A three mile wander from Billingsgate to home, via Canary Wharf

[Wapping]

Last time I walked from Billingsgate, eastwards to the ExCel halls. This time, it’s westwards, three miles to home.

To be continued….

PS It’s locked only while I wait for umpteen photographs to transfer from my phone. I’ll then try to sort and weed them into some sort of logical sequence, hopefully adding some explanatory blurb. In the meantime, I’ll sort myself out for tomorrow’s ‘Soft southern shandy drinkers’ weekend jaunt, which’ll take a while.

 

[Wapping]

I’ll start with an apology. I forgot to start the recording app on my phone when I left Billingsgate, remembering only when I’d walked to Canary Wharf DLR station, where the recording starts. Anyway, here’s 2.3 miles of the route from the DLR station at Canary Wharf to just past Tobacco Dock and home.

 

[Wapping]

First off, it’s the early morning (06:20) D3 bus from Wapping, for a 20 minute ride to be dropped off at the Billingsgate Market gates at 06:40. Not surprisingly, I am the only passenger but had to pay, as the free pass doesn’t kick-off until 09:00. I am quite looking forward to the opening of the new Silvertown Tunnel under the Thames, as it will hopefully take some pressure off the Blackwall Tunnel, which is often unable to cope.

 

[Wapping]

The cafe is in the corner of the market building, so it’s worthwhile having a wander about to see the wonderful assortment of fish and other marine life on offer:



It’s a crime really that wet fish shops have all but vanished from the country’s High Streets.

 

[Wapping]

I had no idea what sea crabs are, but a Google reveals that they differ from ‘normal crabs’ in as much as they don’t leave the sea….. other than to appear on someone’s plate:

 

[Wapping]

Breakfast of three, very fresh kippers, buttered slice, two grilled tomatoes and tea. Perfect:

 

[Wapping]

Breakfast disposed of, it’s out of the market to walk westwards, through the financial district of Canary Wharf and to follow tge Thames Patth, the three and a half miles to home:



Walking up the elevated roadway into Canary Wharf, you can look back at the market (the yellow topped long building) to see that its outer wall on the south side is formed of an old warehouse. You can also see that it stands on the side of a former wharf or quay, with vestiges of the past left behind:



Looking down the other side of the roadway, there is another dock, now a residential marina. It’s Poplar Dock Cut:

 

[Wapping]

At the end of the road, we enter Canary Wharf proper and the inevitable signs of more development (or redevelopment) working going on. It is hard to imagine or even remember that none of this was here before roughly 1990:



When I worked for HSBC’s insurance broking company, I reinsured the bank’s multi-million pound head office at 8 Canada Square. The bank’s insurance / risk manager got his underwear in real twist, panicking that the price of steel (in dollars) was roaring up, when the global policy the bank bought was expressed in pounds sterling. I told him that the easiest way to alleviate this problem was to switch the bank’s global policy from pounds into dollars. This, for some unknown reason was a leap too far; especially odd as the mother bank (HSBC plc) accounted in dollars. I thought he was going to cry…. Until I hit on a whizbang plan to issue a reinsurance policy that paid the difference between two numbers: Pounds of X and dollars of Y. I was hailed as a genius and enjoyed one of the best lunches ever, the bank knowing how to entertain when it put its mind to it. Happy days:



The area is itself divided by canals, whilst architects compete with themselves for odd and ‘modern’ shaped tower blocks:

Canary Wharf - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Wapping]

Let’s wander on, past the last day of this winter’s entertainment and the glass ‘Towers of money’:

 

[Wapping]

We are now at Canary Wharf Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station, where my route recording (post #2) starts:



I could take the train home from here, which would rather defeat the object. So let’s wander on:



Here’s the hoarding advertising a new development for the existing canal, including a bridge running its length. It has all the usual ‘green’ buzzwords, of course, but hey, no great harm in that. I do though have no idea what paddle board yoga might entail:



Looking through a viewing window in hoarding, you can see the steel bridge going into place:

 

[Wapping]

We are now on the Thames and can look back where we’ve come from:



