Peter Watts takes a stroll through the neighbourhood of . In what was once the home of the Docks he finds a restaurant in a power station, a floating artists’ community, ancient , an urban wood and the ghost of an escaped tiger. 04/ WAPPINGNESS 06/NEIGHBOURHOOD 07/GREEN AND BLUE 10/A WAPPING wap CRAW L 12/ART IN WAPPING 13/TEN THINGS TO DO IN ping WAPPING 14/ A WAPPING TIMELINE 15/PEOPLE OF ness WAPPING /NOTABLE

ARCHITECTURE xplore Wapping,’ exhorted the London, but his instruction rings true today. great London writer Samuel Explore Wapping and see how London can Johnson to his biographer demonstrate a seemingly infinite capacity to E James Boswell, ‘to see the reinvent itself, how it will welcome newcomers wonderful extent and variety of London’. It and how it celebrates its past while never is fine advice. Johnson was speaking in the neglecting to engage with the future. Few 1780s, when Wapping was London’s principle cities have London’s knack for looking settlement for sailors, a hive of cobbled streets simultaneously backwards as well as forwards, and damp, narrow alleys that lead to the and few places in London do this better than numerous wharves and jetties of riverside Wapping. You could call it Wappingness.

London writer and Wapping advocate Samuel Johnson, 1780 2 3 Such is the all-pervasive water-soaked atmosphere that Wapping itself

the sand stone brick can even feel like streets of wapping high street something of an island.

