Route starts at 'The Spike' on the south east side of London Bridge

 

Wapping is an historic riverside district.  Originally a 13th-century marshland called "Wapping-on-the-Woze" it was a wealthy maritime hub of shipbuilders and repairers. 

 

The area was transformed into a massive industrial docklands site in the 19th century supporting Britain as the world’s dominant trading nation of the era. 

 

The new docks cut off old Wapping from the rest of the area becoming almost like an island, transforming the workers from skilled artisans, to unskilled dockers and plunging the area into poverty.  In the late 20th century the area transformed again into the trendy residential area we’ll see today. 

​

STOP: Girl With a Dolphin

LOCATION: In front of The Tower hotel

 

This is one of London’s most graceful public works of art.  It dates from 1973 and was made by Sir David Wynne, a self-taught artist.  

 

The girl reaches down to the dolphin as if suspended in water, her hair floating above her. The dolphin is swimming up towards her. A bit like a dance. 

 

Sir David read Zoology at Cambridge, so it comes as no surprise that sculpting creatures was his true passion, especially when they are shown to be interacting with humans. To prepare for this commission, he swam with a dolphin for hours.

 

Wynne also had an impact on popular culture as it was he who introduced his friends - The Beatles - to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  This led to them visiting the guru’s meditation school in India - and that experience influenced much of their later work.

 

He also sculpted ‘Guy’ the Gorilla; one of London Zoo’s most celebrated inmates, which is now in Crystal Palace park.  And Dolphin and Boy in Cheyne Walk (which we visited on the ‘Animals’ ride) which was a follow on from this one, made the following year.

 

David Wynne died in 2014 aged 88.

 

STOP: Bonded Wharehouses

LOCATION: Just over the drawbridge in St Katherine Dock

​

We’re in St Katherine Dock.  In 1148 Matilda, Queen of Boulogne, bought land here and established a charitable hospital with a master, brethren, sisters and thirteen poor persons. She gave the hospital a mill and an annual income of £20.

 

During the reformation the priory and hospital here were spared because it was under the protection of the Queen Mother and the precinct became a ‘Liberty’ having its own officers, court and prison.

 

The Liberty of St. Katharine was a crowded tangle of narrow lanes and streets of about 1,000 houses and a brewery. The houses which surrounded the hospital were of the lowest class - small tenements and cottages. 

 

More people lived in this small areas than in some of the cities in rest of the country.

 

You can get a sense of the area by the names of the streets: Dark Entry, Cat’s Hole, Shovel Alley, Rookery and Pillory Lane. It was rough and lawless; the home of prostitutes, villains and vagabonds.

 

Work to redevelop the area began in 1827 and the old hospital gave its name to the new docks - St Katharine Docks.

 

About 11,000 inhabitants lost their homes but only the property owners were compensated. The poor inhabitants were left to their own devices, with most moving east and establishing what we now know as the East End.

 

The docks were designed by Thomas Telford and to create as much quayside as possible were arranged in the form of two linked basins both accessed via an entrance lock from the Thames.  The same pattern was adopted by all the other docks along the river.

 

The dock warehouses surrounded the basins for easy loading and included a secure peninsular warehouse for the storage of valuable goods including ivory. Hence the title ‘I’ on the warehouse. Sugar, rum, tea, spices, perfumes, shells, marble, indigo, wine and brandy were also stored here.

 

The new dock was not a commercial success because it couldn’t accommodate the new, larger steam ships. However, it was successful servicing the smaller class of clipper.

 

As late as the 1930s, St Katharine Dock enjoyed a roaring trade in luxury goods, and was described as the greatest concentration of portable wealth in the world.

 

The campanile and bell tower on the warehouse is in recognition of the religious history of the site.

 

In the 1960’s, artists began moving into the area which was the start of its reinvention into what you see before you today.

 

What you can see is the only original warehouse still standing.

 

STOP: Town of Ramsgate pub

LOCATION: Wapping High Street, opposite St John’s churchyard

 

This pub is between Wapping Old Stairs and Oliver's Wharf. It is one of the oldest and most historic pubs on the river, claiming to have existed since the 1460s. It gets its name from the Ramsgate boats that unloaded their fish cargo at the stairs by the side of the pub.

 

This pub was once a hotbed of cutthroats and vagabonds while its cellars were filled with reluctant “sailors” recruited by press gangs when they were too drunk to argue. 

 

Crowds would regularly gather at the nearby Execution Dock to watch pirates, smugglers and mutineers being hanged. They were usually hanged by a short rope - because they would take longer to die! And their bodies were left hanging for three tides, just to make sure they were properly dead!

