The Monkey Tree

Metro Monkeys – Summer 2010

FOR SUMMER, METRO MONKEYS IS TAKING YOU FOR A TRANQUIL AND RELAXING WALK THROUGH THE HEART OF THE CITY... ...If the words ‘tranquil’ and ‘city’ don’t sound quite right together, follow our route for a leisurely stroll only yards from the hustle and bustle of city life.   We started our trip on the Central Line to Stratford, changed to the Docklands Light Railway and alighted at West Ferry. Once you leave the station, turn your back on the chaos of Commercial Road and head down Limehouse Street for a couple of minutes until you reach Narrow Street. In Elizabethan times this area became the centre for world trade and by the early 1600’s, nearly half of Limehouse’s 2,000 population were mariners. On the left, past the entrance to the Limehouse basin, is The Grapes Pub. Built in 1720, the Grapes served the workers of the Limehouse Basin. There are unsavoury stories of watermen taking drunks from the pub, drowning them in the river, and then selling their corpses for medical dissection! In Victorian times, a young Charles Dickens was made to stand on a table and sing to the customers for money and as an adult, he immortalised it as the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters pub in Our Mutual Friend. Follow the signs for Limehouse Basin, through the little park and you will emerge into an oasis of calm, a beautiful marina, home to decorated canal boats and international yachts. From here, you have a few options – continue walking along the Regents Canal or walk along the Thames Towpath? If you want to walk along the Thames Towpath, continue walking forward (towards the River Thames) until you emerge into Narrow Street again. In front of you is The Narrow – Gordon Ramsey’s gastropub. Although at this stage you can’t see the River, continue walking along Narrow Street and at the end DON’T turn right but keep walking, through the pedestrian entrance into Keepier Wharf, bringing you back to the river front walk. Along the Thames Towpath there are various ‘gated’ developments like this, making you feel you are trespassing; however, all the gates are unlocked during the day and access is for everybody, not just residents! A little further on, you reach King Edward VII Park, an ideal place to stop and have a picnic and play in the pretty little children’s park (featuring the weirdest slide my kids had ever seen!). As regular readers to Metro Monkeys may know, we love a picnic but in this case it really is justified. There are no places along the towpath to buy a snack or a drink so a picnic is definitely recommended! Continuing along the towpath, you find yourself in Wapping High Street, home to the Prospect of Whitby, one of the oldest pubs in London and the site of the original ‘Execution Dock’. Here, pirates faced hanging from a gibbet close to the low water mark, their bodies left hanging until they had been submerged three times by the tide. Wapping’s greatest attraction is probably the access to the Thames foreshore itself. A number of the old ‘stairs’, such as Wapping Old Stairs and Pelican Stairs (by the Prospect of Whitby pub) give the public access to the Thames foreshore littered with flotsam, jetsam and fragments of old dock installations. Not surprisingly, it is popular with amateur archaeologists and treasure hunters - even a casual visitor can pick up a centuries-old shard of pottery here. From Wapping it is just a short walk to Tower Bridge, through pretty St Katherine’s Docks. St Katharine’s originally handled the valuable cargoes from the West Indies, Africa and the Far East such as sugar, rum, tea, spices, perfumes, ivory, marble, wine and brandy and to this day, it still bustles with commerce, mainly from chic offices and the thriving marina. Walking through St Katherine’s and under Tower Bridge, you come parallel with The Tower of London and get to see one of its most famous spots, Traitor’s Gate, without paying a penny! From here, if your crew is too exhausted to walk back to Docklands, you can pick up the DLR from Tower Gateway back to Docklands or catch the District Line from Tower Hill back to Stratford. If you don’t fancy the walk along the Thames towpath, you could always walk along the Regent’s Canal. From Limehouse Basin, instead of heading towards the River, veer right and take the Regent’s Canal towards Bow Wharf instead. If you’re lucky, you may see a canal boat leaving the basin and negotiating the locks at the start of the canal. (I have to say, parts of the canal are quite pretty but sometimes it can look a little unloved.) We walked to Mile End Park, stopping at The Ragged School Museum along the way. Entrance to the museum is just off the towpath, but you can’t miss it! The museum is housed in the original Copperfield Road Ragged School, opened in 1876 by Dr Barnardo. As well as poor children from London’s East End receiving a free education, they also received free breakfast and dinner. By 1896, it was the largest school of its kind with 1,075 children attending the day schools and 2,460 attending the Sunday school. Today, children can dress up in Victorian costume and attend lessons in the three R’s – and it’s still free of charge! The museum is not open every day, so check their opening times – www.raggedschoolmuseum.org.uk. If even a short walk from Limehouse Basin doesn’t appeal, why not head back the way you came and take a very short walk to the Museum of London Docklands. Housed in an old tea warehouse in West India Quay, it shows the history of London from Roman settlement to Docklands’ regeneration, as well as running loads of interesting workshops for families throughout the holidays. Entrance to the museum is now free, check out our ‘What’s On’ guide for more details. Maps of London’s canals or the Thames towpath can be viewed and downloaded at www.waterscape.com or leaflets can be picked up in Docklands or in Limehouse Basin. You can get map routes from Docklands all the way to Enfield Lock or even Regents Park; there are loads of places to visit just off the towpaths and even canal boat trips – who knows where you’ll end up! LAST CHANCE TO SEE ELEPHANT PARADE IN LONDON...! Have you seen any of the 250 life sized elephants in Central London this summer?  Elephant Parade is a conservation campaign highlighting the crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephants. Each elephant is decorated by a different artist or celebrity and will eventually be sold at auction to raise funds for conservation charities. Check out www.elephantparadelondon.org to download a map and take the family on an elephant safari. Happy Hunting!