o understand Wapping try in the 1970s, eradicating what had been he chief attraction, of course, was approaching it from St Katharine Wapping’s identity for more than 150 years. the river, although the Thames itself Docks, the pretty riverside The warehouses and docks of Wapping were can only intermittently be glimpsed T development that lies adjacent also heavily targeted by German bombers T between the tall warehouses that to the . Leave St Katharine during World War II. But still it prospers. act almost like a river wall. But stroll round Docks at the point where it almost touches Wapping for long enough and you’ll see the Thames and you will arrive at the very Signs of Wapping’s maritime heritage are signs of its maritime history everywhere in the western point of Wapping High Street, the everywhere. Before the docks arrived, it was shape of weathered dock walls, converted charismatic street that runs parallel to the a place of wharves, jetties, warehouses, warehouses and industrial walk-ways that river for almost the entire length of the district. boatbuilders, sailmakers and pubs, having allow passageway high above the cobbled Here, on the corner with Thomas More Street, been originally settled by the Saxons and used streets. Here are restaurants and pubs that is a large stone wall, decorated with icicle- by London’s sailors for centuries. The building pay homage to the past, plus a pretty canal like drips of cement. Inside is a large red of the docks in reclaimed marshland helped that stretches in a narrow strip from Hermitage brick building, which still proudly wears the cement these long links with the sea, even if Basin in the west to in the east, emblem of the Port Of London Authority, they replaced the bustling village atmosphere offering a slender shadow of the bustling docks although this has over time turned the sort with vast warehouses and a more transient that once stood here. Between buildings on of misty green colour you associate with population. They were the closest docks to the Wapping High Street you can see numerous cannons dredged from the ocean floor. This City of London, which gave them a significant ancient stone stairs, green with age, that is the old dock house, a remnant of when advantage over those that had recently been lead directly down to the river. Such is the Wapping was home to London Docks, and built on the Isle of Dogs. In these Wapping all-pervasive water-soaked atmosphere that it stands next to Hermitage Basin, one of the warehouses, dockers would unload treasures Wapping itself can even feel like something of few parts of the dock complex not to have from right across the British Empire, including an island, bordered on three sides by the liquid been redeveloped in the 1970s. Hermitage tobacco, rum, whalebone, spices, cocoa, barriers of the Thames, St Katharine Docks and Basin once offered a way for ships from coffee, rubber, coconuts, marble and wool. Shadwell Basin and with a busy main road, the around the world to get from the mammoth Highway, to the north, cutting it off from the rest London Dock to the Thames, but now it is Settlers from overseas lived in Wapping – of London. And within this island, there is just a sweet little ornamental lake surrounded nearby Limehouse was home to London’s first as much to explore as there was in Johnson’s by houses, and a home itself to a sedate Chinatown and the area is now home to a time. You can find London’s oldest riverside inn, family of regal swans and the odd mallard. thriving Bangladeshi community – and artists, the grisly site of pirate executions, a gorgeous writers and poets would come to Wapping to listed church, a power station turned art t is another fine example of glimpse exotica in the form of both the goods gallery, an historic foot tunnel, London’s only Wappingness: the way Wapping brought from overseas and in the working- memorial to the Blitz, mudlarks searching for has come to terms with its past, class men and women who lived and worked Tudor bric-a-brac, Wapping Woods and an I making sensible accommodation there. They would then disperse around escaped tiger. So come, let’s follow Johnson, with what has been before. This has not been London and the East End, taking some of the explore Wapping and embrace Wappingness. an easy task. Wapping has been battered essence of Wapping with them across the by change over the centuries, first when Highway into Whitechapel, Spitalfields and the docks were built in 1805, carving great beyond. Later still in the 1970s, artists set up watery holes throughout the neighbourhood studios in the derelict warehouses of Wapping, and reducing the population of 6,000 by two creative communities that lent Wapping a STONE STAIRS, GREEN thirds, and then when they were filled in again strong artistic character it retains to this day. WITH AGE, LEAD FROM THE THAMES TO THE HIGH STREET 4 5 apping is a popular haunt. usable pieces in an hour.’ On her trips down One hundred and fifty years ago, you may The beach is easy to reach here, she’ll regularly bump into one local, have seen even more extraordinary beasts. via the numerous stairs that who brings a deckchair and sits out alone on On the Highway that borders Wapping was W connect the river to Wapping Wapping beach watching the river for hours a shop known by Victorians as Jamrach’s High Street, and a rich maritime past means at a time. And why not, it’s a beautiful spot Emporium. Jamrach was a German-born there’s a fair chance something of interest and porpoises, seals and dolphins have all dealer of exotic animals. From his shop you may be found. For the experts, that means been spotted in the Thames at Wapping. could purchase zebras, alligators, rhinos, Neigh There is a continuum pewter badges and medieval arrow heads, but ostriches, polar bears, kangaroos, monkeys, here, one of local anybody who has a nose on Wapping beach In the 1970s, the nature writer Richard Mabey leopards and lions, as well as every kind of will find shards of Victorian china or the remains noted in ‘The Unofficial Countryside’ how the bird from the cockatoo to the black swan. pride, community of Tudor clay pipes. The latter litter the sand urban landscape still made room for nature The writer and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti like pebbles and date back hundreds of years. to exist and this holds very true in Wapping, was a regular customer, purchasing unusual spirit, people looking When tobacco was first introduced to London, where Mabey once spotted roosting house creatures to add to the menagerie he kept at bour after one another: it’s these pipes were considered disposable so martins. Away from the river, the key spot is his Chelsea home. Rossetti had wombats, an after finishing their smoke sailors and dockers Wapping Woods. This is a pleasant green armadillo and peacocks – the latter are still a neighbourhood, would simply chuck them in the river. Centuries park of tall trees and shaded spaces that sits banned from Cheyne Walk because of the later, they are still washing up in Wapping. right on top of what used to be the eastern noise they made – and Rossetti was one of a vibrant, thriving section of London Dock. It was planted in 1969 many artists who wandered round Wapping, and artistic one. Jane Parker is a mudlark with a particular and is now home to goldcrests, goldfinches, Limehouse and Shadwell, fascinated by hood interest in the pipes. She regularly comes mistlethrush, dunnocks, woodpeckers the sights, sounds and smells of the sea. to Wapping to collect some to make into and pied wagtails. You can’t lose yourself jewellery, which she sells from her website. ‘I’m here, but you can find those sounds and looking for ones that have been pummelled signs of songbirds that help make London by the tide, and are soft and worn at the living a more rewarding experience. ends,’ she says. ‘I can probably find 500 ew parts of London have been During World War II it was run by its eccentric Moorings. This is a co-operatively-run mooring battered by outside forces quite landlady, Mog Murphy, and stayed open all that is owned and run by the boat owners. as much as Wapping. The docks hours for service personnel seeking news of They had to fight to get it built, but were F have come and gone, as have their loved ones. After a vigorous campaign eventually given the nod by Tower Hamlets air raids and a 1980s property boom, all in the 1980sthe Turk’s Head Company, a because it was felt the boats were contributing making a tangible impact on the landscape charity set up to improve local life, bought to the consistent history of maritime Wapping that threatened to split any notions of the derelict building from the Council and and because they were giving something neighbourhood asunder. But a community restored it. The income from the rents of the back to the community – the mooring boasts spirit has survived and even prospered. café and studios above pays for charitable a community hall that can be hired by For a fine example stroll to the Turk’s Head, activities.’ There is a continuum here, one of locals for events and meetings. The mooring which sits on the corner of Scandrett Street local pride, community spirit, people looking also features in London’s Open House and Greenbank in a part of Wapping that after one another: it’s a neighbourhood, weekend, and many locals from the new has remained mostly unchanged by time. a vibrant, thriving and artistic one. developments take this annual opportunity Next door you’ll find the former church of to mingle with their nautical neighbours. St James, built in 1764 and damaged in rack west for another, more sombre the Second World War but now restored but still magisterial, example The boaters have also encouraged Wapping’s and converted into housing. It sits next of Wapping’s neighbourhood Bangladeshi community to use the facility, to St John’s Old School, which was built T spirit and its collective memory. mainly through nearby Hermitage Primary around the same time. The former school In Hermitage Riverside Memorial Garden School. ‘The kids come down and we talk features a beautiful front containing twin adjacent to St Katharine Docks is a large to them about the area and the river and alcoves in which sit a statue of a boy and block of stone, out of which has been carved its history,’ explains Anne Wainwright. ‘Many girl and the proud claim that this school the Picasso-esque shape of a dove. This have later brought their parents and even was founded by ‘voluntary contributions’. proud statue is the work of Wendy Taylor, an grandparents down.’ This is Wapping at artist who has a studio in Wapping, and it is its best. It’s no coincidence that a lot of This attitude of helping others to help the area London’s sole memorial to the citizens who the same boat-owners can be spied at is not confined to the past. The Turk’s Head died in the Blitz between September 7 1940 the Turk’s Head, sharing space with local was once a pub – reputedly the last place and May 10 1941. Wapping doesn’t forget. historians, artists and writers, collectively a pirate on his way to would plotting different ways to celebrate get a drink – but is now a community café. A The Hermitage Riverside Memorial Gardens Wapping’s past and improve its present. board outside explains its colourful past: ‘This overlook a large group of boats, 18 of them, former public house has a special history. that are moored at Hermitage Community

