Over the last couple of years, I have been writing about a number of the Thames stairs in central London, however for today’s post in my weird obsession with these places on the river, I am visiting Two Tree Island in Essex, to find the last landing place on the Thames.
I need to clarify the definition of last landing place. I am using the list of steps, stairs and landing places on the tidal Thames, as listed in the book on access to the river published by the Port of London Authority:
The book lists all the landing places, steps and stairs on the tidal river, which is the area of the PLA’s responsibility, so from Teddington in the west, to near Southend in the east.
The definition of the last landing place could be at either extreme of the tidal river, depending on which way along the river you were heading, however for the last landing place, I am using the location on the last page in the book, and furthest east on the maps within the book.
A couple of weeks ago, we were going to a concert in Southend, so it was the perfect opportunity for a diversion to find Two Tree Island, and the causeway.
Two Tree Island is, as the name suggests, an island, and is located between Southend and Leigh-on-Sea, and Canvey Island.
The island nature of the place can be seen on the one road to the island, with the need to cross a bridge which takes you over the channel which runs to the north of Two Tree Island:
Looking west as you cross the bridge, and the nature of area becomes clear, low-lying, channels of water, and subject to the changing of the tide:
Looking over the eastern side of the bridge, there is a small marina on the left. This often dries out when the tide is low, but during my visit, the tide was coming in and the width of the channel was widening:
Having crossed the bridge, and we can look back and see the edge of one of the housing estates that surround Leigh-on-Sea, on the high land that centuries ago was the natural barrier to the Thames:
Two Tree Island has not always been land. It was reclaimed from the river in the 18th century and used as farmland. In 1910, a sewage works was built on the north east edge of the island, and for parts of the 20th century, it was also used for landfill.
Two Tree Island was flooded during the major flooding of the east coast and Thames estuary during 1953.
Once over the bridge, there is a sign welcoming you to Two Tree Island, and the sign indicates the current use of the land as it is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust:
I can find no confirmed source for the name of the island. There are may trees on the island today, perhaps when the land was first reclaimed, when it was farmland, there may have been two distinctive trees. The first written reference to the name I can find is from 1967, when the site was included in a list of reserves set-up by the Essex Naturalists’ Trust.
The site was also called Leigh Marsh, and there are older references to this name, for example in 1836, when the the owner of the land had died, and their executor was selling the farm and farm land that the deceased had owned, which included: “Also 179 acres, 1 rood, 36 perches of valuable marshland, situate in the parishes of Leigh and Hadleigh, called Leigh Marsh, with a dwelling house and out-buildings, which is let until Lady-day next, £120 per annum.”
The land was valuable as it was good grazing land, and the mud flats and sea bed of the estuary off Two Tree Island was also used as shell fish beds, so the whole area was a valuable, agricultural site.
There has always been the threat of development in places along the river. In 1973, Maplin Airport, further east, off Foulness Island, was being considered as a new London Airport, and Southend Council put forward Two Tree Island, and the surrounding marshes, as a new nature reserve to compensate for the loss of land at Foulness and in the Thames Estuary.
The previous year, 1971, a “massive yacht marina” was proposed for Two Tree Island, however this was thrown out by Southend Council.
The majority of the island is now nature reserve, with plenty of tracks to walk, there is a small air strip for a model aircraft club, and a slowly decaying Pill Box as a reminder of the threat of invasion along the estuary in the last war.
The remains of the old sewage works are now providing a haven for birds, including nesting Egrets.
I have now reached the southern side of the island to find the causeway, where there is a Port of London information sign:
With the map showing the area in detail, and a helpful “You Are Here”:
And it is here that I find the causeway, the last landing place on the River Thames, within the area of responsibility of the Port of London Authority:
Not that impressive, compared to many of the stairs in central London, however this is a simple, functional place which is still in use. A concrete strip running out into the water from which boats can be launched and recovered.
The land in the distance in the above photo is Canvey Island, and as we look around, we can see other infrastructure that is only there because of the River Thames.
Looking to the east, directly over Canvey Island, are the container cranes of the London Gateway, the latest port on the river, having opened in 2013, and offering a deep water channel, and mooring along side, for the very large container ships that use the river today:
And looking to the south, the storage tanks for liquefied natural gas (LNG) are on the Isle of Grain on the southern side of the Thames. LNG is brought by ship from across the world to be stored in these tanks before being distributed to homes and industry across the country, or via undersea pipe to Europe:
The Thames Estuary has been the entry point for goods and commodities for centuries, and today this includes gas to power the country, and container ships full of all manner of products.
Looking east, and in the distance, we can see the City of Southend-on-Sea:
A look back along the causeway:
Although the causeway is a firm stretch of concrete, it is always good to remember just how far and how quickly the tide comes in along the Thames, and the tide was rising and washing over the causeway:
And within a few minutes, water was covering half of the causeway:
So that was the last place of access to the River Thames, according to the Port of London Authority listing – just a few hundred more to go along the river.
I have written a number of posts about this area of the river. You may be interested in:
As a postscript to the post, all my posts on Thames stairs have attempted to show how important the River Thames has been in the history and development of London, and how the river was once such a key part of the life of the so many Londoners.
We have tended to loose that connection with the river. The Thames is the reason why London is located where it is, and also why London has developed as much as it has.
There is not that much traffic on the river in central London, however towards the estuary, the docks at Tilbury and London Gateway are still busy.
The river is much cleaner than it was when industry lined the river and so much of London’s rubbish entered the river.
Although today, the river is a good way to travel on Thames Clippers, views along the river are good, and the river adds value to the properties built along side, it is also a river that is viewed as a potential risk from rising sea levels and flooding, it is used as a dumping ground for sewage from sewer overflows, and we have built into the river so it is channeled for much of its route through the city.
Whilst writing today’s post, I had BBC Radio 4 on for a change, and by chance there was a fascinating programme on the rights of natural features such as rivers, and how a number of rivers have been give the legal rights of personhood, which basically states that rivers have certain rights, such as the right to flow, the right not to be polluted etc.
It is a fascinating concept with a number of rivers in places such as New Zealand, India and Mexico having already been granted similar rights to that of a person.
In the UK, there is currently an initiative to develop a Rights of River motion for the River Ouse in Sussex.
It is a fascinating concept, and interesting to consider how this could apply to the River Thames, and how the river could be considered as an end to end entity, with rights, from source to estuary.
For this week’s post, I am continuing with one of my favourite London subjects – Thames Stairs, and I am in Rotherhithe to find Hanover Stairs, and also to check whether the stairs confirm my theory that nearly every Thames stair had an associated pub.
This was the view, early on a sunny morning, walking along the footpath beside the Thames, with Hanover Stairs signposted next to the steps down to the river:
There is a gate at the top of the stairs, with a warning sign showing someone falling down the stairs, along with the danger warnings of Slippery Steps, Sudden Drop and Deep Water – all of which make sense for these stairs:
A look down the stairs reveals that they are in very good condition and consist of brick steps leading down to a sandy foreshore:
The Port of London Authority list of access points to the River Thames has very little information about these stairs. It just states that they were in use in 1977, consisted of concrete stairs and were in good condition.
Hanover Stairs are rather unusual in that there is a ship moored at the foot of the stairs. A scene that was probably rather common when the river was in use and ships would have moored in the river and along the foreshore.
Presumably a house boat, and equipped for permanent occupation as there are a range of pipes plumping in services between the ship and the shore.
During my visit it was a low tide and I could walk out for a reasonable distance across the foreshore. In the following photo, I am looking back from the water’s edge to the shore line, and the photo shows how the shore here drops considerably away from the edge of the land:
Looking east, with Shadwell and Limehouse visible across the river:
The narrow gap for New Crane Stairs, between two large buildings, shows the importance and persistence of Thames Stairs.
The following photo is looking west along the river, and in this photo we can clearly see how steep is the drop in the foreshore from the edge of the river out towards the centre:
Next to the stairs, where the house boat is today, there was a small pier. On the foreshore, there is the abbreviation M.P.s – This stands for mooring posts and shows that ships and boats would have been moored along the foreshore at Hanover Stairs.
Large buildings line the river, warehouses and industrial sites, with a small number of terrace streets leading back in land.
To the upper right of the above map, is the pier for the Rotherhithe Gas Works, and these works can be seen running back in land, where the circular feature of the gas storage tanks can be seen.
I have a theory that nearly all Thames Stairs in populated and industrial areas, had a pub located next to the stairs, and Hanover Stairs continues to confirm this theory.
In the above map, I have ringed the PH of Public House which was opposite the stairs, where an alley led between two adjacent large buildings, down to the stairs.
I found the name of the pub by doing a newspaper search for Hanover Stairs, and found the pub had a good Thames related name of the Ship.
A typical example of where the Ship was mentioned in relation to the stairs, and an advert which shows how these pub were important for more than just drinking is the following advert which appeared in the Kentish Independent on the 24th of January, 1852, where an auction was being advertised for the “Stock of Mr. Little, Timber Dealer, who is retiring from business”.
The auction of Mr. Little’s stock included a very large quantity of timber, a “capital nearly new Timber Cart”, and rather strangely “a Sow and Four Pigs”.
The advert then goes on to list where the catalogue for the auction could be had, and this is where I found the reference to the Ship:
“Catalogues had: the Lord Duncan and Dover Castle, Broadway; Bratt’s New Cross Inn: Shard’s Arms, Old Kent Road: The Ship, Hanover Stairs, Rotherhithe; Prince of Orange, Greenwich; Three Tuns, Blackheath: Tiger’s Head, Lee: Dartmouth Arms, Sydenham Common; of Mr. Little on the premises, and of Mr. Rogers, Auctioneer, Valuer, Estate and House Agent, Lewisham.”
Another advert which mentions the pub was from June 1825 shows the type of excursion you could have taken on a summer’s day, early in the 19th century:
“GRAND NOVEL EXCURSION. A. READ, Captain of the FAVOURITE, Steam Packet, begs to inform his Friends and the Public that he has engaged the above elegant and commodious Vessel for an EXCURSION round the ISLE of SHEPPY, passing the Nore, Whitstable, Queenborough, and his Majesty’s Fleet at Sheerness, on Thursday, the 29th Instant, and return the same evening. A grand Band of Music will be provided. refreshments may be had on board at the usual moderate charges.”
Tickets for this “Grand Novel Excursion” were 5 shillings and 6 pence each, and the Ship was one of the places where you could buy tickets, and in this advert, Mr. Rounce was mentioned as the landlord of the Ship. Tickets were for sale widely across London, from the Rose by the Old Bailey, pubs in east London, both north and south of the river, a grocer in Tower Street, and offices in Fenchurch Street.
Both of these adverts show the importance of these local pubs to other commercial activities. They were places where you could advertise to the local community and use as local distribution hubs.
The importance of the relationship between the Ship and Hanover Stairs is that in these two examples, and many other reference I found, although the pub is in the street opposite the stairs, the name of the street is not mentioned, just the name of the pub and the name of the stairs.
The Ship closed around 1960, and sadly I cannot find any photos of the pub.
The majority of the Thames Stairs have lost their associated pub. A few still exist in Wapping (Pelican Stairs next to the Prospect of Whitby and Wapping Old Stairs next to the Town of Ramsgate).
In Rotherhithe, a surviving example is the Mayflower, where to the left of the pub can be found Church Stairs:
21st century detritus washing up on the foreshore at Hanover Stairs:
The earliest written references I could find to Hanover Stairs dates from the 1790s, where for example, on the 11th of January, 1796, in a list of Dividends to be paid to Creditors, there was the following “Alexander Christall and James Church of Hanover Stairs, Rotherhithe, Surrey, Sail-makers”.
On the 28th of November, 1761, it was reported that “The John and Thomas, Blickenden, loaded with Corn, is sunk in the River near Hanover Stairs”.
Hanover Stairs can be seen in Rocque’s map of 1746 (underlined in red):
The map shows that in the 1740s, whilst the river’s edge was developed, a short distance inland it was still orchards, farmland, fields, marsh and streams. The section of the road that is now Rotherhithe Street was then named Redriff.
One of the few streets that leads inland from Redriff is directly opposite Hanover Stairs, and is named Hanover Street. I suspect the street took the name from the stairs, as these were probably a much older feature than the street.
I cannot find the source of the name Hanover as used for the stairs. Possibly there may have been local merchants from Hanover in Germany, of it may have been after George I, who became the first British King from the German House of Hanover who was on the British throne between 1714 and 1727.
