Stepney

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Barnes Street

Boundary markers between Limehouse and Ratcliffe

Next door in Beccles Street, plain early c19 houses, which look like a pair but have only one   doorway?

Beccles Street

Plain early C19 houses, which look like a pair but have only one doorway.

Bekesbourne Street

Railway extension. originally built in 1847-9 to link up with the Great Eastern Railway at Bow but later rebuilt by London & Tilbury railway. The short bridge over Bekesbourne Street is by Joseph Westwood, engineers, 1889.

Belgrave Street 

Retains terraces with stuccoed lower storeys

Ben Johnson Road.

Crown and Sceptre also called the Jug House.

Bow Common Lane.

Hill Jones chemical co. 1830.

Branch Road

Leads towards the Rotherhithe Tunnel.  Imaginatively re-erected over the entrance is one of the flanged-and-bolted cutting edges of the tunneling shields (its pair frames the entrance of the Rotherhithe side). Polished pink-granite piers to the portal.

Crossing the tunnel entrance is a graceful cable-stayed footbridge, which links gardens on each side and provides a route to the Foundation of St Katharine at Ratcliffe

Low single-storey Neo-Georgian building of 1912 built 'to commemorate the 30th Anniversary ‘ of the inauguration of the Finnish Seamen's mission in London’. Cut brick voussoirs and dressings, refurbished with a copper-clad mansard roof

Brayford Square.

Holland’s Pub. In the family since 19^th‑ treasure house.

Brickfields Gardens,

Heart of the estate, is a figure-of-eight green designed to provide a continuous link to the grander space to be realized when St George’s Fields was linked to Mile End Park.

Redbourn House Two big eight-storey blocks of 1954-6,

Gatwick House.  On access side a strong abstract pattern created by the solid and railed balconies; crowned by two curved lift towers on the roof.  Quieter on the other side which has recessed private balconies and generous living-room windows.

Gulliver. In the garden in front of Gatwick House, the novelty of a concrete play sculpture in Festival of Britain spirit: figure by Trevor Tennantt now battered 

Brunton Place

Stephen Hawking School. 1997 by Haverstock Associates. A special needs school. Single storey, on a T-shaped plan, with steel superstructure and external walls in stock brick. Its profile is defined by an elegant butterfly- pitch roof along the spine. Monopitch roofs abut it on both sides to form glass clerestories providing light for the internal corridors and communal spaces. These are flanked by long classrooms, each opening to outdoor play spaces. Secure looking but not severe or forbiddingly institutional.

Burdett Road.

Built 1862 across Bow Common as the approach to Victoria Park . The name preserves the memory of valiant Baroness Burdett-Coutts, philanthropist, reformer, and ally of Charles Dickens.

St.Paul’s church 1956-60 by Maguire and Keith Murray, replacing a bombed church of 1856. Commissioned by a Marxist vicar. Their first church, and the first major expression in England of the principles of the liturgical movement  was developed further in their later churches and which aimed to bring priests close to the congregation.  It had been included with central plans before the war, but in England it was still daringly innovative in the late 1950s, and so was the aesthetic of geometric cubic forms which was done deliberately in inexpensive, industrial materials and romantic textures. It shocked many. It looks like a rather seed yard' was the comment in Basil Clarke's notebook. It is a square within a three-by-four-bay rectangle. It's austere, windowless red brick walls are relieved with zigzagging concrete-slab roofs of the aisles; above and behind them a plain brick square is crowned by the large glazed gables of the pyramid-topped lantern. Although quite low, this forms a decisive landmark from afar. Octagonal porch with intense, bold lettering by Ralph Beyer. 'This is the house of God, this is the gate of heaven.' Inside, the entrance area, with the font, is a low, dark prelude to the light and space in the centre of the three eastern bays, which is lit from above and defined by the slender white columns dividing it from the surrounding triangular-vaulted aisles. The altar is raised on steps, emphasized by the hanging steel corona and Baldacchino. The sanctuary is indicated only by different paving; no altar rails. Seating is on three sides, using portable benches - an arrangement which can extend into the aisles if required. Two small chapels.  Tough light fittings, matching the geometric austerity of the baldachinno. Hemispherical font an industrial stoneware vat set on an octagonal concrete block. Mosaics by Charles Lutyens, 1964-9, but part of the original conception - funded by war-damage money allocated for stained glass. Half figures of angels in the arcade spandrels, the Four Elements in the corners; subtle colours.  Original 1858 church. Queen Adelaide gold money service. One world well church in a site reaching 10m. Complete impression. 1856 badly damaged.

Burdett Road Station. 11^th September 1871. Opened by the Great Eastern Railway. The Entrance was under the railway bridge on the east side of Burdett Road – a widening of the track shows the site. It was built because the company thought there would be custom there and initially it was probably very basic.  In 1941 it was closed because of bomb damage and finally closed a fortnight later. Less and less people were using it – there were trams available and people wefre moving out because of the war.. In 1984 the remains were demolished when the bridge was rebuilt. It has been in industrial use.