6 7 A magical place.

8 9 THE LIT ORANGE IN THE A EARLY EVENING Wapping pub crawl f there’s one thing sailors like it’s a High St). This is where the Thames River that marks the north bank entrance of the drink, and for centuries Wapping was Police were founded in 1798, theft and piracy world’s oldest sub-river tunnel. The Thames legendary for its pubs and taverns. It’s being a problem even before the docks Tunnel was built by father-and-son Marc I said there were once around 50 inns arrived. Wapping was a lawless place, and Isambard Brunel and Isambard Kingdom in Wapping. The three that remain are among drunken sailors, pickpockets and prostitutes Brunel between 1825 and 1843 for pedestrians, the best in London – the , made the streets a dangerous place. but soon became absorbed into the tube The Captain Kidd and the Prospect of . The Police Station has a small museum network. The cobbles of Wapping High Street All are located by the river and spaced at that can be viewed by appointment. give way to Wapping Wall and eventually to the perfect interval for a low-key pub crawl. the last of Wapping’s three pubs, the Prospect Start in the west at the Town of Ramsgate (62 Near the police station is the second Wapping of Whitby (57 Wapping Wall). Founded in Wapping High Street). The name comes from pub, the Captain Kidd (108 Wapping High around 1520, this claims to be London’s oldest