Hanover Street changed named to Heston Street, and in the rebuilding of the area over the last few decades, the street that was one of the first running inland from the river, was built over and is now one of the many lost streets of the area.
So the stairs along the foreshore have been here for at least 275 years, and features from the long industrial history of the area can still be seen along the foreshore, for example, large stretches of consolidated stone and concrete, much eroded by the river:
Looking along the foreshore from Hanover Stairs to the pier that once supplied the Rotherhithe Gas Works with coal arriving along the river:
Looking back at the steps of the stairs, with in the foreground some of the chains and weights used to keep the house boat securely moored alongside the river wall:
Cables and pipes carrying services to the house boat and tyres to protect the side of the boat:
There are frequent mentions of Hanover Stairs in newspapers up to the 1930s, when the last two reports are about an 11 year old boy who drowned after falling into the river when he and his friends were playing on barges next to the stairs, and a thief who was caught in Rotherhithe Street with a sack full of Gin bottles, which had been stolen from a barge lying next to the stairs.
After the 1930s, there seems to have been very little happening at the stairs (or at least anything that was considered newsworthy). That may have been due to the level of bomb damage at the stairs and the surrounding streets, which was considerable.
After leaving the stairs, I walked along the river path to take a closer look at the former gas works pier:
The pier is in good condition, and is a suitable reminder of the connection between the river and the industries activities that once occupied so much of Rotherhithe:
I have often wondered what the metal structure is on the rivers edge at the centre of the pier, shown in the photos above and below. I assume it is part of the equipment which once carried coal from ships moored alongside the pier to the gas works, however now standing isolated of any other infrastructure, it almost looks like a work of art.
Seen from head on, the curves of the shaped metal on either side almost give the whole thing the appearance of a bird flying in from the river:
Another set of Thames Stairs ticked off the list, and one that continues the link between a local pub and stairs.
They were an important combination in the day to day life of the working river. The stairs provided access to the river and the barges and ships moored nearby, the watermen that would take you to your destination along the river, a place where those working or travelling on or along the river would have known well.
The stairs were also a landmark, referenced whenever you needed to refer to something happening on the river, on land, or to get to this part of Rotherhithe.
The pub was not just a place to buy alcohol, it was an important part of the local community, a place where other commercial activities could take place, such as selling tickets or distributing auction catalogues, where inquests to those who died on the river were held, where those working on the river probably went in for a drink after returning via the stairs, a local meeting point next to the stairs etc.
And that relationship is strengthened by the names frequently given to these pubs, which often referred to some aspect of river life, as with the Ship next to Hanover Stairs.
For today’s post, I have another of my father’s photos, taken on a boat trip along the River Thames in August 1948, this time looking across to Wapping, the Prospect of Whitby and Pelican Stairs:
The same view in 2024, some 76 years later:
The 1948 photo shows an area just three years after the end of the war, and the bombing that badly damaged the whole area of the docks. It was a dirty, industrial place, still important in supporting the trade of London and the country, with imports and exports through the docks.
Only a few buildings have survived the intervening 76 years. The Prospect of Whitby pub, today a brightly painted white building along the river. The brick building behind, the steeple of the church of St. Paul’s, Shadwell, and on the left edge of both photos is a warehouse (1948) now converted to flats.
The Prospect of Whitby can be seen roughly in the middle of the map, and to the left of the pub is Pelican Stairs and Pelican Wharf. Just to the left of the P in Pelican is a square which marks the position of the chimney seen in the photo.
An extract from the photo provides a closer look at the Prospect of Whitby and surrounding buildings:
On the left is Pelican Wharf, then the Prospect of Whitby, with Pelican Stairs descending immediately to the left of the pub, then in the background, the large brick building of the London Hydraulic Power Company.
The same view today:
A new apartment building has been built over Pelican Wharf. The first mention I can find of Pelican Wharf dates from December 1866, when the wharf was mentioned in an article about a collision in the river opposite the wharf.
Many of the apartment buildings in my 2024 photo were part of the late 1980s development of the area, and there is an article in the Brentwood Gazette from the 22nd of April, 1988 which mentions Pelican Wharf, and provides a reminder of the transformation of the 1980s:
“Six months after Black Monday the Docklands property market is experiencing a ‘new realism’, says Stephen Miles-Brown of estate agents Knight Frank & Rutley.
The Essex bookmakers and the South London car dealers – the ‘Top Gun’ speculators of yesteryear – have all but disappeared, says Mr. Miles-Brown. In their place has come the traditional buyer with a mortgage, a career and even a few children.
Docklands developers are in the middle of the strongest buyer’s market for years. They have responded quickly and imaginatively. Immediately post Black Monday, there were incentive schemes, buy-backs, chain breaking and mortgage discounts, now the latest and perhaps best news of all is the return to good old fashioned ‘value for money’, a code word for keen prices, more space and upgraded specifications.
These developments with a large degree of space and higher specifications are far removed from some of the earlier ‘little boxes’ and are to be found throughout Docklands in such places as Timber Wharf on the Isle f Dogs, Greenland Passage in the Surrey Docks, Lime Kiln Wharf and Duke Shore Wharf in Limehouse, Pelican Wharf and Eagle Wharf in Wapping and Millers Wharf by St. Katherine Docks.
April marks the start of the 1988 ‘Docklands Season’ with no less than 10 major residential developments coming forward over the next few weeks.
They offer the choice of over 500 new homes, from first-time buyer studios at under £100,000 to – only for the seriously rich – 3,000 sq. ft. penthouses at £1.5 million !”
The later half of the 1980s and into the 1990s really was a development rush along the banks of the Thames, and although the article described the situation as a buyers market, prices for river facing properties in the 1980s were expensive. A first time buyer’s studio for under £100,000 may seem really cheap today, but in 1988 this was expensive.
In the above 1948 and 2024 photos showing the Prospect of Whitby, a set of stairs can be seen running down to the foreshore to the left of the pub. These are Pelican Stairs.
Pelcian Stairs are listed in the Port of London Authority listing of access points to the Thames as being in use in 1708, and they are certainly old stairs. Their location next to a pub is typical of many of the stairs in Wapping, as many users of the stairs, whether arriving back, or waiting to leave via the stairs, would have headed to the pub, and the combination of stairs and pubs were centres of local activity.
The Prospect of Whitby was originally called The Pelican, but it is not clear where the name was used first, either the stairs or the pub.
The PLA listing (published around 1995) recorded that the stairs then had “Steps missing dangerous, derelict”.
As can be seen today, the stairs are now very much in use:
The first written reference to Pelican Stairs I could find was from the 30th of August, 1746, when the Kentish Messenger reported that “On Tuesday Evening, a Fire broke out in the House of Mr. Pelham, near Pelican Stairs in Wapping, occasioned by a quantity of Okum taking Fire; which burnt with such Violence, that the same, and the House of Mr. Beane, a Distiller and Grocer, were consumed, with their Stocks in Trade, which amounted to several hundred Pounds; two other Houses, both inhabited, and other small tenements were much damaged.”
It is remarkable the number of fires that occurred, but perhaps not surprising when you consider that there were many houses, warehouses and factories where highly inflammable goods were stored, and where both building and working practices lacked the approaches needed to prevent the start and spread of fires.
The entrance alley to Pelican Stairs alongside the Prospect of Whitby:
The large brick building behind the Prospect of Whitby can be seen in both 1948 and 2024 photos. This was the Wapping pumping station of the London Hydraulic Power Company.
The London Hydraulic Power Company (LHPC) was formed in 1884 by Act of Parliament, although the provision of hydraulic power by the company had started in the previous years with a station at Bankside, as the Wharves & Warehouses Steam Power & Hydraulic Pressure Company.
The aim of the company was to provide hydraulic power (water under pressure), across London, and the docks were a major consumers of this form as power, as there were numerous cranes, lifts, swing bridges, dock gates, windlass etc. which needed a reliable source of power to operate.
The LHPC established a network of pipes across London, interconnecting their pumping stations and their consumers – much like the electricity network of today – and as well as the London Docks, the company provided power to the numerous, power hungry industries and businesses across London, even extending to the raising and lowering of theatre safety curtains in the West End.
The Wapping pumping station was built between 1889 and 1892.
The station was equipped with up to six steam engines which used coal delivered via the adjacent Shadwell Basin, and took water from boreholes below the station and from the water in Shadwell Basin.
The large brick building we can see in the photos was were the accumulator tanks were located. These held water at pressure, so the hydraulic pressure across the distribution system could be delivered at a constant pressure, and the London system was at a pressure of 750 psi (pounds per square inch).
The Wapping station transitioned to electric pumping rather than steam and coal due to the Clean Air Act which had been brought into force due to the smog’s of the 1950s.
Remarkably, the Wapping station did not close until 1977, as hydraulic power was still being used, however by the 1970s, the reduction in the use of the London docks, and the transition to electric power for remaining uses of hydraulic power resulted in the closure of the station, and the network used to deliver the hydraulic power delivered by these stations.
With the 1980s liberalisation of telecommunications, and the forming of Mercury Communication as a competitor to BT, Mercury purchased the pipe network of the London Hydraulic Company to use as a ready made distribution network for their cables.
Although Mercury as a brand name disappeared in 1997, the pipes continued to be used by Cable & Wireless, and they still carry fibre optic cables today, so rather than distributing hydraulic power, the pipes are distributing voice and data across London.
The Wapping pumping station has had a number of temporary uses since closure, including activities such as an art gallery and café / restaurant, and there have been proposals for long term use, but as far as I know at the moment, there are no firm plans for the building.
Looking at another part of my father’s photo, and there was a bit of a mystery, but which shows how features remain hidden and then are revealed.
The following photo shows the area to the right of the Prospect of Whitby in my father’s 1948 photo:
And this is the same view today:
The 1949 OS map shows this section of the photo, as shown in the extract above, and the black cars parked in a line (possibly awaiting loading on a ship for export), are parked where the words “Mooring Posts” can be seen (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):
The map also shows the low warehouse behind the cars and what also likes rather like a domestic house to the left of the photo.
The mystery is that in 1949 photo and map, at the side of the river there is a continuous and straight line of wooden posts forming the edge of the land, however if you look at my 2024 photo, today the wall along the foreshore is curved, and to the right there is a solid, curved, concrete wall.
We can still see the main entrance between the Thames and Shadwell Basin at the upper part of the map, but in 1897, below the main entrance, was “Shadwell Old Entrance”.
The London Docks were a continuous building site, and in Shadwell, the “Shadwell Old Basin” and the “Shadwell Old Entrance” were the first part of the docks to be built in Shadwell.
The success of these docks was such, that they were soon expanded and the much larger Shadwell Basin was built, just north of the Old Basin, which was included within the overall Shadwell Basin.
The old entrance would then be closed off, with the single main entrance shown in the 1949 map remaining as the eastern entrance to Shadwell and the London Docks complex.
I assume that the the original entrance was built over, probably not completely removing and filling in the entrance, rather building over it to complete the view we see in the 1948 photo and 1949 map.
When the area was redeveloped in the 1980s and 90s, this structure was then removed, and the curved concrete wall built across what remained of the Shadwell Old Basin entrance.
It is fascinating how across London, the evidence of former land use, industries etc. have survived and can still be seen today.
Underneath the northern tower of Tower Bridge, there is a late 19th century version of one of the old Thames Stairs, which has a name that refers to one of the gates that controlled access into the Tower of London. This is Iron Gate Stairs.
The stairs are shown before Tower Bridge was built in this extract from Langley and Belch’s, 1812 New Map of London (underlined in red):
Today, Iron Gate Stairs are reached via a tunnel which runs through the northern tower of the bridge, and comes out to a well maintained set of stone stairs:
As far as I can confirm, by checking and aligning a number of maps, the stairs today appear to be in the same location as the stairs shown in the 1812 map.
It shows the importance of these access points to the river, that they were included in the design of Tower Bridge, and it must have cost more, and been more complex, to route the access to the stairs through the tower, rather than relocate them to one of the sides of the northern tower of the bridge.
