Part 1 - Thames Barrier to Royal Docks - 3 Km - Across London Visual Marathon
- philip carey
- Feb 19, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: May 28, 2024
Start at Pontoon Dock DLR Station
Finish at Royal Victoria DLR Station
THE EXPERIENCE
A journey around London’s famous East End infrastructure sites
This fantastic 3.1 Km route from Pontoon Dock DLR (near the Thames Barrier) to the Royal Victoria Dock DLR is both scenic and quiet. It will take you to the Thames Barrier Garden, the Thames Barrier, the Royal Victoria Dock, the ExCel London, the IFS Cloud Cable Car, and the new City Hall.
Great for cityscapes, river and dockside views, parks, exhibitions, peace and quiet, hotels, historic and icon sights, transport links and water activities. It is mainly off-road, with several places to eat and drink in Royal Victoria Dock.
MUST SEE PLACES
What to See List
1 Thames Barrier
2 Thames Barrier Park
3 Millennium Mill
4 Lightship 93 and SS Robin
5 Britannia village
6 Victoria Dock Bridge
7 ExCel Centre
8 City Hall
9 Water Ski Centre
10 IFS Cloud Cable Car
11 The O2
Areas to Eat, Drink and Be Merry
The main areas for eating and drinking on this route are within the newly developed areas west of the Thames Barrier, in and around the ExceL Centre, within the hotels and around the waterfront by City Hall and the IFS Cloud Cabel Car.
BEST TIME
Morning - The best time to do this route is on weekends in the early morning when it is quiet, the lighting is at its best, and there ar not many people about
Day - Most of this route will be fairly quiet during the day except around the ExCell Centre and City Hall
Evenings - Quiet in most places
ROUTE OVERVIEW
This 3 km route starts outside Pontoon Dock DLR Station and makes its way to the Thames Barrier through the wonderful Thames Barrier Garden to emerge from the banks of the River Thames with the Thames Barrier in full view. It then heads back to Royal Victoria Docks past Millennium Mill and the footbridge to the ExCel Centre. This provides fantastic views looking east towards London City Airport and west towards City Hall and Canary Wharf. The route then hugs the docks and passes the IFS Cloud Cable Car to the O2 and the new City Hall before finishing at Victoria Dock DLR.
DESCRIPTIVE PHOTO GALLERY
This gallery provides a descriptive and visual reference to many sights along this route. Use the Google Map above to find their location. Double-click to see its full size.
HISTORY & INTERESTING FACTS
Royal Docks History
History of the area
150 years ago, this would have been marshland – inaccessible, liable to flooding and deserted.
However, London was expanding, and so too were the ships that carried the Trade of the British Empire. This area was chosen as the ideal place for London’s Dockland expansion known as Royal Docks.
The Royal Docks
They are more correctly called the Royal Group of Docks to distinguish them from the Royal Dockyards, Royal being due to their naming after royal personages rather than Crown ownership. The three docks collectively formed the largest enclosed docks in the world, with a water area of nearly 250 acres (1.0 km2) and an overall estate of 1,100 acres (4.5 km2). This is equivalent to the whole of central London from Hyde Park to Tower Bridge. The area was designated a special enterprise zone in 2012. The three docks were completed between 1855 and 1921.
Commercial Success of the Docks
The Royal Docks were a great commercial success, becoming London's principal docks during the first half of the 20th century. They specialised particularly in the import and unloading of foodstuffs, with rows of giant granaries and refrigerated warehouses being sited alongside the quays. The docks' great size and provision of numerous finger quays gave them a collective span of over 12 miles (19.3 km) of quaysides, serving hundreds of cargo and passenger ships at a time. Following the opening of the Royal Albert Dock in 1880, giving the Royals access to Gallions Reach, 11 miles (17.7 km) below London Bridge, the rival East & West India Docks Company responded with the construction of Tilbury Docks even further downriver.
The Great Silvertown Explosion of 1917
During the evening of 19 January 1917 a fire broke out in the TNT plant. Just before 7 p.m. a huge explosion ripped through the Brunner-Mond works and the Silvertown area.
A large part of the factory and several nearby streets were instantly destroyed. The explosion was so great that red-hot lumps of metal rained down on the surrounding area and started fires for miles around. The glare from these fires could be seen as far away as Maidstone in Kent and Guildford in Surrey.
More than 900 homes in the surrounding area were destroyed or badly damaged, and between 60,000 and 70,000 properties were damaged to some degree. The cost of the damage was estimated at a quarter of a million pounds, a huge sum of money at that time.
The explosion destroyed a gas holder on the Greenwich Peninsula, shooting more than 200,000 cubic metres (8 million cubic feet) of gas into the sky in a huge fireball.
London City Airport
London City Airport was built in 1986-1987 on a former dockland site once part of the Port of London. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the airport on 5 November 1987. London City Airport has seen steady growth in passenger numbers over the years, reaching a record high of 5.1 million in 2019. The airport serves mainly business travellers and offers flights to over 40 destinations across Europe and beyond. London City Airport is undergoing a significant expansion project to increase its capacity to 6.5 million passengers annually by 2025. The project includes a new terminal building, eight new aircraft stands, a parallel taxiway and an extension of the existing runway. You will often see planes taking off and landing from here.
ExCeL
ExCeL (Exhibition Centre London) was first opened in November 2000 and consists of two column-free, rectangular, subdividable halls of approximately 479,493 square feet (approximately 44,546 m²) each, on either side of a central boulevard containing catering facilities and information points.
ExCeL hosted several events for the Olympics and Paralympics and has since erected a legacy wall featuring the hand prints of the athletes who won Gold at the venue and the former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
IFS Cloud Cable Car
Doppelmayr built the IFS Cloud Cable Car link across the River Thames with sponsorship from Emirates. Since 2022, it has been sponsored by IFS. The service opened on 28 June 2012 and is operated by Transport for London as the Emirates Line. The cable car takes you from the Royal Docks to the O2 on the Greenwich Peninsular, and the route provides beautiful views of the River Thames, London’s skyline, the Royal Docks and The O2
A single crossing takes ten minutes (reduced to five minutes in rush hour as the service speed increases).
it crosses the river at a height up to 90 metres (300 ft), higher than the nearby O2 Arena. The cable car provides a crossing every 15 seconds, with a maximum capacity of 2,500 passengers per hour in each direction, about 50 busloads.
Dock Beach
This area is in Britannia Village, one of the first housing developments built on the old dock site in 1994. The dock cranes link it to its past.
Dock Beach is an activity area with a beach and activities such as wakeboarding, paddle boarding, open-water swimming, and places nearby to eat and drink. There is also a Park Run around the Excel on a Saturday Morning at 9:00
City Hall
City Hall has been the new home of the Mayor of London since January 2022. Until 2012, it was a sustainability exhibition centre known as The Crystal.
The building uses solar power and ground source heat pumps to generate its energy and was the first to achieve the highest sustainable building accolades.
VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE AREA
Click on the picture below to go on a 360 virtual tour of the shopping areas and have a look around.
Use the route to explore this location by looking around in 360, taking in the sights and sounds, listening to an audio recording about the area and going on a virtual tour.
Comments