 

And, it was either on the stairs or in the pub itself where the notorious Hanging Judge Jeffreys was caught by an angry mob in 1688, during the ‘Glorious Revolution’. 

 

Jeffreys's notoriety comes from his antics in 1685, after the West Country Rebellion. Jeffreys conducted the trials of captured rebels. Estimates of the numbers executed have been given as high as 700; a more likely figure is between 160 and 170 of 1,381 defendants found guilty of treason. 

 

Although Jeffreys has been traditionally accused of vindictiveness and harsh sentencing, none of the convictions has been considered improper. The law required a sentence of death for treason so Jeffreys was required to impose it. The king could have shown mercy and commuted the sentences, but he refused.

 

After James II fled the country, Jeffreys (as Lord Chancellor) was the highest legal authority left in the abandoned kingdom. And when William III's troops approached London, Jeffreys tried to flee and follow the King abroad. 

 

He was disguised as a sailor (in some stories he was disguised as a woman), but was recognised.

 

He was dragged to the Lord Mayor and then to the Tower of London "for his own safety” where he eventually died – not by hanging, as would have been poetic justice, but from kidney problems due to excessive drinking.

 

Skip forward a century to the late 18th century and two other men are having one last drink together at the Town of Ramsgate before an epic sea voyage: Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian.

 

If you have seen Mutiny on the Bounty you will recall how the villainous Captain Bligh mistreated his crew to the point where heroic Fletcher Christian was forced to rebel. 

 

But the truth is a little less black and white. 

 

For one thing, mutiny only occurred after an idyllic period on Tahiti had softened up the crew and made them unwilling to resume their journey with the bad-tempered Bligh. 

 

So, Christian seized control of the ship and then set the captain adrift on a small boat. With him were some of Bligh’s loyal followers and a few crew members who Christian didn’t like very much. These 19 men were left to float off into the sunset with only five days’ rations to keep them alive.

 

However, Bligh turned out to be a cracking sailor and managed to steer his crew an incredible 4,000 miles to safety. Back in England he even brought some of the mutineers to justice before dying peacefully in London in December 1817.

 

Meanwhile, Christian and his men returned to Tahiti which was a tad less welcoming this time. Anticipating being kicked off the island, Christian tricked some of his cohorts and a few Tahitians – mostly women – to board the Bounty.   He then cut the rope, sailing away with his captive “crew”. 

 

They sailed on to Pitcairn where they created a happy mixed-race settlement – happy, that is, until some disgruntled Tahitians slaughtered Christian after an argument. 

 

Apparently his last words were: “Oh dear”. 

​

STOP: Turner’s Old Star & Dock Green

LOCATION: Junction of Watt’s Street and Meeting House Alley

 

Say 'Wapping pubs' and most people would think of the riverside pubs like the Town of Ramsgate, Captain Kidd and Prospect of Whitby. But stray a little inland away from the tourists and the pubs become very different.

 

Turner's Old Star isn't going to win any awards for its range of artisan craft ales or innovative dining concepts. This is an unreformed backstreet boozer of a type increasingly rare this close to the centre of London.

 

But it does have plenty of history.

 

The plaque remembers Lydia Rogers, found guilty of witchcraft here in 1658.

 

Lydia Rogers was the wife of a carpenter, who lived in Pump Alley.

 

The family belonged to a radical religious sect, the Anabaptists. Church of England members believed that these independent thinkers had been seduced by the devil, which probably explains why this case was interpreted in the way it was.

 

Lydia was accused of making a blood pact with Satan, a typical kind of diabolic union that can be found in seventeenth century records. Apparently, the devil cut a vein in her right hand to obtain the blood to use as ink for the contract. 

 

Lydia’s motive, it was said, was a lust for money. But there is a suggestion that it involved a disputed will. Disputed between Lydia and her accuser oddly enough.

 

I can find no record of what happened to her, but as this was at the time of the witch hunts, it’s likely she was burnt at the stake or hanged at Tyburn.

 

The other interesting piece of history concerns the painter JMW Turner, famous for paintings such as The Fighting Temeraire, which was broken up just over the river in Rotherhithe. 

 

(Joseph Mallord William) Turner was born in Covent Garden in 1775.

 

His father was a barber and wigmaker, and Turner developed a fascination with the landscape of the Covent Garden area. 

 

But it was the River Thames, ships and water that would go on to inspire his work. This work made him very rich.

