Part 5 - Limehouse Basin Marina to the Tower of London (4.8 Km) - Across London Visual Marathon

philip carey
Aug 26, 2022
2 min read

Updated: May 28, 2024

Start at Limehouse DLR Station

Finish at Tower Hill Station

THE EXPERIENCE

Stepping through what used to be London Docklands towards the Tower of London

This scenic route takes you along the Thames Path by the river and into the heart of what used to be the London Dockland in Waapping before emerging next to the Tower of London on the easter edge of the historic City of London. The route touches many of the historic dock sites, including Limehouse Basin, Shadwell Basin, Hermitage Quay, Tobacco Dock, and St Katharine Docks. It traves through what used to be the very centre of London Docks in Wapping, which pretty Wapping Park and the Ornamental Canal now represent. There are some stunning views of the City of London and the river Thames along this route, and it is very close to the notorious sights associated with pirates, such as Execution Dock, Wapping High Street and famous pubs, such as the Prospect of Whitby and Captin Kidd.

It is great for cityscapes, river views, parks, marinas, and historic and iconic sights. It is mainly off-road, with several places to eat and drink towards the end.

MUST SEE PLACES

What to See List

1 Limehouse Marina

2 Start of the Regent’ Canal

3 Thames Path Riverside Views

4 King Edward Memorial Park

5 Shadwell Basin

6 The Prospect of Whitby

7 Tobacco Dock

8 The Ornamental Canal

9 Hermitage Basin and Gardens

10 St Katherine Docks

11 Tower of London

12 Tower Bridge

Areas to Eat, Drink and Be Merry

There are only a few places to eat and drink along this route and they are towards the end around St Katharine Docks and to the north of the Tower of London. You will also find a few pubs by Shadwell Basin and along Wapping High Street as well as on the southern side of Tower Bridge.

BEST TIME

Morning - The route is quite for most of the route apart from the end as it goes through St Katharine Docks and the Tower of London. The best time to do it is on weekends in the early morning when the lighting is at its best and there are not many people about.

Day - Most of this route will be fairly quiet apart from the end as it goes through St Katharine Docks and the Tower of London

Evenings - Quiet in most places except iS Katharine Docks.

ROUTE OVERVIEW

This scenic 4.8 Km section of the Across London Visual Marathon takes you along the Thames Path that links London Dockland to the ancient sites of the City of London. It starts at Limehouse Basin Marina and then hugs the rivers through Wapping before veering off to Shadwell Basin and Tobacco Docks through what used to be the site of the London Docks before finishing up at St Katherine Docks and the Tower of London on the eastern edge of the City of London.

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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 the image in full size.

HISTORY & INTERESTING FACTS

Limehouse Basin

This is the entrance from the River Thames into Limehouse Basin. Initially this lock could admit sea-going vessels of 2,000 tons - far more than would be possible now as today's lock is built inside the 1869 original.

Limehouse Basin was built in 1820 as a navigable link between the river Thames and over 2,000 miles of navigable canals and rivers. It includes the Limehouse Cut, the oldest canal in London and one you may recognise from a certain Mission Impossible film sequence.

Throughout its working life, the basin was better known as the Regent's Canal Dock and was used to tranship goods between the old Port of London and the English canal system. Cargoes handled were chiefly coal and timber but also ice, circus animals, Russian oil, and WWI submarines. Sailing ships delivered cargo there until WW2, and the dock can be seen in surviving films and paintings.

Prospect of Whitby

The Prospect of Whitby is London's oldest riverside pub, dating back to 1520. The original flagstone floor survives, and the pub also has a rare pewter-topped bar as well as old barrels and ship masts built into the structure. Most areas of the pub have spectacular views over the river Thames,

The pub was initially frequented by those involved in life on the river and sea, and it was a notorious haunt for smugglers, thieves and pirates. Other notable customers include Charles Dickens, Samuel Pepys, Judge Jeffries, and artists Whistler and Turner.

The hangman's noose is situated here as it is relatively close to the site of Execution Dock, where many a pirate was hanged. Those sentenced to death would be brought to Execution Dock from Marshalsea Prison in Southwark and would be paraded across London Bridge and past the Tower of London in a procession that the High Court Marshal led.

The Prospect of Whitby was once a hotbed of cutthroats, pirates, and felons. In fact, so cruel was its clientele that it became known to the locals as The Devil’s Tavern. It’s alright now!

Shadwell Basin

Shadwell Basin was the eastern entrance to London Docks, which stretched from here down to St Katharine Docks. The basin still survives today but London Docks have been filled in and built upon. The Basin dates from 1850, and the London docks closed in 1969.

On the north side of Shadwell Basin is St. Paul's Church, Shadwell, built in 1656. It was traditionally known as the Church of Sea Captains, as 75 sea captains have been buried there.

Tobacco Dock

The Tobacco Dock was constructed in approximately 1811 and served primarily as a store for imported tobacco.

It was used by the London Docks Company, which negotiated a 21-year monopoly on the management of vessels carrying rice, tobacco, wine, and brandy. This excluded those coming from the East and West Indies, which the East India Trading Company managed.

Today, the docks have been filled in apart from this ornamental canal and quayside, which gives a nod to its past.

