Blackwall

Black wall also, and Back yard there [St. Dunstan's Stepney Parish].

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The Parish contains 9 Hamlets; i.e.

Radcliff, Lymehouse, Poplar and Black wall, Mile end old Town, Wapping, Spittle fields, Bednall green, Mile end new Town, Bow and Old ford, or Stratford le Bow; wherein are contained about 8000 Houses.

Blackwell, Poplar.

Blackwall,—at the E. end of Poplar, about 3⅔ of a mile from the Royal-Exchange, by the Commercial-road.

Blackwall, is a hamlet in the parish of All Saints, Poplar, is situated at the eastern extremity of that parish, and is remarkable for the number and excellence of its taverns, particularly that recently built by Mr. S. Lovegrove, and called the West India Dock Tavern. Also as being the eastern extremity of the West India Docks, and of the City Canal, as well as having the valuable property of the East India Docks within its limits. Its original name is said to have been Bleakwell, from its exposed situation on the artificial bank or wall of the Thames.—[See City Canal, East India Docks, and Wast India Docks.

Blackwall.

To Poplar adjoineth Blackwall, a notable harbour for ships, so called, because it is a wall of the Thames, and distinguished by the additional term Black, from the black shrubs which grew on it, as on Blackheath, which is opposite to it on the other side of the river [or perhaps from the bleakness of the place and situation].—Dr. Woodward and Strype, in Strype's Appendix, vol. ii. p. 102.

The place taketh name of the blackness or darkness of the water bankes, or wall, at that place.—Norden's Speculum Britannia (Middlesex).

From an early date Blackwall was a great place for ships, ship-building, and docks. It is often mentioned in Sir Walter Raleigh's Letters to Cecil, and is spelt indifferently Blakwale, Blakewale, and Bralkwale. Thus on May 3, 1596, he writes, "From Blakewale, reddy to go down agayne this tyde;" in the body of the letter he spells it Bralkewale. He was then toiling to organise the expedition against Cadiz, and on the following day he writes from Northfleet, "if this strong wind last I will steale to Blakewale to speak with you and to kiss your hands."

January 17, 1661.—So after a cupp of burnt wine at the taverne there [Woolwich] we took barge and went to Blackwall, and viewed the dock and the new West Dock, which is newly made there, and a brave new merchantman which is to be launched shortly, and they say to be called the Royal Oake.—Pepys.

September 22, 1665. At Blackwall. Here is observable what Johnson tells us, that in digging the late Docke, they did, 12 feet under ground, find perfect trees over-covered with earth. Nut-trees, with the branches and the very nuts upon them; some of whose nuts he showed us. Their shells black with age; and their kernell, upon opening, decayed, but their shell perfectly hard as ever. And a yew-tree, upon which the very ivy was taken up whole about it, which, upon cutting with an addes [adze], we found it to be rather harder than the living tree usually is. The armes, they say, were taken up at first whole about the body, which is very strange.—Pepys.

Here is a well-known wet dock, called Blackwall Dock, belonging to Sir Henry Johnson, very convenient for building and receiving of ships. Strype's Stow, 1720, B. iv. p. 42.

In the last century Perry's ship-building yard, which afterwards passed into the hands of Sir Robert Wigram, and later of Wigram and Green, was, as long as ships were built of wood, the most important ship-building yard on the Thames, the larger proportion of the East-India Company's magnificent fleet and many men-of-war being built there. In process of time there was a division, and the firms of Money, Wigram and Green had distinct yards each, launching ships of the largest size, and building them of iron as well as wood. The yard of Money, Wigram and Co. was sold in 1872 to the Midland Railway Company to form a great depôt, comprising a shipping basin, wharfs and warehouses. At Blackwall (but not wholly within its boundaries) are the East and West India Docks, and Millwall Dock; the river-side depôts of the Midland, Great Northern and Great Eastern Railways, and large iron-works and engineering and other establishments. Brunswick Steam Wharf is at the terminus of the Blackwall Railway, and in communication with the Great Eastern and North London lines. The view of the Reach of the river from the Wharf is very fine. Here was Lovegrove's Tavern (the Brunswick), famous for its fish and especially its white-bait dinners;^l but the tavern was closed some few years ago, and converted into an Emigrant Depôt for (assisted) steerage passengers to New Zealand. The emigrants are lodged and fed here till the sailing of their ship from the adjacent East India Dock. On an average nearly a thousand a month are provided for in the depôt. Beyond the East India Docks are the Trinity Wharf and Stores.

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¹ The Artichoke Tavern, where white-bait was first eaten—'tis 60 years since—is still a, noted white-bait house.