Shad Thames Trail and other booklets available to download

A new booklet entitled "The Shad Thames Trail" has been published, issued by the Shad Thames Area Management Partnership.  It’s an informative tour of the Shad Thames area, including a map and descriptions of the main attractions marked on the map. It was written by Janet Morris from information supplied by the late and much-missed Stephen Humphrey.  I don’t know where a hard copy can be collected, but it is available as a PDF download from http://www.loveshadthames.org/.  It’s the first link on the Resources tab.  If you want to enquire about the possibility of acquiring hard copies, the email address is culture@loveshadthames.org

There are other trails in the series too (Bermondsey Street, London Bridge West, and London Bridge East), available from a different website at http://www.bermondseyvillage.org.uk/trail-guides.html.
They all look like an excellent way to spend a couple of hours one dry day.

Stuart Rankin's Rotherhithe History Walks available online

Newly available for download (each priced at £1.05) on the British Transport Treasures website:   

Maritime Rotherhithe History Walk – Transport, Industry and the Docks by Stuart Rankin, Southwark Council 2005.

Maritime Rotherhithe History Walk – Shipyards, Granaries and Wharves by Stuart Rankin, Southwark Council 2005

Rotherhithe Then and Now History Walk by Stuart Rankin, Southwark Council 2005


These are classic little booklets, guided tours of key aspects of Rotherhithe's heritage, with clear directions and maps, good photographs and lots of local history.  Shipyards, Granaries and Wharves was responsible for starting my interest in Rotherhithe's history, and I still use all three of the booklets as starting points when looking up a new aspect of the area's past.  A real bargain, particularly as they are almost impossible to get hold of from anywhere else.

Low tide at the Thames foreshore, Rotherhithe

Taking advantage of the late morning low tide yesterday, I took two friends down into the foreshore mud.  They had never ventured onto the Thames foreshore before, and we had for a thoroughly enjoyable few hours fossicking around.  We descended the stairs at the Surrey Docks Farm, crossed in front of Nelson's Dock at the Hilton Hotel (Cuckold's Point) and walked as far as the river would let us before climbing up the stairs at Columbia Wharf and walking to the Old Salt Quay for a bit of refreshment. After that we went for a potter along the foreshore at Hanover stairs, where the houseboat is moored, and where there were three Egyptian geese at the edge of the water, looking distinctly exotic and out of place.  We went to look at the old ships timbers that still lie near Clarence Pier before going for a wander along the water's edge.

Having seen what people pull off the foreshore at Greenwich and much further upriver I know how spectacular and fascinating some of the finds can be, but Rotherhithe produces much more modest offerings. The nicest piece of the day was a beautifully decorated piece of clay pipe bowl, with what looks like a climbing rose on the bowl itself and a traditional leaf pattern along the seam.

We picked one piece of pipe stem that was marked with the word PLUMSTEAD.  On the other side it reads very clearly H. DUDMAN.  A bit of pootling around on Google reveals that the maker was one Henry Dudman of Plumstead, Surrey, who was manufacturing clay pipes in the 1800s.  He lived at 71, Bloomfield Road, Plumstead, and pipe manufacturing was his livelihood.

The Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiacus) were lovely.  Originally from sub-tropical Africa, they were introduced into English country estates in the 17th Century for their ornamental properties.  Unsuited to the climate, they had a tough time surviving our winters, particularly as they breed in January, but eventually adapted and began to breed successfully.   They settled in Norfolk and although I've never seen them before have apparently spread extensively into the London area following a population explosion due to milder winters and the survival of more chicks.

The Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiacus)

We wandered by the side of Surrey Basin and through Russia Dock Woodland, which looked lovely in the sun.   Huge thanks to Jeanette and Elaine for a great day.

The old path that crosses the muddy foreshore
to the former Cuckold's Point ferry

The foreshore at Hanover Stairs

Surrey Docks Farm History Trail Launch Event - 15th March 2015

A short history of South Dock, Rotherhithe, 1811 - 2014

East Country Dock, bottom right in
1828.  Immediately to its north is
Greenland Dock. Click to
enlarge the image.

