Historically speaking, East London was a very industrial area, filled with docks that took in various goods. If you want proof, look no further than the DLR stations - East India, Cyprus, Pontoon Dock, King George V - to see just how significant the British Empire was on this area.
It made sense at the time for the docks to mostly be centred here. To the west, you had a built up London that didn't have any space for docks; to the east, you approach the Thames Estuary and thus the main access point to the most important city in the largest empire. The main downside to this was that there never truly were good transport links - those who worked there lived nearby and had no reason to go further. Since the founding of London, London Bridge was always the easternmost crossing point, and so it remained until the late 1800s, intentionally to allow ships to continue entering the centre.
Tower Bridge
Everyone knows Tower Bridge, it's London in steel and concrete. From the two towers connected by the grand crossing to its red, white and blue colours, it's possibly the most iconic landmark in the city, which is no mean feat. To get the full experience and use the crossing, you need to pay, but why do that when you can instead get a decent enough view walking along the bridge itself.
Plans began in 1868 to build a sequel to London Bridge, as the city continued to expand eastward. Following a competition, architect Sir Horace Jones, along with Sir John Wolfe Barry, came out with the winning entry - a bascule bridge held with cantilevers (though these were removed in 1960 - the bridge is now a standard suspension affair).
Its most iconic part is probably the bascules' ability to open, which was done so that large ships could get through at the expense of immense hydraulic power. This is in part as it sits by the Pool of London, a section of the Thames which became a significant port during the Victorian era and remained so until the docking industry effectively stopped in the 1970s. As a result, Tower Bridge no longer opens like it used to, and it only opens about 800 times a year (and only if you book in advance). This means there's a delightful schedule full of times when the bascules open. A bus jumped this gap in 1953, however, resulting in the driver getting a bonus.
The small leaflet I took before getting through a large crowd of waiting visitors doesn't have any interesting information on it, stating a main reason to visit is the "Tower Bridge Cat Trail". Obviously the main reason to go to the bridge is for the view itself, a mostly unobscured expanse of river. You can see London Bridge and St Pauls from here...less so anything as you face the Docklands. A nice aspect is to go directly to the midpoint and stand on both bascules simultaneously. I walked the bridge twice on my visit, once to get to the Tower of London, and back to the southern side once I'd seen as much as I could without paying.
The Lengthy Walk
Right from the bridge, I walked into Shad Thames, a curious Dickensian relic of older streets - brick buildings that border the street from both sides, walkways spanning between them (now occupied by plant pots), cobbled pavements, and every other business seemed to be a wharf of some sort. From Tower Bridge you can spot the branding of Butler's Wharf, now filled with restaurants, as parts of Shad Thames are. Indeed, the historical elements only make it more appealing to investors. Soon I was greeted by faint alarms and dogs barking, and realised I was soon to leave Central London. Not before I was to spot a different river, though.
I ended up on Tooley Street after following Shad Thames to the end, and there it was - the River Neckinger. I'm somewhat surprised it still has its name on Google Maps - it has been reduced to a mere stump of what it used to be, as Diamond Geezer's write-up on the river will tell you. This small section flows past St Saviour's Wharf as well as what used to be Jacob's Island, a notorious Victorian slum, one which Dickens appears to have described in Oliver Twist. From here, it became a dull walk because I made th mistake of following the main roads and not the side streets.
I made the foolish mistake of spending all my time there trying to convince a squirrel to be photographed. A cyclist spotted me failing and we had a brief chat about photography. He handed me some nuts and I never saw the squirrel again, which was annoying. And at the end of it, I didn't visit the park Thames-side, as I wanted to get to Rotherhithe as soon as possible.
Rotherhithe
The leaflet I took from Rotherhithe station is very comprehensive, it even has a map of the area. Its name comes from Old English for a haven where cattle has landed, but its recent history couldn't be more different. It was the first place to get docks, becoming the centre of the timber trade from Scandinavia and Canada (the latter gave the nearby Canada Water its name). World War II saw many of the docks bombed, and by 1970 they were gone, leaving an area mostly in poverty - but as happened in Canary Wharf, regeneration followed. I've already blogged about Surrey Quays, which also followed a similar fate.
The main aim was to visit the Brunel Museum, but it was only open for tours and at a cost. Instead I went out to admire the view by the Thames. It was peaceful, just a vast expanse with no crossings in sight. That's only because the two crossings here are both tunnels.
The first is the Thames Tunnel, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and completed in 1860, was initially for pedestrians and horses only, but has since been converted into a railway tunnel used by the Overground. It was the first tunnel that went below water to be completed and saw Brunel invent a tunneling shield specifically for construction, which are still used today.
The other bridge is the Rotherhithe Tunnel, similarly designed for pedestrians and horses in mind, and came along in 1908. Since cars became popular, however, it's become a fume-riddled congested nightmare, though you can still walk through the tunnel for some bizarre reason. I considered crossing it to get to Wapping, but came to my senses and decided to walk past estates and industrial hangovers to Canada Water. I finally managed to see the eponymous place, full of birds swimming and pigeons waiting on the fence, before opting to go home. If you'd like a "sequel" blogpost, imagine me walking through the nearby shopping centre before emerging by Surrey Quays, then read this post where I walk to The Den.
As a consequence, I missed out on writing about lots of the Rotherhithe peninsula, up to and including Cuckold's Point. That may come in a future blogpost. In the meantime, you can expect more Thames-side writeups, as I've enjoyed crossing bridges recently.
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