Orchard Place and Trinity Buoy Wharf: A Brief History

The Hope and Orchard

Throughout the middle ages Orchard Place was green and rural, remaining that way into the late 18th century.

Orchard House and its orchard, which took up most of the eastern branch, was owned by Mr Wright from 1743-1766.

Goodluck Hope took up much of the northern branch of the peninsula and belonged to the Manor of Stepney. It had a cooperage, a fishery, grazing meadows and a good sized house, called Handlebury. It was also known as Hanbury or Handle Hall and was demolished in 1804.

In 1810 Robert Wigram, who was an East India merchant who had helped to set up the East India Dock Company, in 1803, bought Goodluck Hope, calling it the Wigram Estate.

In 1815 the East India Company bought Orchard House, as the new East India Docks were just next door.

The first industry on Bow Creek was a copperas works. Bow Creek was ideal for this work as London Clay was full of iron pyrites, from which copperas could be extracted. Copperas, an iron sulphate, was used as an ingredient in sulphuric acid, as a fixative for wool and, up until the 19th century, it made the black of ink.

By the late 18th century competition from the north had grown too strong for copperas works in the south. This, along with other factors, saw the last of the copperas works close, early in the 19th century.

Mapping History

Between 1700 and 1820 Orchard Place was transformed from a semi-rural backwater to a busy centre of national importance for trade and industry. So many businesses sprang up, went bust or grew and moved that the maps of 19th century Orchard Place are different every decade.

The Age of Iron and Steam

In 1810 an iron bridge was built to provide a road linking East India Docks and Canning Town, but had to be torn down, in 1887, after a collier barge crashed into it.

In 1840 a railway was opened to link Orchard Place with the City, with trains leaving from Fenchurch Street and arriving at Blackwall station. This would become the London and Blackwall Railway that not only transported goods, but people who were taking trips to the seaside via a paddle steamer. These steamers went to Gravesend and Rosherville Gardens, Northfleet.

In 1862 the Great Eastern Railway was formed, running services to East Anglia. It's locomotives were built at Stratford, while the engine sheds were just up river from Orchard Place.

In 1902 the Midlands manufacturers, Baldwins Limited, brought the Blackwall Galvanised Iron Company to Orchard Place, where they had workshops for much of the 20th century. One of the directors was Stanley Baldwin, who would go on to become Prime Minister.

The Thames Plate Glass Company

The Thames Plate Glass Company, founded in 1835, was the only plate glass factory in the South of England, and was famed for the size of glass it produced and for the finish. No other glass company could match the size of glass produced here. Nearly half of its employees were women, as their 'superior delicacy of touch' allowed for better grinding and polishing of the glass.

Its glass was used for lenses, mirrors, theatre scenery and the Bow Creek Lighthouse, which still stands, and in which Michael Faraday experimented.

In 1862 Henry Dircks and John Pepper used Thames Plate Glass to create a theatrical optical illusion that would go on to be called 'Dr Pepper's Ghost'. So popular was this illusion that the company sold out of Ghost glass.

Well known for embracing the latest technologies, the Thames Plate Glass Company was the first to use the glass rollers designed by Sir Henry Bessemer.

In 1874, following competition from the North, and abroad, the company closed.

The Thames Bag and Sack Company

With the closure of the glass works various companies moved into the site with varying degrees of success. The Thames Bag and Sack Company was one of these and they employed many of the women from the glass works. 

In 1912 a massive fire destroyed the warehouse and, in 1935, another fire ripped through the buildings, claiming the lives of two firemen when a wall collapsed.

Following this the rest of the remaining wharf buildings were demolished.

Trinity House

In 1514 King Henry VIII granted a Royal Charter to 'the Guild, Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Holy Trinity, and of St Clement in the Parish of Deptford-Strond'. This was a company of mariners.

In 1566 Trinity House was empowered to set up "so many beacons, marks and signs for the sea whereby the dangers may be avoided and escaped and ships the better come into their ports without peril."

From 1604 until 1987 Trinity House was the authority for licensing pilots on the River Thames.

In 1803 Trinity House took up residence at the wharf at the end of Orchard Place, building workshops for building buoys and a mooring slip for their buoy-laying yacht.

Two lighthouses were built with only one surviving to this day. It is this one that Michael Faraday invented a way of clearing the residual gases that were produced by the huge oil lamps, that often obscured the light rays.

