London walk around Docklands
DIRECTIONS
Keep ahead, and go over the pedestrian crossing. Bear right then first left into Wapping Lane, and right onto Pennington Street. A little way along go left to enter the interior of:- Tobacco Dock. This vast cavernous area was built between 1811 and 1813 and was used for the storage of skins, tobacco, tea and spices. When the docks closed, it was converted into a shopping centre, but this failed to attract the public in sufficient numbers and now it is an empty and haunting place where your footsteps echo in the crypt-like interior.
As you enter, there are two interesting statues of a little boy looking up at a huge tiger. These commemorate the days when the area was a landing stage, not just for exotic cargoes, but also for all manner of exotic beasts. These statues depict an incident in the early 19th Century when a full-grown Bengal Tiger, which had just been delivered to the nearby Jamrach’s Emporium on Ratcliff Highway, escaped from its crate. It trotted down the road, scattering people as it went. An eight-year-old boy, who had never seen such a big cat, attempted to pat it on the nose, but the tiger seized the child between its jaws and trotted off with him. Mr Jamrach ran after them, forced his bare hands into the tiger’s throat and managed to release the boy unscathed.
DIRECTIONS
Go down the steps and walk through the eerily gloomy brick arches of Tobacco Dock’s lower level. Pause to admire the 19th-century ship figureheads displayed on the wall at the far end.
Just past them, exit between the replicas of the two sailing ships that tower over you. Go up the steps, turn left and note the solid dock walls away to your right, which give some impression of the size of the shipping once accommodated here.
Go up the next steps, turn right onto Wapping Lane and pass over the bridge. It was hereabouts that Dickens got lost while en route to Wapping Workhouse in The Uncommercial Traveller and arrived at ‘a swing-bridge looking down at some dark locks in some dirty water’. Enquiring of one of the locals what the place was called, he was told ‘Mr Baker’s Trap’. Mr Baker was the local coroner and this was a favoured spot for suicides.
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