Thames Barrier Park
Pontoon DockI haven't been on a local 'excursion' for ages - but yesterday was sunny and bright and I wanted something different. I'd noticed the strange lines of undulating hedges of the Thames Barrier Park from the DLR; I thought it would be fun to walk among them. After all, we can't be sure how many warm, sunny Sundays we have left.
I entred via those hedges - a living scuplture called Green Dock by Alain Cousseran and Alain Provost - who I could have sworn was a racing driver ;-) - past some fountains which, I'm happy to say, were playing at 11.00 on a Sunday morning (so many features like that get quietly turned off after the grand opening.)
I wandered up and down beautiful - and slightly unsettling, not sure why - lines of alternating hedges (a bit on the fluffy side just now, they could do with a haircut) planted with good late-summer flowers, towards what I assumed was a viewing point at the end.
It's a surreal walk once you get down amongst those hedges, which are much higher than they look from above - with an almost Alice In Wonderland feel to it. It wouldn't surprise me to see the White Rabbit run out, looking at his pocket watch, or to look down another row and see the Mad Hatter having a tea party. Under the hedge, a caterpiller on a mushroom would be puffing away at a dodgy-looking concoction in a hookah. Of course, if I looked again, they'd be gone...
The weird Green Dock is my favourite bit, but I was staggered when I got to the top and realised that the weird hedges are just a tiny bit of this modern park. Yes, there are dramatic views of the barrier:
but there are also wide spaces, a little wilderness area, places for organised sport or a kickabout, and a kiddie's playground.
I had a coffee on the decking outside the cafe - I'm savouring each outdoor coffee I can get these days. I suspect it will be cosy behind those giant plate-glass walls in in the crisp Autumn mornings to come.
This is not a 'day out' in itself, but it's a nice thing to do for different - a goal on a Thames Path walk, perhaps, or a quick trip along the DLR.
Opening hours are here.
Labels: Days Out, Not-Quite-Greenwich
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:05
16 Comments:
I stumbled upon this park about a month ago while on a circular bike ride (Greenwich to Woolwich,ferry and back on the north side)and, you're right, it's very other-worldly. I haven't looked into the history but it seems to have been built in the dead-straight channel of a long-disused dockhead or slip way.
Looking north from the park there is also the monumental Millennium Mill standing all alone - pretty imposing. It's a sort of Battersea power station for the Isle of Dogs, I suppose: conserved but no one quite knows what to do with it.
Further west, where the river Lea does doubles back on itself in a vain attempt at not reaching the Thames, there is another piece of fascinating ''hortitecture.'' It's a vertical garden covering a section of an otherwise standard brand-new box-like steel and glass building. I've no idea how they manage to keep the plants irrigated on what is a sheer south-facing wall. And how plants manage to do survive without a normal root system.
In any case, I found it just as surreal as the Barrier park, with a similar kind of nature-in-straight-lines formalism.
I know the place you mean, Marmoset - and find myself thinking that the folks over at the Dome could do with some gardening advice from them. There are some 'vertical gardens' shielding concert goers from ugly building works, which used to be fab, but they've all dried out recently.
I remember The Millennium Mills from the music video for 'The Box' by Orbital back in the 80/90's.
I did find something on the net saying that they were planning to re-develop the site and turn it into a Eco-Park/Water Sports Centre and Apartments. As with most 'Re-developments' from the back end of the last Century, it seems to have gone the way of the 'Silvertown Link' bridge across the Thames from the Peninsular to Silvertown. (I think the Dome is in the way now anyway...)
Oh, well........at least we get Lovells Wharf.
PS anyone know whats happening with the Victoria deep water wharf site 'our side' of the Peninsular?
Whenever I've been to this park I've always felt it was sparsely used. This seems to be a feature of so many parks I pass. All the kids are hunched in bedrooms smelling of mouldering socks playing computer games.
There is a great wealth of planting though.
you really don't want me to go on at length as to what was there before and why it is a park not housing ('most polluted site in Europe'). I will if you want but I think I go on too much anyway. However I can reveal that an Earlswood Street resident was the Newham Council officer who piloted the project through the system.
oh - and -ps -Victoria Deep is a protected wharf and as far as I am aware Hansons intend to continue there - or did you really mean Bay Wharf? or Morden Wharf?
I don't like to be too fussy about details, but the years studying geography mean that I just have to be in this case. The Thames Barrier Park and Millenium Mills are in Silvertown, not the Isle of Dogs as Marmoset suggests. The Isle of Dogs is to the west of the River Lee. Its an easy mistake to make; i'll put away my compass and maps now.