the Ramsgate fishermen whose boats would St), named after the famous pirate who met riverside inn, although that’s a disputed title. WAPPING LOCAL congregate nearby and it’s easy to imagine a grisly end at Wapping’s Execution Dock. MICKEY WHIPLE, Georgian sailors going from pub to river via Kidd was a curious fish, a Navy man who The pub, named after a boat that was once A REGULAR AT THE CAPTAIN KIDD Wapping Old Stairs, the slimy steps adjacent to was backed by a cabal of English Lords to moored here, previously went by the more the pub. The pub was once known as the Red fight the French, hunt pirates and defend the charismatic name of The Devil’s Tavern. Cow, a reference to the colour of a barmaid’s financial interests of the East India Company Turner, Dickens, Whistler and Pepys are all hair. Grade two listed, it’s long, thin and in the Indian Ocean in 1696. At some point said to have drunk at the Prospect, while a decorated with nautical bric-a-brac: Kidd turned pirate himself, albeit not a framed picture on one wall features more like all Wapping pubs, the Town of Ramsgate particularly good one. He was captured and recent London legends Arthur Daley and hangs its history on the walls. A terrace after spending a year in Newgate prison, was Terry McCann, photographed outside the overlooks the silver-grey sluggish river where tried and found guilty of piracy in 1701, before pub for an episode of ‘Minder’ in the 1980s. Kentish fishing boats once anchored. Judge eventually being taken to Wapping’s Execution Outside is a hangman’s noose, a reference to Jeffreys was caught in the pub in the aftermath Dock (the exact location is unknown, but it Wapping’s grisly past. These are not Wapping’s Turner, Dickens, of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. He was was on the shore near the Captain Kidd pub). only pubs. Away from the river you can find dressed as a sailor and attempting to catch Turner’s Old Star at 14 Watts Street – rumoured Whistler and Pepys are a ship from Wapping Old Stairs that would t was customary for convicted pirates to have once been owned by the artist Joseph allow him to follow his patron James II into to be led over London Bridge to Turner – and the White Swan and Cuckoo at 97 all said to have drunk exile in Europe. Jeffreys, known as the Hanging Wapping in a procession led by the Wapping Lane. There are restaurants too, most Judge, had brutally reinforced James II’s rule Marshall of the Admiralty, holding a I notably the classy Wapping Project, located with mass executions. He died of a kidney silver oar. Pirates were hanged within the tide at the Prospect of in a converted old electrical substation on infection in the Tower of London in 1689. marks on a shortened rope that guaranteed a slow and painful asphyxiation. They were Wapping Wall. All these venues exhibit that Whitby, while a framed Leave the Town of Ramsgate and stroll past left hanging from the noose for three tides, instinctive sense of Wappingness, paying the beautiful Venetian Gothic tea warehouse before the bodies were cut down, slung in a respect to the past but not getting lost in it. picture features more of Oliver’s Wharf – one of the first Wapping gibbet cage and placed along the river at Wander back along Wapping High Street and warehouses to be converted into housing, Greenwich or Tilbury as a warning to others. you’ll see another cheeky example of this in recent London legend trail-blazing the region’s regeneration – and From the Captain Kidd head east past the name of the local pizzeria, Il Bordello, a on to Wapping Police Station (98 Wapping Wapping station, an underground station subtle celebration of Wapping’s sinful past. Terry McCann.