Vicarage

Victoria Lead Works Lancaster & Johnson & Sons white lead and paint manufacturer and lead smelters. . W. W. & R. Johnson's second works. Adjacent to the Limehouse Cut.  There were eight stacks for making white lead. In 1862 a furnace was installed to smelt the returns from the stacks. More stacks were added and, by 1939, there were 29 stacks together with melting house, tan shed, grinding and preparation rooms, three drying stoves and various ancillary buildings. Victoria Lead Works closed in 1951 and the premises were demolished in 1984. A pot was recovered from the site and presented to the Tower Hamlets Local History Library. In 1833 Robert Johnson, invited Dickens to visit their factory. Dickens provided a vivid account in ‘On an Amateur Beat’. In 1881, in Poplar, 23 women and 7 men were reported with lead poisoning. The most dangerous part of the process was said to be the removal of the white lead from the stack and afterwards. W. W. & R. Johnson & Sons provided their women workers with dresses, gloves, aprons, respirators and caps. The men were provided with jackets, aprons, gloves and respirators. The company also provided washrooms with petroleum, soap, warm water, towels and brushes for clothing and shoes. Seven minutes were allowed for washing and cleaning. A woman was appointed to ensure efficient cleansing of the person of every female worker. Also a constant supply of sulphuric acid drink is kept and used, which is free to all workers in the factory. Another woman was employed to wash the women's special clothing. But, as the figures show, these measures were not enough to prevent lead poisoning. As R Campbell wrote in 1747, the labourers are sure in a few years to become paralytic by the Mercurial Fumes of the lead: and seldom live a dozen years in the business.

Copenhagen Place

Area of Locksley Estate. Hefty maisonette blocks, added in the 1970s and typical of the GLC era; red brick with exposed-concrete floors and linking upper walkways. This late addition replaced industrial buildings along Limehouse Cut.

Sir Joseph Huddart & Company. the Elder Brethren of Trinity House witnessed a in Pimlico in 1789, one of whom was Joseph Cotton. His son, William, was to become the managing partner in a Limehouse rope works. Cotton's partner was Joseph Huddart who had patented a new method of making rope and the Limehouse factory was set up to make this. Boulton and Watt were asked to install the power raising equipment. and it was to them that they went for gas making plant sometime between 1806 and 1811. The ‘works’ where the gas making plant was situated was just north of today’s Commercial Road alongside the Limehouse Cut.  The rope walk itself stretched north into an area which was then roughly known as Bow Common. The gas works was at the end on the Cut in the present Copenhagen Place, E3.  Also demolition of a lead works on part of the site.

Canal

Copperfield Road factories backs

Johnson’s Lock furthest lock is now a weir. On a central island is a post carrying a rack and pinion which operated the paddle controlling the flow between the locks

Allen's confectionery works below the lock

Lime-juice factory between Allen’s and the school

Barnardo School.  Now Ragged School Museum Trust. The school was opened in 1877 and in 1896 extended into the limejuice factory, but the school closed in 1908.

Confectionery factory is now used by a packing and distributing firm.

Gas Works wharves with coal tramway running along them

Victory Bridge with Ben Johnson Road 

Brick stack, which is ventilation for a sewer c. 1906 by the L.C.C.

Railway Fenchurch Street to Southend Line

Salmon Lane Lock with lock cottage and pump house of 1864.

Footbridge 1990s with two bowstring sections.

Path with access to Parnham Road, Salmon Lane and Commercial Road

Railway line from Stratford to Isle of Dogs and Millwall disused

On the bank Regent’s Canal Works of the Gospel Oak Iron Co. between railway and Commercial Road

Iron control valve on the bank and inspection cover to operate back pumping along the towpath to Mile End Lock.

Bridge a small twin arched 1820 carries Commercial Road across the canal

Commercial Road Lock. Twin locks. Right hand lock is a weir.  Over the lock is a 36” iron pipe, part of back pumping system-carrying water from the Thames on the other side of the basin to the towpath.  12 locks from Hampstead Road and goes into Regent Canal Dock.

Steps to A13

Carbis Road

Further variety provided by two-storey cottage terraces in, a bomb-damaged area.

Stepney Greencoat C.E Primary School of one and two storeys. 1970, succeeding to the Hamlet of Ratcliffe charity school

Leopold Street

St Paul's Church of England primary school.  One big room divided up.  Cheerful

Clemence Street

Remains to show the modest mid-c19 character of the original streets; small stucco-trimmed terraces two storeys over basements,

Prince Alfred pub.  More elaborate

Commercial Road

A rare example in recent times of roads cut with a Roman or Parisian ruthlessness across what was formerly a mass of east London streets. Before the coming of the docks these great arteries were not necessary. All heavy transport to and from the City was by water. There had been formerly a network of straggling villages, from Spitalfields to Poplar. Many of their highways were superseded in importance by these 'commercial roads, built in the period 1803-10

Crossroads -  Commercial Road, constructed in 1810, meets with East and West India Dock Roads and Burdett Road at a major junction at Limehouse. In order to pay for the road, tolls were levied on vehicles passing through. A toll house stood at this junction until 1871.

660 London Joint Stock Bank tall and classical; entrance at the corner with Gill Street.  Rusticated floor, upper floors with giant Corinthian columns of granite

Housing of 2000, by Baily Garner, shallow curved roof.

680 Passmore Edwards Sailors Palace.  HQ of the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society.  An unusually pretty building of 1901 by Niven & Wigglesworth. The facade's chief motif is a very Arts and Crafts 'gatehouse'.  Octagonal flanking turrets, a flat three-storey rectangular oriel and lavish carving on a nautical theme, including a regal figurehead keystone  - presumably Britannia - grasping two galleons, flanked by the names of the winds, finely lettered.  A rope moulding twisted around the names of the continents, and delicate reliefs of seagulls touching down lightly on the waves as label stops.  Anchors, dolphins, shields etc., embossed on the metal panels here and on the side to Beccles Street, which is articulated by flattened bays projecting slightly over a segmental arcade of windows.  One wing rebuilt c. 1960.  Converted into flats 1983-4 by Shankland Cox for Rodinglea Housing Association. Also housed the King Edward VII Nautical College and was opened in 1901. The Tower Hamlets Chinese Association has its office here. The hostel was referred to locally as the 'stack o' bricks', because of the distinctive red bands on its frontage.

