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Narrow Street

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Narrow Street is just that, a narrow street running parallel to the River Thames through the Limehouse area of east London.

File:Narrowstreet1827.jpg
Narrow street 1827
File:Narrowstreet1993.jpg
Narrow street 1993
A pub on Narrow Street

History

A combination of tides and currents made this point on the Thames a natural first landfall for ships trading with London, the first wharf being completed in 1348. Lime (mineral) kilns used in the production of mortar and later pottery were known to have existed at this location in the fourteenth century.

The area grew rapidly in Elizabethan times as a center for world trade. River workers gravitated to the area to work offloading imported goods from ships to the then new Limehouse Bridge Dock now Limehouse Basin. By the reign of James I about half of the areas 2,000 population were mariners.

Ships Chandlers etc settled 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 orginal buildings, now demolished, which stood barely a few meters apart on each side of the street.

In 1661 Samuel Pepys visited a porcelain factory in Narrow Street alighting via Duke Shore Stairs while en route to view work on boats being built for Herring fishing. Limehouse subsequently developed into one of Britain's main shipbuilding centres in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Taylor & Walker began brewing at the site of today's "Barley Mow" pub in 1823.

Limehouse Basin was amongst the first docks to close in the late 1960s. Much of Narrow Street and Nicholas Hawksmoors’ Church St Anne's Limehouse was designated a conservation area by the London Docklands Development Corporation in the 1980s. In 1993 the 1.8 km Limehouse Link tunnel was opened moving heavy traffic away from Narrow street.

Ratcliffe

Ratcliffe or "sailor town" was a hamlet bordering Narrow Street on the Wapping waterfront consisting of lodging houses, bars, brothels, music halls and opium dens. This overcrowded and squalid district aquired a seedy reputation with a huge transient population. It was almost destroyed by fire in 1794 even so it continued as a notorious slum into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Chinatown

In the eighteenth century a small group of Chinese sailors mainly from Canton and Southern China settled along the old Limehouse Causeway and a few married local women creating the original Chinatown centered around Ah Tack’s lodging house. The Chinese community later moved to Soho following heavy bombing of the area during World War II often refered to as the Blitz.

Art and literature

Narrow Street's picturesque buildings and atmospheric location abutting onto the River Thames were a magnet for artists and writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. James McNeill Whistler, Charles Napier Hemy and J. M. W. Turner, sketched and painted at locations on Narrow Street's river waterfront. Charles Dickens’ godfather lived and ran a sail-making business in Limehouse. In Oscar Wildes’ book "The picture of Dorian", Dorian comes to buy opium near Narrow Street and George Orwells’ book Down and Out in Paris and London begins in a Limehouse lodging house.

Historic buildings

A number of historic buildings remain, including The Grapes public house, immortalised as the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters in Charles Dickens' work, Our Mutual Friend. Built in 1720, the pub is now a listed building and backs onto the Thames waterfront.

Development

The late twentieth century brought much development to the area, with the erection of the Canary Wharf tower close by. Since the 1990s, many new apartment complexes have been built around the Limehouse Basin as well as Victorian warehouse conversions, with Limehouse now being one of the most sought after property sites in London. Its close proximity to the River Thames has made property prices around Limehouse and the Docklands soar over the last decade. Famous residents include the actor Ian Mckellen and David Owen, and it was also the home of the iconic film director David Lean, whose Narrow Street house is still owned by his family.

Notes

The Anglo-Saxon word tirl, means 'narrow street' or a 'gate' to keep horses and other cattle out of the city.

References

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