10 wapping’s industrial the wapping project history preserved at promotes its most the wapping project recent exhibition

EAT CRISPY DUCK WITH VISIT A POLICE MUSEUM GO BIRDWATCHING A RIVER VIEW The Thames Police Museum, Wapping Wood is a large River View, 16 New Crane 98 Wapping High St, can be green space that was planted Wharf, is a Chinese restaurant visited by appointment only. It on the eastern site of the old housed in the New Crane Wharf commemorates the founding of London Dock. It is home to Things complex that was home to a the world’s oldest police force. a truly impressive range of community of over fifty artists birds, including woodpeckers to do in in the 1970s and 1980s. Wapping and goldfinches.

right recalls: ‘I remember vividly coming through the front door, DRINK WITH THE GHOST which was a rusty piece of OF A JUDGE W metal. The guy took forever The ghost of Judge Jeffreys, to undo the locks. He had this huge bunch the Hanging Judge, is said to of keys. And then it was open. There was no haunt riverside pub the Town roof, just this structure covered in moss. There EAT INSIDE A POWER STATION of Ramsgate, 62 Wapping High were all these metal cups that people used to The Wapping Project, Wapping Street, where he was seized trying drink tea from, which had huge fungi growing Wall, is a restaurant and art to flee the country in 1688. out of them, as though someone had said, gallery located inside a “Cups down, guys. This is the end of the line.”’ converted Victorian power In classic Wapping fashion, Wright saw this station. In the garden outside is a as a chance to reinvent the past. In 1998, she bookshop inside a greenhouse. RAISE A GLASS TO THE FUSCHIA purchased the building’s freehold and began It’s that kind of place. Take your drink into the lovely DISCOVER THE OLD LONDON DOCKS a process that ended with its transformation Thameside beer garden of These are everywhere. To take one into the Wapping Project, one of the most the , 57 example, head down the steps distinctive and consistently fascinating galleries Wapping Wall, and toast the by the canal at Hermitage Basin in London. This is the one place in Wapping sailor who first brought the and you’ll see Roman numerals that draws people from all over London – fuschia into the country via carved on the wall: depth markings indeed, from all over the world – echoing the this pub, selling it to a local so vessels would know if the water cosmopolitan history of the old docks. The gardener for a noggin of rum. Wapping Project is a dramatic space – suitably in Wapping was deep enough to enter. given that Wright has a background in theatre – that allows imaginative installations to co-exist with the businesslike infrastructure of the power station. It also boasts an excellent This was an experience that was to be imitated Street from the Wapping Project is another restaurant, and in the garden there is a friendly right across London, from Butler’s Wharf in aspect of Wapping’s artistic community: bookshop located inside an old greenhouse. the south to Hoxton in the north-east. One of the Hermitage Community Moorings. the biggest was at New Crane Wharf, now a A FRY-UP IN THE HEART MEET THE BOATERS Wapping has always had a creative edge. residential complex on Wapping Wall, which It can be hard for artists to find and retain a OF WAPPING The impressive Heritage Community Whistler and Turner came here to paint the was occupied by artists in the 1970s and foothold on dry land in London, so perhaps The Turk’s Head, 1 Greenbank, is Moorings are a permanent home river, while writers enjoyed exploring the streets 1980s led by Royal College graduates Ken the river offers a solution. Many of the boat- the unofficial centre of Wapping, to 18 boats, some more than 100 to savour the sounds and sights of a working- Oliver and David Brown, who used the semi- owners are artists – among them is Chris an old pub saved from desolation years old. They can be visited during class community. In 1946, the Wapping Group Wainwright, a photographer and Head of GO MUDLARKING derelict warehouse as permanent studios and turned into a community London Open House in September. The Wapping foreshore can of Artists met at the Prospect of Whitby and and a space for events. Other warehouses Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Art café for all locals to enjoy. agreed to collectively record the changing were similarly colonised, and the artists held Colleges – and the moorings were planned provide rich pickings for face of the Thames, which they still do to a number of collective exhibitions as SPACE. by designers and architects drawn from the beachcombers and mudlarks this day. Membership is capped at 25, the co-operative’s ranks. The group already have looking for shards of Victorian painting ‘season’ runs from April to September, Alumni from the Wapping studios included the Pier House – a floating community space pottery, Tudor clay pipes, and their territory stretches all the way from distinguished artists such as Anthony Whishaw, – but they hope to one day fit out a boat as a medieval arrowheads Henley to the Thames Estuary. More esoteric Chris Orr MBE and John Copnall. The artists permanent floating classroom/studio. They are and much more. were the artists who moved into derelict were given the opportunity to purchase New currently involved in the lottery-funded ‘Sense warehouses after the end of the docks, turning Crane Wharf in the mid-1980s, but could not of Place’, an oral history project to document these huge spaces into squats and studios raise the funds, and redevelopment began in the memories of the boatmen who worked on before they were forced out by developers. 1986. Right at the other end of Wapping High the tugs, barges and sailing boats of Wapping.