632‑644

Limehouse station. 3^rd August 1840. Between West Ferry and Shadwell on Docklands Light Railway. Between West Ham and Fenchurch Street on C2C. 1840 Built 1840 as Stepney Station.  1847 Junction when line built to Bow and Stratford.   1876 Rebuilt. Still has early wooden structure from the 1850s on the down platform. 1926 London and Blackwall station closed.   Also called Stepney East renamed for DLR. On the right hand side under the railway arch can be seen two disused doorways, which at one time afforded an alternative entrance to Stepney East (later Limehouse) platforms. Vintage looking gas lamp supports sprout from above the door- ways This pair of doorways beneath the bridge on the south side of Commercial Road at the present Limehouse station are not what they   seem. They look pretty convincing, but the entrances were actually bricked-up in the 1990s. The doors themselves, which differ in styling to those, which they replaced, are therefore modern, although the matt grey paint and subsequent weathering give them an authentic look. Up above there are two lamp brackets although for many years only one survived. Where did the other one come from? Is it genuine and retrieved from storage or a modern cast? Why should anyone put false doors over blocked openings, both here and on the other side of Commercial Road? In the name of conservation perhaps? Bold voussoirs

Limehouse Town Hall, 1879-81 by A. & C. Harston. A white brick palazzo with stone dressings. Arched moulded windows, channelled angle piers, central pediment and strong projecting cornice; chimneys rising from stone aprons on the face of the building. Projecting doorcase with polished granite columns. Originally Limehouse Vestry Hall.  For a while was the Museum of Labour History. In typical Italianate mode, this'- white brick vestry hall by A & C. Harston became the town hall in 1900. The large hall on the first floor survives relatively unaltered. Unusually equipped with a small internal balcony on wrought iron brackets.

15 Coade stone towers.

Passmore Edwards District Public Library. 1900-1 by J. G &.F. Clarkson. Stone except for the yellow brick upper outer bays with shaped gables. Two storey with attics in gables. Behind, the main library looks post-1945. Large mural of Limehouse Reach by Claire Smith, 1986. An androgynous angel broods over a Turneresque river with unpleasant flotsam.  In front. Clement Attlee, Prime Minister 1945-51, and member for Limehouse 1922-50.  A touchingly prosaic portrait in bronze, 1988, by Frank Forster, who won GLC competition in 1986.                             

Smartly painted girder bridge crosses Commercial Road which, despite having the ' appearance of a modern, functioning bridge carries no railway and has not done either for four decades! This carried the 'Salmon Lane' or 'Limehouse' Curve which linked the London & Blackwall proper with the Blackwall Extension Line between Stepney East and Burdett Road, opening in 1880.  After two unsuccessful early attempts at a passenger service in the late nineteenth century, the spur settled down to a life of pure freight traffic until 1962, shortly after the Southend electrification scheme was completed and goods traffic towards Millwall Junction via Limehouse had virtually ceased.  Perversely, the local authorities repainted the metalwork up above only a few years ago.  Railway extension originally built in 1847-9 to link up with the Great Eastern Railway at Bow but later rebuilt by London & Tilbury railway.  The main viaduct of 1874-6 by Langley. Think this might have been demolished.

583 Brunswick Terrace - built into the angle of the bridge and the DLR. a handsome group of, originally six, houses of c. 1820-30; some of the grandest to survive in Commercial Road.  In their setting they seem worthy of a scene by Dore or Dickens and determined to keep up appearances. Three storeyed, with honeysuckle balconies, doorways with fanlights and Greek Doric columns. 

London City Mission,

777-85 hugging the curve around St Anne's churchyard, and overlooking the Limehouse Cut, a group of red brick industrial buildings the former offices and engineering workshops of Caird & Rayner, a firm established 1889, which specialized in evaporators and condensers for distilling water.  The Peabody Trust owns 773-785. built for and occupied in stages from 1889 by Caird & Rayner. They were engineers and coppersmiths who specialised in the design and manufacturer of sea water distilling plant for supplying boilers and drinking water on Royal Navy vessels, Cunard liners, cargo ships and oil tankers. In 1964, Caird & Rayner Ltd was described as 'one of the two big names in British marine distillation'. The company left Limehouse in about 1972 and was dissolved in 1995. Included among the many Royal Navy vessels fitted with Caird & Rayner plant were torpedo boats built by Yarrow and Company in Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs; First World War  battleships and battlecruisers; HMS Belfast (1938) now moored on the River Thames; HMS Albion (1954) and HMS Hermes (1959) when they were converted from aircraft carriers to commando carriers. Starting with the Mauretania in 1906, Caird & Rayner's plant was installed on most of Cunard's great passenger liners, including Queen Mary (now at Long Beach, California) and Queen Elizabeth. For the QE2, Caird & Rayner's Limehouse works made treatment plant for domestic water and her four swimming pools. Caird & Rayner were the sole manufacturers of several related products, mostly patented by Thomas Rayner who was born in  Stepney in 1852. His patent automatic evaporator has been on display at the Science Museum since 1902. Although he left the partnership in 1907, the firm continued to design new types of desalination plant, especially during and after the Second World War.  All the designs were produced in the drawing office on the first floor of the 1896-97 office building next door to the 1893-94 office building which housed the managers' offices and general office. Both red-brick office buildings were architect designed in a Queen Anne style to respect the church and churchyard. The engaged octagonal buttresses on the 1896-97 building articulate its angled front around the curved site boundary on

777 workshop built in 1869 by William Cubitt & Company as a sail-makers- and-ship-chandlers warehouse. Although it was occupied by Caird & Rayner from 1889 to about 1972 it was not altered: timber posts with angled struts under long timber crossheads support the former sail loft floor; increasingly rare queenrod roof trusses support the hipped slate roof and the building retains its original cast- iron window frames and two double loading doors on the Limehouse Cut.

