My Adventures 3: Walkie Talkie building

On Sunday the 2nd Of December 2018 I arrived at Monument Tube Station to go on the last day of the Walking For Pleasure 2018 London Christmas Walk.

I arrived too early, so I went for a walk about while I waited for Dan to arrive.

The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known simply as the Monument, is a Doric column in the City of London, near the northern end of London Bridge. Commemorating the Great Fire of London, it stands at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill, 202 feet (62 m) in height and 202 feet (62 m) away from the spot in Pudding Lane where the Great Fire started on 2 September 1666. Constructed between 1671 and 1677, it was built on the site of St. Margaret's, Fish Street, the first church to be burnt down by the Great Fire. Another monument, the Golden Boy of Pye Corner, marks the point near Smithfield where the fire was stopped.

The viewing platform near the top of the Monument is reached by a narrow winding staircase of 311 steps. A mesh cage was added in the mid-19th century to prevent people jumping off, after six people had committed suicide there between 1788 and 1842.

The Walkie Talkie Building

I pass the Guild Church of St Margaret Pattens on EastCheap.

The church was first recorded in 1067, at which time the church was probably built from wood. It was rebuilt in stone at some unknown subsequent date but fell into disrepair and had to be demolished in 1530. It was rebuilt in 1538 but was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The present church was built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1687. It is one of only a few City churches to have escaped significant damage in the Second World War.

In 1954 St Margaret Pattens ceased to be a parish church and became one of the City’s guild churches, within the living of the Lord Chancellor and under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. They have a regular weekday, rather than Sunday congregation, drawn mostly from people who work in offices nearby. The tower accommodates the office of the Archdeacon of Hackney.

The people of London who had managed to survive the Great Plague in 1665 must have thought that the year 1666 could only be better, and couldn’t possibly be worse!

Poor souls… they could not have imagined the new disaster that was to befall them in 1666.

A fire started on September 2nd in the King’s bakery in Pudding Lane near London Bridge. Fires were quite a common occurrence in those days and were soon quelled. Indeed, when the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth was woken up to be told about the fire, he replied “Pish! A woman might piss it out!”. However that summer had been very hot and there had been no rain for weeks, so consequently the wooden houses and buildings were tinder dry.

The fire soon took hold: 300 houses quickly collapsed and the strong east wind spread the flames further, jumping from house to house. The fire swept through the warren of streets lined with houses, the upper stories of which almost touched across the narrow winding lanes. Efforts to bring the fire under control by using buckets quickly failed. Panic began to spread through the city.

As the fire raged on, people tried to leave the city and poured down to the River Thames in an attempt to escape by boat.

Absolute chaos reigned, as often happens today, as thousands of ‘sightseers’ from the villages came to view the disaster. Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, the diarists, both gave dramatic, first-hand accounts of the next few days. Samuel Pepys, who was a clerk of the Privy Seal, hurried off to inform King Charles II. The King immediately ordered that all the houses in the path of the fire should be pulled down to create a ‘fire-break’. This was done with hooked poles, but to no avail as the fire outstripped them!

By the 4th September half of London was in flames. The King himself joined the fire fighters, passing buckets of water to them in an attempt to quell the flames, but the fire raged on.

As a last resort gunpowder was used to blow up houses that lay in the path of the fire, and so create an even bigger fire-break, but the sound of the explosions started rumours that a French invasion was taking place…. even more panic!!

As refugees poured out of the city, St. Paul’s Cathedral was caught in the flames. The acres of lead on the roof melted and poured down on to the street like a river, and the great cathedral collapsed. Luckily the Tower of London escaped the inferno, and eventually the fire was brought under control, and by the 6th September had been extinguished altogether.

Only one fifth of London was left standing! Virtually all the civic buildings had been destroyed as well as 13,000 private dwellings, but amazingly only six people had died.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, a poor demented French watchmaker called (Lucky) Hubert, confessed to starting the fire deliberately: justice was swift and he was rapidly hanged. It was sometime later however that it was realised that he couldn’t have started it, as he was not in England at the time!

Although the Great Fire was a catastrophe, it did cleanse the city. The overcrowded and disease ridden streets were destroyed and a new London emerged. A monument was erected in Pudding Lane on the spot where the fire began and can be seen today, where it is a reminder of those terrible days in September 1666.

Dan arrived and we make our way to the start of the walk at 20 Fenchurch Street (The Walkie Talkie Building) to go up to the Sky Garden.

