Aldgate East – Wapping – Shadwell – Aldgate East
Miles: c. 2.5
Steps: c. 4000
Seeing as this blog is timed to coincide with my walking-favourable new job, it’s somewhat incongruous that the first post is actually the last one at the current job. Such is life. The advantage of this however is that I get to wander around some streets that probably won’t be covered again for a while.
I start at Aldgate East, specifically Central House, London Metropolitan University’s art department, conveniently located opposite the newly-refurbished Whitechapel Art Gallery. This has been the location of my office chair all morning, and it’s nice to get up out of it, however warmly I’ve been ensconced. It’s an immediate right-turn down the alleyway onto Commercial Road (past hip hop clothes shops), where I find… clothes shops, and virtually nothing but. All wholesale, mostly uninviting to the outsider.
Turn right onto Cannon St. Road where I am almost literally the only white face along the whole length of the road. It doesn’t have the passing trade of nearby Brick Lane or Whitechapel High Street, however, so isn’t flowering with restaurants, more a steady line of wholesale butchers and the like. It’s not really a scenic road, but it does cut underneath the DLR making its final stretch towards Tower Hill, and some uncharacteristic (in London at least) empty space.
You make it then to the incongruously dramatic St. George-In-The-East. Though bombed in the war, it retained the predominant part of its outer shell and remains as one of the most impressive buildings in these parts. It was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, seen as something of the lesser relative in the Big Three baroque architects, somewhat unfairly overshadowed by Sir Christopher Wren and John Vanbrugh. He had his hand in some of the major classical projects in London, and St George was one of six dramatic London churches (also including Christchuch Spitalfields and St Alphege’s Greenwich.
Hang a left then a quick right and you’re on Wapping Lane. Take a pitstop if you will at Tobacco Docks, an all but abandoned shopping complex – it’s a shame really as there’s parking nearby and lovely old dock buildings to use, but nothing in there. Oh, and the pirate ships. Did I mention the pirate ships? There’s pirate ships there, for no discernable reason.
You can skip down the canal to St Katherine Docks, should you wish, but I continued along Wapping Lane to an area almost reeking with history. This is proper East End/Docklands country now. We’ve already covered ground covered by the Ratcliff Highway murderer, up on the Highway and on Wapping Lane, and now we arrive, through the fairly charming little group of shops to full on docklands west. It’s not the Isle of Dogs, but it’s absolutely heaving with wharves and river outlooks, not to mention some of the most famous pubs in Britain.
Turning right as I did, I avoid Wapping station (surely one of the least used on the network?) and also the Prospect Of Whitby, scene of many smugglers yo ho ho-ing in days of yore. It was also the local for one Judge Jeffreys, although arguably just as famous is the Town Of Ramsgate, just down the High Street, where he was eventually apprehended. Although his ‘hanging judge’ soubriquet suggests he should have been noosed at Execution Dock, he actually died of kidney failure in the Tower. You’ll also pass the Captain Kidd – if you want a full-on pirate, he’s your man. If you had turned left past the station, you’d have found his deathplace, where he was gibbetted at Execution Dock. Cool.
You can now (in a round about ish sort of way) traverse the Thames Path, with some great views that take in Tower Bridge, City Hall, the Gherkin etc., all at once. You can make it to St Katherine’s Dock this way for some lunch, but I saved time and headed up Thomas More Street, then Vaughan Way, which takes you round past News International. Don’t let Rupert Murdoch’s gurning face float across your mind here.
Next, up Dock Street and under the DLR to Leman Street, which will bring you up to the Aldgate one-way system and almost full circle. It’s worth stopping to notice the red plaque on the wall by the bridge – this is the first I’ve seen, and commemorates the Battle Of Cable Street. This was based around a march by Oswald Mosley and his British Union Of Fascists, aka the Blackshirts, in 1936. The march was the last seen in London in political uniforms, as they were banned after the locals kicked up a riot – there’s a fantastic mural on St George’s Town Hall, which you can deviate too at the beginning of the walk: it’s right behind St George-In-The-East.
The final bit of the walk brings you up round the one-way to Whitechapel High Street again, ending as I did at Khushbu grill house, thereby undoing all the good work I just did. It’s the last one, though, I promise!