 

When it came to women he was very secretive. He was known to keep several mistresses, and he had at least four illegitimate children over the years.

 

In 1833, he met a widowed landlady from Margate called Sophia Booth. Sophia was his mistress until his death in 1851. In around 1841, he bought two cottages here which he converted into the pub. Sophia became the landlady.

 

To maintain his secrecy he adopted her surname and went by the name of Admiral Booth or, simply, Mr Booth. Due to his short, but rotund stature, he also earned the nickname of 'Puggy Booth'.

 

After died in 1851 at Sophia’s other house in Chelsea lots of erotic drawings were discovered. These are thought to have been drawn by Turner during his many weekends of drunken debauchery here in the pubs of of Wapping.

 

Dock Green.  The green space opposite the pub is known as Dock Green.  As in, Dixon of Dock Green - the TV series than ran from 1955 to 1976 set in a fictitious police station in this area.  In reality, very little filming was done round here. Most of it was filmed around Paddington Green on the other side of London.

 

STOP: Canon bollard 

LOCATION: Corner of Brewhouse Land and Wapping High Street

 

After the defeat of the French at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the British started to strip the French boats and reuse anything of value. 

 

When it came to the cannons however, it was found that they were too large to be retrofitted onto British ships. 

 

Determined to find a way to flaunt their victory over the French, the British decided instead to use them as street bollards throughout the East End.

 

This idea proved so popular that after the original cannons had all been used, replicas were made and these started to adorn more and more London streets. We still use them today, and they’re pretty iconic.

 

Although most of the original cannon-bollards have been replaced over the years, a few still remain. 

 

There is an original French cannon from the Battle of Trafalgar by the Globe Theatre and a splendid upside down one just off Bishopsgate. which we visited on the ‘street furniture’ ride.

 

Whether this is an original Battle of Trafalgar bollard, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.

 

STOP: Thames Tunnel

LOCATION: Wapping station on Wapping High Street.

 

As well as being the entrance to Wapping station, this is the entrance to the Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel constructed successfully underneath a navigable river. It connects Wapping and Rotherhithe and is 400m long and 23m below high tide level.

 

It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel, and his son, Isambard, using the tunnelling shield invented by Marc.

 

At the start of the 19th century, there was a pressing need to link the docks on each side of the river.  

 

There had been earlier attempts but they failed because of the difficult conditions under ground. 

 

Brunel patented his tunnelling shield in January 1818, soon found finance (The Duke of Wellington was an investor) and the project began in February 1825.

 

The first step was the construction of a large shaft on the south bank. It was dug by assembling an iron ring 15 m in diameter with a brick wall on top and a steam engine on top of that. 

 

The soil below the ring's sharp lower edge was removed manually by Brunel's workers. The whole shaft thus gradually sank under its own weight, slicing through the soft ground like a pastry cutter.

 

However, the tunnelling shield was the key to Brunel's construction of the tunnel. 

 

It consisted of twelve great frames, lying close to each other like books on a shelf and divided into three stories.  

 

This meant there were 36 chambers, each for one workman, and open to the rear, but closed in the front with moveable boards. 

 

As the miners worked at one end of each cell, the bricklayers followed on.  

 

The shield reduced the risk of collapses. However, many workers, including Brunel himself, soon fell ill from the poor conditions caused by filthy sewage-laden water seeping through from the river above. This sewage gave off methane gas which was ignited by the miners' oil lamps. 

 

There was also serious flooding.

 

When it was finished, the tunnel was fitted out with lighting, roadways and spiral staircases and it was finally opened to the public on 25 March 1843.

 

Although it was a triumph of civil engineering, the Thames Tunnel was not a financial success, far exceeding its budget. 

 

Proposals to extend the entrance to allow wheeled vehicles were rejected on cost grounds, and it was used only by pedestrians. 

 

One American visitor described it as more like an underground marketplace than a transport artery.  In effect it became a major tourist attraction, attracting about two million people a year, each paying a penny to pass through.

 

Although it was also the haunt of prostitutes and "tunnel thieves" who lurked under its arches and mugged passers-by.

 

The tunnel was bought by the railways companies in 1865. Because it had originally been designed to allow horse and carriages to travel through, the tunnel's generous headroom, was perfect for trains. 

 

The first train ran through the tunnel on 7 December 1869.  And in 1884, the tunnel's disused construction shaft here became Wapping station.

 

 

STOP: Millwall FC

LOCATION: Plaque on the ground outside Tesco Express at the junction of Cuba Street and Westferry Road

 

We can’t come to the Isle of Dogs without talking about Millwall Football Club.