Only two of the docks that were built in the 19th Century are preserved in their entirety today:  Greenland Dock and South Dock (sometimes known as Sweden Dock), both at the east side of Rotherhithe peninsula and connected to each other by a small channel.  South Dock, today London's biggest marina, is the only one of the two docks to maintain its operational connection to the Thames.  To see how South Dock fits into the history of Rotherhithe's docks, see the post The Development of the Surrey Commercial Dock System 1699-1909.

I have had to keep some of the photographs in this post small to fit them all in to the text, but if you click on them they will expand to full size so that you can see them in greater detail. 

The granite bollards of the
East Country Dock are unique
on Rotherhithe

South Dock began life as the East Country Dock in 1811 by the East Country Dock Company. Ralph Dodd was the engineer originally hired to build it in 1801, on a considerable wage of £600 a year. He was a rather mixed blessing, full of ideas but not always the best person to execute them.  In 1802 he fell out of favour with the Eastern Dock Company and he was given a gratuity and dismissed as engineer, apparently because he was simultaneously engaged on other work and his fees were too high. Whatever the reason for his dismissal, he was quickly replaced.

The dock first appears on maps in the early 19th Century as East Country Dock, clearly shown on maps in Smiths Map of 1828, Cary's map of 1837, and Davies's 1843 map as a long thin, dock, as long as Greenland Dock was at that time, but around a quarter of its width.  It is difficult to imagine why such a long, thin dock was considered to be advantageous.  The East Country Dock Company, which was formed in 1807 and was named for its trading connections with the eastern Baltic.  

The East Country Dock was not connected to Greenland Dock, which was owned by a rival company, and it therefore required its own lock out onto the Thames. The dock was built specifically for the Baltic timber trade.  It is thought that the distinctive granite bollards that dot the edges of the dock probably date to this time.  

Weller map, 1868

Although attempts were made to take over the dock, the East Country Dock Company retained its ownership of the dock until 1850 when the dock was purchased for £40,000 by the Commercial Dock Company, which was already developing vast areas of Rotherhithe for mercantile use. 

Over the next two years, between 1850 and 1852, the Commercial Dock Company expanded the dock, doubling its width at a cost of £190,000, extending its area to 5061 acres and its depth to 27ft. It became known as South Dock and it was connected to Greenland Dock and the rest of the Commercial Dock network to the north. It was designed and overseen by important engineer James Walker, who was also responsible for major extension work at Greenland Dock.  There is a bust of him on a tall plinth overlooking Greenland Dock outside the Moby Dick pub.  The lock has walls of sandstone ashlar.  It now measured 48ft wide and, somewhat oddly, was only 25ft deep, meaning that it was 2 feet shallower than the dock itself.  A newly designed self-acting sluice was installed in 1855 is preserved.

A painting from 1888 showing
a view from the same standpoint
(Museum of London Docklands)

A connection to the rail network was established in 1855, which linked South Dock, Greenland Dock and Norway Dock.

In the same year James Walker's swing bridge was erected across the lock.  It was moved in 1987 to Greenland Dock, where it crosses Norway cut. In 1862 Henry Grissell's swing bridge was installed across the entrance lock.  Although it is no longer there, this bridge can also still be seen as it was moved in 1860 by the Port of London Authority to cross Steelyard Cut, the connecting channel that runs between South Dock and Greenland Dock.

A photograph taken in the late 1870s shows Steelyard Cut with some low buildings stationed along the quay, and sailing ships and lighters dotted around the docks, with a tug in the foreground. An 1888 painting of the dock by Tatton Mather, on display at the Museum of Docklands, shows a remarkably similar similar scene from a very similar vantage point, but with some much taller and very elegant brick warehouses situated behind the lower buildings shown in the 1870s photograph.

A photograph from  the late 1920s, showing an aerial view of a busy Greenland Dock and South Dock, shows the same buildings to the north of Steelyard Cut. The bridge in the painting looks very like the one in the 1870s photograph.

