London 1981

Peter MARSHALL


Wapping High St, Wapping, 1981
29g-33: street, warehouses, Tower Hamlets,

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Something rather like this building still exists on Wapping High St as Bridewell Place, with the ground floor now an arcade, and the high doorway gone. The brickwork above the first floor windows is also very different, without the top of those rectangles which show clearly in my picture and give the building its character. Missing too are those prominent window cills, particularly the rather odd double cills of some of the first floor. It's as if the builders had struggled hard to recreate the old building until they got to that level, then said 'F**k it' and stopped looking at the plans.
 
The bricks in the new building look old, but this and most of the new development behind it dates from 1987 when it was build by Barratt Homes.