20 Fenchurch Street is a commercial skyscraper in London that takes its name from its address on Fenchurch Street, in the historic City of London financial district. It has been nicknamed 'The Walkie-Talkie' because of its distinctive shape. Construction was completed in spring 2014, and the three-floor 'sky garden' was opened in January 2015. The 38-storey building is 160 m (525 ft) tall, making it the sixth-tallest building in the City of London and the 12th tallest in greater London.

Due to the shape of this building, after it was built the sun reflecting off the building was melting paintwork on nearby cars and the windows needed to have heavy tinting to prevent this!

We made our way up in the lift to the 35th floor to visit Britain's Highest Public Garden.

Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch Street is a unique public space that boasts two destination bars and two beautiful restaurants, spanning three storeys and offering 360-degree views across London.

Walk-ins are also welcome: Monday to Friday: 7am to 10am and after 6pm; Saturdays: 8am to 11am and after 9pm; Sundays: 9am to 11am and after 9pm.

From here you’ll be able to gaze out at The Shard, The Gherkin, the ‘Cheesegrater’, Tower Bridge and, of course, the River Thames. In fact you can pretty much see everything.

While the food and drink options abound here you’re also most welcome to turn up just to have a wander for an hour without paying a penny. Stroll around the exquisitely landscaped gardens, observation decks and an open air terrace.

We left the Sky Garden and down to Pret A Manager below for a coffee and waited for any others to arrive before we continued on.

33-35 Eastcheap: This former Victorian vinegar warehouse

Despite being extensively rebuilt following the Blitz, the City of London has retained many of its old street names. While some are rather humorous (e.g. Cock lane in Smithfield), others aren’t so flattering such as Eastcheap. Today, the word ‘cheap’ is used as an unattractive way to describe something low in price and quality. ‘Cheap’ actually comes from the Saxon word for ‘market’. In the Middle Ages, Eastcheap was the main meat market in the City. However, by the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution had transformed the area with offices and warehousing replacing the butchers’ stalls.

Walking down Eastcheap today, you will see a lot of the Victorian buildings survive and are home to offices, coffee shops and the like. One particular building that stands out from the rest is No. 33-35 Eastcheap, a dramatic Neo-Gothic, double-fronted structure. Prior to No. 33-35’s erection in 1868, the site was home to the famous Boar’s Head Tavern. The pub’s exact origins aren’t known, but it was used as a meeting place by William Shakespeare in several of his historical plays, most notably Henry IV, Part I (abt. 1597). The character Falstaff was a frequent drinker at the Boar’s Head Tavern. The original tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and was rebuilt and became a pilgrimage site for Shakespeare fans. It stood on Eastcheap until 1831 when it was demolished to make way for a road widening scheme leading to the new London Bridge. At the time of demolition, the building hasn’t been used as tavern since the late 18th century and had been sub-divided into shops. The Boar’s Head sign was preserved and went on show at The Globe Theatre at Bankside in 2010.

The current building of No. 33-35 was constructed in 1868 to a design by English architect Robert Lewis Roumieu (1814-1877). Born to a Huguenot family, who had arrived in Britain 100 years before his birth, Roumieu was an original and daring architect for the time. Although many of his designs were Neo-Gothic – which was trendy in Victorian times – he did like to push the boundaries. As well as the Eastcheap building, he also designed Milner Square (Islington), the Almeida Theatre, the French Hospital in Hackney, among others. Roumieu was commissioned to design a vinegar warehouse depot for Hill & Evans at a cost of £8,170. Hill & Evans were founded in Worcester in 1830 and were, at one point, the world’s largest vinegar producers. By the early 20th century, they were selling 2 million gallons of malt vinegar a year. The company ceased trading in 1965 after 135 years of business.

No. 33-35 is a Neo-Gothic, five-storey building with a further attic storey in a slated roof. On the ground floor is a huge arched doorway which would have been used for delivery access and Devonshire marble columns. However, the current iron gates only date back to 1987. The top three-storeys feature Gothic arched bays with projected canopies over the windows. Above the second floor, central window is a sculpture of a wild boar peering through long grass – a nod to the site’s former Boar’s Head Tavern. Meanwhile, the second floor canopies to the left and right feature carved heads of Henry IV and Henry V. The building features a lot of decorative elements, including tiling, cast iron cresting, and plaster badges.

