North Woolwich

Having crossed over (or rather walked under) the Thames at Woolwich I now proceeded to walk back to North Greenwich through Silvertown. I stopped taking photos here because there was nothing to shoot. Unremittingly grim. Either industrial or awful pokey residential units. There is a reason few Londoners know anything of Silvertown. The name is the best thing about it. Here is also where City Airport resides, but I suspect nearly everyone who uses City Airport comes directly there on the railway.

First thing to photograph, near the airport, is this large sculpture of a woman on a roundabout. Again, as a modern sculpture there is no detail, the sculptor presumably relieved that he had captured something vaguely female in shape without getting into any anatomical detail.

Below is the Millennium Mills, which has nothing to do with the Millennium. It is a former flour mill - vast in size, built in the 1930s. 

The notable thing along this stretch of the Thames off the North Woolwich Road is the Thames Barrier Park. Unsurprisingly this offers views of the Thames Barrier.

It is also the point at which regeneration starts and again there appear modern apartments.

The novel feature of the park is the Green Dock, a sunken garden featuring undulating topiary.

This is Pontoon Dock DLR - one of the shiny space age DLR stations. You could see this in a sci-fi movie....

In contrast almost across the road is a 19th century chimney now isolated on a roundabout. But frankly more sculptural than the vague woman stretching thing back down the road.

At this point one reaches Royal Victoria Dock. Once part of the world's largest dock complex they were closed in 1981 as trade moved to bigger container ships than even these docks could handle.

Here is docked, permanently, the SS Robin, the world's oldest steam coaster (apparently).

One can walk over the docks on the slender Royal Victoria Dock Bridge, opened only in 1998.

The huge redundant cranes remain a feature around the water's edge

The Excel Centre is here, behind these statues of dock workers.

Warehouses now restaurants

Who needs Venice when we have North Woolwich?

At this point I took the Emirates cable-car  back across the Thames to my starting point in North Greenwich. Normally I would be sharing a car with an overexcited family, but in the Covid world I got the car to myself, by the rules.