The Port of London book “Access to the River Thames, a Port of London Guide”. includes these stairs in the listing of all points of access to the river along the tidal Thames, and the PLA record for Iron Gate Stairs reads:
Stairs and Causeway
Constructed of Stone
A landing place in 1708 and 1977 and in use at the time of the book (around 1995)
Structure is listed
The stairs are gated
Bathing from these stairs is extremely dangerous
I cannot find a separate listing for the stairs on the Historic England website, so I assume that the stairs are included within the overall Grade I listing of Tower Bridge, as the access to the stairs is part of the structure of the bridge.
The name of the stairs is interesting, and it appears to refer to a gate that once controlled access to the south east corner of the area between the walls of the tower and the river.
In this 1852 plan of the Tower of London, there are a cluster of buildings in the lower south east corner, with a black line, indicating some form of gate, controlling access (red arrow):
Although not named, the stairs can be seen running down to the river, next to the gate.
After the construction of Tower Bridge, the name Iron Gate is retained, and although the stairs do not appear to be named (perhaps because they are under the bridge), iron Gate is used next to the tunnel underneath the approach to Tower Bridge, where today you can walk from the St Katherine Dock area, to the area between the Tower of London and the river.
So Iron Gate in the OS maps seems to continue to refer to a gate across this access through the wall created by the approach road to Tower Bridge.
As with all Thames stairs, there are references to the stairs in multiple newspaper reports over the centuries. For example, the following is from the Public Ledger and Daily Advert on the 9th of October, 1826, and unfortunately it does not record what Samuel Pearce did, which required such a public apology:
“CAUTION TO WATERMEN – I Samuel Pearce, Waterman, plying at Iron Gate Stairs, near the Tower, beg publicly to acknowledge and express my grateful feeling to John Morrison, Esq. for foregoing a prosecution against me, which I well merited, in consequence of an unprovoked and unwarrantable outrage committed on him on Friday evening; for which I cheerfully make this public apology, which he accepts, in consequence of the distressed state of my wife and infant family.”
Iron Gate Stairs were also the boarding point if you wanted to travel to “Harwich, Yarmouth and Places Adjacent”, as the 80 horse-power Steam Packet Swift sailed from the stairs on Sundays and Thursdays in the 1820s.
Indeed, Iron Gate Stairs feature in papers across the 18th and 19th centuries with all the usual stories of activities that happened at these places which formed a key access point between the land and the river.
As with other stairs, Iron Gate Stairs was a place where bodies recovered from the river were brought up to land.
The Historic England Monument Record for the Iron Gate refers to it being a gate tower constructed during the reign of Edward III (who reigned between 1327 and 1377), and that it was built to strengthen the defences of the Tower on the southern side of the complex, and that it commanded a “walled causeway through to the Develin Tower at the south east corner of the outer wall.“
Stow in the early 17th century refers to the Iron Gate as being “great and strong but not often opened”.
The Iron Gate was demolished in 1680 following a review of the Tower’s defences, and whilst looking for space to expand accommodation.
So whilst the gate tower was demolished, as shown in the 1852 map, a gate seems to have remained in place, although rather than the gate tower, just a standard gate.
After demolition, there also appears to have been a cluster of buildings around the location of the gate which seem to have been used for accommodation, storage and small industrial activity.
Construction of Tower Bridge cleared these buildings, and today we can see the area where the Iron Gate was located when looking towards the bridge, from the west:
And with some lovely historical continuity, the area of the Iron Gate is still gated, with a gatehouse and barrier across the road:
And looking through the walkway under the approach road to Tower Bridge, we can see gates part open across the walkway, as well as much larger and stronger gates set against the sides of the walkway:
In the following photo, the entrance to the walkway tunnel under the approach road is on the right, and the arch on the left provides access to the entrance to Iron Gate Stairs:
Which, as the PLA description of the stairs records, is gated:
View of how the tunnel exits the base of the northern tower of Tower Bridge, and the steps leading down:
As the PLA document records, a causeway is part of Iron Gate Stairs, and for the stairs this is one of the largest causeways to be seen. It covers a large space at the base of the stairs, both in terms of width and length into the river:
The stairs are part of the construction of Tower Bridge, and I assume that the causeway may well date from the same time (assuming it has been continuously repaired). I doubt whether the stairs would have had a causeway of such size prior to the bridge being built.
The need for a bridge at or around the location of Tower Bridge had been a pressing issue for many years prior to the construction of the bridge. In the later half of the 19th century, there was so much cross river traffic that an urgent solution was needed.
In 1884, the Southwark recorder and Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Advertiser was reporting that “The Corporation also propose to establish a steam ferry across the river, from Iron Gate Stairs, Little Tower Hill, to Horselydown Old Stairs, near Horselydown Lane. Another scheme for crossing the Thames is proposed by the Tower (Duplex) Bridge Bill. The structure would cross the river from Hartley’s Wharf, Horselydown, to Little Tower Hill, having in the centre of the river two loop bridges.”
The following year, the Eastern Argus and Borough of Hackney Times, was reporting about the construction of the new bridge, and that “the work will be done by the City Corporation which has set down five years as the period for completing it. It is to be formed from a point westwards of and near the Iron Gate Stairs to Hartley’s Wharf. The cost will be £750,000, and the structure will be of such a character as to admit of the passage at all times of the tide of vessels navigating the river. The bridge will be a great convenience to East London”.
The above report does call into question whether the current stairs were built on the site of the original Iron Gate Stairs, as the article states that the new bridge is to be built “westwards of and near the Iron Gate Stairs”.
A later article in June 1886 does though seem to confirm that the northern tower, and the stairs we see today are on the site of the original stairs, as when describing the works for the new bridge, the article states “On the north side, as already stated, it touches the shore at Irongate Stairs, from which a road will lead directly up to the Minories”.
In 1889, Watermen were complaining about the disruption to their trade “THE TOWER BRIDGE AND THE LONDON WATERMEN – The Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to considered the Tower Bridge Bill proceeded to-day to hear the evidence of numerous watermen who claim compensation for disturbance of their occupation between Irongate and Horselydown Stairs in consequence of the construction of the works,. George William Shand was the first claimant”.
I would have thought that the watermen would have been far more concerned about the forthcoming loss of their trade between the two stairs once the new bridge had been opened.
Based on the majority of newspaper reports, aligning maps, and the Port of London Authority listing of Thames Stairs, I am as certain as I can be that the stairs we see today are in the same place as the original Iron Gate Stairs.
The railing by the side of the view over the stairs seem to have acquired evidence of many of the tourist visits to the site:
I had a good look around, however I could not find any signs that name iron Gate Stairs.
They are though yet another example of historical continuity, with the stairs being in roughly the same place after the construction of Tower Bridge, and being named after a gate dating back to the 14th century, located where there are still a barrier and gates in position, to close of the south eastern entry to the space between the Tower of London and the River Thames.
If you wanted to visit somewhere in London on a very cold January morning, a bright day, but with ice having formed overnight on standing water, the last place you may think of is the Thames foreshore, however, on such a day, I went to one of my favourite places on the river – Horn Stairs and Cuckold’s Point:
Horn Stairs and Cuckold’s Point are in Rotherhithe, opposite Limehouse and the north-eastern part of the Isle of Dogs, on the inside of a bend in the river where it curves past Rotherhithe.
Cuckold’s Point is the area of the river / foreshore slightly to left and right of the arrow head in the above map, and where, when the tide is low, there is a broad beach of sand and mud running down to the water.
I was walking from the west, and there were some stunning views across the river, and as I reached the stairs, the outline of the causeway running from Horn Stairs could be seen, with a pole towards the end of the causeway:
The steps over the river wall that lead to Horn Stairs:
From the top of these steps, we get a view of the remains of the causeway leading off across the foreshore from the foot of the stairs:
The upper part of the stairs, where they run over the river wall, are off concrete, with the main part leading down to the foreshore being a set of wooden stairs:
The upper part of the stairs look rather dodgy. From the top of the stairs it is difficult to tell how thick each of the steps is, and whether it will hold your weight if you walk down the stairs.
In the following photo of the top steps, you can see from the bolts on either side of each step, just how much appears to have eroded, or perhaps the wood has shrunk, also on the day I was at the stairs, there was ice in the hollows in each of the steps:
At the bottom of the stairs, we can see the remains of the causeway leading out towards the water:
The Port of London Authority (PLA) has very little information on the stairs in their listing of all the Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames (published around 1995), there is just a remark that the stairs are in “Reasonable” condition and that they were still in use.
The PLA does not record any early dates for when Horn Stairs were in use, and there are not that many references to the stairs, with Cuckold’s Point being the name used for any reference to the location.
In Rocque’s map of 1746, the stairs are not shown, but Cuckold’s Point is marked:
The earliest written reference I have found was in a newspaper article on the 25th of October, 1832 when the name Horn’s Stairs were used in a legal action against the owners of the Eclipse, a steam packet which ran between London and Margate, and was accused of running down a barge off Horn’s Stairs.
The name of the stairs did often appear as Horn’s or Horns rather than the singular Horn, and one of the possible sources of the name could be a Horns Tavern which was to be found near the stairs – although an unresolved question is what came first, the tavern or the stairs.
The name Horn is used in the majority of references from the late 19th century onwards, as shown in the following extract from the 1896 revision of the OS map, where Horn Stairs can be seen bottom left (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):
In the above map, the causeway leading out from the stairs is labelled “Hard”, and would have provided a hard surface above the sand and mud of the foreshore, to walk to and from a boat at nearly all states of the tide.
Also in the above map a dotted line leading across the river to Limehouse Pier can be seen, and labelled as Limehouse Hole Ferry. This was a regular ferry that had run for a good few centuries between the two sides of the river. I wrote about the ferry in my post on Limehouse Hole Stairs and the Breach.
The fact that Horn Stairs does not appear in the 1746 map, and I can find no written references to the stairs earlier than 1832 does not mean that the stairs and a causeway have not been here for much longer.
The City of London Archaeological Society has a fascinating post on surveying stairs, which included a section on Horn Stairs, and in the post, 16th or 17th century hand made bricks were identified which may have formed an early hard standing on the foreshore.
Although I could not find the bricks exactly as shown in the photo in the City of London Archaeological Society’s post, (the foreshore is a constantly changing environment), I did find a number of this type of red brick, which can be seen in the photo below, to the right side of the causeway:
At the end of the causeway, and at the point just before where the Thames will recede to at low tide, is a pole labelled as a navigation marker on the PLA chart for this section of the river. The marker has a light at the top of the pole to ensure the marker can be seen in the dark:
At the end of the causeway:
Looking back to the river wall and the stairs down to the foreshore, which is a distance of some 50 metres, and the dark colouring along the river wall shows how high the water is when the tide comes in along Cuckold’s Point:
The naming of Cuckold’s Point is interesting, and the true source of the name cannot really be confirmed given the centuries that the name has been in use.
The word Cuckold means, according to the online Cambridge Dictionary “If a man is cuckolded, his wife has a sexual relationship with another man”, and the most repeated story about the use of the word Cuckold for the foreshore in Rotherhithe goes back to King John, who was on the throne between 1199 and 1216.
There are a number of variations to the story, but it generally goes that King John was hunting around Shooters Hill, Blackheath and Greenwich. He seems to have found himself in Charlton, and entered the house of a Miller, where he found the Miller’s wife alone.
The Miller soon returned home, but found his wife “in flagrante” with the King.
The Miller attacked the King intending to kill him, and to defend himself the King revealed who he was, and came to an agreement with the Miller that he could have all the land to the west that he could see from his house, which extended all the way to what is now Cuckold’s Point, where, at the time, there was a pole with a pair of horns mounted on the top.
The Miller, in some stories, also had to walk to Cuckold’s Point once a year, with horns on his head.
So the name Cuckold’s Point came from the position that the Miller had been put in by King John.
The King also gave the Miller the right to have a fair on the 18th of October, and this fair became known as the Horn Fair and was held in Charlton.
An early view of Cuckold’s Point can be seen in a painting by Samuel Scott in his work “A Morning View of Cuckold’s Point“, painted between 1750 and 1760:
A Morning, with a View of Cuckold’s Point c.1750-60 Samuel Scott c.1702-1772 Presented by H.F. Tomalin 1944 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05450
The challenge with confirming that this is Cuckold’s Point is that there are no features which can be found today, however there is a set of wooden stairs leading down to the foreshore, and the slope and shape of the foreshore is very similar to that of today.
The painting does though give a very good impression of what Cuckold’s Point probably did look like. There are two Waterman’s boats where the water meets the foreshore, and there is a third approaching the same point.