South Dock, bottom right,shown by sculptor Michael
Rizzello as it was in 1896. Stave Hill.

Today, the cut survives and is flanked by Henry Grissell's 1862 swing bridge, which was moved there at a later date from its original position across the entrance lock to South Dock.  The buildings were lost during the Second World War and have now been replaced by modern housing. 

In 1865 the two dock operating companies, The Commercial Docks Company and the Grand Surrey Docks and Canal Company, amalgamated to form one big company, the Surrey Commercial Docks Company.  

South Dock warehouse in the
late 1870s, with the lock
entrance and hydralic capstan
in the foreground

By the late 1890s both South Dock and Greenland Dock (which, at that time, was much shorter than it is today) had locks onto the river and were connected to each other and, via Greenland Dock, to a whole network of timber ponds, basins and the Grand Surrey Canal.  To the south of them a road ran from east to west, continuing up the eastern side of South Dock and crossing the Grand Surrey Canal to the south.  The Grand Surrey Canal passed uninterrupted to the south of both, linking Surrey Basin in the west of Rotherhithe with the rest of the canal which headed first east and then south towards Peckham.  Rotherhithe was a vast mosaic of docks, basins and timber ponds flanked by endless warehouses.  Housing, small shops and pubs were all confined to the edges of the river, where they rubbed shoulders with ship repair and related services.  It is all beautifully captured in Michael Rizzello's 1896 sculpture of Rotherhithe, which sits on the top of Stave Hill.

As the docks became busy and settlements grew up around them, requirements for improved public services became obvious, and local churches and schools were established.  Trinity Church, in the nearby Downtown area, was established in 1838 with a small school, and St Barnabas on Plough Way was built in 1872, with its associated school opening in 1874.  In the late 1890s Greenland Dock was extended, meaning that the Grand Surrey Canal now crossed the middle of it, but still passed beneath the end of South Dock.  The tiny building on the corner of Rope Street and Sweden Gate, known as the Yard Office was the old toll building for the canal, and was built in 1902 after the extension of Greenland Dock.  The extension of Greenland Dock also required the diversion of the road that used to run parallel to the canal and the early termination of the railway at South Dock, whereas it formerly ran to Norway Dock.

The Dog and Duck public house, Rotherhithe

The airship and aircraft bombings of the First World War did not damage the dock, but it fell victim to the more intense and targeted Luftwaffe bombing of the Second World War.  The lock was badly damaged and was sealed until after the war.  In 1944 the connection with Steelyard Cut was sealed off, the dock was drained, the floor was spread with rubble and the dock was used for the construction of concrete sections for Mulberry Harbour units. Mulberry Harbours were modular units which, when assembled, were used to create temporary harbours.  They were used for the Normandy beach landings. When they were complete, Steelyard Cut was re-opened, the dock was refilled via Greenland Dock, and the sections were floated out onto the Thames through Greenland Dock's entrance lock.  Warehouses were also hit, and one of the more notable casualties of the bombings was the Dog and Duck public house, which sat at the end of South Dock and had been there in some form since at least 1723.  All that remains of it is the name of the Dog and Duck staircase, one of a whole series of watermen's stairs that are found all along Rotherhithe's foreshore. 

After the war, South Dock's entrance lock was repaired and warehouses were replaced.  Although the docks had a brief period of revival following the war, traffic fell off for a number of reasons, mainly due to containerization of cargo and the specialized handling equipment, large docks and entrance locks required. The Surrey Commercial Docks closed in 1969, the end of an era.  Most of the docks, including South Dock, were filled in, although South Dock and others were re-excavated later as part of the regeneration plans, to bring the local heritage to life once again, and to add attractive water features to the area for the benefit of residents.

At some point, possibly during the late 1950s or early 1960s a set of very ugly warehouses were built on the eastern side of South Dock. These warehouses were still in place when the London Docklands Development Corporation began to redevelop South Dock. The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), which operated between 1981 and 1994, had already achieved success in its Canary Wharf developments on the Isle of Dogs, in spite of considerable opposition from local residents.  Their work at Rotherhithe followed that success.  One of the LDDC's first projects at South Dock was to commission the lock control building, which overlooks the hydraulically operated lock at South Dock.  Built by Conran Roche between 1986-9 it looks remarkably like a very short air traffic control tower with a bowed control room and reflective glass, on a cantilevered pedestal.

