through an 'arch' a little beyond the little park called Ropemakers Fields, which is on the left-hand side of the road. If you follow the Thames Path path you will get good views of the river (21) and will eventually come to Canary Wharf, a modern centre of commerce built on the site of the old West India Docks. Some of the old warehouses remain and here you will find the Museum of London Docklands. The museum gives an excellent overview of the development and operation of the old docks over the best part of two centuries. There is a coffee shop there too so if the last cup you tasted was at the Watermile (and that will probably seem like an age ago) why not treat yourself and forget about the hand that set free the world for half an hour.

A long time ago?

It is almost two hundred years since the Regents Canal was constructed, which probably seems in the dim and distant past. But consider this. In the 1980s a Bethnal Green neighbour of mine, who was then in her 90s, told me a number of stories about her childhood and adolescence. Of soldiers returning from the war (the Boer War), of nearly being sacked for taking time off for watching an exciting event (the Siege of Sydney Street) and of going off to London on the number 8 bus (horse drawn and open topped). She was born in 1894. When she was a girl there would have been people in the East End who could have remembered, as clearly, the opening of the Regents Canal in their own childhood. So it is not so long ago really is it?