Please note the following:
- The walk starts from in front of Woolwich Station on the Elizabeth Line
- The walk crosses the river using the Woolwich Free Ferry
- This walk is around 3 hours long and roughly 3 miles in distance
- The walk finishes at the Royal Albert DLR Station
- There are two optional extensions, firstly to look at the Queen Victoria Dock and then continuing to London City Airport where there is a DLR station
- I will send an email in the week before the walk with final meeting point details. If you do not receive, please get in contact
“The appearance of the electric lights at the new docks, seen from any eminence where a full view of the whole sweep can be obtained, is on a clear night very striking and beautiful, especially if a position is chosen from which any of the brilliant sparks are seen reflected in the river. In another sense beyond pleasure to the eye, they are beacons of satisfaction to the people of Woolwich, for they typify better days in store, increase in trade, and reduction of local burdens.”
This was how the Kentish Independent on the 16th of October 1880 described the view from Woolwich following the start of the electrification of the Royal Docks.
It must have been a stunning sight, and the new docks, the largest in the world when completed, where a major source of employment for the inhabitants of Woolwich.
In this walk, we will follow a dockyard worker from Woolwich, cross the river by the Free Ferry, and then explore the history of the Royal Docks, starting with the King George V, then the Royal Albert, and finishing with the Royal Victoria.
Although the docks closed in 1981, we can still see the sheer scale of what the largest dock complex in the world were, by the size of the body of water where ships once arrived and departed, travelling across the world to and from London, carrying all manner of goods.
On this walk, we will explore the Free Ferry, the Thames foot tunnel, (a look at the entrances, rather than walk the tunnel), the old North Woolwich Station and Pier, Pleasure Gardens, Royal Victoria Gardens, King George V Lock and Dock, the Dock pumping station that keep the docks full today, the Royal Albert Dock, London City Airport, some of the impressive buildings that survive from the Royal Dock’s working life, and how the docks have been, and continue to be redeveloped.
