Streets of London : Beyond the postern gate

Today we came out of the cavernous gloom of the underground to a London exploding in sunlight: the Shard, Tower Bridge and tall masts were just basking in it, glittering even. The weather keeps amazing us. We walked behind the Tower of London and came out upon remnants of an old postern gate, warming itself in the sun just as it did in medieval times when it was topped by a tower in the city walls that surrounded and protected London, fortified as they were with giant wooden gates, and a powerful portcullis, right here. This used to be the eastern edge of the City of London.

Beyond this, there be dragons. At least in medieval times.

Today, the area beyond the old tower gate is called Wapping. It is a riverside suburb that hugs the Thames to the east of old London and is squashed in by an old Roman road simply called The Highway just a little way to the north; so it is a small place. Part of it was given by King Edgar in the 10th century to a group of his knights who were interested in trading in foreign goods: some 13 acres. So, it became for a long time the home of outliers, who hugged the Thames, for there they found their living: highwaymen, rogues, ferrymen, watermen, boat builders and carriers. Along with prostitutes, smugglers and pirates.

In the midst of their hovels and old haunts was a charity hospice for travellers and pilgrims heading to and from old London. It was named St Katharine’s, after a young 4th century aristocratic lady who turned down a proposal from the powerful emperor, Maxentius, because her passion was for persecuted Christians, not Maxentius. Sadly for her. Because, for her sins, she was tied to a spiked wheel, which luckily came to be shattered in its spin — by an angel, soothsayers said. Evenso, survival was not to be, Katharine was quickly beheaded and done away with. Her name lives on in fireworks: the spinning Katharine Wheel.

New docks on the Thames came to be developed as the rich and powerful in London town expanded their shipping trade in the early 19th century. It was a time when the empire was growing and Londoners were discovering a taste for sugar and bananas and other things exotic. It was a time when Napoleon, across the channel became envious, thinking up ways of obstructing access to all the lovely wines and cheeses his subjects could produce. It was a time when Londoners developed the habit of ‘afternoon tea', so the tea trade developed big time. So ship owners and shop keepers and money merchants all sought to expand trade and looked to the land on both sides of the Pool of London to store it.

Here in Wapping they built a complete new area of docks, warehouses, water basins and controlling lochs that allowed them to sail their laden ships upriver and turn into safe, loch-protected locked up warehouses, unloading their goods using the latest technology available, pulleys that took kegs and casks right up to the top floor of a warehouse from the very belly of their ship. No double handling needed by setting stuff on the docks first. All systems were go. Way better than what the old watermen used to have to put up with: a laden boat pulling anchor on the Thames would have seen them plodding up and down steps like these carrying load after load on their shoulders, like old dock mules.

Everything that was in the way of the new development was obliterated. The watermen who had lived here for centuries were gone, as were their straggling dwellings outside the old London walls, and their dilapidated inns, along with St Katharine’s hospital; though, under great pressure, that came to be rebuilt elsewhere.

Some 11,000 folk were moved out from the Wapping waterfront as dock builders moved in. Many of the dockers, and there were 2,500 of them, came from Ireland. They stayed, after construction, and gave London its East End ‘docker’ flavour. They helped ship tons of rubble from these east end docks over to Belgravia to be used as foundations and fill for the future homes of the wealthy to be built around the squares and gardens, there. An ironic little twist.

It took them 2 years to build and for a time, a very short time, it worked well. They called this one St Katharine’s Docks, after the hospital and the young lady who gave it its name, who, a long time ago, said ‘no’ to an emperor. Ivory House stored imported ivory; even a rare pair of mammoth tusks that someone dug deep out of the ground somewhere in Eastern Europe came to be stored here. Elephants mark the entrance. Commodity House stored chest upon chest of tea. The City of London controlled 85% of the world’s tea trade. This became its home. The ‘Cutty Sark’ docked here, along with every other tea clipper that sailed the seven seas. They bought more than 120,000 tea chests a year to this warehouse alone. Tobacco House, tobacco.