12 13 A Wapping A Wapping reading list Downriver Timeline By Iain Sinclair The Hole In The Wall By Arthur Morrison

Jamrach’s Menagerie 600 AD/ SETTLED BY By Carol Birch SAXONS AND NAMED The Maul And The Pear Tree By Pd James

WAPPING, ‘THE PLACE OF Dan Leno And The Limehouse Gollum WÆPPA'S PEOPLE’ 1701/ By Peter Ackroyd CAPTAIN KIDD HANGED AT EXECUTION DOCK 1798/ THE MARINE POLICE FORCE is FOUNDED 1811/ THE GRUESOME RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY MURDERS TAKE PLACE 1843/ ISAMBARD BRUNEL OPENS THAMES TUNNEL 1860/ WHISTLER PAINTS FAMOUS ‘WAPPING’ Notable architecture People of Wapping About the writer St John’s Old School // Lemuel Gulliver // Peter Watts first explored Wapping PICTURE 1878/ A Bengal when he spent six years writing about Scandrett Street, lovely charity school founded The legendary hero of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ for the Sunday Times in a former Tiger escapes from its in 1695, the building dates to 1756. There is a was born and lived in Wapping. wine warehouse that once served similar school round the corner on Raine Street, London Dock, itself long since filled Alf Garnett // in. He went on to pursue his love of founded by a local brewer, dating to 1719. owner’s cage and runs Star character of 1970s Wapping- London history at Time Out as features writers, occasionally returning to the St Peter’s Church // based sitcom ‘Till Death Us Do Part’. amok in Wapping1940/ Wapping waterfront in search of pubs, Wapping Lane Stunning grade John Rennie // pirates and mudlarks. Peter is now a I-listed church still in use. freelance journalist, and writes for WAPPING SEVERELY Designer of London Bridge who built the the Observer, the Times, The Sunday ATTACKED IN THE THE Wapping Project // Docks at the turn of the 19th century. Times Travel Magazine, Uncut, Dazed Wapping Wall, a grade II-listed power and Confused, New Statesman and James McNeill Whistler // Independent on Sunday, covering station converted into a gallery and BLITZ 1969/ THE LONDON An American-born, British-based artist everything from auctions to zoos, restaurant by Jules Wright. DOCKS CLOSE AND are who painted ‘Wapping’ in 1860. usually with a London angle. Oliver’s Wharf // Commissioning Editor: WW Jacobs // Wapping High Street, the first warehouse Seb Emina FILLED IN 1998/ JULES Author of The Monkey’s Paw, to be turned into housing and one DESIGN: born in Wapping in 1863. marksmithdesign.com WRIGHT OPENS THE of the most beautiful examples. Other Wapping residents // Tobacco Dock // WAPPING PROJECT Past and present include; Rod Stewart, The Highway Warehouse, converted Graham Norton, Helen Mirren, Cher. into a shopping centre by Terry Farrell in the 1980s and now empty.

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