Before and after - the
Plough Way warehouses
and the modern homes that
replaced them

Although the LDDC had few financial resources of its own it did own land and was therefore in a position to work closely with developers to regenerated the derelict docks.  A lot of surrounding buildings were still standing, although abandoned and completely derelict, and these were knocked down by the LDDC.  The vision for Rotherhithe was rather different from its plans for Canary Wharf, and focused primarily on the development of the area for residential purposes.

One of the earliest residential developments was Baltic Quay at the end of South Dock.  People purchasing apartments in the landmark building must have been taking a huge gamble on the potential success of the Rotherhithe venture, with the derelict 60s warehouses  still standing, great gaping eyesores amidst the optimism of the LDDC's plans for regeneration.  Falling on the Deptford side of the Southwark-Deptford border, which ran along the eastern side of South Dock's quay, the fell outside of the London Docklands Development Corporation's dockland regeneration remit, and were therefore not knocked down until the mid 1990s.  Although the docks themselves were closed to shipping in 1969, many of the warehouses continued in use, and the South Dock warehouses in the photograph were employed as bonded warehouses.  Containers of goods were delivered and stored there prior to distribution.  The photograph above shows the warehouses as they were shortly before they were abandoned, but they were much worse in the early 90s when I first saw them with wide hollow entrances to the starkly desolate and rather alarming wind-tunnel interiors, their floors covered in debris and shattered glass, broken windows rattling in the wind.

Baltic Quay

The massive Baltic Quay complex was built by Lister Drew Haines Barrow, opening in 1990. Visible from miles around and always recognizable due to its vast arched roofs, it is probably the most distinctive and imaginative of all the tall buildings on Rotherhithe. When it was built it was envisaged as a combination of office space with apartments above, but the demand for residential space far exceeded that of commercial offices and, apart from the ground floor, the office space was converted for residential use by Barlow Henley Architects.   Eventually the office space on the ground floor was also converted to apartments.  Baltic Quay will be covered on another post.  It reaches fourteen storeys. Its external metalwork was first painted  in a lively combination of blue and yellow, making it bright and welcoming, but more recent counsel clearly decided that this was a bad idea and it is now uniformly pale grey. The photograph here shows it after it was given its London-grey colouring.

Swedish Quays

On the West side, with views over either Greenland Dock or South Dock, a smaller complex was built between 1985  and 1990 by David Price and Gordon Cullen, named Swedish Quays.  Although rather more conservative than Baltic Quay, mainly due to its smaller scale, its brick construction and deep brown colouring, it still stands out as something somewhat different from the normal bricks-and-mortar style the dominates dockland and canal-side developments throughout the country thanks to cream rendering, tall columns, interestingly arranged glass panels, arched windows at the top of the buildings and something of an echo, however elusive, of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and other turn of the 20th Century designers. 

Modern apartments
overlooking the entrance
lock at South Dock
on Rope Street

When the warehouses on the east side of the dock were pulled down, they were replaced with the three-storey residential complex that remains today, overlooking South Dock on the one side and Plough Way on the other. (shown on the above before-and-after photograph) Rainbow Quay was added next to Swedish Quays.  Later, three-floor apartments were built over their garages behind the dock office at the Thames end of Rope Street. Their appearance, with facades consisting of  wood-lined curved bays on the two lower floors and top recessed floors above, are unusual and not to everyone's taste, but they do contribute diversity to the often bland local architecture.  