When the building was completed in 1868, it certainly caused a stir, with Roumieu being labelled a ‘rogue’ architect for some of his daring styles. The British Almanac of 1869 described it as: “The style is French, but some of the details are Venetian. The general effect is novel and striking, though somewhat bizarre.” Twentieth century critics Gavin Stamp and Colin Amery were more positive, proclaiming Roumieu’s creation as “the City’s masterpiece of polychromatic Gothic self-advertisement”. Meanwhile, architectural critic Ian Nairn (1930-1983) gave it a rather dramatic review: “This is truly demoniac, an Edgar Allan Poe of a building. It is the scream that you wake on at the end of a nightmare.” Despite the critics’ mixed reviews to the building, it was Grade II listed by Historic England in 1971. Today, it is home to offices, while part of the ground floor houses a branch of Black Sheep Coffee.

View down to The Shard

We reach Saint Dunstan in the East on St Dunstans Hill.

The Church of St Dunstan was originally built around 1100 and is a Grade I listed building. A new south aisle was added in 1391 and was repaired in 1631. It was severely damaged in 1666 by the Great Fire of London. Rather than being completely built it was patched up. A steeple and tower was added in 1695-1701 by Sir Christopher Wren. The Church was again severely damaged in the Blitz of 1941. Wren's tower and steeple survived the bombing. In 1967 the City of London decided to turn the remains into a public garden.

Now we reach The Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

We now walk down in St Katherine's Dock. Opened in 1828 after merchants were frustrated at seeing their ships moored idly in The Thames for days or even weeks while waiting to be unloaded and all the while being vulnerable to pirates and the weather.

Previously St Katherines Dock was dominated by the hospital of St Katherines by The Tower founded in 1147 by Queen Matilda. By the early 19th century in the heart of a vast slum. The hospital and 11,000 inhabitants of the area fought the dock developers but lost. The residents were forced to leave and received no compensation with the exception of the hospital.

Irish labourers were called in to build the dock and St Katherine Docks Company engaged the engineer Thomas Telford (1757-1834) to design the docks.

St Katherines Dock specialised in luxury goods such as ivory,spices,shells,sugar,rubber,wines,perfumes and marble.

St Katharine Docks took their name from the former hospital of St Katharine's by the Tower, built in the 12th century, which stood on the site. Construction started in 1827. Some 1250 houses were demolished, together with the medieval hospital of St. Katharine. Around 11,300 inhabitants, mostly port workers crammed into unsanitary slums, lost their homes.

The scheme was designed by engineer Thomas Telford and was his only major project in London. To create as much quayside as possible, the docks were designed in the form of two linked basins (East and West), both accessed via an entrance lock from the Thames. Steam engines designed by James Watt and Matthew Boulton kept the water level in the basins about four feet above that of the tidal river.

The docks were officially opened on 25 October 1828. Although well used, they were not a great commercial success and were unable to accommodate large ships. They were amalgamated in 1864 with the neighbouring London Docks.

The St Katharine Docks were badly damaged by German bombing during the Second World War. All the warehouses around the eastern basin were destroyed, and the site they had occupied remained derelict until the 1990s.

We now cross the working replica of Thomas Telfords Footbridge, the original still sits across on the right as we cross.

The Dickens Inn is an original warehouse building near and is thought to have housed tea or to have been owned by a local brewery. It certainly existed at the turn of the 18th century and may well have been born in the 1700's.

This footbridge originally spanned the entrance to the East Dock. A drawing of the bridge, dated October 1829, is signed Thomas Rhodes, who was Thomas Telford’s resident engineer here from November 1828. On 27 October 1829, the Dock Company accepted the tender of John Lloyd, a millwright of Westminster, to build the wrought iron footbridge for £447. To allow ships to enter the East Dock the two halves of the bridge were withdrawn into recesses in the masonry. The bridge remained at the dock entrance until 1994, and is not only a link with the early period of St. Katherine Dock but is also a rare survivor of this type of structure.

We walk down Vaughan Way heading to Shadwell Basin.

We walk over into Hermitage Memorial Garden and to the Blitz Memorial with views back to Tower Bridge.

The rain and wind crept up on us at this point and battered us, thankfully it didn't last long.

Further along we come up to The Town Of Ramsgate PH. The first pub on the site probably originated during the Wars of the Roses in the 1460s and was called The Hostel. During more peaceful times in 1533 it became known as The Red Cow, a reference to the bar maid working at the time.