There are people on the foreshore walking down to the boats from the stairs, presumably either to meet the people arriving on the boats, or to take one of the boats along the river.
The ships on the foreshore are in the location of Mr. Taylor’s Yard, as shown in Rocque’s 1746 map.
The river appears to bend to the right, which indeed it does, as it heads along the eastern side of Rotherhithe towards Deptford.
The painting does provide some support to an alternative theory as to the name Cuckold’s Point. Just to the left of the stairs can be seen a wooden frame, and this is believed to show a ducking, or cucking stool, which was use to punish and humiliate women, who were labelled as a scold, or had committed some form of sexual offence, such as cheating on a husband.
As was usual, there was no similar punishment or humiliation for the man involved.
As the site of a cucking stool, where the wife of a cuckold would have been punished, this may also be the source of the name, however this story does not seem to have gained much support over the years.
The broad sweep of the foreshore at Cuckold’s Point, looking west along the river in the direction of the City of London:
Standing at Cuckold’s Point on a cold January morning is a lonely experience. There is no one else around, and the river is also very quiet, with just the regular Thames Clippers causing a run of waves up to the foreshore.
These places were once busy, both along the rivers edge, the foreshore, and along the river, and it is fascinating to stand at these places, thinking of all the people that have stood in the same place, and the events that have taken place here.
I searched newspaper records for reports mentioning Cuckold’s Point for three decades in the first half of the 18th century, the 1720s, 30s and 40s and there are many references. The following is a sample of what went on around Cuckold’s Point in these years:
17th June 1721 – On Thursday last in the Afternoon Mr. Bailey, a Coasting officer, and Mr. Purser, a Custom-House waterman, made a seizure in the River near Cuckold’s Point of 1900 Weight of Tea, artfully wrought up in the sides of a Mackerel Boat filled with Fish, and supposed to come of Ostend.
11th of May 1726 – The Execution of Capt. Jeane, condemned at the late Sessions of Admiralty for the Murder of his Cabin Boy, is appointed for next Friday, he will be hanged in Chains over against Cuckold’s Point.
6th of October 1736 – On Monday last a Fisherman caught in his Common Net, near Cuckold’s Point, a Salmon 38 inches long and about 17 inches round, and sold the same to Capt. Bond, who was in sight when the fish was caught, and was going on board the East-India Man at Gravesend. The Fisherman being unable to hold his net, begged assistance of a man in the Captain’s Boat, who accordingly went; but as he was helping he fell accidentally into the Thames, from whence it being low water, he took the Fish in his Arms and threw it into the boat. The Fish was sold for 36 shillings out of which the Fisherman gave the Waterman 6 shillings for his Trouble.
23rd April 1737 – On Tuesday last, the Wind being very high, and the Tide rough, two boats, overladen with Passengers, were cast away between Cuckold’s Point and Deptford, and 17 persons drowned. Two other boats, near the same place, with 16 persons in them, and another at the Isle of Dogs, with six and a Waterman, overset, and seven of the former and all the layer were drowned,
23rd October 1742 – Yesterday a new ship, of 220 Tons and 20 Guns, intended for the West India Trade, was launched at Mr. Taylor’s Dock at Cuckold’s Point, and named the Anna Maria (see earlier extract from Rocque’s map of 1746 for location of Taylor’s Dock)
10th December 1743 – Last Tuesday upwards of 1000 Pairs of French Gloves with some Skins, were brought to the custom House. They were seized by Mess. Smith and Harris, Customhouse officers, as they were attempting to land them at Cuckold’s Point.
4th February 1744 – On Tuesday 200lb of Cocoa Nuts, 200 Weight of Tea and 20 Pieces of Cambrick, with some Lace, were seized at Cuckold’s Point, and brought to the Custom House; This seizure is valued at £300. (Cambric is a finely woven, plain cloth that came from France)
7th of March 1747 – Tuesday in the Afternoon as a Boat was going to Greenwich with six Passengers, it was overset near Cuckold’s Point by running foul of a Ships Anchor, by which accident Mrs. Sims and her Daughter, of St. Catherine’s Lane, were unfortunately drowned.
27th of March 1749 – On Monday last thirteen prisoners were tried at Kingston in Surrey, three of whom were capitally convicted, viz. John Rayner, for Robbery on the Highway, Thomas Pattin and William Walker, two Watermen, for knocking down Mr. Alison, in a Boat on the River Thames, near Cuckold’s Point, and robbing him of a Silver Coffee Pot, a Watch, and a Guinea and Half in Money.
These quiet places along the Thames were once full of life, and also unfortunately, death.
Looking along Cuckold’s Point to the east and there is a pier that reaches out over the foreshore. This is where you can catch the Thames Clipper RB4 service that runs between this pier at the Doubletree Docklands Hotel, across the river to the pier at Canary Wharf – a brilliant way of crossing the river.
A rather good example of historical continuity in London, the Thames Clipper RB4 service has almost exactly the same route as the old Limehouse Hole ferry that ran from Horn Stairs.
Some of the long length of the causeway still has a layer of stones that would have provided the hard surface to walk down to catch your boat:
I visited Horn Stairs and Cuckold’s Point in January, and this was probably the left over of some New Year’s Eve celebrations:
Returning to the story of the Miller and King John, one of the rights allegedly granted to the Miller was the right to hold a fair in Charlton.
Whatever the truth in the story of the Miller and King, a fair was held each year, on St. Luke’s Day, the 18th of October, and the following article from The Sun on the 20th of October, 1846 hints at the antiquity of the fair, and also provides a good overview of the event.
There is also a reference to Cuckold’s Point towards the end of the article, which I have highlighted in bold:
“HORN FAIR – This scene of popular amusement was held yesterday, according to ancient custom, in the healthful and pleasant village of Charlton.
In former times it was generally distinguished by riot and obscenity. Some of the worst class in London made parties to carry out the vulgar joke of cornuted husbands and wives (cornuted means to bear or have horns).
Horn Fair (the common name) is now changed to Charlton Fair, and the visitors, more enlightened that their ancestors, seldom indulge in those disorderly transactions which bore the stigma of indecency. It was formerly a mart for various forms of utensils made of horn, and tradition ascribes the origin to King John. An armour carried out by that licentious and infamous Prince with the wife of an honest miller was the foundation for the fair. John, surprised by the enraged husband, would have perished under the uplifted dirk of the miller, had he not saved his life by promising to redress the injury. The compensation was a grant of land the miller could see westward from the top of his mill. Agreeable to the royal donation, a fair was to be held annually, on St.-Luke’s-day, for ever.
Such is the oral account of the fair from year to year, and there is, we believe, at the present day, an aquatic custom at Cuckold’s-point, where it is said the mill stood, which bears out the story. The waterman, as he passes the stairs, or landing place, frequently tells his fare that a spider is crawling on his hat. The person naturally takes it off his head, and then Old Charon, with a laugh, requests he will put it on again, having properly paid his respects to the Horns at Cuckold’s Point.”
Note in the above article that the mill is described as being at Cuckold’s Point, however the majority of references refer to the location being in Charlton, and that Cuckold’s Point, where horns were mounted on a pole, was the place furthest west that the Miller could see from his place in Charlton.
The article also mentions that Horn Fair was held on St. Luke’s Day. The connection with St. Luke comes from ecclesiastical art, where St. Luke is often painted with an Ox, an example being this early 18th century print which shows St. Luke seated at a desk, with a winged ox with horns, behind him.
There are very many references to Horn Fare, including some which describe events such as the following from 1742:
“Monday being St. Luke’s Day, a large Body of Cuckolds, both real and reputed, attended the King, the Miller, and his Wife, from the Sun Yard in Bishopsgate-street, to Horn Fair, held at Charlton in Kent, according to annual Custom.”.
In the 18th century, the Press Gang took advantage of Horn Fair, as this report from the 27th of October, 1746 explains:
“Last Saturday Night a large Press Gang, with Horns on, and Music playing before them, came through Greenwich, Deptford and Rotherhithe, &c. from Horn Fair, which drew a great many Sailors out of their Retreats to see the Procession, several of whom were pressed for his Majesty’s Service, and sent directly on board the Tenders in the River.”
The stairs today look almost like archaeological remains, washed from under layers of mud and sand by a strong tide, a bit like Seahenge, discovered in Norfolk in 1998. I checked on the Historic England directory, and the stairs are not listed, and it is unclear who, if anyone, is responsible for these features. Sadly, they will probably continue to erode away. A great loss for future generations.
Temporary structures were erected for Horn Fair, and we can get a glimpse of these from reports about the fair, including one from 1819 where there was an unexpected heavy snow fall, which caused much damage to the fair, including temporary structures for “The Freemasons Tavern” and “The Crown and Anchor”, which had apparently been “fitted up with great splendor , and the proprietor had omitted to take down his lamps and lustres” – which along with bottles, crockery, furniture etc. were all badly damaged by the snow.
The Horn Fair was abolished in 1872. By then Charlton had ceased to be the “healthful and pleasant village of Charlton“, and was being rapidly developed.
Horn Fair did not fit in with the Victorian narrative of improvement, and riotous assemblies such as fairs, were seen as a threat to those living nearby, to law and order, and to the social structures of the time.
In the Morning Advertiser on the 27th of February, 1872, in between lists of the prices of coal, hops, potatoes, the cattle market, and an article listing the days of the arrivals of the mail from Australia, New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, Mexico, Egypt (all symbols of a new Victorian London), there was a brief article reporting on the official abolition of the Horn Fair at Charlton and the Blackheath Fair, both of which had “survived all other suburban pleasure fairs”.
Chalk on the foreshore at Cuckold’s Point, left over from a time when chalk was used to build a flat platform on which barges could be grounded:
The wooden steps of Horn Stairs. The condition of the individual steps seems to get worse with height, with those at the very top appearing to be in very poor condition. I assume this is because those at the top are much more open to the atmosphere, are washed by the river rather than being covered, and suffer more wave action.
Horn Stairs and Cuckold’s Point are wonderful places to take in the river, views across to Limehouse and the Isle of Dogs (but walk down the stairs at your own risk !!).
It is a place with a long history, shared with the history of the river, and a connection with a Miller and King in Charlton, and a historic fair held in the “pleasant village of Charlton“, which does still have a Hornfair Road near the original location of the fair
What ever the truth of the story of the Miller, his Wife and King John, it is a fascinating part of London’s long history, and tells much about life in London over the centuries.
Trig Lane Stairs lead down to the Thames foreshore, just to the east of the Millennium Bridge. Today, the stairs connect the foreshore with the walkway that now runs along the edge of the river, with apartments and offices between the river and Upper Thames Street.
Back in 1949 it was a very different place, a mix of wartime bomb damage and with many of the warehouses remaining from the time when this section of the river was busy with the movement of goods between barges and warehouses.
This is one of my father’s photos from 1949. The wooden stairs of Trig Lane Stairs lead down to the foreshore, warehouses either side with an open space between (not bomb damage, but an open space for movement of goods), and one of my father’s friends standing on the stairs:
I took the following photo from the south bank of the river. To the right of the Millennium Bridge, along the wall that runs alongside the river, you can see a dark rectangle, which is the entrance to Trig Stairs through the river wall, and the wooden stairs to the foreshore can just be seen below the gap:
As with the edge of the Thames through most of London, this area has changed dramatically in the 74 years between the two photos.
The warehouses have been replaced with new buildings, with a single block covering the space behind the stairs and along where several warehouses once stood.
Walking along the edge of the river from the east, and the Trig Lane Stairs can be seen in the following photo, just behind the group of people on the foreshore:
The entrance to Trig Lane Stairs in 2023:
The stairs go up, before going down to the foreshore are an indication of the height of the river wall now needed to prevent any flooding at times of exceptionally high tide.
Once over the stairs, we can get a view of the wooden stairs going down to the foreshore:
And this was the same view in 1949:
In 1949 the warehouses were still in use, and the loaded barges which can be seen in the background are probably holding goods that are waiting to be moved to the warehouses as these were mostly used for import.
According to the 1953 edition of “London Wharves and Docks”, published by Commercial Motor, the warehouse to the left of the stairs in my father’s photo was the warehouse of Crown and Horseshoe Wharf, which traded in general goods, and specialised in canned goods and chemicals. The warehouse had storage space for 100,000 cubic feet of goods.
