Tubewhore (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tubewhore) wrote,@ 2007-07-11 19:19:00 |
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Pontoon Docks, and a slight case of trespass...
Now that I've pretty much mopped up the centre of the map, explorations take me further afield to places I've never visited before. And the likelihood is I'll probably never visit them again. After all Dagenham East or Bermondsey are hardly top of my leisure time destinations. Plus of course, I don't have much time in London these days...
Therefore it's worth doing some cursory research before setting off just in-case there's a little gem out there waiting to be discovered. It was in this spirit that I was noodling around on the net recently looking at what's about along the DLR line. I then remembered the Thames Barrier, which I have never made the time to visit, despite it looking like a space pod had beached itself downstream of Wapping.
So, chucking 'Thames Barrier into google I discover there's new newish Thames Barrier Park...and it has a map.
Now the map is useful for telling me that Pontoon Dock is the nearest DLR to the Barrier, but being the kind of person I am, what catches my attention is the bloody great big rectangle, just lurking there like the monolith from 2001, marked Millenium Mills. So of course I chuck that into google - ok, so I was bored and it was lunchtime - to discover a ton of sites and flickrsets documenting a huge derelict flour Mill. Oh yeah, baby!
I am intrigued. I'm tempted by the idea of being an urban explorer. I want apocalyptic panoramas, I want decay and dereliction. I want vast industrial wastelands. I want to feel rebellious and defy the 'keep out' signs. But first of all I want a manicure and some new trainers. Can't go crawling around Quatermass landscapes with shoddy cuticles.
It always freaks me out slightly that the DLR trains don't have drivers. Course that does mean you can pretend to be the driver yourself, if you can just get all the bloody seven years olds doing the same thing out of the way. On this occasion though, there was a whole family of Japanese tourists getting to make the cho-cho noises. Arse.
We arrive at Pontoon Dock, and are confronted with this:
It's absolutely bloody vast! Big, brooding, monolithic...and of course has been bought up by developers to turn into flats. I very much doubt that 'affordable housing' will be high on the agenda. It no longer has a rectangular footprint - large chunks have been pulled down. We head downstairs to see if there's a way to get in closer. Of course, there's a great big fence:
But on walking down the road, we notice a path through the undergrowth and a hole in the fence...but I'll leave the further explanation to the below...
So yeah, we ran away like big jessies, and didn't make it into the building itself. I call this discretion being the better part of valor. I'm just not used to breaking and entering. In fact I was laughing at my own nervousness, recognising just how conditioned to obey I've become. Perhaps I need more practice at a certain type of rebelling. However, I challenge anyone to be unconcerned in the face of a helicopter buzzing you when you are standing exposed in an apocalyptic filmset.
We did get a good look around the site in our short time there. A war of nature reclaiming the ground, weeds growing tall and vigorous between the brickwork, yarrow and blackberries, a drifting prairie forming where once there was such bustle, nothing now but crickets singing in the long grass.
Getting closer to the building itself, there's the disturbing graffiti and rifle shell casings. Hot knives and syringes I was prepared for, but not ordnance. I either hear voices or it's just pigeons, but as we can't find a way in we decide that the helicopter was creepy, and we're possibly pushing our luck. We notice that there's a chap watching us from the balcony of one of the flats. I was stuffing my face with stolen blackberries as we damn near walked into the big scary black-painted SUV barreling along the dirt path. He's traveling at a fair old lick otherwise he'd have seen us, nevertheless our luck is now at snapping point and we high tail it out to the break in the fence. B yells 'people coming' as we make it back through the bramble patch and out through the chain link.
We then try to act ridiculously natural, as we emerge from the undergrowth covered in scratches and with twigs in our hair, in front of a dad and his kid, but at least we evaded burly chap in scary black uniform.
The DLR is a ribbon of concrete running alongside the road - there's very little here but the park and empty industrial space. Staring along the tracks it doesn't even feel like Britain, it's all blandly European Modern.
Back at the Thames Barrier Park we watch more planes go over as we have tea at the cafe. I wish I was braver. Maybe I'm not a natural anarchist. Pondering these things I wander past the carefully crafted garden of undulating hedges, and down to the river. A sign tells us the far exit and fountain have been removed indefinitely due to vandalism. It's seems there was redevelopment money, but none for maintainance.
We can't get to the Barrier itself, so we wander back towards the tube...
Heading back to pick up the Jubilee Line at Canning Town we go pass what looks like another of those Thames Barrier Pods. This is the one that missed the river, and is rusting and unshiny...what's is being used for...is it just the oddest shed in the world?
