Two walks, 45 years apart. Mile End to Limehouse Basin (1) April 1979.
Regents Canal and the Mile End Sewer Vent, 1979
From my archive.
Back when I was a student, I had some good friends who lived over in Mile End. Being a long-standing south-of-the-River person, or, at least, somebody who is very comfortable in the West End and City, Mile End was always well outside my comfort zone. But, going to see my friends, it was always interesting to walk through an area that was new to me, and that had deep historical roots.
45 years ago this month, my great friend Gill R took me on a guided walk through Mile End, along the Regent's Canal and down to Limehouse Basin. She knew I wanted to take some pictures of the area so I was very grateful to her (and still am!) for this, and for her wonderful patience while I stopped for pictures.
My notes on the file of negatives revealed that I used 35mm Tri-X, and I only had my 50 mm lens with me. One camera, one lens and a spring day in London – I've been doing this for a long time :)
The route, roughly and as far as I can reconstruct it from the pictures, started at Lockhart Street, where my friends lived, then along Bow Common Lane, turned right up Burdett Road, left on (the now demolished) Bridge Road and onto the canal towpath. We walked down the canal, passing Johnson's Lock and Salmon Lane Lock to Limehouse basin. That was where my negs end. I'm pretty sure we must have walked back to Lockhart Street afterwards, but I have no record of that.
Anyhow, I am putting into this blog some of the pictures from that day. They are strongly resonant with me. For me, these pictures are not just a record of a memory, but they are "old London". They are the London of the Sweeney, and a time when the visible evidence of the East End that had existed since the Industrial Revolution was still prominent. 1979 was before any gentrification had taken place, and long before the wall of money that ultimately came out of the City. Streets still existed with links to Jack the Ripper. The infrastructure of the old town gas system with huge gas holders could dominate a view. Council housing had not been sold off or demolished, but council planners were still trying to complete (as the saying goes) the work that the Luftwaffe had started. I am old enough to remember when 1979 was a year some way into the future, but looking back on these pictures is to look back at an older form of London that exists now only in fragmentary pockets.
I'll post a follow-up on this blog with a walk that I've just done, this time with my friend Phil H, covering much of the same route.
1. Railway bridge over Bow Common Lane. A characteristic sign of the times is the "G. Davis is innocent" slogan.
2. Terraced houses, Bow Common Lane
3. Courtyard with lads, Bow Common Lane.
4. Apartment block and the Britannia pub, Bow Common Lane. The pub was demolished around 2012, but the apartment block is still there.
5 and 6. Street stalls, Burdett Road.
7. Looking up Burdett Road to the junction with the A 11 (note the signpost in the distance). I think I was standing at the junction with Bridge Street (now demolished, but you can see it on this map). The corner beyond the lamp-post is Maidman Street, which was the site of a murder in 1888 thought to have been one of Jack the Ripper's first victims. The houses on the left of this picture have been demolished, and the resulting open area is now part of Mile End Park. In current terms, this picture was taken from roughly opposite where Hamlet's Way now meets Burdett Road.
8. Regents Canal: Johnson’s lock and gas holder. You can see the gas holders marked on this map
9. Looking north through Jonson's lock.
10. Regents canal, south of Grey Crescent Bridge (see opening picture). Looking south, the chimney is the Mile End Sewer Vent, and the railway line is visible beyond that. I think the large blocks in the middle and right must be council estates – they have that style about them.
11. Chickens beside the canal, and a British rail commuter train.
12. Salmon Lane Lock.
13. Limehouse basin. Artemis K was a passenger ship built in 1944. I’ve no information about the paddle steamer and tug (their names are not visible on the neg).