View allAll Photos Tagged wapping
Go-Ahead SE224 on route 100, seen in Wapping High Street.
(Wrong side of river Flickr, this is Wapping.)
Oswell House is a modernist block of flats in Wapping. Built in 1966.
I particularly like the 'flying staircase' high up near the top which links it to the adjacent building, Doughty Court.
The dock was opened in 1852. It was named after the road it runs alongside and which also gave its name to the Wapping Tunnel.
Liverpool
The dock was opened in 1852. It was named after the road it runs alongside and which also gave its name to the Wapping Tunnel.
The large brick warehouse built in 1856 along the eastern side of the dock was designed by Jesse Hartley. The building is of a similar architectural style to the warehouses surrounding the nearby Albert Dock. When originally built, it was 232 m (254 yd)long and consisted of five separate sections.Bombed in the May Blitz of 1941, the badly damaged southernmost section was not rebuilt, with only the supporting cast iron columns remaining in situ. The remainder of the building continued in commercial use, even after the dock closed in 1972. The warehouse was restored and converted into residential apartments in 1988 and is Grade II* listed.
References
"Turner's Old Star", Wapping, London, 18 Mar 2026
JOSEPH M W TURNER 1775 – 1851
Brought up in London, Turner was always fascinated by the Thames. Water and ships were a major source of inspiration in his work and the riverside area of London was to remain his home base all his life.
Turner was held in high regards by his contemporaries, and was rewarded with both critical acclaim and considerable wealth. Although something of a “society“ figure, he was more at home among the bustle and debris of London’s Docklands,
TURNER’S SECRET LIFE
Turner was exceptionally secretive, especially over women. From the age of twenty-five he was to keep several mistresses, who were to bear him four illegitimate children.
Although he never married, women always played an important part of Turner’s life. His vigorously sensual side was to emerge in the copious quantities of erotic drawings discovered amongst the Turner bequest on his death. These were supposedly executed during weekends of drunken debauchery amid the Dockside taverns of Wapping.
“PUGGY BOOTH”
In 1833 Turner met Sophie Booth, a widowed landlady from Margate who was to become his mistress until his death in 1851.
When Turner inherited two cottages in the dockland area of Wapping, he converted then into a tavern and installed Mrs Both as proprietor. He named the tavern “The Old Star”.
To maintain secrecy during their life together, Turner adopted her surname. This, combined with his five-foot height and portly physique was to earn him the nickname “Puggy Booth”.
TURNER’S OLD STAR
Turner’s “Old Star” remains on this site to this day. In 1987 the property was extensively refurbished and as a tribute to the great British painter was renamed “Turner’s Old Star”.
There are signs of times past and modern in this view of the River Thames, taken from the Thames Path at Wapping.
Sailing masts, old wharf buildings, and of course Tower Bridge provide a link to the past. Blocks of flats, the old City Hall, Guy's Hospital and The Shard are among some of the more modern structures of the London skyline.
Photograph scanned from an original hand-printed, selenium-toned print made with Ilford MG FB Classic paper.
A snap taken from Pelican Stairs in Wapping, showing a sign of the areas more gruesome past. The adjacent pub 'The Prospect of Whitby' dates back to 1520.
Another one of my Wapping shots, this one is looking East (down the river) with Canary Wharf near the centre
We took a leisurely westerly walk back from Tobacco Dock along the waterway. It was very peaceful considering we are so close to the City. Wapping, London.
Taken with my digital Fujifilm X20
Liverpool Wapping Dock the tower dates from 1856 - 100 years before I was born
My ancestors built ships around here at that time so would have seen similar views - I always feel comfortable walking around here- used to knock around here as a kid too over 50 years ago as one of my Grandfathers was a docker (the other died during the war so never met him ) we used to meet up and have lunch at a cafe further up the dock road - then I would get on the Ferry to Seacombe or New Brighton- good summers they were -gone in a flash
"Turner's Old Star", Wapping, London, 18 Mar 2026
JOSEPH M W TURNER 1775 – 1851
Brought up in London, Turner was always fascinated by the Thames. Water and ships were a major source of inspiration in his work and the riverside area of London was to remain his home base all his life.