 

It’s worth defining where Millwall is, and where Millwall isn’t. Millwall is only the western half of the Island. East of the East Ferry Road is known as Cubitt Town. 

 

Virtually all ‘islanders’ at the time were migrants from some other part of the country – and later in the 1800s these included a lot from Scotland who had come south to work for the iron and ship firms.

 

Millwall was described by a local vicar at the time as ‘badly lighted, astonishingly foul, inconceivably smelly, and miserably bare and lifeless.’  

 

He found the people (though confirmed non-churchgoers) ‘extraordinarily genial and friendly’, nothing like the ‘very shady lot’ he had previously ministered to in North Kensington: ‘But down here … they are a very drunken lot.  There is a tremendous lot of gambling among the boys’. 

 

Apart from the gambling and booze, football and allotment-tending formed the other cornerstones of Island culture: the absence of a middle-class was striking.

 

The football club was founded as Millwall Rovers by the workers of J.T. Morton's canning and preserve factory on this site Millwall in 1885. Morton’s supplied sailing ships with food, and this was their first factory in England.

Millwall Rovers' first game was on 3 October 1885 away in Leytonstone. The newly formed team were beaten 5–0. Millwall's first home game was on a piece of waste ground on Glengall Road on 24 October 1885.  

 

This was just inside the boundary of Cubitt Town.  

 

In fact, Millwall Rovers played for only one year in Millwall and never played here again.

 

In 1889 they dropped "Rovers" from their name, instead becoming Millwall Athletic.  They were forced to move to a new ground in North Greenwich in 1901 (which is south of the river), as the Millwall Dock Company wanted to use their land as a timber yard.

 

Millwall moved to a new stadium, named The Den, in New Cross, in 1910.  The new stadium was just 1.5 miles away as the crow flies, but it might as well have been the other side of the world for Islanders.  

 

They moved because the majority of dock workers (who formed the backbone of their support) lived over the river and the ending of the train service on the island, and the dropping of the cross river ferry caused a large drop in the number attending games. 

 

STOP: Isle of Dogs 

LOCATION: On Marsh Wall outside South Quay station

 

The Isle of Dogs is a large peninsula bounded on three sides by a large meander in the Thames, so not really an island at all. 

 

Originally known as Stepney Marsh the first mention of it as the Isle of Dogs comes from 1520. 

 

How it got the name is clouded in mystery and legend.  

 

It’s where Edward III kept his greyhounds in the 14th century, which could be the source.  Some say it is a corruption of the Isle of Ducks, because ancient records show large numbers of wild fowl inhabiting the marshes.  

 

Other offerings include:

• the presence of Dutch engineers who helped reclaim the land from the marsh; 

• a yeoman farmer working here called Brache, this being an old word for a type of hunting dog; 

• the hunting dogs of Henry VIII, who also kept deer in Greenwich Park up the hill; 

• and a corruption of Isle of Dykes.

 

In fact, in the Elizabethan era the term "Isle of Dogges" was applied only to a tiny eyot (mud island) lying offshore. It was across the river from the Royal Deptford dockyard, and vessels being outfitted there were moored at this eyot. 

 

Later, the name was extended to a farm on the peninsula, and then to the peninsula itself.  But how the eyot got its name, well nobody knows.

 

STOP: The Gun pub

LOCATION: Coldharbour off Managers Street

 

There has been a pub here since the early 18th century trading under various names. It was first called The King and Queen before being renamed The Rose and Crown in 1725 and later Ramsgate Pink in 1745.  It became The Gun in 1771.

 

In the late 18th century, Horatio Nelson bought a property just up the road (still known as Nelson’s House) due to it being near the docks.  

 

And it is in The Gun where he would secretly meet Lady Emma Hamilton in an upstairs room (now called The River Room), accessible by a hidden circular staircase which is still there. You can see a video of this on YouTube.

 

Smugglers used to land contraband here, distributing it via a hidden tunnel. To this day there is still a spy-hole in the hidden staircase where they could watch out for the authorities.

 

STOP: Traffic Light Tree

LOCATION: On the roundabout off Jamestown Way

 

Traffic Light Tree was created in 1988 by the French sculptor Pierre Vivant.  Originally it was further west, but was moved here in 2013 when the original area was redeveloped.  

 

It has 75 sets of computer controlled lights.  

 

It is designed to imitate the natural landscape of the nearby London Plane Trees, while the changing pattern of the lights reflects the never ending rhythm of the surrounding domestic, financial and commercial activities.