The original wine vaults beneath the tobacco warehouses resembled the crypts of a Gothic cathedral, "with chamfered granite columns under finely-executed brick groins, connected with a 20 acre 'subterranean city' for the storage of wines and spirits, where they could mature at a stable temperature of 15.5 °C

In 1990, it was converted into a shopping centre at a development cost of £47 million with the intention of creating the "Covent Garden of the East End"; however, the scheme was unsuccessful, and it went into administration. Since the mid-1990s the building has been almost entirely unoccupied. It is now occasionally used for filming and for large corporate and commercial events.

The Three Sisters was a 330-ton trade ship built at nearby Blackwall Yard in 1788 that travelled to the East and West Indies to return with tobacco and spices, while the Sea Lark was an American merchant schooner captured by Britain in 1811

St Katharine Docks and Tower Hotel

St Katharine Docks took its name from the former hospital of St Katharine's by the Tower, built in the 12th century, which stood on this site.

In the 19th century, this intensely built-up 23-acre site was earmarked for redevelopment by an Act of Parliament in 1825. Some 1250 houses and the medieval hospital of St. Katharine were demolished. Around 11,300 inhabitants (mostly port workers crammed into unsanitary slums) lost their homes; only the property owners received compensation.

Engineer Thomas Telford designed the scheme, and steam engines kept the water level in the basins about four feet above that of the tidal river.

Today, the area features offices, public and private housing, a large hotel, shops and restaurants, a pub (The Dickens Inn, a former brewery dating back to the 18th century), a yachting marina and other recreational facilities.

Tower Hotel

The Tower Hotel was constructed in 1973 for J. Lyons (famous for its cakes and teashops), which operated the hotel until July 1977, when it was sold to EMI Leisure. It was built in a Brutalist style with minimalist constructions that showcase bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design. Like Marmite, you either love it or hate it!

The hotel has 801 rooms, as well as 19 meeting rooms with capacity for up to 600 people. It also has a gym,

It is sometimes used for rooftop filming due to its high-level view of the skyline, including Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and the river.

The Battle of Cable Street

On 4 October 1936, a violent confrontation between the Metropolitan Police and local communities on the street was later named the 'Battle of Cable Street'. Communist, anarchist, labour and Jewish groups joined with locals to resist a planned march through the East End by Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. The East End has traditionally been an area of London with a large Jewish population. It is estimated that around 100,000 Jews from Eastern Europe had fled to the East End in the period 1881–1914. A bus was overturned and used as a barricade, Mosley's car was attacked with bricks, and there was some of the most violent hand-to-hand fighting ever seen in London. The march was eventually abandoned. A large mural (created between 1979 and 1983) on St George's Town Hall, next to Library Place, depicts scenes from the day. A red plaque at Cable Street's junction with Dock Street commemorates the incident.

side note

From Victorian times through to the 1950s, Cable Street had a reputation for cheap lodgings, brothels, drinking inns and opium dens.

The last occasion in England, when a stake was hammered through a sinner's heart at an official burial, took place at the junction of Cable Street and Cannon Street Road: John Williams was found hanged in his cell after being arrested as a suspect in the Ratcliff Highway murders. Local people went along with the claim that he had committed suicide from guilt of the crimes. At the time of 1812, suicide was considered to be sinful and justified his being buried upside down with a stake through his heart. His skull was found when new gas mains were laid in August 1886, and was on display for many years in The Crown and Dolphin pub opposite.

Wapping

The draining of Wapping Marsh and the consolidation of a river wall along which houses were built were finally achieved by 1600 after previous attempts had failed.

The settlement developed along that river wall, hemmed in by the river to the south and the now-drained Wapping Marsh to the north. This gave it a peculiarly narrow and constricted shape, consisting of little more than the axis of Wapping High Street and some north-south side streets. John Stow, the 16th-century historian, described it as a "continual street, or a filthy strait passage, with alleys of small tenements or cottages, built, inhabited by sailors' victuallers". A chapel to St. John the Baptist was built in 1617, and it was here that Thomas Rainsborough was buried. Wapping was constituted as a parish in 1694

Wapping's proximity to the river gave it a strong maritime character for centuries, well into the 20th century. It was inhabited by sailors, mast makers, boat-builders, blockmakers, instrument-makers, victuallers, and representatives of all the other trades that supported the seafarer. Wapping was also the site of 'Execution Dock', where pirates and other water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed close to the low water mark. Their bodies would be left dangling until the tide had submerged them three times.

Wapping is home to England's first; the Marine Police Force was formed in 1798 by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun and a Master Mariner, John Harriott, to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London and the lower reaches of the river. Its base was (and remains) in Wapping High Street, and it is now known as the Marine Support Unit.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge, is a combined bascule and suspension bridge completed in 1894. It was designed by Horace Jones, who built Leadenhall Market, and engineered by John Wolfe Barry - son of Sir Charles Barry, who designed the Houses of Parliament.

Tower Bridge is 800 feet in length and consists of two 213-foot bridge towers connected at the upper level by two horizontal walkways and a central pair of bascules that can open to allow shipping.

How to demonstrate with Style!

On 5 April 1968, a Royal Air Force Hawker Hunter performed an unauthorised low-flying route over several London landmarks and then flew through the span of Tower Bridge. His actions were to mark the 50th anniversary of the RAF's founding and demonstrate against the Ministry of Defence for not recognising it.

On 12th May 2024, two Red Bull skydivers, Marco Fürst, and Marco Waltenspiel, leapt from a helicopter and completed the first wingsuit flight through Tower Bridge.

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.