Today South Dock is London's largest private marina, providing both temporary and residential moorings on around 200 berths. It is operated by Southwark Council.  If you are keen on boats, old and new, big and small, this is a great place to take a stroll.  It is home to everything from narrow-boats, converted Humber keels and Dutch barges to wind-powered vessels of all sizes, alongside all sorts of strange and bewildering works-in progress.  Some of these boats are stunning, some are frankly hideous (particularly where lovely old hulls have been sabotaged with appalling conversions for habitation), but all are fascinating.  Some have been moored there longer than I have lived here and feel like old friends.  The Steelyard Cut still connects South and Greenland Docks, and the marina extends into the top end of Greenland Dock.  A modern lift bridge enables Rope Street to pass over the cut whilst allowing vessels to pass between the two docks.  Entrance to the marina is still via South Dock, the Greenland Dock having been blocked off after the closure of the docks in 1969.  The new hydraulic lock gates were added in the mid 1980s.

Rainbow Quay

Between them Greenland Dock and South Dock offer a peaceful atmosphere with a wide variety of modern architectural styles flanking their former quays.  At the same time, there are many features of the docks that survive and they provide a glimpse of a very different dockland past.

Once associated with a busy and often chaotic commercial activities, the docks now form the heart of a residential area that is characterized by its much-appreciated tranquility.  But the traces of its vibrant history, even after the Luftwaffe attacks and massive regeneration work, can still be observed by those who have an interest and take the time to look.

Steelyard Cut.  The modern Rope Street lift bridge and the 1862 swing bridge by Henry Grissell

Now crossing the Norway Dock entrance from
Greenland Dock, this bridge originally crossed
South Dock, where it was established
in 1855.  It was moved by the LDDC in 1987.

The old warehouses on South Dock
before demolition, with Aragon Tower in the
background before the redevelopment
of the Pepys Estate

The foreshore on Saturday

I was supposed to be going along to do some survey work with the Surrey Docks Farm Research Project today.  It was cancelled due to the torrential rain and is now rescheduled for 26th October.

Yesterday, unsure if I would be able to make it today anyway, I went  down to the Thames foreshore at low tide to see if I could find anything to contribute to their search.  I used the watermans stairs at Surrey Docks Farm, walking as far as the Hilton and back.  I was in hiking boots, not wellies, so I didn't venture out very far into the mud, which can ooze well over ankle level. Somehow I still ended up looking as though I was wearing asymmetrical blue warpaint when I arrived home. 

I wanted to have a closer poke at a long cylinder that I had noticed last time (photo above), to see if it had any markings, but although I cleaned it off there was nothing to be seen.  It weighs an absolute ton. The cylinder itself is undamaged and may have its original contents in tact. On closer inspection it has connections at both rounded ends, so it may have had taps and hoses.  It continues to intrigue.

Brick from Marston Vale works, Bedfordshire

As well as bagging a bit of London stock with very characteristic burned holes, more for sentimental reasons than anything (I became quite fond of it whilst researching it), I trundled around amongst the brick that was dumped there after the Second World War.  The brick dump was an exercise of clearance following the wholesale destruction of the Downtown area during the Blitz.  I'm vaguely interested in where building materials came from and how far they traveled from brick factory to building, so I took some photographs of factory names fired into the brick and will look into that a little more.  Many of the bricks are too water-worn to be of use, but in some cases the manufacturer names are incredibly clear.  Liberally scattered around are red bricks from Marston Vale (Bedfordshire), mixed red and yellow "Phorpres" examples from the London Brick Company (Peterborough) and yellow bricks from Milton Hall (Essex) brickworks.

Thorn pipe with leaf motif on seams

The real find of the day was in the clay pipe department. I found two interesting pieces, as well as a lot of short pieces of unmarked stem.  The first of these pieces was a very plain bowl, with a heel and a centimeter or so of stem, without markings.  From its shape alone it is difficult to date.  Pipes with bowls of this shape were made from the 17th to the early 19th Centuries.  The other piece is certainly later in date and it is, superbly, completely in tact.  I found it immediately under the Farm's foreshore.  As you can see from the photograph, it has little decorative bumps on the bowl and stem called "thorns" (pipes featuring this are referred to as thorn pipes).  There are two identical lines of leaf motif, the outer line partly damaged, from the base of the bowl to the top along each of the seams at opposite ends, in line with the pipe stem.  Both were common features of late 19th Century pipes, as was the very short length.  There are no manufacturer markings, which is real shame, and may be because the area immediately beneath the bowl has been damaged.