More interstingly the car park for the Park and the site of the Pontoon Dock DLR station were the location of the Silvertown Explosion of 1917, when the Brunner, Mond & Co works (Manufacturers of high explosives in support of the war effort) caught fire and the conseqences killed 73 people. see http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conInformationRecord.207 for details.
More recently it was used as the construction site for the Thames Barrier. The park is now managed by the Royal Docks Trust, as are the waterways and public access areas around the Royal Docks.
Edith,
I may have got the name wrong but I remember an artists impression of the site of a new Glass and steel construction in that area, which , incidental, blocked the view of the Dome from the Trafalgar. I'm sure it continued all the way from Dry Dock Road right the down to the Lovells Wharf development. I have tried trawling through my old files but can't find the pic. I'm sure it was also mentioned on this Esteemed Blog? (Phantom, can you help me out here????)
Isn't the internet a wonderful thing....????
Found what I was on about.....
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/news.php?ref=1664
Have a look at the pic and you will see what I mean.
The 'steel and glass' building has, I think, fallen victim to the recession, though I'm not sure whether that means cancelled or delayed. Its architects, by the way, collaborated on the Barrier Park and designed the square outside Excel in the Royal Docks. Both rather nice but I'm less sure about their Greenwich tower.
The site of this tower is the disused aggregate/topsoil depot just south of Drawdock Road - only. But there has been the intantion of further developments as far as the northern edge of the deepwater terminal - hence the raod and services alterations going on down there.
The Lovells's Wharf development was intended to include Piper's Wharf but I see no sign of the boat repairers moving out to Bay Wharf which I think was also intended.
Does anyone know what is happening there?
I can't persuade this programme to put my name at the top so let anon be Otter.
You're absolutely right, of course, Boney Boy. I was a bit careless with my place names, though I'll admit I didn't think Silvertown extended that far west.
Anonymous - yes thats right. Building on Victoria Deep would need special permission from all sorts of bodies. Although they got it for Lovells of course - but that wharf wasn't operatonal.
Morden College have planning consent for a boat yard at Bay Wharf but seem only have demolished the old covered slips.I have been trying to find out what is going on. The site to watch is the now closed glucose refinery.
The Barrier Park is largely on the site of a huge tar processing plant - originally Burt Boulton and Haywood. My quote was from a report on the site (late 1980s??) by Travers Morgan.
The refinery's closed? How come it was still whiffing so badly on Sunday when I went past it? I could still smell it actually in the Barrier park!
Thats interesting - I am away and out of smell shot - they are intending to clear the silos soon and I was told they are clearing the whole site.
Appolgies to Marmoset for place name pedantry.
There's another lesser known riverside park about a quarter of a mile west Thames Barrier Park which is worth a short diversion if you are passing. Its called Lyle Park, access from Bradfield Road off North Woolwich Road.
The park was a philanthropic gift from Mr Lyle (of Tate and Lyle sugar refiners). Mr Tate created the Tate Gallery, Mr Lyle's creation is less celebrated.
The park is about half the size of Thame Barrier Park, its almost directly opposite Greenwich Yatch Club, but with no view of the Barrier or Dome the vistas are less dramatic than its neighbour. But its a nicely maintained example of example of the type of park that the Victorians created, and because there's little local housing, its usually very quiet..sometimes almost worryingly so !
Hey Phant. I've really missed reading your postings while on holiday in Sunny Florida. Working my way back through them now and delighted to see this piece on the neglected Thames Barrier Park.
Yes, you're right, it was created out of a disused shipping dock and I'm sure you don't need to have it pointed out to you that the "up and down" hedges recreate choppy waves. Best seen viewed from the side rather than long-end on, where the wavy effect can't really be appredciated at its best.
Vertical planting: the side of the building is hung with a large metal grid, over which is tacked a special fibrous membrane about 1" thick which looks a bit like loft lagging. This is highly water-permeable to retain water, and may be backed up by pierced water cables running through it vertically so that water and nutrients can be "watered in from below". Grass and other plants are specially grown in large "turves" which are then fixed with horizontal pins which go through the matted root base and then the membrane; they have a little pop-out "anchor" at the other end which splay out (rather like those things you use to hang hooks on hollow doors with). The roots then grow into the membrane to secure the turves more fully. The force of gravity then pulls the roots downward in the normal way, so what you essentially have, Marmoset, is plants growing at right angles to their root systems - just how they would grow on a rock face, brick wall etc.
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