The warehouse on the right of the stairs was Sunlight Wharf, owned by LEP Transport, and in 1953 was described as “premises particularly suited for storage of canned goods, having large basement accommodation at average low temperature”.
According to “A Dictionary of London” by Henry Harben, the first mention of the name was as Trigge Lane in the 1603 edition of Stow’s Survey of London, and by 1677 it was Trigg Lane.
The first mention of the stairs was by John Strype, who published a new, expanded version of Stow’s Survey of London in 1720. Strype’s description of the stairs and lane was “Trig Stairs, so called from the Stairs on the Water side, which is indifferently well supplied by Watermen. The Lane is pretty open, reasonably well built and inhabited”.
Henry Harben states that the name came from John Trigge, the owner of property around the lane and stairs, and in the following centuries, the name has changed from Trigge to Trig. The “London Encyclopedia” (Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert) also repeats the source of the name, and that “the Trigge family were local residents in the 14th and 15th centuries”.
The street Trig Lane has all but disappeared. It no longer runs from Upper Thames Street down to the stairs. Development over the last few decades has obliterated the original route of the street, but the name remains in an east – west street, which is mainly an access route to the rear of one of the buildings that now faces onto the river.
Having photos from 1949 and 2023, looking down from the stairs to the foreshore allows comparison of the foreshore, 74 years apart.
The following photo is an extract from the 1949 photo, looking at the area where a number of wooden structures can be seen:
I have labeled what I assume is the top of the groyne line on the right. The groyne line is shown in the 1951 OS map, and apart from a gap opposite the stairs, it runs along the foreshore, a little distance out from the embankment.
The groyne line was probably a wooden wall used to retain the foreshore and create a reasonably flat surface on wich barges could be positioned and their cargo unloaded into the warehouses.
I have also labeled wooden posts that appear to be retaining a plank. There is a similar plank to the left and these two may have been where the groyne line returned to the river wall, or could have formed the edge to a causeway that ran out from the bottom of the stairs.
Looking at the same view today, and we can see just how much of the foreshore has eroded in the last seven decades:
The groyne on the right, the top of which was visible in 1949 has now disappeared. The groyne on the left which was just below the foreshore is now fully exposed.
We can also see the wooden posts which were once retaining the planks along the edge of the causeway.
Comparing these two photos shows that at the location of the groynes, the foreshore has eroded a good two to three feet.
The Thames foreshore is a very fluid space, in all senses of the word.
Trig Lane and the stairs date from the 17th century, and are probably much older and even if the name Trig dated from around that time, there were probably stairs here much earlier as stairs were such an important part of access between the land and the river, and along this part of the river, there has been port infrastructure for so many centuries.
The London Encyclopedia has the same view as it states that the stairs were earlier known as Fish Wharf.
Excavation at Trig Lane between 1974 and 1976, prior to major development of the area revealed remarkable remains of the medieval waterfront with significant wooden revetments and other infrastructure of the port between the late 13th and mid-15th centuries.
The following is an extract from William Morgan’s map of London from 1682, and shows Trigg Stairs. To the left of Trigg Stairs is Paul’s Wharf which also had a set of stairs. I do not know whether it was an artistic interpretation of the scene, or whether it was fact, but the stairs by Paul’s Wharf had a large cluster of watermen’s boats, but none at Trigg Stairs:
What I love above Thames stairs is not just the physical structure, but the stories you can find about what happened at the stairs. Just small glimpses, but they help with an understanding of what life was like at the boundary between river and City.
For example, from the Newcastle Courant on the 15th of July, 1721:
“Last Monday, Mr. Hargrave, who sometime ago killed one Capt. Wilkes, a half Pay Officer in Racket Court, Fleet Street, and fled, and coming off the water at Trig Stairs, drew his sword upon the Waterman, without any provocation, and stabbed him very dangerously in the Breast, for which he and his Companion were forthwith seized, and carried before the Lord Mayor, who committed them to Wood Street Compter”.
And from the Caledonian Mercury on the 1st of July, 1728:
“On Tuesday in the afternoon, a Barge Man was struck down by lightening as he was going up a ladder at Trig Stairs; and falling into the River, was drowned before any help could be got”.
From the Kentish Weekly Post on the 24th of January, 1759:
“A Journeyman Carpenter crossing the water from Trig Stairs, being a little in liquor, and imagining he was near the shore, jumped out of the boat and was drowned”.
The Reading Mercury reported on the 28th of July, 1783, that:
“The lighters of Mr. Rodbard, at Trig Stairs, Thames Street, having been lately frequently robbed, a guard was appointed to overlook them; and early yesterday morning three persons were discovered filling the corn into sacks, who being fired at by the guard, one of them was killed; the others immediately rowed off in a boat which they had stolen for the occasion, to Pepper Alley Stairs, where they escaped, leaving the body in the boat.”
The London Morning Herald reported on the 13th of October, 1837, that:
“Yesterday evening an inquest was held in the King’s Arms, Queenhithe, before W. Payne (City Coroner), on view of the body of Joseph Colcourt, a lighterman. It appeared from evidence that the deceased was in company with a boy bringing a barge down the river, on Wednesday morning last, about three o’clock, and had arrived alongside Trig Stairs, Queenhithe, when the barge struck against another which was moored off the stairs, and deceased, who was at the time standing on the gunwale, was, in consequence of the concussion, precipitated overboard, and sunk immediately. The boy made what efforts he could at the time to save him, but they were ineffectual. The tide was running down very strong, and it was impossible to render assistance. The body of the deceased was found next morning near to the spot where he fell in. Verdict – Accidental Death.”
Whilst all these stories are of assault, theft and accidental death (as today, the press only report the bad news), they are a common theme to all Thames stairs, and show the dangers of working on the river, of crossing the river, crime on the river, children also working in such dangerous conditions etc.
Standing at the stairs today, it is hard to imagine a guard firing and killing one of those trying to steal corn from barges moored by the stairs.
In Morgan’s map of London from 1682, the stairs were spelt Trigg, but by the time of Rocque’s map of London in 1746, the last “g” had been dropped, and they were just Trig Stairs, as they remain today.
It is interesting how place names change, and I suspect that it was usually a gradual simplification of the name, so the stairs started with the name of a local land owner as Trigge, then Trigg and finally Trig, so the name ends with a spelling that more accurately mirrors how the name is pronounced.
The groynes today still seem to form a boundary between the water and the foreshore at a typical low tide:
I assume that the rubble behind the groyne may have been used as infill to build up the foreshore on the land side of the groyne to create a platform where barges could be moored on some reasonably level ground.
And today we can also see where the eastern groyne ends, there is a gap where the causeway would have extended, and the wooden posts along the side of the causeway now project above the surface. It could also have been where the groynes returned to the river wall. This shows just how much erosion the foreshore has suffered in the last 70 years:
View along the foreshore to the west:
And to the east – the large brick building at the end of the run of modern buildings is the only warehouse that remains from the pre-war period:
In the Port of London Authority book: “Access to the River Thames. A Port of London Authority Guide, Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames” (published around 1995), Trig Lane Stairs is listed as having 9 stone steps and 18 wood steps, and that the condition was bad.
The stairs today have 16 steps. The stairs in the 1949 photo are longer as they went into the recess in the wall, so I do wonder if the stairs at the time of the PLA survey were the same as in my father’s photo, as they would probably have been in bad condition having been exposed to decades of Thames tides washing over them.
The PLA listing confirms that the stairs were in use in 1708, and at the time of the survey they were not in use.
The stairs today are in good condition, and whilst probably not in use as a landing place, they provide access to the foreshore:
The following photo shows the view across the river to Tate Modern, the old Bankside Power Station:
My father did take photos across the river from the top of the stairs at different times to the photos of Trig Lane Stairs.
The first shows dates from 1953 and shows the new Bankside Power Station when the first half had been completed and was in operation. The original power station is on the left, where the parallel rows of chimneys can be seen. I wrote about the view, along with other photos in the post Building Bankside Power Station.
And this view from 1949 shows the original power station on the left, and the Phoenix Gas Works on the right. I wrote about this view, along with a wider view of Bankside in the post A Bankside Panorama In 1949 And 2017:
Trig Stairs are in good condition, but the same cannot be said for the remains of the wooden structures on the foreshore, the groynes and the possible edges to a causeway leading out from the base of the stairs.
I suspect that erosion of the foreshore may have been speeding up over the last few decades, as the groynes and platform they protected are now not needed and are therefore not maintained, and that there are no obstructions along the foreshore or the river that would have slowed down water passing over the foreshore (for example, barges on the river and moored on the foreshore).
I doubt whether the remaining wooden structures below the Trig Lane Stairs will be there in another 74 years time.
Limehouse Hole Stairs are one of the very old stairs between the land and the river. They are towards the eastern edge of Limehouse, in an area once known as Limehouse Hole, where the river turns south on its journey around the Isle of Dogs.
Today, the stairs are a wide and well maintained set of steps leading down from the walkway alongside the river, towards a very roughly rectangular area which is accessible when the tide is low:
The foreshore at Limehouse Hole Stairs has large sandy patches along with plenty of stone and brick that has found its way into the river from the buildings and infrastructure that once lined the Thames.
If you look closely, it is interesting how similar items can be found in lines along the foreshore. They were left when the tide went out, and form a line across the sand. I have no idea of the mechanism that leaves them in a line rather than randomly scattered, and on the foreshore at Limehouse Hole Stairs, a line of green glass / plastic / minerals (not sure what they were), was stretched across the sand:
The Port of London Authority list of the steps, stairs and landing places on the tidal Thames has very little information on Limehouse Hole Stairs, just recording that they were in good condition, with stone and concrete steps and in use. The PLA had not recorded whether the stairs were in use in their two key recording years of 1708 and 1977.
The stairs are old, but the stairs we see today are very different to what was there prior to the redevelopment of the area in recent decades, which I will show later in the post.
There is an area of foreshore that dries when the tide is low shown mainly within the red circle. Limehouse Pier extends into the river. Follow the pier back to land, and in the corner is Limehouse Hole Stairs.
You can also see in the above map, a line forming two sides of a square, with the river walls forming the other two sides. The two lines running across the dried foreshore in the map were a wooden surround, parts of which can still be seen today, as I will show later.
I will come to the relevance of the blue circle later in the post.
This area has a complicated naming history.
Written references to the stairs date back to the early 19th century, although these do not explicitly name Limehouse Hole Stairs. A typical advert in February 1807 was for the Schooner Anne which was for sale and could be seen “lying at Limehouse Hole, opposite the stairs”.
The name Limehouse Hole is also a bit of a mystery. It may refer to a form of small harbour or dock, although I find this unlikely as the larger Limekiln Dock is within the area traditionally known as Limehouse Hole.
I did wonder if the name referred to a hole in the river, perhaps a particularly deep part of the Thames, however in the area known as Limehouse Hole, the bed of the river is of a depth that is normal for much of this stretch of the river, typically around 6 metres deep at the lowest astronomical tide.
There is though a strange depression in the bed of the river not far to the west, in the middle of the river opposite the entrance to Limehouse Dock, where the river descends from a depth of 5.5 metres to a depth of 11.4 metres, all within a small area of the Thames.
To add to naming confusion, if we look at Rocque’s map from 1746, there are stairs in the rough location of Limehouse Hole Stairs, however Rocque calls then Limekiln Stairs, and he also names this stretch of the river Limekiln Holes rather than Limehouse Hole, so perhaps the name refers to some aspect of the Limekiln industry, and as this industry declined, the name changed from Limekiln to Limehouse Hole.
The Survey of London does though state that the name Limehouse Hole was in use for this section of the river by the seventeenth century, so perhaps Rocque was confused with the Limekilns and Limekiln Dock, or in the 18th century there were different names in use.
The extract from Rocque’s map is shown below:
The first references to the full name of Limehouse Hole Stairs start to appear around 1817, and there are multiple references in the 1820s onwards. All the usual events that make their way into the papers – accidents on the river, ships for sale, fires in the buildings by the stairs, rowing competitions, and tables of rates for Watermen to charge to row passengers along the river.
In the OS map shown above, there is a pier coming out from Limehouse Hole stairs. The earliest reference I can find to the pier dates from 1843, when there was an article in the November 5th edition of The Planet recording a court case, where “On Tuesday, Jonathan Bourne, a waterman, and one of the proprietors of the floating-pier at Limehouse Hole stairs, appeared to answer a charge of carrying passengers in his boat on Sunday, in violation of the rights and privileges of William Banks, the Sunday ferryman. The real question in dispute between the parties was as to the right of the watermen owning the floating pier to convey passengers to and from the Watermen’s Company steamers which stop there. When the tide is low there is not sufficient water for the steamers to come alongside the outer barge of the pier, and the watermen row the passengers to the steamers, and vice versa, but no money is taken.”
