Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
primary reds and blues. Rising up majestically behind the houses to the north is
St Paul's
(
W
stpaulsshadwell.org), the “sea captains' church”, with a Baroque tower.
Limehouse
East of Wapping,
Limehouse
was a major shipbuilding centre in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, hub of London's canal tra
c and the site of the city's first
Chinatown
, a district sensationalized in Victorian newspapers as a warren of opium and
gambling dens, and by writers such as Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sax Rohmer
and Dickens: “Down by the docks the shabby undertaker's shop will bury you for next
to nothing, after the Malay or Chinaman has stabbed you for nothing at all.” Wartime
bombing and postwar road schemes all but obliterated Limehouse: the only remnants
of the Chinese community are the street names: Canton, Mandarin, Ming and Pekin
among them. London's contemporary Chinatown is in Soho (see p.98).
Narrow Street
,
the main thoroughfare, is sleepier than Wapping High Street, and famous primarily
for its pub
he Grapes
, currently owned by the actor Ian McKellen. On the shoreline
(and visible from the pub terrace) is one of Antony Gormley's statues, who is standing
on a mooring pile and appears to be walking on water at high tide.
14
St Anne's Church
Newell St • Open for Sun service 10.30am •
T
020 7987 1502,
W
stanneslimehouse.org • Limehouse DLR
Limehouse's major landmark is Hawksmoor's
St Anne's Church
, rising up just north of
the DLR viaduct. Begun in 1714, and dominated by a gargantuan west tower, topped
by an octagonal lantern, it boasts the highest church clock in London. The interior was
badly damaged by fire in 1850, though it does contain a superb organ built for the
Great Exhibition the following year. In the graveyard Hawksmoor erected a pyramidal
structure carved with masonic symbols, now hopelessly eroded; opposite is a war
memorial with relief panels depicting the horrors of trench warfare.
Limekiln Dock
A pedestrian bridge carries the Thames Path over the entrance to Limehouse Basin and
then the tidal inlet of
Limekiln Dock
, overlooked to the north by a picturesque gaggle of
listed warehouses, and to the south by the gargantuan Dundee Wharf development,
sporting a huge grey freestanding pylon of balconies. Beyond lies the mock-Egyptian
development that houses the
Four Seasons Hotel
(see p.360). he hames Path
eventually ploughs its way right round the Isle of Dogs, but for now it's still a bit
stop-start once you get past Canary Wharf Pier.
Isle of Dogs
A whole people toil at the unloading of the enormous ships, swarming on the barges, dark figures, dimly outlined,
moving rhythmically, fill in and give life to the picture. In the far distance, behind the interminable lines of sheds and
warehouses, masts bound the horizon, masts like a bare forest in winter, finely branched, exaggerated, aerial trees
grown in all the climates of the globe.
Gabriel Mourey (1865-1943)
The Thames begins a dramatic horseshoe bend at Limehouse, thus creating the
Isle of
Dogs
. The origin of the peninsula's strange name has been much debated: a corruption
of ducks, or of dykes, or, in fact, a reference to the royal kennels which once stood here.
In 1802, London's first enclosed trade docks were built here to accommodate rum and
sugar from the West Indies. The demise of the docks was slow in coming, but rapid in
its conclusion: in 1975, there were still eight thousand jobs; five years later they were
closed. Now at the heart of the new Docklands, the Isle of Dogs reaches its apotheosis
in the skyscrapers of
Canary Wharf
. Yet while some ninety thousand workers trek to
Canary Wharf each weekday, the rest of the “island” remains surreally lifeless, an