Turner was held in high regards by his contemporaries, and was rewarded with both critical acclaim and considerable wealth. Although something of a “society“ figure, he was more at home among the bustle and debris of London’s Docklands,
TURNER’S SECRET LIFE
Turner was exceptionally secretive, especially over women. From the age of twenty-five he was to keep several mistresses, who were to bear him four illegitimate children.
Although he never married, women always played an important part of Turner’s life. His vigorously sensual side was to emerge in the copious quantities of erotic drawings discovered amongst the Turner bequest on his death. These were supposedly executed during weekends of drunken debauchery amid the Dockside taverns of Wapping.
“PUGGY BOOTH”
In 1833 Turner met Sophie Booth, a widowed landlady from Margate who was to become his mistress until his death in 1851.
When Turner inherited two cottages in the dockland area of Wapping, he converted then into a tavern and installed Mrs Both as proprietor. He named the tavern “The Old Star”.
To maintain secrecy during their life together, Turner adopted her surname. This, combined with his five-foot height and portly physique was to earn him the nickname “Puggy Booth”.
TURNER’S OLD STAR
Turner’s “Old Star” remains on this site to this day. In 1987 the property was extensively refurbished and as a tribute to the great British painter was renamed “Turner’s Old Star”.
I had never been to this part of east London before. I had only recently heard about this canal in Wapping which is a remnant from the area's former role as London's docks. It certainly deserves its name 'ornamental' - it looks almost as if it was laid out specifically to create viewpoints for photography.
Being here felt like being in a different city - Paris, perhaps, with the Shard taking the place of the Eiffel Tower.
By the way, I promise that the seagull in the top left is not a comped-in addition. It was really there. As were the swans on the canal.
The two-storey structure occupying most of the foreground is Bridewell Place. Today it comprises expensive maisonettes but it looks as though it may have had an earlier life, although it has proven surprisingly difficult to ascertain any details.
From a general perspective, the Wapping area was first settled by Saxons, from whom it takes its name (meaning literally [the place of] Wæppa’s people). It developed along the embankment of the Thames, hemmed in by the river to the south and the now-drained Wapping Marsh to the north. This gave it a peculiarly narrow and constricted shape, consisting of little more than the axis of Wapping High Street (the cobbled road seen above) and some north-south side streets. John Stow, the 16th century historian, described it as a "continual street, or a filthy strait passage, with alleys of small tenements or cottages, built, inhabited by sailors’ victuallers".
Wapping was inhabited by sailors, mastmakers, boat-builders, blockmakers, instrument-makers, victuallers and representatives of all the other trades that supported the seafarer. Wapping was also the site of ’Execution Dock’, where pirates and other water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed close to the low water mark. Their bodies would be left dangling until they had been submerged three times by the tide. Though Execution Dock is long gone, a gibbet is still maintained on the Thames foreshore by the Prospect of Whitby public house (about 575m downstream from the true Execution Dock!).
The area’s strong maritime associations changed radically in the 19th century when the London Docks were built to the north and west of the High Street. Wapping’s population plummeted by nearly 60% during that century, with many houses destroyed by the construction of the docks and giant warehouses along the riverfront. Squeezed between the high walls of the docks and warehouses, the district became isolated from the rest of London, although some relief was provided by Brunel’s Thames Tunnel to Rotherhithe. The opening of Wapping tube station on the East London Line in 1869 provided a direct rail link to the rest of London.
Wapping was devastated by German bombing in World War II and by the post-war closure of the docks. It remained a run-down and derelict area into the 1980s, when the area was transferred to the management of the London Docklands Development Corporation, a government quango with the task of redeveloping the Docklands. The London Docks were largely filled in and redeveloped with a variety of commercial, light industrial and residential properties. Much of the remaining warehousing has been turned into expensive residences and I think that's what has happened to Bridewell Place.