Sherd of a large vessel, with glazed interior

I also picked up two bits of ceramic, just because I liked them, and a piece of jet black rock that I've now posted to my friendly local geological expert to sort out for me (photo below).  There are all sorts of different types of stone scattered over the Thames foreshore, including piles of flint, but this is particularly distinctive, jet black with percussion ripples, and looks remarkably like a rather rough form of obsidian or even basalt. There was nothing remotely similar that I could see anywhere else along the foreshore, but I daresay it will turn out to be something very tame!  Rocks have an unfriendly habit of looking as though they may be something really exciting before turning out to be simply a different colour or form of something fairly bog standard. I'll report back when I know for sure what it is.  

Pottering around in the mud and stone is far from glamorous (somehow when I arrived home, wild-haired, my face was liberally painted with blueish mud, making me look more like Braveheart than a respectable local citizen), and none of the finds that usually turn up have any financial value, but the odds and ends that have emerged on the few occasions that I've walked along the foreshore have been endlessly interesting.  It is a terrific way to spend some spare time. 

As I was returning to the steps back to the real world, one of the modern Mississippi-style stern-wheeled paddle steamers went downriver.  I had no idea that there were any of these still carrying tourists on the Thames, although I've seen them moored at Tower Bridge.  It looked distinctly odd passing Canary Wharf!  The paddles are purely decorative, of course.

Brick from Milton Hall brickworks, Essex

More from the foreshore - walking the watermen's stairs

Underside of a piece of clay tobacco pipe,
found at Horns Stairs, with some very
delicate leaf decoration where the bowl begins,
and the characters A and O either side of the heel

I checked the PLA tide tables went for a walk around the perimeter of Rotherhithe on Thursday (yesterday) to see where the steps that lead down to the foreshore are located, and what the differences are between the accessible foreshore areas.  It was another lovely day and a very enjoyable walk, looking down at the water's edge as well as at the buildings opposite.

There are a number of staircases still functioning that lead from the Thames Path down to the water, once the watermen's stairs which were used by "watermen" who operated small passenger boats and accessed them via the staircases between the built up waterfront buildings, and had their own association, the Company of Watermen and Lightermen. There used to be 13 staircases in Rotherhithe. The general public could also access the river by public rights of way, which enabled them to access the river from Rotherhithe Street to pick up passenger boats.  The best known of these, due to the preservation of its sign, is the one that runs down the eastern side of the Mayflower public house (whilst the Church Stairs ran down the western side of the same pub).

Horns Stairs

Following on from my previous health-and-safety type comments about the foreshore itself, the stairs do require a bit of a warning too.  At this time of the year the weed visible in the photo to the left is dry by low tide, but during the winter these weeds are incredibly slippery and with or without weeds, the lowest steps require caution just because of the residual mud.  Most of the staircases have handrails but the general rule is that it's important not be gung-ho about either the stairs or the foreshore itself.

Starting downriver (at the eastern extent of Rotherhithe), the first is the set of stairs by South Dock, which were named the Dog and Duck Stairs after a nearby pub that was destroyed during WWII.  The stairs lead to the section immediately beneath the Thames Clipper pier, and it is a very small area of foreshore, which I have never seen connect to other areas of the foreshore and is always penned in by water.  I didn't go down, although it is accessible through a gate that isn't locked, but it looks worth a visit.

The next set of stairs are the Acorn Stairs immediately upriver from the Surrey Docks Farm, where the Lottery project has been working (and will be continuing to work in September).  These stairs were also named after a pub that no longer stands due to war damage.  I've already talked about the foreshore on a recent previous post, so I won't repeat myself here. I took the stairs back up to the Thames Path to walk to the next set of steps, but if you are prepared to brave the mud in front of the Nelson dry-dock (wellies essential, because it is very sludgy and has a lot of suction), you can walk around the dock entrance to the Horns stairs at the Hilton Hotel.  Nelson Dock is built at a point in the Thames called Cuckold's Point, marking the point at which Limehouse Reach becomes Lower Pool.