779-83, 1896-7 by the same firm; three offices to the road, with central archway leading into   rare survival, a large steel-framed, galleried engineering workshop with integral travelling crane gantry. The galleries are top lit with pitched glazed roofs. built by J H Johnson in 1896. It is an early and nationally rare example of a steel-framed galleried engineering workshop with skylights over the side galleries and a large lantern light over the central bay. It is also an excellent modem example of the mid 19th-century timber prototype of which the grade II* Garrett's Long Shop at Leiston Suffolk is possibly the original and probably the sole surviving example.

785 occupied by Caird & Rayner in 1902-03 built by J H Johnson of Limehouse who also built Limehouse Town Hall (1879-81)., by Marshall & Bradley

803, only two bays, but elaborately stuccoed, with garlands above the top windows. 

811 more varied group is a tiny two-storey building, with shop front elaborately lettered for a funeral director. C. Walters, undertakers, were known as Francis  the beginning of the 20th century. The establishment is over 200 years old and its frontage was refurbished in the 1990s with the help of English Heritage

815-21, early c19 terrace with the common motif of first floor windows within arches.

Star of the East.  The dominant centrepiece in the terrace. Colourfully detailed later c19 front. Its first floor has Gothic arches in groups of three and two, with voussoirs of red and white stone against terracotta diapering. In the centre a second floor with smaller five-arched arcade. Carved heads in all the tympana. . an imposing example of pub architecture. A pair of gas lamps survives on the pavement outside the premises.

777 have an office building of 1893-4 in front of a workshop converted in 1889 from a sail-maker's and ship chandler’s warehouse and sail loft of 1869. Original timber upper floor on strutted timber posts; queen- rod roof trusses. Loading door at first-floor level 

747 The Mission, the former Empire Memorial Sailors' Hostel, by Thomas Brammall Daniel & Horace W Parnacott, 1923-4.  Salmon Lane wing 1932 by George Baines & Son.  A stripped Perpendicular exterior on a cathedral-like scale. The inspiration must have been the Sailors' Palace down the road. The stone-clad facades, with vertical strips of window and seaweedy foliage carving, masked completely plain interiors round a courtyard.  Subdivided as flats in 1989.  ‘Feeble’ in an earlier Pevsner is it a war memorial.

Wrought-iron railway bridge built on the Limehouse Curve in 1880 as a link between the London and Blackwall Railway and extension to Bow.  Now gone.

Lady Immaculate with St Frederick R.C. Begun 1926-8 by A.J. Sparrow, but not finished until 1934.  Plain brick Early Christian basilica. campanile, and an odd turret crowned with a statue of the Sacred Heart, designed as a war memorial to be seen from the river. Replacing a temporary church of 1881 by H.J. Hanson. Austere exterior of dark red brick over a black brick plinth, with windowless apse towards the road, small arched side windows, campanile with copper pyramid roof. Surmounting the end of the nave, raised up on a plinth, a chunky oak statue of Christ the Steersman, designed to be seen from the river. In front of the church, bronze sculpture of  Christ Crucified, with low relief panels on both front and back. 1997 by Sean Henry, made by Bronze Age, a local foundry. On the apse, memorial to Father Higley 1934, builder of the church. The elegant classical interior with its play of curves is a surprise; plastered walls, barrel ceiling pierced by ample clerestory windows. Round-arched arcades on square piers and apse, above them an emphatic horizontal cornice, continuing around the apse. gallery, bowing forward. Contemporary furnishings in yellow Sicilian marble: High Altar, Pulpit, octagonal Font. Sculpture of Our Lady of Grace, French c19, finely carved white marble, from Sisters of Charity convent. Mill Hill, now effectively set against a silkscreen print with red oval on blue, by Pauline Corfteld, c. 2000. Small carved wooden figure of St John Roche, shown as a boatman. Painting of the Crucifixion, by Armando Seijo, c. 1999. stations of the cross, on canvas over copper. Flemish late-Gothic style, by Louis J Beyaen-Carier of Belgium b.1876, erected 1935. Stained Glass - Several saints; by the stairs to the gallery, a good circular window St Joseph

Hall Below the church and Presbytery, 1934

Danish Seamen's Church In Foreign Ports now London City Mission. A haven on this tight wedge of land hemmed in by road and railway. 1958-9 by Holgerjensen with Armstrong & McManus.. Like the other Scandinavian missions to seamen, an admirable arrangement of homely accommodation, and a small church within an envelope characteristic of the seamen's own world.  crisp, blue brick building looks more modern than most British architecture of the date. The church, with roof and clerestory lighting, is linked to rooms.  1958-9 by the Danish architect Holgerjensen in association with Armstrong & MacManus. The church forms one corner of a compact block with social rooms and minister's accommodation. Dark brick, given character by asymmetrical copper monolith roofs, which intersect to provide clerestory lighting for the church. Inside, the church is a small space with plain brick walls and a gallery. Good Stained Glass by Palle Bruun. Sliding doors connect the church to the main room which has a big fireplace and two lancets with c19 glass of SS Michael and Uriel from a previous church.                                        

Bancroft’s Alms Houses. 24 poor men of the Drapers Company.   School for 100 boys. £28,000. Said that he had got the money by his harsh iniquities as an overseer at the Lord Mayor’s School.

Docks entrance to Wapping road. Spacious courtyards.

North approach to Rotherhithe Tunnel new blocks of workers flats.

Fish market

Modelle Court on the corner of Arbour Square 1938.

London Co-operative Society Store 1940 bombed and destroyed

Eastern Hotel where King of Siam lunched. At the Corner into West India Dock Road

Steps to the Basin. Features in films 'Face’.

Flamborough Walk

Extraordinary survival a little row of stuccoed villas in a triangle of land by railway line. Individually developed by the lessees of the plots from 1819-41 and, unlike neighbouring houses, set back from Commercial Road behind a meadow.