The notorious Judge Jeffreys was caught outside the ale house as he tried to escape disguised as a sailor on a collier bound for Hamburg after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which overthrew King James ll. Presiding over the Bloody Assizes after Monmouth’s unsuccessful rebellion against James ll, Judge Jeffreys had taken great pleasure in sending hundreds to their execution, and in abusing their attorney’s, which was a costly mistake as one of them recognised him resulting in his capture. In 1766 the pub became known as Ramsgate Old Town and by 1811 it had again took on a new identity known as The Town of Ramsgate. The reference to Ramsgate became about after the fishermen of Ramsgate who landed their catches at Wapping Old Stairs.

They chose to do so as to avoid the river taxes which had been imposed higher up the river close to Billingsgate Fish Market. Ramsgate harbour of 1850 features in the pub sign and is also etched on the mirror near the entrance to the pub. Jeffreys was taken to The Tower Of London where he died a year later from a large kidney stone aggravated by his excessive drinking.

The wine cellars were used as a holding cell by The Admiralty press gangs for those caught to join the navy.Criminals were often kept here also before beginning the dangerous journey to Australia.

The Town of Ramsgate PH

Oliver's Wharf. F. & H. Francis. 1869-70. Wapping, London E1. Built for George Oliver "in the Tudor gothic style, this wharf handled general cargo but had special facilities for tea"Bought for redevelopment in 1972, it was the first warehouse in Wapping, and one of the first of all the old warehouses, to be converted into housing, yielding twenty-three very expensive luxury flats. It has been described as "the most architecturally sophisticated warehouse" in its street

Opposite the Town Of Ramsgate is the former churchyard of St Johns.The Church tower is the only part to have survived The BlitzOn the right is the former Church charity school. The Church was built in 1756 and the school in 1760,

Up the road a little further we pass Turks Head cafe. The Turk’s Head Company was established in 1992. It is an independent registered charity dedicated to improving Wapping. The charity is housed in a former pub, which has been rebuilt several times since the eighteenth century. Its name comes from a type of decorative knot and not a decapitated Turk. During World War 2, its eccentric landlady Mog Murphy kept the pub open all hours for service personnel and their families.

It is said, condemned prisoners were allowed a last drink at The Turk’s Head before being hung at Execution Dock.

We reach The Marine Police headquarters next to The Captain Kidd Pub. It was no surprise that crime was a problem in this area and this resulted in the foundation of Britain's first Police service-The Marine Police Force in 1798. The original force used rowing boats to patrol The Thames to catch local gangs such as River pirates,night plunderers, light horsemen,heavy Horsemen,Mud larks and scuffle-Hungers. This force was founded nearly 30 years before The Metropolitan Police Force. and became The Thames Division of The Met in 1839.

Next door is The Captain Kidd PH named after the famous pirate executed at Execution Dock in 1701. Execution Dock was located by the Thames near to this pub and dealt with convicted pirates for over 400 years.

Pirates who operated on the seas and abroad would also be tried back in London.

The gallows were located by the Thames so that the tide could wash over the body three times.

More notorious pirates, including Kidd, were left to hang in a gibbet after being tarred, a type of metal cage, to deter other would be criminals.

Captain William Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland, January 1645.The first records of his life date from 1689, when he was a member of a French-English pirate crew that sailed in the Caribbean. Kidd and other members of the crew mutinied, ousted the captain off the ship, and sailed to the British colony of Nevis. There they renamed the ship Blessed William. Kidd became captain, either the result of an election of the ship's crew or because of appointment by Christopher Codrington, governor of the island of Nevis. Captain Kidd and Blessed William became part of a small fleet assembled by Codrington to defend Nevis from the French, with whom the English were at war. In either case, he must have been an experienced leader and sailor by that time. As the governor did not want to pay the sailors for their defensive services, he told them they could take their pay from the French. Kidd and his men attacked the French island of Mariegalante, destroyed the only town, and looted the area, gathering for themselves something around 2,000 pounds Sterling.

He was hanged on 23 May 1701, at 'Execution Dock', Wapping, in London. During the execution, the hangman's rope broke and Kidd was hanged on the second attempt. His body was gibbeted over the River Thames at Tilbury Point—as a warning to future would-be pirates—for three years. His associates Richard Barleycorn, Robert Lamley, William Jenkins, Gabriel Loffe, Able Owens, and Hugh Parrot were convicted, but pardoned just prior to hanging at Execution Dock.