In 1910 Trinity Buoy Wharf employed over 150 carpenters, chain testers, engineers, painters, platers, smiths, office staff and more.

Trinity Buoy Wharf was responsible for every buoy, lighthouse and lightship between Southwold, Suffolk, and Dungeness, Kent.

In 1988 the London Docklands Development Corporation used a compulsory purchase order to obtain the land and, in 1996, transformed it into a centre for arts.

Shipbuilding

Orchard Place has a very important place in shipbuilding history, as it was home to the great shipyards of Perry, Wigram & Green, the Samuda brothers, Ditchburn & Mare, plus the Thames Ironworks. There were also many smaller yards here, too.

In the early 1900s ships were still being built here, before shipbuilding moved north to the Clyde and Tyne. 

In 1911 HMS Thunderer was the last of the Thames Ironworks ships to be launched.

Repairs continued at Orchard Place until the 1970s, when the London Graving Dock sold its premises to Shell Marine.

Ditchburn & Mare, which became Thames Ironworks, built The Royal Yacht 'Fairy', which incorporated a revolutionary screw-propeller. 

In 1912 Thames Ironworks closed, but the tools used to rivet their ships still echo locally in West Ham FC's nickname "The Hammers."

Education

The first school near Orchard Place was a junior school, where the children were taught to swim, how to life-save in water, as well as reading, writing and arithmetic. Most of the pupils left school when they were old enough to work.

During the 1890s, the School Board of London realised that the old school was too small and so built a much bigger school on part of the old Thames Plate Glass Company site. This school would remain in use until it was demolished in the 1930s, when Orchard Place was cleared.

In 2009 a new primary school, the Faraday School, opened in the Trinity House Offices in Trinity Buoy Wharf. Its playground is made from old shipping containers and many pupils catch the 'school boat', the Predator, which ferries them across the River Thames.

The Causey and Orchard House Stairs

Orchard House Stairs dated from around the 16th century and were an important wayleave to shore. Access to the stairs was via a causeway, known as the 'Causey'.

In the 1980s groups began raising awareness of the importance of these stairs, which stretch along almost the length of the River Thames, hoping for them to be preserved as part of London's maritime history.

In 2010 the Orchard House Stairs were destroyed as part of an Environment Agency re-piling scheme.

Whalers

In 1784 James Mather, a City merchant and whaler, acquired a sub-lease of land on Orchard Place. He built a factory and boiling house, for boiling blubber, and warehouses for storing oil and whalebone.

Although James Mather died in 1796 his company continued until 1803, when East India Dock was built. This was no great shame as much of the whaling factories had moved to Hull and Whitby.

Watering Holes

Charles Booth, a Victorian social reformer, disapproved of public houses, believing that they would create a drunk and disorderly workforce.

However, at the time, pubs served alcohol, hot drinks and food. Plus, as there was no central heating and little to no electricity, they were a warm and social place to be.

At one point there were five pubs on this small patch of land. They were: the Crown, the Prince Albert, the Steam Packet, the Trinity Arms and Orchard House.

As if to prove a point to Charles Booth, only one count of drunk and disorderly behaviour was recorded in this period.

Essential to the East India Company was tea and coffee, as it was to the nation as a whole, which resulted in tea and coffee rooms springing up in a row of houses, by the Trinity Arms pub.

Today

Trinity Buoy Wharf is home to historic buildings and vessels and has become an arts and cultural centre.

Some of the vessels that are moored here include: Diana (1890), SS Robin (1890), Knocker White (1924), Lightship LV95 (1939) and Suncrest (SUN XXIII) (1961). 

Some of the historic buildings include: Electrician's Shop (1835), The Chain & Buoy Store (1864), Lighthouse (1864), Proving House (1875), Main Stores (1950), Gate House (1951), Boiler Makers House & Fitting Shop (1952) and Boiler House (1970).

Complimenting these historic buildings, which have all been repurposed, are newer buildings which are in keeping with the idea of sustainability and recycling. 

These buildings include: Container City 1 (2001) & Container City 2 (2002), Riverside Building (2005), Music Boxes (2006), 2012 Studios (2012) and Clipper House (2015).

Plus, Trinity Buoy Wharf Pier has been rebuilt, repaired and extended in 2002, 2007 & 2018.

For a small peninsula Trinity Buoy Wharf has an amazing amount of history and architecture to explore, along with a bright future that can only add to the area's history.