Lunch in Limehouse

I met Mirinda at the flat today and we decided, rather than have Turkish for lunch (as we have done many times) that we would go for a walk and find somewhere different. And so we found ourselves in Limehouse and the surprisingly inappropriately named Narrow Street.

The section of the Thames Path near Mirinda has been closed for a long time due to the seemingly endless construction of a building close to Canary Wharf dock. For as long as Mirinda has been at the flat, walking to the dock has meant going via rather ugly, traffic strewn streets or making a huge detour through the Canary Wharf business district.

Last week, however, Mirinda found that the Thames Path had reopened along this section which now gives her a much more pleasant trip back to the flat, the Thames on one side all the way. In celebration, this is the way we decided to walk, which is how we found ourselves in Limehouse.

Along the way, Mirinda pointed out the various balconied flats she’d like to live in (only the ones with a river view, of course) when she tires of her present abode. This is always a pleasant exercise.

Crane like flats with massive balconies

We have both been as far as the dock but further along the Thames Path was all new to us. Where warehouses once loomed, is now flats. Each building, designed to blend in with a once largely mercantile area, now line the path, giving it all an aura of respectability and high cost. A wonderful turning bridge (the Narrow Street Swing Bridge), flats designed to look like long-removed cranes, peace and quiet broken only by the occasional jogger and cyclist. It was all very pleasant.

Limehouse Basin, the other side of the swing bridge

Through a gate (open 8am to 9pm daily) and through to Narrow Street, Limehouse.

Judging by the street names and the age of the buildings, Narrow Street has changed an awful lot since redevelopment has visited the non-river side of it. A giant seagull, mouth open in an eternal squawk, keeping company with a strange old man in a wheelchair who could almost have been left over from more seagoing days, sits in bronze glory at the head of what reminded me more of a Parisian park than something in London. This means it was covered in gravel and the trees are very sculpted.

We spotted Booty’s, a small river side pub that promised great food and real ale. A small sign informed us that while it may not serve the best food, it certainly sold the cheapest. We didn’t let this put us off and entered.

What a fantastic find! A wonderful old pub that seemed to be inhabited by the ghosts of long ago crews and pipe smoking salty dogs. At the other end to the street, a swing door opened onto the river, a ladder (I presume) leading down to anyone arriving by boat. A big Union Jack, fluttering in the breeze and the waves lapping at the underside of the building every time a ferry went by at high speed made for a wonderful lunchtime spot.

Limehouse was so named because lime kilns (Lymehostes) were built there in the fourteenth century. It has been a natural docking place since the first wharf was built in 1348. During Elizabethan times, the street was indeed extremely narrow, buildings separated by just a few metres either side of what could only be described as a lane.

We ordered jacket potatoes and I had a lovely pint of Oxford Gold (a Brakspear ale I particularly like) as we sat, looking out onto the river. We fantasised about living on the other side of the river, a boat moored in front of our house and rowing over to our local pub. Mirinda then expanded this to include me rowing her to work each day with Carmen forming the figurehead and Day-z on her lap. The thought was a pleasant one, I must say. Once I’d swapped the oars for an outboard motor.

After a lovely lunch, we wandered back to the flat, in time for Mirinda to turn around and set off once more for an after lunch business coffee with someone from the office while I headed back to the dock and the ferry home.

One sad note to the lunchtime was this rather sad and neglected pub which, I’m pretty sure, ‘Hope’ has abandoned. It looks like the owner’s held out against the modern developments happening around them but, eventually, just lost interest and moved away.

The Anchor and Hope, a bit beyond TLC