Former jetty at Horns Stairs

The stairs beyond Nelson Dock and the Hilton Hotel are at the point where you can rejoin the Thames Path at Canada Wharf after being forced to circle the Hilton along Rotherhithe Street, going up the steps. They are called the Horns Stairs. Again, they were named after a nearby pub, the Horns Tavern, which closed in 1896. The stairs are wooden (shown at the top of this post) and although they seem fairly structurally sound, are a bit unnerving due to all the gaps. At the bottom there is an area more like a beach than the shifting carpet of bricks and stones in front of the Surrey Docks Farm. Most of it is a beach-like surface with debris strewn along it, although there's an area where roughly shaped cream-coloured blocks are gathered, which may be the surviving remains of a local structure. With your back to the water, there are great views up to Columbia Wharf, the original 19th Century building that has been incorporated into the Hilton, and which has some very distinctive decorative brickwork.  It is also an opportunity to walk up and get a good view of the blocking caisson of one of the Nelson Dock's remaining dry docks, which now preserves Thomas Bilbe's patented slip.  When I first moved here the dry dock housed a small sailing ship called the Dame de Serk, which had been converted into a rather good restaurant, but the slip is now ship-free.

Today there were lots of seagulls, adults and juveniles, at the water's edge picking out something that was obviously providing them with some sort of food.  Although there are relatively few objects to be found on the beach, the dispersed nature of the debris means that it is easy to pick out individual items, and I picked up a nice piece of clay pipe - nothing very special but with a delicate piece of decoration on the tiny piece of the bowl that remained.  There is, however, a very interesting set of structural features immediately at the bottom of the stairs (see photo above). These mark the jetty and pier that once reached out over the mud for the ferry service to Limehouse Hole.  Former ferry piers and jetties are usually good places to search for objects at low tide, but the tides don't seem to favour collection of objects at this particular point.

Narrow section of foreshore at
Pageants Stairs

The next set of stairs, still walking upriver towards Tower Bridge, are the Pageant Stairs, just beyond the obelisk at Pageant Crescent. The reason for the name of the stairs is unknown, because there doesn't seem to have been a pub of that name in the vicinity. The stairs are steep and lead down to a very narrow section of foreshore, which is liberally littered with stones and bricks, which seem to form quite a dense layer.  This is the part of the river where I really wouldn't recommend trying to get around the corner on the foreshore itself, because as you look upriver to the left it is very narrow even at low tide (see photo left).   But if you like picking out small objects, there was a lot here in amongst the fragmentary rubble.  The photograph at the end of the post, of the top of a ceramic vessel, with the original cork still in position, was taken here. I nearly got very wet feet here when Thames Clipper shot past and created a set of waves that travelled quite a long way up the very short sloping beach.  The barquetine mentioned in the previous post drifted past on her way to Tower Bridge as I stood here, and it was lovely to stand right at the river's edge and watch her go past.

Globe Stairs are located just downriver of Globe Wharf.  You need to pass through a small gate to access them, but this is not locked. The material here is much more fragmentary, reduced to a dark grey gravel over the decades.  There were very few surviving objects and the small number that I found were of the more robust variety, and were very water worn. It is just as well that it isn't a promising area for small finds discoveries because it felt more than a little intrusive to be walking around in such proximity to Globe Wharf, because it has been converted into apartments.  I could hear knives and forks on plates on a balcony above me, and there was a lovely aroma of garlic.  I was a lot happier wandering around where I didn't feel that I was disturbing someone's lunch by fossicking around at the water's edge outside their home.  On the other hand, if you like the 19th Century conversions along the riverfront, this is by far the best way to see the riverside frontage of Globe Wharf itself.  The 1914 Ordnance Survey map shows a jetty leading down to "Globe Stairs Pier,"  but there were no signs of the remains of this at the time I was there.