But, in the way of things, none of it lasted long. Within just 50 years boats became bigger: too huge to come this far upriver to be unloaded. And London’s population expanded dramatically so land close to the city was needed to be urgently found for housing. Today St Katharine’s and the surrounding docks have been turned into luxury apartment heaven. Warehouses that once held stacked kegs of French wine and fine perfumes now have trendy stores selling French wine and perfume beneath towering apartments made out of the giant warehouses. The water basins and lochs have become sun-traps, glittering today as luxury boats slowly move to and from their expensive mooring places.

Negotiating this lock to the Thames required three bridges to be raised. Amazing expense. But worth it, to have a mooring so close to one’s apartment. The modernised warehouse buildings that have been renovated from the old store houses are beautiful still in their stark industrial spareness. Many with beautiful entrances. And the water basins once used to fill the canals have been filled in to become beautiful gardens.

One or two of the really old pubs remain. This one, the Town of Ramsgate, had its name changed to honour the Ramsgate dockers who unloaded their products here rather than take them closer to London where the landing fees were higher. William Bligh drank here with Fletcher Christian before they heading off on the Bounty. He must have regretted that part way through the journey. It was in this pub, too, that Bligh negotiated the purchase of the Bounty for the task. He lived just around the corner.

Medieval lanes mark the route at the side of the pub that meanders to and from the Thames; here since before St Katharine’s Docks was even conceived, let alone built. Graffiti on the brick walls beside the landing dock comes from early sailors heading down to their ships after a quick pint at the pub. Or for tallying memories on their return. Or from the public who came to watch the hangings at the gibbet once standing on the riverbed here, where bodies were regularly hung on a 'short rope', and left until three complete tides had lapped their dangling feet; there being no long rope drop here to break the neck of an offender. Three tides ensured the condemned was well and truly dead when time came to tar the body and hang it out over the Thames for the crows to pick, where it then acted as a warning to passing boatmen who might think to become miscreants. The most famous being the pirate, Captain Kidd, hung here for filling his own pockets when he should not have. A warning to all.

Behind the old red doors in the narrow side lane are the pub cellars where overflow convicts who were to be shipped out in the morning to Australia were held. Many had their last drink at this pub. Another tavern up a few lanes came to be owned by the painter, Joseph Turner, who particularly loved the light coming off the Thames so spent much of his time close to the river. A complex man, Turner; he was also very secretive. He had many mistresses and many illegitimate children. Late in life he became enamoured of a widow lady, Sophia Booth, and converted two cottages he had inherited into a tavern, ‘The Old Star’, where he installed Sophia as the proprietor. Seeking to stay private he assumed Sophie’s surname when he was there. And because he was barely five foot and rather rotund, he became known to the regulars as ‘Puggy Booth’. Today the inn bears his name: ‘Turner’s Old Star’. His life, as well as being secretive must have been quite colourful, for on his death a huge stack of his erotic drawings were discovered, seemingly executed during long bouts of debauchery in dockside taverns here in Wapping where he spent so much of his time.

Not far away is a beautiful church, St John’s, where the designer thought to make the tower stand out with light contrasting bricks that would serve a double purpose: they would be easily seen through a mist over the Thames waters, so act as a beacon, or a lighthouse, or incoming river traffic on such foreboding nights. And beside it in an alcove are statues of young charity children showing St Katharine’s good christian work was still carried on in the neighbourhood.

But some would say pirates still reign in Wapping even in this century. Just a few streets back from the Thames behind impenetrable brick walls in an old London Dock warehouse is the site where Rupert Murdoch clanged the death knell for Fleet Street publishing in the traditional sense. Fortress Wapping it was called. Here, in 1986, Murdoch secretively set up a brand new News International Building, moving it from Fleet Street, tucking it safely away in the parking lot behind these warehouses. It was kept private as it did not feature using the old printing methods. He then moved the few staff he needed there, and got rid of the rest, creating riots at the gates all around this fortress, as printers attempted to fight for their very existence. His victory was their defeat. The old ways were lost. Murdoch has since moved on to shinier newer quarters, with even sharper and more cutting edge print technology.

Such a fate seems to lie at the heart of many of the tales of Wapping.