Wapping Riverside

Summary

The north bank of the Thames east of the Tower — the river stairs, the riverside pubs, Execution Dock, and the narrow Georgian streets of a former dockworkers’ settlement surviving behind the Wapping High Street riverside wall.

About this location

Wapping is the narrow strip of former docklands between the Tower of London and Shadwell, on the north bank of the Thames. The area was the principal riverside settlement for Thames watermen, dock workers, and river trades from the medieval period. After the docks closed in the 1960s-80s, the warehouses were converted to apartments; but the street pattern — Wapping High Street running between the old dock walls and the river — and the riverside pub and stair character are substantially intact.

The Prospect of Whitby pub on Wapping Wall claims to be London’s oldest riverside tavern (1520, rebuilt); the Town of Ramsgate pub has a riverside gallery above the Wapping stairs at the point traditionally associated with Execution Dock. The Wapping stairs — breaks in the riverside wall where steps lead down to the foreshore — give access to the Thames foreshore at low tide.

For productions, Wapping gives a compressed Thames-side environment of pub frontages, riverside stairs, and the remaining dock wall — with none of the tourist infrastructure that surrounds Tower Bridge and the Pool of London to the west.