We left the pub and continued on our way along Wapping High Street passing Phoenix Wharf and King Henry Stairs and then Gun wharf. The latter two names recall that Henry VIII's foundries here used in the production of cannons for his navy ships.

We come now to The Prospect of Whitby PH, It lays claim to being the site of the oldest riverside tavern, dating from around 1520. It was formerly known as the Devil’s Tavern, on account of its dubious reputation. Before that it was officially called The Pelican. In 1777 The pub changed to The Prospect of Whitby to refer to a collier ship called The Prospect from Whitby moored nearby for many years.

In the 17th century, it became the hostelry of choice of "Hanging" Judge Jeffreys, scourge of the Monmouth Rebellion. He lived nearby and a noose hangs by a window, commemorating his custom. Samuel Pepys,Charles Dickens and J.M.W Turner are said to have drunk here.

Dan and I enjoyed a pint of Truman's Zepyhr ale.

We leave the pub and cross The Shadwell Basin Bridge as we leave Wapping.A rolling bascule bridges, so called for their seesaw action. In the days when the docks were in use, these bridges were the only means of access, apart from by boat, into and out of Wapping.

Shadwell Basin

The picture above is the location from the Only Fools and Horses :He ain't heavy, he's my brother' where Uncle Albert goes missing and is found here.

Hydraulic power from the tall red brick Pumping Station on the south-east corner of the dock basin. Power from here was also piped to the centre of London to raise theatre curtains in Leicester Square. This was probably the last operating hydraulic pumping station in the world and only closed down in 1977. Today it contains a cafe and is used for theatrical performances and exhibitions.

We pass Jamie Oliver's Restaurant ' The Narrow', cross the bridge and into Limehouse Basin.

Limehouse Basin

The earliest reference is to Les Lymhostes, in 1356. The name 'Limehouse' is sometimes mistakenly thought to be derived from the nickname for the seamen that disembarked there, who had earned the name Lime-juicers or limeys after the obligatory ration of lime juice the Royal Navy gave their sailors to ward off scurvy.

Limehouse Basin provides a link for boats between the River Thames and the Regent’s Canal, which runs from the basin through to North London. It also connects to the River Lea to the North East via a short section of canal called the Limehouse Cut. Originally known as Regent’s Canal Dock, from its opening in 1820 until the mid-20th century, it’s purpose was to provide plenty of jetties for seagoing vessels, whose cargoes could then be transferred to canal boats for inland transport.

WE now are walking into Canary Wharf and we cross over into West Ferry.

West Ferry Road (as it was called until the 1920s) was created, together with its eastern counterpart, when local landowners and businessmen established the Poplar and Greenwich Ferry Roads Company to make turnpikes to the Greenwich ferry in 1812. This marked the opening up of the inland part of the Isle of Dogs although it was several decades before the peninsula was fully colonised. The company abandoned its horse-ferry service in 1844 but continued to levy tolls until the Metropolitan Board of Works bought out the owners and removed the toll-gates in 1885.

Westferry Road has been progressively diverted and extended, finally meeting West India Dock Road when the London County Council demolished the Rosher estate in 1960. This junction is the site of Westferry station, opened in 1987 as one of the original fifteen stops on the Docklands Light Railway.

The immediate vicinity of the station (once the heart of the Chinese East End) remained unregenerated for many years after Canary Wharf’s towers cast their long shadows here – and that’s still the case under the railway arches on Trinidad Street. Elsewhere, however, new blocks of apartments, studios and live/work units now mingle with postwar council flats.

Canary Wharf is located on the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs.

West India Dock Company

From 1802 to the late 1980s, the Canary Wharf Estate was a part of Millwall, Limehouse and Poplar and was one of the busiest docks in the world. After the 1960s, the port industry began to decline, leading to all the docks being closed by 1980.

Port of London Authority

West India Dock was by this time owned by the Port of London Authority in 1909. Canary Wharf itself takes its name from No. 32 berth of the West Wood Quay of the Import Dock. This was built in 1936 for Fruit Lines Ltd, a subsidiary of Fred Olsen Lines for the Mediterranean and Canary Islands fruit trade. The Canary islands were so named after the large dogs found there by the Spanish (Gran Canaria from Canine) and as it is located on the Isle of Dogs, the quay and warehouse were given the name Canary Wharf.

London Docklands Development Corporation

After the docks closed in 1980, the British Government adopted policies to stimulate redevelopment of the area, including the creation of the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) in 1981 and the granting of Urban Enterprise Zone status to the Isle of Dogs in 1982.