 

The restlessness of Canary Wharf.

 

It was initially intended that the lights would be triggered to reflect flurries of activity on the London Stock Exchange, but this proved to be too expensive.

 

Although some motorists were initially confused by the traffic lights, mistaking them for real signals, the sculpture soon became a favourite.  

 

In 2005, Traffic Light Tree was voted the best roundabout in the UK.

 

STOP: Virginia Settlers Monument

LOCATION: On the Thames Path off Jamestown Way

 

This area, Virginia Quay, was originally known as Blackwall. It was a small and isolated settlement in a marshy area.

 

This was the departure point of the expedition that founded the Colony of Virginia. The expedition's three ships left from this point on 19 December 1606. The settlers went on to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.

 

In 1928 a bronze plaque was erected on the East India dock master's house recording the expedition’s departure. That house was damaged by German bombing during the Blitz and was later demolished. 

 

However, the plaque was saved and in 1951 added to this monument. This was at a time when the dock was being backfilled to provide land for the Brunswick Wharf Power Station. 

 

The monument was originally topped by a bronze statue of a mermaid sat in a shell. The granite of the base represents the resilience of the first settlers and the mermaid represented the call of the sea. Unfortunately, the mermaid was stolen and although it was recovered in 2007 it hasn’t been reinstated.

 

The power station was demolished in 1989 and the site developed for housing.   The missing mermaid was replaced by a mariner's astrolabe, a navigation instrument the expedition would have used.  

 

The streets of the housing estate are named after Jamestown and the Pilgrims. 

 

<TOILETS AT Trinity Buoy Wharf>

 

STOP: Naval Row

LOCATION: Just after passing through the archway from Nutmeg Lane

 

The East India Company was formed in 1600 when it was granted a license to trade by Elizabeth I. The company established Blackwall Yard, the first docks on the Isle of Dogs. 

 

By the late 18th century it was the most productive of the UK’s docks. It included slipways for new ship-building, dry docks for repair and basins for fitting-out and refitting.

 

The East India Docks (here) were built between 1803 and 1806 and were the third set of wet docks built on the Thames. 

 

Like St Katherine Dock earlier it consisted of import and export docks, and an entrance basin linked to the Thames by an entrance lock. The clay excavated in the construction of the import dock was used to make bricks for the perimeter walls.

 

The trade of the East Indies was higher value and lower bulk than the trade of the West India Company, and involved fewer ships serviced by smaller docks. 

 

Large warehouses were not required as the valuable goods were transported by road to the security of the company’s city warehouses as soon as they were unloaded. 

 

These docks were transformed in the Second World War when the import dock was drained for the construction of the Mulberry floating harbours used in the 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy.  We saw those on the Fridays French tour a couple of years ago.

 

By the 1960s the dock facilities had been rendered obsolete by changes in cargo handling practices, and the docks eventually closed in 1967.

 

This is the most substantial remains of the East India Dock System. It is part of the southern wall.  

 

Of the three original entrances, only the eastern gateway survives (we passed it a few moments ago) and the dock walls have been listed in recognition of their importance as engineering structures. 

 

You can see how imposing the wall would have been when the dock was functioning.  Security was taken very seriously as the level of systematic theft from the old Pool of London docks was staggering.

 

The dock wall also forms the defining northern boundary of the Naval Row Conservation Area. The Italianate former hydraulic pumping station opposite the wall was built in 1857 to supply power to the docks. It housed a steam engine that hydraulically operated the lock gates,

 

The Steamship Public House was built in 1842 and was frequented by the workers who lived nearby. However, much of the working-class terraced housing tin the area was lost when the Blackwall Tunnel approach roads were built.

 

STOP: The Battle of Cable Street

LOCATION: On the west wall of Tower Hamlets Register Office, Cable Street

 

This mural was completed in 1983. It commemorates a battle that took place in this area in 1936 between furious London residents and the police who were protecting a march of the British Union of Fascists.

 

The British Union of Fascists was established by Oswald Mosley in 1932. 

 

After enjoying some initial popularity, they became increasingly radical and anti-semitic and as hostility towards Nazi Germany grew, their popularity waned.

 

They were known as the ‘Blackshirts’, after the uniform they wore.

 

The fascists had planned a march for Sunday 4 October 1936, through Aldgate and Shadwell, both areas with a predominantly Jewish population. 

 

The government refused to outlaw the march so local residents took matters into their own hands, determined to stop the fascist’s marching through the streets. It was not just the Jewish population involved but Irish Catholics, the Communist party, trade unionists and other socialist groups. 