Devonshire Cottage, 1834, dignified by giant Ionic pilasters

Gill Street

Thomas author of “Limehouse Nights” and other books, lived with his uncle for the first nine of his life. Also home to several sea captains over the years, and there is a headstone in Tower Hamlets cemetery, which bears the name of Captain Gill of Limehouse, and at least two other sea captains

Harford Street

Stepney Gas Works original works of Commercial Co. from 1837 ‑1946. Formed by traders dissatisfied with others. Vestrymen against it. 1885 enlarged and rebuilt. Three horizontal retort houses with stoking machinery.  Closed 1946 but holder station plus meter repair shop remained until 1957.  Dressy Italianate block like a superior railway station. Behind gasholders three times as high as the one in front. Like keeping a hippo in a patio garden.

Ocean Estate, 1950 London County Council housing.  Swedish design principles. - Immersion heaters and bathrooms with lavatories.

Ben Johnson School. Education remained the privilege of a minority of children - most of them boys - until the late nineteenth century when the 1870 Education Act finally introduced the concept of education for all. Administration of the new system was placed in the hands of locally elected school boards of which the largest and most important was the London School Board. The LSB marked its establishment by holding an architectural competition for the design of an elementary school for 1,600 pupils. The competition was won by Professor Roger Smith, and the resulting Ben Johnson School became the forerunner of the first generation of schools for all

Island Row

272 Bronze Age Sculpture Casting studios

Limehouse Cut

1770 following report by Smeaton.

Harker Stagg & Morgan chemical works on the canal 1833. Shares and used for transport of coal.

Limehouse Link

Tunnel 1989-93 engineers Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners built to link The Highway with new roads on the Isle of Dogs instead of an over ground relief road, which would have destroyed Limehouse.  A worthwhile but exceptionally expensive endeavour, requiring the construction of an open cofferdam behind Limehouse Basin and the rehousing of 556 households many of whom were moved to Timber Wharves, Millwall. The tunnel goes in a concrete box beneath the dock following a very distinctive route. Cut and cover tunnel, with its underground slip roads to Westferry and Canary Wharf.  It was made bottom upwards behind an open cofferdam, all involving massive temporary works of strutting and dewatering and the removal of 1.8 million tons of spoil by barge.

West Service Building closes the view down The Highway.  Immense, stripy pink and buff stone structure designed by Roaney O'Carroll with Anthony Meads, which houses the services and makes a dramatic postmodern statement in its surroundings.  Powerful and muscular close-up with strongly sculptural steps to the gardens.  Striped postmodern tone this is easily mistaken at first glance for a 1930s super-road pediment.

Restless Dream Above the tunnel entrance by Zadok Ben-David, huge but lightly done in painted aluminium.  A silhouetted sleeping figure dreams of dozens of tiny active figures whirling in a circle above - a commentary on the frenetic activity of Docklands that could be viewed either positively or negatively.

Maize Row

Area of lead mills

St.Dunstan’sChurch.  Built in a marsh.  Very old, has a Saxon crucifixion on a slab, a Saxon rood.  It was originally a wooden church dedicated to All Saints in  952   St.Dunstan consecrated it – he was sainted in 1209 and it was then called after him.  It was the only church in Middlesex east of London until 1300. The door on the tower has been there since the Wars of the Roses. It is a perpendicular building, with registers dating back to 1568 but the remains of the previous churches lie under it. Monuments: Colet tomb - he was twice Lord Mayor and lived opposite; "Fish and ring" monument to Dame Rebecca Berry, who was the heroine of the ballad called “The Cruel Knight and the Fortunate Farmer's Daughter.” It is like a village church. In the 1890s it had six working clergymen and nine scripture readers and 100 volunteer workers. Hit by a V2 in 1940s. Charrington’s gave aid for restoration.

Seven-acre churchyard. Size of churchyard indicated plague. 3,000 in 1699 and 1650 and 1665. Cholera and bombing. Made into a park and opened 18.7.87 by the Duchess of Leeds. On a ley line from the Temple via St Paul’s and St Helen’s Bishopsgate. Tents erected in 1794 for refugees and homeless from Ratcliffe fire. London County Council parks list. Maintained by the rector of All Saints. Features in films 'Vera Drake’.

Mercers Estate

A more respectable enclave of Ratcliffe survived to the towards St Dunstan's church, where land, originally the estate of Dean Colet, was developed by the Mercers' Company under the direction of their surveyor, George Smith, from 1819. The Mercers favoured 'respectable' working-class tenants and maintained their property more carefully than some other East End land owners, so early post-war plans for total rebuilding here were abandoned. Fortunately by the time the property was acquired by the G.L.C. in 1969, the tide had turned in favour of rehabilitation

Mill Place.

Hydraulic Accumulator Tower from the first installation of power at Regents Dock by William Armstrong in 1852. Truncated chimney. May be earliest in London.  Tucked in hard against the viaduct.  Built in 1868-9 to serve the ship lock at the Basin.  An impressive survival and, renovated by Dransfield Design to be accessible to the public. There is an Octagonal tower, with slit windows, and an octagonal chimneystack. It has a huge wrought-iron weight-case, 24ft high, held some 80 tons of gravel. This weight-case, which was driven up the tower to maintain the hydraulic pressure by engines under the viaduct, has been fitted with a helical staircase to an exhibition area and, at the top, a viewing platform. Previously thought to be a railway look out from the early days of signaling.

Commercial Road Bridge c.1820.

