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Deptford to Greenwich
Regeneration has brought bigchanges to Deptford, the most noticeable being the Laban Centre for Contemporary Dance, which sits proudly on the banks of Deptford Creek. The Creek, which meanders into the Thames downriver from Deptford Strand, is the informal border between Deptford and its smarter and more prosperous neighbour, Greenwich.
Greenwich has preserved its maritime past (the name means “green port” in Anglo-Saxon) and this is reflected in the splendour of the Old Royal Naval College, the Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum, which occupiesa gorgeous Palladian villa built by Inigo Jones.
A little way downriver from the Naval College is the Trafalgar Tavern, once favoured by Charles Dickens for whitebait dinners. Today the pub offers diners and drinkers an excellent view of the Millennium Dome, an elephantine folly plonked on the barren North Greenwich peninsula that has stood empty for more than 5 years.
East of the peninsula the widening river encounters a substantial obstacle spanning the 520 metres between Silvertown on the north bank and Woolwich on the south - the Thames Barrier, completed in 1982, it is a system of 10 hydraulic gates designed to protect London against flooding by tidal surges. Passengers on the Woolwich ferry which has run since 1889, get a good view of the Barrier’s distinctive stainless steel “piers” which rise from the river like huge silver fins.
Downstream – Like an old workman in his twilight years, the estuarine Thames, out past Greenwich and east of the Thames Barrier, gets a bit broader, a bit lazier, a bit more lonely. Not here the supple meadows and village churches of its early course, but everywhere the hints of industry, of a river that toils.
The disused Royal Docks, now home to City Airport and ExCeL London exhibition centre, flank the river at Woolwich; at Dagenham, just further downstream is Ford’s motor plant. The elderly river then curls past suburban satellite towns – Rainham, Purfleet, Thurrock on the north bank, Thamesmead and Erith to the south – on its way towards Tilbury.
Tilbury’s docks conceal the reason for Docklands’ demise: for only here is the estuary deep enough to accommodate the deep-draught vessels that modern cargo containers require. Extensive regeneration is planned along this stretch of the river to turn the desolate or brownfield land into newly inhabitable terrain for the ever-expanding city. A major planned project is the Thames Gateway Bridge, which will be the last overground crossing on the river, while another proposal is to build a second Chinatown here.
After Tilbury, the old boy makes its last, staggered turn, then idles out placidly in to the North Sea past Thames Haven and Southend-on-Sea. Southend was recently voted the best place in Britain to retire, but that shouldn’t dissuade you: it is a cheery seaside resort – the longest pleasure pier in the world – to bid the Thames a final farewell.