 

Somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 fascists are estimated to have turned up on the day to march and they were protected by around 6,000 policemen. 

 

They were met by somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 anti-fascists. Barricades had been set up across Cable Street and banners with the slogan ‘They Shall Not Pass’ were carried.

 

Violent clashes broke out when police officers tried to remove the barriers blocking the street. Milk bottles, rotten fruit and even the contents of chamber pots were thrown at the police. 

 

Despite it being known as the ‘Battle of Cable Street’, clashes broke out all over the East End. 

 

In the end the police instructed Mosley and his supporters to leave the area. They instead marched through the West End and finished their march at Hyde Park. 

 

In 1936 the Public Order Act was introduced in response to the Battle of Cable Street. The act outlawed political uniforms, for example the ‘blackshirts’, and from then onwards large protests needed police permission. 

​

STOP: The Old Mortuary

LOCATION: Southern end of St George’s Churchyard and Garden

 

This dilapidated little building has a fascinating history that includes that most infamous of East End criminals, Jack the Ripper.

 

Built in about 1876 in the old churchyard of St George in the East it started life as a mortuary.  

 

Although now in a sorry state, the attractive patterned tiles used in the building’s construction can still be seen – designs that mirror the gateposts at the entrances to the gardens.

 

In the mid 19th century, mortuaries were rare in London. London’s poorer familes, many of whom lived in just a single room, would keep the body of their deceased family member at home until the time came for a funeral and burial.  

 

As it sometimes took time for families to get the money together to bury their loved one, a body could remain in the family’s living space for two or three weeks, perhaps even longer – clearly a health hazard as the body would be decaying.  

 

In the early 19th century many people believed in the miasma theory – that putrid smells and vapours caused fatal diseases – and an 1843 report recommended that mortuaries were built to house the dead until their burial.

 

However, the idea of sending the body of a deceased family member to a mortuary was slow to take hold.  

 

The parish of St Anne, Soho, was the first to provide a mortuary, in 1854, but for the most part mortuaries tended to be attached to institutions such as workhouses and hospitals.

 

The fear of bodysnatching was still a very real one in the 19th Century, as was the fear of being buried alive.  

 

Keeping a body at home would allow the family not only to keep an eye on it, but also to ensure that the person had actually died (as it was not always easy to tell the difference between a coma and death and this time, until decomposition began).  

 

Probably the most well-known person to rest here was Elizabeth Stride who was the first of two women brutally murdered by Jack the Ripper in the same evening at the end of September 1888.  

 

Elizabeth was found with her throat cut and she was brought here where the post-mortem was done before she was buried.

 

This mortuary closed in about 1900, as by that time technology had advanced enough for bodies to be refrigerated to delay decomposition – a facility which this little mortuary was unable to provide.

 

The building reopened as a nature study museum in 1904 - one of the very fist in London.

During the school summer holidays, up to 1,000 visitors came through these doors each day, and the little building was sometimes packed with 70 children at a time.  

 

The museum contained large numbers of stuffed and preserved specimens of birds, insects and other animals so local children could see them close-up for the first time.  

 

The centre closed its doors during World War II never to reopen.

 

STOP: St George in the East 

LOCATION: Cannon Street Road

 

St George-in-the-East is one of the six Hawksmoor Queen Anne churches in London. It opened in 1729.

 

Like the other churches Hawksmoor built, the design is very much ‘protestant’ in nature, so it comes as a surprise to learn that when, in the 1850s,  a ‘low church’ preacher was appointed (low church is where there is less emphasis on ritual (High Church) and more on preaching), there was a lot of dissent from the locals.  

 

This included catcalls and horn blowing during services, and some male members of the congregation went into the church smoking their pipes, keeping their hats on, and leading barking dogs. Rubbish was even thrown onto the altar. 

 

Eventually in 1859 the church was closed for a while and the rector, owing to his poor health perhaps caused by the dissent, was persuaded to step back.

 

The building was hit by a bomb during the Blitz. The original interior was destroyed by fire, but the walls and distinctive "pepper-pot" towers stayed up. 

 

20 years after the end of the war a modern church interior was built inside the still standing walls, and a new flat built under each corner tower. 

 

A ring of eight replacement bells, cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry was put in place at the same time.

 

It appeared in the 1980 film The Long Good Friday starring Bob Hoskins. It also appeared in series 2 of Killing Eve.

​

ENDS AT THE HORSESHOE INN