Under the bow of the houseboat at Hanover Stairs

Just beyond the 1882 gasworks pier, now known as Clarence Pier, and precisely where the ubiquitous houseboat is moored, is another staircase, the Hanover Stairs. Again, you need to pass through an unlocked gate.  At the bottom of the stairs you have to duck under a mooring chain to walk down onto the the foreshore, and you need to skirt the boat as it rests on the ground to walk back to the east, but it's not an obstruction. From here it is an easy walk along the foreshore to the next set of stairs at the Angel public house (the modern replacement for Kings Stairs), with views up to Tower Bridge.  The site either side of the stairs was occupied by Talbot and Brothers, who built wooden and iron hulled barges.  There are a lot of worked wood planks scattered around here, very large pieces that certainly come from old boats.  The Thames Discovery Programme has done survey work here in the past, and one of their short reports, with a table of their main findings, is currently available on Scribd.  Curved, carefully shaped and marked by holes where ship nails would have fitted, these timbers are a nice survival of the area's boat-building past.

The foreshore at the Surrey Dock Stairs

This stretch of the river was much more like the Surrey Docks Farm stretch, with a lot of brickwork and stones extending over a very wide stretch of the foreshore.  It shelves quite steeply down to the river.  There were more pieces of clay pipe than I could actually get my head around, and a lot of very large and sharp pieces of glass.  A lot of china and coarse ceramics had washed up, and it was a kaleidoscope of colour and shapes.  I was by no means the only person pottering around in the stones and mud, and I suspect that this is a favourite place for people looking for goodies at the water's edge.  It is also possible to walk for a long way, there are some very attractive buildings above (which, if you want to get a good look at building frontages, are much best seen from the foreshore than the Thames Clipper, which moves so quickly along this stretch) and there are some great views of well known London sights, so it's a really nice place to go for a wander. 

Another set of stairs, Church Stairs, run down the side of the Mayflower public house but are inaccessible today thanks to a large locked gate. Horseferry Stairs used to be located midway down Sovereign Crescent but it, and the dry dock marked on the 1914 map of the area, have also vanished.  It's the same story for King and Queen Stairs, which were downriver from the modern Old Salt Quay public house.

A colourful mix of oyster and mussel shells,
broken brick and Victorian ceramics.

At a very low tide, bearing in mind the very narrow stretch at Pageant's Stairs where you might have to paddle, you could probably walk from South Dock to the Angel public house along the foreshore. You can find this information from the Port of London Authority website, using North Woolwich as a guide, which not only gives you high and low tides but shows the heights estimated at those times.  Yesterday, for example, the low tides were at 0008 (1.39m) and 1227 (1.53m) and high tides were at 0639 (5.97m) and 1904 (5.88m).  With 4 metres between high tide and low tide, it is important to get this right :-).  On Saturday 21st at 0855 the tide is particularly low, at 0.57m, nearly a metre lower than Thursday's jaunt.

I walked back up to the red bascule bridge, crossed the road to Surrey Water, where a nice selection of water birds were enjoying the sunshine, and cut back to Greenland Dock via the Albion Channel, where there the water lilies are just coming into flower. I then crossed one of the bridges and went into the Russia Dock woodland.  It has been good, over the last few days, to see Russia Dock Woodland looking so neat and tidy, and so well used.

After four days in Paris and two obsessive days wandering around Rotherhithe, my feet were feeling the activity, but  my ankles hurt even more, because even though I have been nagging on about appropriate footwear, the weather has been so gorgeous that wellies, hiking boots or anything else that gets in the way of nicely aerated toes seemed so tedious.  All well and good on the area under the Hilton where it is just like a beach, but very tough on the ankles where the bricks and stones shift endlessly under foot.  Appropriate footwear is seriously recommended;  neon pink fashion trainers with no ankle support are not.  I was also wearing shorts, which are great on a sunny day, but the sheer amount of fresh glass under foot is astounding and slipping and falling could have been very messy.  I do recommend being careful about walking on the loose stone and brick, and taking measures against the sharp things that lurk under and in the mud.

Timbers near Clarence Pier at the foot of Hanover Stairs,
surveyed some years ago by the Thames Discovery Programme