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.