Now that I've pretty much mopped up the centre of the map, explorations take me further afield to places I've never visited before. And the likelihood is I'll probably never visit them again. After all Dagenham East or Bermondsey are hardly top of my leisure time destinations. Plus of course, I don't have much time in London these days...
Therefore it's worth doing some cursory research before setting off just in-case there's a little gem out there waiting to be discovered. It was in this spirit that I was noodling around on the net recently looking at what's about along the DLR line. I then remembered the Thames Barrier, which I have never made the time to visit, despite it looking like a space pod had beached itself downstream of Wapping.
So, chucking 'Thames Barrier into google I discover there's new newish Thames Barrier Park...and it has a map.
Now the map is useful for telling me that Pontoon Dock is the nearest DLR to the Barrier, but being the kind of person I am, what catches my attention is the bloody great big rectangle, just lurking there like the monolith from 2001, marked Millenium Mills. So of course I chuck that into google - ok, so I was bored and it was lunchtime - to discover a ton of sites and flickrsets documenting a huge derelict flour Mill. Oh yeah, baby!
I am intrigued. I'm tempted by the idea of being an urban explorer. I want apocalyptic panoramas, I want decay and dereliction. I want vast industrial wastelands. I want to feel rebellious and defy the 'keep out' signs. But first of all I want a manicure and some new trainers. Can't go crawling around Quatermass landscapes with shoddy cuticles.
It always freaks me out slightly that the DLR trains don't have drivers. Course that does mean you can pretend to be the driver yourself, if you can just get all the bloody seven years olds doing the same thing out of the way. On this occasion though, there was a whole family of Japanese tourists getting to make the cho-cho noises. Arse.
We arrive at Pontoon Dock, and are confronted with this:
It's absolutely bloody vast! Big, brooding, monolithic...and of course has been bought up by developers to turn into flats. I very much doubt that 'affordable housing' will be high on the agenda. It no longer has a rectangular footprint - large chunks have been pulled down. We head downstairs to see if there's a way to get in closer. Of course, there's a great big fence:
But on walking down the road, we notice a path through the undergrowth and a hole in the fence...but I'll leave the further explanation to the below...
So yeah, we ran away like big jessies, and didn't make it into the building itself. I call this discretion being the better part of valor. I'm just not used to breaking and entering. In fact I was laughing at my own nervousness, recognising just how conditioned to obey I've become. Perhaps I need more practice at a certain type of rebelling. However, I challenge anyone to be unconcerned in the face of a helicopter buzzing you when you are standing exposed in an apocalyptic filmset.
We did get a good look around the site in our short time there. A war of nature reclaiming the ground, weeds growing tall and vigorous between the brickwork, yarrow and blackberries, a drifting prairie forming where once there was such bustle, nothing now but crickets singing in the long grass.
Getting closer to the building itself, there's the disturbing graffiti and rifle shell casings. Hot knives and syringes I was prepared for, but not ordnance. I either hear voices or it's just pigeons, but as we can't find a way in we decide that the helicopter was creepy, and we're possibly pushing our luck. We notice that there's a chap watching us from the balcony of one of the flats. I was stuffing my face with stolen blackberries as we damn near walked into the big scary black-painted SUV barreling along the dirt path. He's traveling at a fair old lick otherwise he'd have seen us, nevertheless our luck is now at snapping point and we high tail it out to the break in the fence. B yells 'people coming' as we make it back through the bramble patch and out through the chain link.
We then try to act ridiculously natural, as we emerge from the undergrowth covered in scratches and with twigs in our hair, in front of a dad and his kid, but at least we evaded burly chap in scary black uniform.
The DLR is a ribbon of concrete running alongside the road - there's very little here but the park and empty industrial space. Staring along the tracks it doesn't even feel like Britain, it's all blandly European Modern.
Back at the Thames Barrier Park we watch more planes go over as we have tea at the cafe. I wish I was braver. Maybe I'm not a natural anarchist. Pondering these things I wander past the carefully crafted garden of undulating hedges, and down to the river. A sign tells us the far exit and fountain have been removed indefinitely due to vandalism. It's seems there was redevelopment money, but none for maintainance.
We can't get to the Barrier itself, so we wander back towards the tube...
Heading back to pick up the Jubilee Line at Canning Town we go pass what looks like another of those Thames Barrier Pods. This is the one that missed the river, and is rusting and unshiny...what's is being used for...is it just the oddest shed in the world?