From the article, it appears that the pier was owned by a group of watermen. The article also shows how watermen were regulated, and had specific rights covering what they could do, and when. I did not know that the Watermen’s Company ran steamers on the river. This must have been a far more efficient way of conveying passengers along the river, rather than rowing as watermen in previous years would have done. Also, an early version of the Thames Clippers that provide the same service today.
The pier seems to have disappeared by the 1860s, as in the East London Observer on the 1st of May, 1869, there was a report on a public meeting of the parishioners of Limehouse “to consider what action should be taken in obtaining the construction of a pier on the Thames, for the convenience of the inhabitants of Limehouse”, and that “there were many persons who would far rather go to the city by boat than either rail or bus”.
A new pier was needed because “the old pier was never under the management of the Thames Conservators, but under that of the watermen, who let it go to ruin”.
A new pier was built in 1870 and this second pier lasted until 1901, when it was removed for the construction of Dundee Wharf, and a couple of years later, the London County Council built the third pier on the site.
Getty Images have some photos of this third iteration of the pier, with the following photos showing the pier stretching out across the foreshore, with Dundee Wharf in the background, on the left. Click on the arrows to the sides of each photo to see all images of the pier in the gallery. (If you have received this post via email, the photo may not be visible due to the way code embedding works. Go to the post here https://alondoninheritance.com/ to see the photo).
The photos show the wooden surround which was shown in the earlier OS map. The photo helps with the purpose of this surround, as it presumably held back a raised area of the foreshore to create a reasonably level space for barges and lighters to be moored.
The Survey of London states that this third pier “was removed by the PLA in 1948, but the stairs and Thames Place, though closed off in 1967, survived until 1990”. The survival of the stairs until 1990 presumably refers to the version of the stairs prior to that which we see today.
The result of multiple piers, along with the wooden surround to the area, means that there are still remains on the foreshore which we can see today:
Including plenty of loose timbers which may have been washed here from other locations along the river:
And when the tide is low, we can still see the wooden surround which once enclosed a flat area of the foreshore as can be seen in the Getty photo above:
The following 1914 revision of the OS map shows Limehouse Hole Stairs and the pier, and also shows Limehouse Hole Ferry running across the river from the pier. This was a ferry to the opposite site of the river which landed at Horn Stairs, and which provided a fast way of crossing the river, rather than having to travel to either the Rothehithe or Blackwall Tunnels (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):
The following photo from Britain from Above shows the site in 1953 when the pier had been removed. I have marked Limehouse Hole Stairs, which at the time was simply wooden steps leading down to the foreshore. To get a closer view, the photo can be found here.
The pier had been removed just a few years before the above photo. Limekiln Dock runs inland towards the top of the photo, and, along with the shape of the river wall where Limehouse Hole Stairs is located, is the only feature that survives today. Almost every single building has disappeared.
Although Limehouse Hole Pier has gone, there is another pier, a short distance to the south, where the Canary Wharf pier can be found today, which provides access to the Thames Clippers, providing a similar function to the old steamers that once docked at Limehouse Hole pier:
Looking north from Canary Wharf pier, and there is another feature that survives. In the following photo, looking towards the location of Limehouse Hole Stairs, there is a straight row of metal piling, followed by a brick wall:
With a closer look, we can see that the brick wall turns inwards:
Returning to the 1949 revision of the OS map, I have marked the curved brick wall in the above photo, by a blue circle in the following map:
The curved brick wall was at the northern side of the entrance to a dock that ran alongside Lower Aberdeen Wharf.
The wall today looks as if it continues in land and I would love to know how much of the old dock, and the walls that once surrounded the dock, survive under the modern walkway that has been built as part of the redevelopment of the area.
We can also see the dock in an aerial photo, again from the Britain from Above web site, and dating from 1938:
I have highlighted the corner wall we can see today in an extract from the above photo, and have also marked the stairs and pier:
As well as Limehouse Hole Stairs, the other part of the title of the post is “the Breach”.
Much of the Isle of Dogs, and indeed much of the land alongside the Thames, is low lying, and over the centuries, it has been very common for there to be floods during high tides.
As London grew, and trade along the river developed, land was reclaimed, and river walls were built, but until the 20th century, these walls were often not of the height and strength we see today.
Nor far south of Limehouse Hole Stairs is an area of land where the river wall was breached, and was flooded, or in a state of marsh, for very many years. This was known as “The Breach”, and was shown on maps, including Rocque’s 1746 map, where it can be seen with a road running around what appears to be an area of marsh:
There is also a water feature in the above map called the “Poplar Gut”, and both this and the Breach were mentioned in an article in the East London Observer in 1903, when “Pepys in his diary under date of 23rd March, 1660, mentions that he saw the great breach which the late high water had made, to the loss of many thousands of pounds to the people about Limehouse. In Gascoyne’s map, the spot is marked by the explanation ‘Old Breach, the Foreland, now a place to lay timber’ and ‘The Breach’ is applied to what was more recently known as the Poplar Gut”.
The reason why the Breach happened where it did was down to the natural erosion of the land by the river at this particular point in its meander around the Isle of Dogs.
In time, and without any human intervention, the Thames would have cut through the northern section of the Isle of Dogs, leaving the part of the river around the south of the Isle of Dogs as an Oxbow Lake. The Thames has made subtle changes to its course over the centuries, and it is only in recent years that we have effectively put the river into a concrete and banked channel, and limited the natural forces of erosion.
There are also stories of people digging out ballast from the foreshore around where the Breach occurred, which would have contributed to the flood.
The view from Greenwich would have looked very different if the river had continued with the Breach.
in the quote from Pepys, he mentions that the Breach is now a place to lay timber, and this would have been a good place, as timber was often kept in a wet environment to stop the wood drying out and to allow gradual conditioning before sale.
In a parish map from 1703, the area is marked as a place to lay timber:
In Rocque’s map, there is an inland area of water called the Poplar Gut and in the above map it is labelled as the Breach. This was part of the area that flooded when the river breached the bank along the river.
This must have been a significant area of reasonably deep water, as on the 10th of June, 1748, it was reported that “On Saturday last, in the evening as Mr. George Newman, son of Mr. Newman, an eminent Linen Draper in Whitechapel, was washing himself in Poplar Gut, he was unfortunately drowned, although all possible means were used by a companion he was along with, to save him, to the inexpressible grief of his parents, and all who knew him”.
The Breach lasted for some years, and was still shown in the 1816 edition of Smith’s New Plan of London, which also included the recently completed West India Docks, which had been built over the Poplar Gut:
The Breach would soon be reclaimed after the publication of the above map, as the size and number of docks grew on the Isle of Dogs, and industry expanded along the edge of the river (the West India Docks and the channel across the Isle of Dogs will be the subject of future posts).
Nothing remains to be seen of the Breach today, although it was to the south of where the Canary Wharf pier is today, in the following view:
And almost as a reminder of when it was impossible to cross where the water of the Thames had breached the bank, during my visit, the path was closed, but this time for maintenance, rather than a flood:
This small area of Limehouse has changed dramatically over the last few decades, however there are still places where we can see traces of the previous industrial. docks and riverside infrastructure.
Wooden planks still poking through the foreshore, although being gradually eroded, a brick wall running along the river’s edge, and location and names of the stairs that bridge the boundary between land and the river.
For this week’s post, I am returning to my exploration of the ancient stairs that line the River Thames. In the 1920s books Wonderful London there is the following photo of Ratcliffe Cross Stairs, described as “an ancient and much used landing place and point of departure of a ferry. There is a tradition that Sir Martin Frobisher took boat here for his ship when starting on his voyage to find the North-West Passage. Ratcliffe Cross is the old name for the thoroughfare leading to this landing stage, whence Butchers’ Row meets Broad Street, Shadwell, and Narrow Street, Limehouse”:
I do not know if that is the ferry mentioned in the Wonderful London text, but it does illustrate perfectly how these stairs, and the causeway that ran from the bottom of the stairs, was used to take a boat either along the river to another set of stairs, or to a ship on the river.
Limehouse Basin is the area of water to the right of the map, and the dark pink road above is the Highway leading into the Limehouse Link Tunnel, with the dark pink line of Butcher Row running north.
Ratcliffe Cross Stairs leads from Narrow Street at the point where it does a sharp bend to head north to a dead end at the Highway.
In the following photo, the dark blue gates are the entrance to Ratcliffe Cross Stairs:
Ratcliffe Cross Stairs are in what was the old hamlet of Ratcliffe. The name came from Redcliff as the high ground along the route of the main street that ran from the City to the east of London, parallel to the river had red sandstone exposed in the slight cliff that descended down to the marshy land along the river.
The road that ran along this higher land became known at the Ratcliffe Highway (now just the Highway), as it followed the river from the City to the hamlet.
Although now not as well known as the stairs in Wapping, Ratcliffe Cross Stairs were important and well used river stairs, and to understand why, we need to look at maps that show the area at a time when development was limited, and much of east London was still fields.
Now using the same map, we can zoom out, and we can see the wider context of the location of the stairs (red oval):
If we follow the route of the road that runs down to the stairs, then after running through some fields, and limited development along the road, we reach Stepney. Follow the main road through Stepney as it turns to the left, and we reach Mile End Old Town, so the road that runs directly to the stairs is the direct route from Stepney and Mile End.
Also, if we look to the left, we can see two main roads that run from the east of the City of London, which also run to Butcher Street, then down to Ratcliffe Cross Stairs.
So whilst today, the stairs are at a quiet location, where Narrow Street turns to a dead end, it was once at a key location, at the end of the main road that would have made the stairs the most direct route to the river from a wide area of east London.
Rocque’s 1746 map of London does not name the stairs, but the street leading back from the stairs is called Ratcliff Cross (centre of the map, along the Thames):
The above map also shows Butcher Row leading down into Ratcliff Cross, and there is a Watch House shown at the junction between Butcher Row and where the road to Stepney is off to the right, and the road to the City on the left.
A Watch House also confirms that this was an important route between Mile End, the City and the river.
The stairs appear to have been in use in the 16th century, and were probably much older. Although I cannot find an early, verified reference to this, Ratcliffe Cross Stairs were alleged to have been used by explorers and adventurers of the later half of the 16th century, such as Sir Hugh Willoughby and Sir Martin Frobisher.
Sir Hugh Willoughby was a soldier, who took command of an expedition funded by the Muscovy Company, to find a north east passage along the northern coast of Russia, to the Far East. Willoughby, along with his crew would die in the attempt.
Sir Martin Frobisher was a sailor who made three attempts to find the north west passage to China. He survived all three expeditions, but failed to find a way through from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
I have found references to Ratcliffe Cross being used by 16th century adventurers such as Willoughby and Frobisher in a number of books on London and in a series of newspaper articles on the history of east London in the East London Observer in 1912.
There is also a plaque in the King Edward VII Memorial Park in Shadwell, next to the air vent / old pedestrian access to the Rotherhithe Tunnel:
Just a note on spelling – the hamlet and the stairs seem to be referred to by both Ratcliff and Ratcliffe. I am using the version with an “e” at the end as this was the spelling used for the Wonderful London photo.
There are a couple of points here regarding the reference to famous adventurers leaving the stairs. They were just the boarding point where they would have got onto a smaller boat to be rowed to their ship which was either moored on the Thames, or at Deptford.
Locations along the Thames were also not the last place in the country that they would have set foot, as these expeditions frequently stopped at places such as Plymouth to take on any final provisions and to pick up and leave final messages.
There is also a question as to whether any reference to Ratcliffe Cross refers to the stairs, or to a cross.
There are multiple references to there being some form of cross near the stairs which was used as a place to receive a blessing before departing, to make proclamations, and as a place from where news could be spread.
The cross appears to have been just north of the stairs, and at some point along Butcher Row.
Again, referring back to the maps above, this would have been a good location for a cross given the convergence of roads, and the road running from Mile End, through Stepney and straight down to the stairs.