And to where we’ll be heading, following the river bank to near enough the centre of the picture. The picture does show how much the river bends through the east of the city. The skyline of the City of London’s towers ( on the north side of the river) can be seen in the distance, along with the needle point of the Shard, several miles away on the south bank:



If we zoom in a bit, we can see it all. We are aiming for the ziggurat like red block of flats, just on the right hand edge of the first picture below. The City appears to be right on top of it. This is just an optical illusion, the zoom foreshortening the distance, which in realty is nearly two miles:

 

[Wapping]

Let’s leave Canary Wharf, skip taking the Uber ‘River bus’ and wander on following the Thames Pathway:





To be continued……

 

[G&T]

The development looks great and befits our capital. It does highlight how our other great cities are being left behind though.

 

[Wapping]

Walking along, it’s just pleasant (in near enough any weather) at the river and the views, not least as you can use the phone’s camera as a kind of telescope. Looking back, there’s an Uber ‘River taxi’ pulling onto the pontoon at Canary Wharf we have just past:



And a zoomed in view of the City:



Along with a zoom in on where we will leave the riverside. This is the work still going on for the ‘Super sewer’ (or to give it its correct title, Thames Tideway Tunnel) laid on the Thames’ bed. I think it will be some kind of pumping station, built out from the shoreline:



But. before we get there, we’ll pass by one of the markers of the past. This is the block which records that this is where the Aberdeen Steamship Wharf was extended:

Aberdeen Steam Navigation Company

Aberdeen Steam Navigation Company ~ 1821-1962 A busy Quayside scene at the SS Aberdonian London Ship’s Berth of 20ft Draught capacity on Waterloo Quay opposite the Aberdeen Steam Navigation C…

doriccolumns.wordpress.com

Thames Tideway Tunnel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Wapping]

Following the path, we are now in the redeveloped area of residential apartments, which stretches in an almost unbroken chain westwards to St Katherine’s Dock and the Tower of London. The Thames Path is interrupted here at one of the former cuts:



We’ll have to continue westwards on Narrow Street, with its excellent warehouse conversions to our left and Ropemaker’s Fields to our right:



And the very small (but very good) Grapes pub. I’d be going in if it wasn’t now 08:15:

Narrow Street - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The House They Left Behind - A London Inheritance

The House They Left Behind was a pub in Limehouse. Originally the Black Horse it was the only building left in Ropemaker's Fields opposite Narrow Street

alondoninheritance.com

The Grapes, Limehouse

A traditional London pub, since 1583.

www.thegrapes.co.uk

The Grapes, Limehouse - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Wapping]

We can now rejoin the river for a bit and see a Port of London barge, heading westwards. In the background there is a typical cut on the south bank in Rotherhithe:



Then it’s back onto Narrow Street, with its bridge over the entrance to Limehouse Basin with its lock gates. As the signposts show, there’s a whole bunch of footpaths and new cycleways we could take, one leading all the way to Hertford, 28 miles away. Now, that would be a wander!:

Limehouse Basin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Wapping]

To be continued…..

 

[Wapping]

Still in Narrow Street and still walking westwards, the street has the old warehouses on the left and the new developments on its right:



We’ve now come to one of the little steps which, at low tide, you can walk down to stand on the ‘beach’. The steps down are much shorter / shallower than they are about a quarter of a mile away:

 

[Wapping]

Walking on, we are coming close to our destination:



But we have to leave the Thames Path for a short stretch and join the Highway. This is looking eastwards, towards the entrance to the Limehouse Link Tunnel, which runs underneath Limehouse Basin:



And looking westwards:



From there, it’s left, through the King Edward Memorial Park. The rotunda is a ‘breather’ for the Rotherhithe Tunnel, running under the park, then under the Thames:



Then a last look at the Thames. This is the platform/ housing they are building as a part of the ‘Super Sewer’:



And a zoomed in view across the river to Rotherhithe, where yiu can see the see sister rotunda to the one here on the north side:

 

[Wapping]

Normally here, I’d turn left to walk along the cobbled Wapping Wall, which runs into Wapping High Street to home. Instead, let’s make a change and walk along the narrow footpath, alongside Shadwell Basin:





The council works hard each year, providing nesting areas for the swans:



And one last look eastwards, back across the basin: