Narrow Street - History

History

A combination of tides and currents made this point on the Thames a natural landfall for ships, the first wharf being completed in 1348. Lime kilns or 'Lymehostes' used in the production of mortar and pottery were built at this location in the fourteenth century. The area grew rapidly in Elizabethan times as a centre for world trade and by the reign of James I nearly half of the area's 2,000 population were mariners. The area supplied ships with ropes and other necessities; pottery was also made here for the ships. Ship chandlers settled here building wooden houses and wharves in the cramped space between street and river, indeed Narrow Street may take its name from the closeness of the original buildings, now demolished, which stood barely a few metres apart on each side of the street.

The Limehouse Bridge Dock was established in 1766, for barges and small ships to access the Limehouse Cut, which led to the Lee Navigation. Limehouse Basin was built in 1820, to transship imported goods to barges on the Regent's Canal. The two were linked in the early 19th century, and the lock from the Cut to the river, filled in.

In 1661, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary of a visit to a porcelain factory in Narrow Street alighting via Duke Shore Stairs while en route to view work on boats being built for Herring fishing. The Limehouse area fitted out, repaired and resupplied ships. In 1772, Smith & Sykes ran a sugar house a small factory that baked and refined sugar. In 1823, Taylor Walker & Co Ltd started brewing at the site of today's pub The Narrow formerly The Barley Mow. Limehouse Cut was redirected into Limehouse Basin was one of the first docks to close in the late 1960s. Nicholas Hawksmoors' Church St Anne's Limehouse was designated a conservation area by the London Docklands Development Corporation in the 1980s.

For much of the 20th century the area was dominated by the tall chimney of Stepney Power Station at Blyth Wharf, which has since been demolished.

Access to the area was always difficult, with the dock standing to the north, and the entrance to the Rotherhithe Tunnel at one end. In 1993 the 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mi) Limehouse Link tunnel was completed; further restricting traffic to the riverside area. The Narrow Street Swing Bridge is sited between the Limehouse Basin Lock and the Thames.