The following photo is looking north along the short stub of Narrow Street (that was Butcher Row) up to where the Highway joins the Limehouse Link Tunnel. Butcher Row continues north across the Highway.:
The cross was in place in the 18th century as the poet and playwright John Dryden has one of his characters mention having heard a ballad about the Protector Somerset being sung at Ratcliffe Cross.
There are also references to the cross being lost or demolished in the 18th century, and in the early 20th century there were attempts at setting up some form of commemoration of the cross, for example from the Shoreditch Observer on the 26th of July, 1913:
“The Borough Council in January last resolved to request the London County Council to consider the question of the commemoration of the site of ‘Ratcliffe Cross’ on the ground that the spot witnessed the departure of mariners in the time of Elizabeth.”
And from the East London Observer:
“The Council are aware that the question of a suitable perpetuation of the historic ‘Ratcliffe Cross’ has been recently referred to, and in this connection we beg to report that we have under consideration a communication from Mr. C. McNaught, dated 7th, December 1912, urging that some sign, signification, or memorial thereof should be placed on the pillars of the Ratcliffe entrance to the Ratcliffe and Rotherhithe Tunnel. We think that the suggestion embodied in the forgoing communication is one which should be supported, and therefore, we recommend that the London County Council be requested to give effect to what Mr. McNaught suggests in this matter, and that Mr. McNaught be informed of the actions taken.
Councilor Maynard could not see why a memorial of Ratcliffe Cross should be put on the most modern structure of Rotherhithe Tunnel. He did not think the London County Council would agree to it.
Councilor Brennan was in favour of the memorial, pointing out that the tunnel was the nearest spot to the site of the Cross.”
The above text is interesting, as it shows the conflict between commemorating old London on the latest infrastructure, and it also implies that the cross was not right by the stairs, rather towards where the Highway junction with Butcher Row is now located, as this is close to the entrance to the Rotherhithe Tunnel.
The Mr. McNaught mentioned in the above article was Charles McNaught. He appears to have been a local historian, and wrote a series of articles in the East London Observer titled “Roundabout Old East London”.
He seems to have been rather cynical about some of the well known historians who had published books about London. In one article, he writes that “When Sir Walter Besant and his lieutenants came down to Ratcliffe a little more than a dozen years ago, they found at first that the hamlet offered little to interest or instruct.”
He also wrote that “When Sir Walter Besant ‘discovered’ this part of London”
He implies that authors such as Besant (who wrote a number of books about the history of London) came to places such as Ratcliffe, with his “lieutenants”, they did not put the effort in to discover the real history of the place, and eventually found out what the locals already knew, whilst claiming to “discover” the place.
So we have stairs that were at an important location, at the end of a direct route from Mile End, that had an important cross close by which had some symbolic meaning for departing sailors, and was used to make announcements (the East London Observer reported that the cross was used to make a proclamation about Queen Victoria becoming queen), dates from at least the 16th century, and was known as a departing point for 16th century adventurers.
Time to take a look at the stairs:
The above photo is an earlier photo to my latest visit, just to show how far the water of the Thames comes in at high water. The above photo was taken when the tide had already been receding.
The photo below is when the tide was out, and shows a set of steps down to the foreshore:
The foreshore nearest to the steps seems to be comprised of a very fine sand. There was a strong breeze during my visit, and walking through this section risked fine sand being blown in the eyes.
Just to the left of where the stairs meet Narrow Street, where the street heads north, there is the PH symbol for a Public House.
In researching Thames stairs, the majority appear to have had a pub located next to the stairs. This would have been a place to wait for your boat to arrive, a place for a first drink after you have arrive back, or just simply had some business next to the stairs.
The pub was the Ship Tavern, and in 1939 “East London’s oldest woman licensee, Mrs. Rose Hannah M. Jenkins (aged 69), who for 40 years was in charge of the Ship Tavern, Narrow Street, Stepney, has died. The Ship was formerly the resort of men from the sailing ships who used to land at Ratcliffe Cross Stairs.”
In the above map extract, the stairs do seem to have a causeway extending across the foreshore, and the 1920s photo shows this causeway. Ratcliffe Cross Stairs does have a Historic England listing, with the “Old stone slipway to River Thames” being Grade II listed.
The causeway has today completely disappeared. Whether it was demolished, gradually eroded, or perhaps is covered by the debris deposited on the foreshore by the river, I do not know. It would be good if it was the later.
The view from the foreshore looking towards the Isle of Dogs:
View of the river frontage of the buildings that face onto Narrow Street:
Foreshore looking towards the east:
A short distance along the foreshore showing the construction site for the Thames Tideway Tunnel:
Looking back from the foreshore towards the stairs. The causeway would have run down from the stairs to where I am standing.
The above photo shows a couple of things. Firstly the size of the tidal range on the Thames. I was standing close to the water to take the above photo and at high tide I would be completely underwater by several feet. The green algae on the walls shows the height of the tide.
Also, a bit hard to see, but the height of the foreshore drops off on either side of the stairs. The foreshore is covered in stones, the remains of bricks, bits of wood and concrete, and I do wonder if parts of the causeway remain below the surface.
I checked in my copy of the Port of London Authority book: “Access to the River Thames. A Port of London Authority Guide, Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames” (published around 1995), and the following table shows the entry for Ratcliffe Cross Stairs:
Interesting that it referred to the stairs as a landing place in 1977 (so still in use), and that the paving had been renewed. The implication was that in 1995 the stairs and causeway were in good condition.
After the post on Wapping Dock Stairs a few weeks ago, I did email the Port of London Authority with a question as to who is responsible for the Thames stairs, however so far I have not received a reply.
There is also the remains of the industrial use of the Thames. In the photo below there is a large layer of concrete, which may have been a slipway of some sort. The scaffolding is there to support maintenance work on the building above.
However behind the scaffolding is this large pipe which contains four smaller pipes. There were water draining from the two middle pipes, but I have no idea what they were used for, are they still used, and how far back they go.
There is a cobbled slipway on the foreshore, close by the stairs, and I did wonder if this was the site of the Wonderful London photo, however the slipway uses different stones, and is wider than the one in the photo:
The following extract is from the 1949 revision of the OS map. Ratcliffe Cross Stairs are in the centre of the map, and to the right I have highlighted a feature identified as a “jetty”:
Parts of this jetty are still visible:
Wood and concrete on the foreshore:
And the remains of an old shoe:
I do have a PLA Thames Foreshore Permit, but very rarely get the time for any serious searching. I have always wanted to find a complete clay pipe, but no luck. This would be a wonderful connection with those who once lived and worked on the river.
What I did find at Ratcliffe Cross Stairs was this stone bird:
It seems to have been made out of a lump of flint as the stone is exposed where part has broken off, however the overall shape of a bird and some of the decoration and colour can be clearly seen.
I have reported and sent photos to the Portable Antiquities Scheme Finds Liaison Officer at the Museum of London, so await an update as to whether it has any age.
The River Police are still a very visible presence on the Thames, and in 1937, Police Constable Earnest Butters of the Thames Police received £5 “in recognition of his courage in rescuing a five year old boy who had fallen into the river at Ratcliffe Cross Stairs on July 2nd”.
Ratcliffe Cross Stairs deserve more recognition, and more research. There are no plaques or information boards at the stairs to provide any information as to the historic importance of the location (as with all the Thames stairs).
The Ratcliffe Cross, after which the stairs are named is a fascinating bit of lost east London history, and has been added to my very long list of things to try and find out more about.
If you have been on my Wapping walk, you will hopefully recognise the following view, and it is a view that I find fascinating as it represents the history of crossing the Thames between Wapping and Rotherhithe..
The main feature in the photo is Wapping Station, a station on the London Overground that from Wapping crosses under the river to the next stop on the route south at Rotherhithe.
I will touch on the station later in the post, but the main focus of today’s post is at the end of the walkway to the right of the station, a walkway that leads up to Wapping Dock Stairs.
If you have been reading the blog for a few years, you will realise I have a strange fascination with Thames Stairs.
Not so much the physical stair, although these are really interesting, historical structures, rather what the stairs represent.
For centuries, these were the main interface between the land and the river. If you were travelling up, down, or across the river you would use one of the Watermen who would cluster at the base of the stairs, to row you to your destination.
If you were leaving London, you would reach the boat taking you to your destination via a river stair, or if you were arriving back in London, you would return to the land via the stairs.
Countless thousands of people have used these stairs. For some, arriving at the stairs would be their first view of London, for those leaving, it could be their last view of London.
Many of those who have had to flee the country, for political or religious reasons, would have left the country via Thames stairs. Perhaps leaving in disguise, or in the dead of night to avoid recognition, to catch a boat to take them away from the country.
I have covered many such stories in previous blog posts, and will provide links at the end of today’s post, but for now back to Wapping Dock Stairs.
As with nearly all the stairs in Wapping, Wapping Dock Stairs are old, and date back to at least the end of the 17th century, and are probably much older.
In Rocque’s map of 1746, the stairs are shown in the centre of the following extract, with Wapping Dock Street being the street that leads up to the stairs:
Richard Horwood’s map of London from 1799 also shows Wapping Dock Stairs, and when compared to Rocque’s map, Horwood adds a level of detail with individual buildings lining the streets:
Turning off Wapping High Street, this is the approach to the stairs. The walkway on the right leads to an entrance to the building on the right. The walkway on the left leads to the stairs.
Nearly every set of stairs in Wapping had a pub by the side of the approach to the stairs. Only two can be seen today, the Town of Ramsgate by Wapping Old Stairs, and the Prospect of Whitby by Pelican Stairs.
Wapping Dock Stairs also had a pub, the Swan, and we can get a view of the pub from an advert in the Morning Advertiser on the 2nd of December,1806 when the lease came up for sale:
“A lease for 21 years, and immediate possession, of the SWAN PUBLIC HOUSE, situate at the corner of Wapping Dock Stairs, as eligible a spot for business as any along the coast; it contains in the basement, an extensive dry cellar; on the ground floor, a convenient bar, large tap-room, and good parlour, and three stories above, with a space of about 30 feet square on each floor, divided into numerous well-proportioned rooms; here is an abundance of accommodation for lodgers, as well as ample conveniences for an extensive business; common industry and attention would assuredly beget here a very lucrative trade. May be viewed at any time for a week prior to the sale. Particulars to be had of Mr. Harris, No. 12, Gracechurch Street.”
There are many newspaper references to these pubs by stairs, and so often they offer a glimpse into a story which you really want to know more about, for example, from the Morning Advertiser on the 26th of August, 1808:
“If the next of Kin of Hendrick Steerwell, late belonging to the West India Merchant ship Ranger, dec. will apply at the Swan, Wapping Dock Stairs, they will hear of something to their advantage.”
This brief advert leaves so many questions unanswered. Who was Hendrick Steerwell, where and how did he die (presumably whilst serving on the West India Merchant ship Ranger). What did he leave that would be of advantage to his next of kin, did they benefit, and also what happened if there were several next of kin.
A whole story could be written based on that single advert from 1808.
The advert also highlights that the stairs were a key part of the pub’s location. Rather than giving an address on Wapping High Street, the pub is specifically mentioned as being at the stairs.
Back to Wapping Dock Stairs, and approaching the stairs there is a strong metal gate preventing any access to the stairs. Behind the gate are the stone steps often found at these stairs which added a bit height and therefore flood prevention from high tides:
Looking over the gate, and we can see why they were fenced off so securely:
There are stone steps that run down to where a series of wooden steps once led down to the foreshore. These wooden steps have completely eroded away.
From the bottom of where the wooden steps should have been, the remains of a causeway leads out across the foreshore, into the river.
Much of the causeway has also eroded, leaving only the wooden stakes on either side that would have held the causeway in position.
From the top of Wapping Dock Stairs, we can look across the river to Rotherhithe. This view would once have been full of ships, with ships being moored around the stairs, some of which were often for sale, such as on the 20th of November, 1805 when the following auction was advertised:
“This day, the 20th Instant, at Three precisely, The good Smack Ocean, built at Burnham in Essex, in 1798, is a strong, clinch-built vessel, and is well adapted for the Oyster Trade, a Pilot Boat, &c, well founded in stores. Lying at Wapping Dock Stairs.”
To pursue my rather nerdy interest in Thames Stairs, I have finally got hold of a copy of a book published by the Port of London Authority, titled “Access to the River Thames. A Port of London Authority Guide”, with the sub-title of “Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames”:
Although the book is not dated, I believe it was published around 1995.