Accumulator tower.  The most impressive survival and, as renovated by Dransfield Design 1994-5, accessible to the public.  The tower, octagonal with slit windows, and an octagonal chimneystack attached to it, are the only remains of a hydraulic pumping station of 1868-9, - contemporary with the new ship lock.  It has a huge riveted wrought-iron weight case, 24 ft high, which held some 80 tons of gravel.  This weight-case, which was driven up the tower to maintain the hydraulic pressure by steam engines under the viaduct, has been fitted with a helical iron staircase to an exhibition area and, at the top, a viewing platform.  This pumping station superseded the first of 1852, which had a very early Armstrong accumulator, and stood, until 1994, on the w side of the Commercial Road lock.  A third station (1898), was combined with back-pumping the canal to refill the four nearest locks, and the wrought-iron pumping main for this low-pressure water can be seen crossing the canal at the Commercial Road Bridge.  These installations became largely redundant with changes of practice.  Probably the first.  Yellow stock brick.  Sandstone stringcourse, and octagonal chimney.  Remains of hydraulic accumulator, side plates removed and gravel contents spilling out.  Displaced from its guides.  55' high chimney originally 70' high but truncated.  Pit in front of entrance door, contains hydraulic pipes covered by timbers.  Two steam pumping engines in Arch 267; coal in arch; machine shop, 25 men employed in 1897 in the hydraulic dept including engine drivers, stokers, and crane men.  The date of tower is by 1870.  ROD second dock after Poplar dock to use hydraulic power from 1853.  1869 new hydraulic pump in conjunction with the new ship dock.  Listed Grade II.

Barge Basin infilled c.1842 - under two western 87 foot arches of London & Blackwall Viaduct.  Barge dock - western.  Northern enlargement under the triple arches eastern locks.  By  1870 had acquired a timber shed, possibly for unloading in conjunction with Henry Page’s rice mill. 

Newell Street

Remains of the smart c18 quarter around the church.

St.Ann’s Limehouse. One of Hawksmoor's East End churches. St Anne was furnished 1723-5 but not consecrated. The master mason for St Anne was Strong. The composition here is as original but the vocabulary is more conventional. Mouldings all exquisitely carved and enriched. Gutted by fire in 1850, the interior was reconstructed by Philip Hardwick and the local John Morris, 1850-1. Restoration, surprisingly faithful to the original, resumed under P. C. Hardwick in 1856-7 with reseating and pulpit by Hardwick's pupil, young Arthur Blomfield. In 1891, as Sir A. Blomfield, he remodelled the chancel. Restoration 1983-93 by Julian Harrap, added tubular steel trusses by Hockley & Dawson, consulting engineers, to support the 019 roof. This, with its wrought-iron hanger rods, closely resembles those used by the Hardwicks in the Great Hall of Euston Station in 1846 and conforms to a pattern favoured by the builder of the church, William Cubitt. The tower is a spectacular sight from a distance. It has nothing of the routine character or skimpiness, which so often spoils the appearance of later Georgian towers. The tower is neither embraced by the body of the church, as at Christ Church Spitalfields, nor projects from it, as at St George. Instead it is incorporated in a 'westwork' of vestibules, with attics and pediments and, below these, strongly rusticated quoins. No portico, but instead an apsidal projection, the expression of a circular vestibule within the tower base.  The upper part of the tower is like St George's in shape, rectangular and appears wider than it really is, by means of buttresses grouped with the tower's angle pilasters and far projecting. A bell opening, its arch rising above the entablature, echoes the dome of the vestibule below. The top is the equivalent perhaps of a medieval thing very Baroque in its changes of direction no sinuous flourishes at all. Even the finials and urns have consistent angularity. The order applied to all stages is Doric. The sides of the church, also stone-faced, are very restrained in adornment, as always with Hawksmoor. Tall arched gallery windows over squarish ones, below which are windows to the high crypt, perhaps intended for use as a school and now a clubroom. Bays slightly recessed, expressing the internal arrangement; the vestries also have rusticated angle quoins to match the 'westwork' and curiously brutal rectangular angle towers; their interlaced ornament seems to follow no historical precedent. Cockerell's pre-fire drawings show three recesses over the centre of the sides, which are no longer there. Wall with a triumphal arch motif, repeating the Doric order of the front. The circular vestibule is domed, stone-lined and lit with a clear even light from big arched upper windows. From it, a disappointing entrance to the church, oppressed by Hardwick's organ gallery. The interior, as was the case at St George, is less inventive than the exterior. It is developed from the cross-in- square plan of e.g. Wren's St Anne and St Agnes. An additional bay. One is filled by a broad, rectangular, and tunnel-vaulted chancel, flanked by vestries; in the chancel walls, quartets of arched windows, pierced by Blomfield, 1891. His chancel seating has gone. The bay emphasizes the longitudinal direction and hints at a narthex, perhaps a reference to the arrangements of Early Christian churches, in which Hawksmoor and contemporary theologians were interested. The Corinthian order is used throughout. The main columns and entablature are of stone, timber columns support the galleries. Hardwick’s intervention is most obvious in the heaviness of the plasterwork and gallery with screen beneath carrying an organ by Gray & Davison, which won a prize at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was installed soon after. Fortunately unaltered.  Font by Hardwick and Morris, 1853. Discordant neo-medieval stone bowl carved with big lilies. Neo-c17 font cover, post 1894. Pulpit. By Blomfield, 1856, carved by William Gibbs Singers- Faithful c18 style, unusual at this date. It originally stood further east and was reached from the chancel by a long flight of stairs.  Communion Table, c18, small, oak.  Stained Glass in the window: large and richly coloured scene of the crucifixion, painted in enamels by Charles Clutterbuck, 1853.  Monument In the porch, high up in a niche, monument to Maria Charlesworth, apparently c19. Hope with her anchor. Crypt has beautifully constructed groin vaults in red brick. Collection of disparate parts.  Huge columns march in from the corners but afford to the consequences.  Drawn back from the logical enclosure of a Greek cross inside a rectangle. ‘Depressing’. 1720 separate parish. 130’ high tower. Highest clock in London. One of Queen Anne’s 50 churches. Hawksmoor. Tower like those of All Souls, Cambridge. No spatial surprises. Not consecrated for 6 years parish too poor to pay a priest.

