Limehouse at Dusk

This artistic impression of the riverfront at Limehouse is between Limehouse Dock and the site of the old Stepney Power Station.  Limehouse gets its name from the Lime Kilns or Oasts Houses that were at Limehouse Dock.  Here chalk from Kent and Essex was burnt to make lime.  This was then used to make plaster that made old wooden houses weather proof.  The name “Limehouse” or other spellings goes back to the twelfth century.

Historically, Limehouse was a seafaring community clustered around Narrow Street and the River Thames.  In the seventeen century nearly half of the inhabitants of Limehouse were mariners. The sky line is dominated by Nicholas Hawksmoor’s eighteenth century St Anne’s Church, the Parish Church of Limehouse. Seafarers, in the age of sail, that sailed up Limehouse Reach believed that St Anne’s Church resembled a ship in full sail!

Whatever the period of England’s maritime history, Limehouse has played its part.  In the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Limehouse became famous for its “Chinatown”, famously written about by Thomas Burke and Sax Rohmer (Fu Manchu) Charlie Brown’s Public House in Pennyfields was known the world over by seafarers.

Although Limehouse suffered badly during the blitz, the riverfront survived more or less intact up until the 1960s.   Since then some changes have taken place along Narrow Street and the Riverfront, but nevertheless, Limehouse still retains much of its maritime character.