It covers all the steps, stairs and landing places on the part of the Thames managed by the PLA, the tidal Thames, and covers from Richmond down to Southend.
There is an outline map, based on the area covered by a PLA chart for sections of the river, with the stairs along that stretch of the river marked and named.
There is a table for each set of steps, stairs and landing places describing key features of each. I copied the details for Wapping Dock Stairs into the following table:
The categories for each set of stairs, landing places etc. in the book are the same, allowing them to be compared.
For Wapping Dock Stairs the stairs are described as having a broken causeway and wooden stairs. This probably means that the wooden stairs were part there, but in the following 30 years they have disappeared completely.
Bathing is dangerous, and public access to the stairs is blocked by a fence which the London Borough of Tower Hamlets will remove when the stairs below Mean High Water Mark are made safe.
I have always wondered about responsibility for these stairs. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets were responsible for putting in the metal gate, but are they responsible for the stairs down to the foreshore, or is it the Port of London Authority who, along with the Crown Estate are the primary owners of the foreshore.
I have emailed the PLA asking who is responsible for the stairs, it will be interesting to see the reply.
The tables for all stairs, from Richmond to Southend list whether the stairs were a landing place in 1708 and 1977. Wapping Dock Stairs is listed as a landing place in 1708, which sets a minimum age for the stairs as over 300 years.
I do not know why 1708 has been used for all stairs, steps and landing places along the tidal Thames. A few quick searches have not revealed any surveys or maps that were made of the whole tidal river in 1708 – probably another question for the PLA.
The Grade 2 listed building that the table states that the stairs are adjacent to is the 1920s Gun Wharves that runs along 124 to 130 Wapping High Street.
I wrote at the start of the post that the photo of Wapping Station and Wapping Dock Stairs show the methods of crossing the river that have been in use for hundreds of years.
In the early 19th century, the increase in the numbers of people crossing the river by boat resulted in a proposal for a foot tunnel under the river.
The result was a foot tunnel where the rail route under the river is today. I walked through the tunnel in 2014, and the following is a brief extract from my post on the tunnel, which you can find here.
A Thames Tunnel was badly needed. It was a four mile circuit between Rotherhithe and Wapping via London Bridge and ferries carried 4,000 people across the Thames every day at Rotherhithe.
Marc Brunel was convinced that a tunnel could be built and had the concept of a shield to protect workers at the face of the tunneling work. A meeting with investors was held on the 18th February 1824 and a company formed with Brunel appointed as engineer.
The shaft was started in March 1825 and all appeared to be going well, however in January 1826 the river burst through, but work pressed on and by the beginning of 1827 the tunnel had reached 300 feet.
As work progressed, in addition to the risk of the river breaking through, there were all manner of problems including strikes, mysterious diseases (the River Thames was London’s main drain, polluted with a considerable amount of sewage) and explosions from “fire-damp”.
The river continued to burst through. On Saturday 12th January 1828 six workman were trapped and drowned and despite the hole being filled with 4,000 bags of clay the project was temporarily abandoned due to lack of funds. The tunnel was bricked up and no further work carried out for seven years.
Work started again on the 27th March 1835 and carried on for a further eight more years.
In March 1843 staircases were built around the shafts and Marc Brunel led a triumphant procession through the tunnel. Marc Brunel’s son Isambard worked with his father during the construction of the tunnel and was appointed chief engineer in 1827, however his work with the Great Western railway took him away from the tunnel during the later years of construction. Marc Brunel worked on the tunnel from start to finish.
As one of the sights of London, the Thames Tunnel was a huge success. Within 24 hours of the tunnel’s opening fifty thousand people had passed through and one million within the first fifteen weeks.
It did not remain a foot tunnel for long. The Thames Tunnel was purchased by the East London railway in 1866 and three years later was part of London’s underground railway system.
View along one of the tracks in the tunnel:
The wall between the two tracks in the tunnel had arches spaced at roughly regular intervals along the length of the tunnel.
When the tunnel first opened for foot passengers, a number of enterprising Londoners set out stalls in these arches selling to those who had come to walk through the tunnel. There were reports at the time of how all these stalls selling food, souvenirs etc. degraded the walk through the tunnel. Low level crime was also attracted to the tunnel.
Looking at the arches in what is now a railway tunnel shows a quality of design and finish that was meant to be seen by people walking through, rather than speeding past in a train.
So in summary, the view across to Wapping Station and the adjacent Wapping Dock Stairs shows:
The means of crossing the river between Wapping and Rotherhithe for hundreds of years by taking a boat from a Thames Stair
The introduction in 1843 of a foot tunnel which offered a new and unique way of crossing the river, and;
The purchase of the tunnel by the East London railway in 1866 and integration into London’s rail network, part of which it has remained to this day
There was another feature that I wanted to find related to the station. Walking slightly in land, along Clave Street, then Clegg Street, where on the corner is this building, part of the landscape of Wapping prior to the development of recent decades:
With some lovely metal fittings that allow the wooden door to be rolled along the front of the building:
Which I suspect have not worked for many years:
At the back of the building, there is a small green space, with a children’s playground in Hilliards Court. At the side of the playground is this structure:
Stand here for a few minutes and you will soon hear the very clear sound of a train, either pulling away from, or slowing down into, Wapping Station. An unexpected sound in this very quiet Wapping green space, coming from an air vent to the tracks below.
The PLA book on Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames lists a total of 241 from Richmond to Southend, along both banks of the river – so I have only scratched the surface.
If you are interested in reading about the other Thames stairs I have covered, then:
Today’s photo from my father’s collection is one I scanned a while ago, but had not investigated until planning my guided walked between Bankside and Tower Bridge. It was taken from the foot of Pickle Herring Stairs. a name that will be familiar to readers as I have written a couple of posts about Pickle Herring Street.
The photo was taken at the bottom of Pickle Herring Stairs, looking towards Tower Bridge, with the travelling cranes that lined the foreshore on the right.
The stairs have disappeared in the considerable redevelopment of the area, and the walkway along the river and embankment have been extended into the river, so it is impossible today to be exactly sure where the stairs were located, however by lining up with features on the opposite side of the Thames, I suspect they were roughly where I took the following photo. The perspective is different as I used a wider lens compared to my father’s photo to show some of the nearby features to help with locating the stairs.
To the right is the old City Hall for the Mayor of London, now closed following the move of the Mayor’s office further east towards the Royal Docks.
The above map shows that by the end of the 19th century, the side of the river was lined by warehouses, however the cranes seen in my father’s photo had not yet arrived.
These would be installed during the early decades of the 20th century when the warehouses were expanded, and large cranes were installed to handle the quantity and range of goods that needed to be moved from river to warehouse.
They were called “travelling cranes” as they moved on rails along the platform on which they were built, so they could easily get to the cargo that needed to be moved.
By the 1952 Ordnance Survey map (just a few years after my father’s photo), the jetties had been built on the foreshore, and the travelling cranes had been installed. The following extract from the map shows the length of the jetty which supported the cranes. Pickle Herring Stairs are circled to the left, and the map confirms that my father’s photo is looking at both Tower Bridge, and the end of the jetty (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“).
Looking from across the river, the following photo shows where the stairs were located:
What is not clear is what came first, the name of the stairs or the name of the street, or whether they were named at the same time.
I suspect the name of the stairs came first, and this could support one of the possible sources of the name down to the landing of Pickle Herring at this point on the river. however I have no evidence to support this.
What is certain is that both stairs and street are old names.
Regular readers will know that I find these stairs fascinating. Not only the physical stairs (where they remain), but that they can tell us so much about life in the area.
I looked back at some early newspaper articles that mentioned the stairs, and found the following sample from the 18th century.
The first is a report about a fire, a very common event in the warehouses full of inflammable goods along the river:
“15th January 1740: On Thursday night about 11 o’Clock, a fire broke out at Mr. Brooks’s a Hoop bender near Pickle Herring Stairs, opposite the Tower, that raged with such violence that in three hours time above 20 dwelling houses, besides warehouses were consumed.
A young fellow, a Waterman, who had rescued his wife and child,returning to preserve some of his goods, is missing, and supposed to have perished in the flames.
Last night, Joseph Chitty, one of the Candidates for the Borough of Southwark, sent over a present of 20 Guineas to be distributed among the most necessitous of the sufferers by the said fire.”
There were so many suicides along the Thames, and one of the methods used would be to get a Waterman to row you out into the centre of the river, as this very tragic report of a woman abandoned after becoming pregnant tells:
“26th January 1748: Yesterday a young woman took a boat at Pickle Herring Stairs and desired to be ferried over; when the boat came to the middle of the river, she threw down six pence, and jumped over. The Waterman with great difficulty drew her again into the boat; on which she confessed that being far gone with Child by a Noble Lord, and being refused any assistance, had determined her to put a period to her existence.”
Papers were full of so many strange events across the City. One, where someone was tarred and feathered, also ended with what was probably some of the day to day racism which foreign seamen had to endure:
“18th October 1784: Friday the following singular occurrence took place. A seaman arriving after being discharged from a vessel lying off Pickle Herring Stairs, on account of his having rendered himself extremely obnoxious to the rest of the crew, was imprudent enough to return on board the ship, upon which he was seized by some of the men, stripped, and tarred and feathered, with as much dexterity as ever that discipline was inflicted in the Country where it was invented, and still practiced.
In this situation he walked to the Public-Office in Shadwell, followed by an immense concourse of people, and exhibited his complaint before Peter Green, the presiding magistrate, by whole order of several pounds of butter and some quarts of oil, were administered, to clear the man from the disagreeable covering.
During the above operation, proper persons were dispatched by the Magistrate in search of the delinquents and in something more than an hour they brought to the Office the Mate and five of the seamen belonging to the ship on board of which the act had been committed, against whom a charge for an assault was substantiated. The Captain bailed the Mate and four of the men, but the other, a youth about twenty, a native of Nevis, was committed to New-Prison, Clerkenwell.”
The earliest newspaper report I could find was the one from 1740, however the stairs are certainly much older. They appeared on the 1746 John Rocque map, as can be seen in the following extract:
I suspect these stairs went back to the medieval period, or even earlier. Stairs were such an important way of accessing the river, and naming stairs would have been incredibly important, as:
If you were arriving or departing on a ship, you needed to know where on the river the ship would be moored, and the nearest set of stairs to use for arrival or departure. There are plenty of newspaper references where a name of stairs are quoted for the location of a ship;
If you asked a Waterman to row you across or along the river, you would have needed to tell the Waterman the destination;
For sales of cargo or goods, a location was needed to advertise the sale. There are very many adverts over the centuries using the names of stairs to locate a sale;
For events on the river, the stairs provided a reference point, and newspapers used the stairs to refer to the many accidents, deaths, ships departing and leaving, thefts of goods, crimes against people, where press gangs were operating etc.
The unique naming of each individual stair was also important to avoid confusion, so even when stairs almost had the same name, and were in a very similar location, the name always had something to make them unique, for example Wapping Old Stairs and Wapping New Stairs on Wapping High Street.
The name on the token is that of James Acrigg. The only record I could find of him was his marriage in London in February 1675.
The very last newspaper report I found about an event at Pickle Herring Stairs was dated the 16th of August 1928, when “The body of an unknown man aged about 40 was found today floating in the Thames near Pickle Herring Stairs. It is believed the man has been in the water for several hours.”
Following the above report, the story of Pickle Herring Stairs goes silent. They would still have been in use, however this would be much reduced. Better street and underground transport removed the need for a Waterman to row you along or across the river.
Access to ships on the river was now mainly from piers or when ships were docked alongside the infrastructure on the waters edge (such as the jetty seen in my father’s photo).
They were finally lost under the redevelopment of the area between London and Tower Bridges, when the open space and riverside walkway was built and extended out into the river.
I will leave the final words in today’s post to the London Rivers Association, who were quoted in the Illustrated London News on the 1st of May 1996, which reported on their campaign that “The London Rivers Association believes that the Thames should be made better use of for both public and freight transport. ‘Getting in touch with the Thames’ is endeavouring to open up all access points to the river – steps and stairs which once had such distinctive names as Elephant Stairs, Hoy Steps or Pickle Herring Stairs. Some of the Millennium projects are very glamorous, said a spokeswoman for the association. this scheme is more modest and will benefit everyone.”
Too late for Pickle Herring Stairs – but a scheme that I would fully support.