11 bow-fronted house on the corner was often visited by Charles Dickens, whose godfather, Christopher Huffam, lived here. The largest house with open-pedimented door case with delicate brackets a bow to the front.

13-23 all two-storey and three bay;

21 is stuccoed.

2-4 early-detached villa converted c.1850 for use as a training establishment for boys. The facade still has a tin plaque reading British and Foreign Sailors' Society Off-centre entrance through a low fore building articulated to the street with a row of blind arches. Later 019 extension and paired arched first-floor windows for a chapel.

6a-b built into the boundary odd little later c20 houses roofed with big pantiles and with an Italianate tower.

Norbiton Road

Pleasantly detailed three-storey blocks, also of 1957-8, pale brick panels, private balconies, shallow-pitched roofs

Midhurst House curves to the street line,

Northumbria Street.

Celestial Church of Christ, 1873-4 by F.J. Of H. Francis. The centre of a little enclave in Bartlett Park on the fringe of Lansbury, originally with a school as well as the former clergy house. Built as the Anglican St Saviour, made redundant 1976, given to the West African sect in 1984. A large, lofty aisled church of polychrome brickwork, with bellcote, gabled chapel, sacristies and narthex. Decorated tracery; the clerestory with quatrefoil windows. Inside, the upper parts are now hidden by a clumsy suspended ceiling of the 1990s, cutting across the nave arcades. These are also of coloured brick, on columns with plain moulded capitals. The chancel capitals have the emphatic foliage carving often favoured by the architects. Fine window by Heaton Butler & Bayne c. 1880, figures in pre-Raphaelite style.

Ratcliffe

The first landfall downriver with a good straight road to London. A wharf existed here in 1348, the first known exploitation of the riverside east of the City, and by the cl6 many famous voyages of discovery were setting off from here. The hamlet, originally restricted to the riverside, expanded in the c15 towards Butcher Row, the main route to Stepney and Hackney. In the early c17 it was the most populous of Stepney's riverside hamlets with about 3,500 inhabitants. Its main street, later known as the Ratcliffe Highway (was lined with wharves, warehouses and shipbuilders' yards, and became a centre for glassmaking. But in 1794 a fire, which spread fiercely from an ignited barge of saltpetre at the East India Company's warehouses wiped out half of Butcher Row and necessitated much rebuilding. Soon after this,  as the docks were established downstream, Ratcliffe's character changed dramatically as its population expanded from about 5,000 in 1801 to 17,000 in 1861 and it became a parish distinct from Limehouse in 1838 and prosperous wharfingers and tradesmen gave way to seamen and dockworkers. The building of Commercial Road in 1806-10 divided c19 Ratcliffe in two. The southern part towards the river became teeming slums around Ratcliffe Highway, made notorious by a series of murders in 1811

Ratcliffe Lane

John Scurr House; originally one of a pair, part of a small slum clearance scheme. Modernistic style of 1936-7 by Adshead & Ramsey for Stepney Borough Council. A six-storey U-plan. Central stair tower with glass brick inset and access balconies but also, unusual for the date, lifts to each floor. Refurbished in 1997 by Architype with funding from the LDDC, a showpiece embellishment of social housing with metal balustrades, render, black tiled walls and a subtly pitched roof.   

Regent’s Canal Dock

Hydraulic Pump House c.1855 - oldest surviving in the world by Commercial Road entrance.  Demolished. To the west of Commercial Road locks a small single storey building, which has probably had a variety of uses. The Goad plan of 1891 depicts it as an engine house with steam engine and two boilers, all disused. A small accumulator and a chimney are shown built into the north wall. This wall has clearly been rebuilt but does show some features, which might be original. A 2-inch o/d hydraulic main ending at a flange joint enters the building at the foot of this wall. A transverse wall of Fletton bricks now divides the building. The south part has an internal partition and a low roof of concrete blocks and was probably used as an air raid shelter. During the 1950s the building was used as a workshop. This building appears on the OS plan of 1870.

Viaduct of the London & Blackwall railway.  Parallel with Commercial Road. Refurbished in 1984-7 for the DLR. crossing the Limehouse Basin.  By George & Robert Stephenson and G.E Bidder, 1839-40.Three magnificent segmental brick arches, each spanning 85ft Original cast-iron railings. Built to carry London and Blackwall by cable. Iron roof over the viaduct to stop sparks getting on the boats and the timber. Closed 1926 and rails removed inn 1926 DLR.  The railings are modern replicas, copied from originals near West India Dock, which were removed in the mid-1980s and presented to a museum. Further on, the balustrading thought to be largely original, although no doubt repaired.

Footbridge 1990s spans the canal at the entrance to the Basin making it possible to walk back to the DLR 

Rhodeswell Road.

Dora House five storey 1939 solitary example of the L.C.C. s pre-war Neo-Georgian manner.

Maisonettes, six-storey "forbidding L.C.C. 1976. But pleasantly landscaped on the side to the canal 

Railway bridge built c. 1876 for the London, Tilbury & Southend line,

Salmon Lane

Ancient way to Limehouse and/or an old route leading towards the centre of Stepney, named after Robert Salmon, local landowner and Master of Trinity House. It became a shopping street for the small district of houses built up in the c19.

Mercers Company housing of c.1845

Cemetery tiny Nonconformist purchased and vested in the Stepney Meeting House by the will of mariner Captain Truelove (+1691). Some good Georgian stones and a single sarcophagus monument. It was attached to a set of almshouses.

