Category Archives: Uncategorized

Alfred E. Burrell was born in 1822 in the small market town of St Ive’s, Cambridgeshire. The 1861 census shows Burrell and his wife and children living in Hackney, and describes him as an ‘oil and colour manufacturer, employing 5 … Continue reading →

The Isle of Dogs had for centuries been prone to flooding, but even after the creation of embankments around its perimeter, its sewer system was inadequate and could not deal with the sudden increase in volume during heavy rainfall. Residents … Continue reading →

[My thanks to David, whose website The Forgotten Highway inspired me to write this article, and who was kind enough to dig out some images and share them with me. I suspect David is too modest or private to share … Continue reading →

In 1891, Cubitt Town School was opened in Saunders Ness Road. By the 1930s, the building was in need of enlargement and modernization, and it was decided that it would be more efficient to demolish and rebuild it instead. The … Continue reading →

During the night of 19th-20th March 1941, more than 40 people were killed, and dozens injured, when the public air raid shelter at Bullivant’s Wharf, off Westferry Road, received a direct bomb hit. This was the Isle of Dogs’ worst … Continue reading →

Mostly, the buildings in Ferry Street are fairly anonymous and hard to distinguish from many other new-builds. It is puzzling that the site of some of the earliest buildings on the Isle of Dogs – including the site of the … Continue reading →

Just outside the Millwall Inner Dock in Glengall Road (a section that was renamed Tiller Road) was the Capewell Horse Nail works, an American company with its headquarters in Connecticut. The firm moved to Shropshire in the mid-1900s and the … Continue reading →

The Isle of Dogs, or Poplar Marsh, is a spot of ground of such fertility and excellence of grass, that it not only raises the largest cattle, but it is likewise the great restorative of all distempered beasts. – The … Continue reading →

Close to one third of the Isle of Dogs’ housing stock was lost to bombing during WWII – a high proportion even compared to East End levels of destruction – and in 1950 the damage was still evident. Temporary housing … Continue reading →

Most of the very many Isle of Dogs engineering firms from the past were unknown to me until I started learning about Island history a few years ago. A few firms, however, were familiar as they were still in business … Continue reading →