Locksley Estate, filling he area between the Limehouse Cut and the Regent's Canal is the begun in the 1950s by the L.C.C.  Immediately following their work at Lansbury housing over 3000. Walter Bor was architect-planner in charge, E. Humphrey the architect-in-charge. The intention was to create a neighbourhood, which excluded through-traffic and where amenities and housing were provided in buildings of mixed sizes. Blocks of flats with balconies extending over shops framed by black tiles, 1957-8

Salmon Lane Evangelical Church, Salmon Lane. 1970s. Dark brick, entrance in the three-storey end, the church with large hexagonal clerestory windows below a zigzagging Roof. Hall in basement.

St.James Gardens

Managed by vicar of St, James Ratcliffe

Steels lane

Surviving part of old White Horse Lane

Stepney

Flood Plain gravel on it is imporous clay therefore gets waterlogged.

Second World War Mickey’s Shelter. 3’ hunchback ran it. Canteen run by Marks and Spencer. Underground warehouses.

Stepney and Blackwall Railway junction

Closed in 1880. Line to Blackwall junction until the General Strike then it stopped. Trains from Bow used the spur. Until 1953 three trains a day. Harrow Lane Junction to Millwall Junction. Blackwall railway line from Stepney to Bow Junction 1849. East London Residential did not make a connection until 1854.

Stepney Green.

Named thus in 1692 and was the home of John atte Grene 1367, 'John (living) at the village green', from Middle English. Later maintained by the London County Council. It is a long narrow strip of green whch practically an unchanged since the 15^th  and preserves a rural aspect. City gents retired to Stepney to enjoy the fresh air, and some fine houses were built in the early 1700s here. By 1760, people in search of Sunday recreation went to Whitechapel to eat Stepney buns, drink ale and cider. Spring Gardens in Stepney was one of the many London pleasure grounds.  In 1702 it was known as Jews'  Spring Gardens and was frequented by people from Goodman's Fields.

clock tower dedicated to Dr Stanley Bean Atkinson, which originally stood in Burdett Road and was moved here in 1934.

2A. Listed Grade II,  Late 18^th  house with shop on ground floor. Brown brick , stucco plinth and parapet.

4 Listed Grade II. Early 19^th  terraced houses. Brown brick with coped parapets.

6 Listed Grade II. Early 19^th  terraced houses. Brown brick with coped parapets.

35‑77 61‑62 37 best house in Stepney. 1715‑20 Baptist College. 1850 chapel ok.

37 The London Jewish Hospital site. Opened in 1919 when it was mainly supported by the Jewish community, it was the Craft School open to all. The hospital expanded in the 1920s with the addition of a new nurses' home in Beaumont Square in 1939, but was demolished and replaced by the London Independent Hospital, which opened in 1986.

Dunstan Houses were built by the East End Dwellings Company in 1899, one of the many schemes initiated by Canon Samuel Barnett. The architects were Henry Davis and Barrow Emmanuel. The flats were built to provide housing for the honest, deserving poor.

33 Rudolph Rocker, the German anarchist, lived until his internment in 1914. Rocker was the editor of the Yiddish newspaper Arbeter Fraint (workers' friend).

Wickham House. Tower block since demolished.  Features in films 'Sparrows Can’t Sing’.

Stepney High Street

Churchyard the most interesting monument is a remarkable pyramid Panelled in stone and inscribed The Wisdom of Solomon' in English and Hebrew with an armorial shield below.  A mid-c19 print shows that it formerly stood on a square plinth.  War Memorial.  Blessing Christ a harrowing relief of a corpse- in no-man's land.  By Arthur G. Walker, unveiled 1921.  Dozens of half-buried ledger slabs line the perimeter wall, taken from demolished tomb chests, an indication of the c18 affluence of this parish.  Railings Reproduced to original design in the 1980s.  3-acres opened to the public as a park.  Fountain and seats. Mentioned in Our Mutual Friend.  Managed London County Council. A shaded seven-acre churchyard and is the heart of the Mercers Estate Conservation Area. Its close proximity to Stepping Stones Farm gives a strong rural feel to this part of Stepney

White Horse Road.

The medieval route from Ratcliffe to St Dunstan's Church and known from the c14-c16 as Cliff Street. It was lined with houses by the early c17 when its name changed to White Hart Street.

Limehouse District Board of Works Offices, 1862-4 by C.R. Bunch, Limehouse District Surveyor. Converted for Half Moon Youth Theatre in 1994 by Wallbank & Morgan.. The roofline was originally made lively by urns set on plinths. Separately constructed Board Room at the rear, its interior much damaged.

Hamlet of Ratcliffe C.E. School founded in 1710.Neo-Tudor of 1853-4, replacing a schoolhouse erected 1719-20. Two storeys in brick with mullioned windows beneath hood moulds. Canted bay window over the entrance, into   sides of which are set two canopied niches, designed to hold charity figures of a boy and girl, now at Stepney Green Primary. Opposite, miscellaneous houses and the White Horse pub. To the N, larger three-storey houses with stucco trim and entrances between fluted pilasters, then a curious Gothic set of flats.

Vicarage built in 1882 for St Matthew Commercial Road.  Previously on the site was a house provided by Dean Colet's estate for the headmaster of St Paul's School.

Colet Arms. Named after Dean Colet founded St.Paul’s school. Lived there.

Mercer’s Company housing 1854-5 by George Smith, succeeding almshouses built in 1691 under the gift of Dame Jane Mico. Two storeys in a pale brick with projecting brick porches under stucco pediment,

Pair of former rope walks

York Square

Mercers’ Company houses.  Sympathetic treatment. The centre of the Mercers' development 1825 George Smith, tiny but complete with its surrounding streets of two-storey two-bay terraced houses with simple arched doorways. Acquired by the GLC in 1973, and among the first of such terraces to be renovated. They now present a very different image from the dingy, overcrowded scenes of the East End that prompted so much ruthless redevelopment