Limehouse Cut

Limehouse Cut
Looking North East along the Limehouse Cut
Specifications
Status	Open
Navigation authority	Canal and River Trust
History
Date of act	1767
Date of first use	1769
Geography
Start point	Bow Locks
End point	Limehouse Basin
Connects to	(part of) Lee Navigation

Limehouse Cut
Lee Navigation Hertford Union Canal Bow Back Rivers Old Ford Lock Regent's Canal Bow Locks site of Bromley Stop Lock  A12  Tunnel N Approach Bow Back Rivers Morris Road Docklands Light Railway Upper North Street Limehouse Cut Regent's Canal  A1205  Burdett Road  A13  Limehouse site of Britannia Stop Lock Limehouse station Docklands Light Railway Limehouse Basin Limehouse Basin Lock Limehouse Lock River Thames

The Limehouse Cut is a largely straight, broad canal in the East End of London, England, which linked the lower reaches of the Lee Navigation to the River Thames. Opening on 17 September 1770, and widened for two-way traffic by 1777, it is the oldest canal in the London area. Although short, it has a diverse social and industrial history. It now connects to Limehouse Basin (which in turn connects to the River Thames) as a result of changes made in 1968.

The Cut turns in a broad curve from Bow Locks, where the Lee Navigation meets Bow Creek; it then proceeds directly south-west for 2 miles (3.2 km) through the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to Limehouse Basin.

History

Construction

The Limehouse Cut was authorised by the River Lee Act, an Act of Parliament obtained on 29 June 1767, after the engineer John Smeaton identified the need to make several cuts and to replace existing flash locks on the river with pound locks. Two days after the Act was obtained, Thomas Yeoman was appointed as the company surveyor, and one of his first tasks was to investigate a route for the Limehouse Cut. As authorised by Parliament, it would provide a short-cut from the Lee Navigation at Bromley-by-Bow to the River Thames "at or near Limehouse Bridge Dock", avoiding the tortuous curves of the lower reaches of the River Lea at Bow Creek, and the need to wait for the tide to make the long detour round the Isle of Dogs. The trustees accepted Yeoman's proposed route on 14 September 1767, which would terminate at Dingley's Wharf at Limehouse. The contract for the excavation of the cut was split into two, with Charles Dingley, owner of the wharf and also a trustee, getting the southern section up to Rose Lane and Jeremiah Ilsley getting the northern section to Bow Locks. Dingley contracted to make his end of the canal for 10 d. per foot; Ilsley's charge was 7d. per foot.

The construction of Bromley Lock was let as a separate contract, which was awarded to a millwright from Bromley called Mr Cooper, who also built some of the locks on the Edmonton Cut. The lock into the Thames was designed by Mr Collard, another of the trustees, who produced a model and plan for the structure. The estimated cost was £1,547, but Collard has miscalculated the length, and it had to be increased by 16 feet (4.9 m), resulting in the estimate rising to £1,696. By 1769, barges were using part of the cut, and in May 1770 an opening date of 2 July was set. However, 60 feet (18 m) of brickwork failed, and fell into the canal, delaying the opening until 17 September. There were further problems in December, when a bridge collapsed, blocking the canal, but once the teething problems were resolved, traffic increased steadily. The cut was only wide enough for one barge, and in May 1772, a passing place was added, but by March 1773, the company had decided to widen the whole cut, so that barges could pass as any point. The contract for the work was given to Jeremiah Ilsley in June 1776, and the widened cut was operational from 1 September 1777, having cost £975.

The Island and the mill at Limehouse

John Cary's New and Accurate Plan of London of 1795 shows that, by that date, a portion of the canal had been expanded to form a large basin, with an island in the middle marked "Timber Yd" accessible by a causeway.. This was the first basin in Limehouse, built 25 years before the Regent's Canal dock.

The Island, Limehouse Cut in 1819 (red arrow) and (left) its newly built competitor, Limehouse Basin.

The site today. Victory Place, Limehouse.

The Island Lead Mills, 1885, with their barges in the foreground.

In Richard Horwood's 1819 map (extract reproduced here) the basin with Island are drawn to scale; nearby rows of houses are named 'Island Row' and 'Mill Place', respectively. Those streets still exist in Limehouse but the "Island" and the "Mill" themselves are largely forgotten. They originated as follows.

Charles Dingley was an entrepreneur and speculator who built, amongst many other things, the southern end of the Limehouse Cut. At that time wooden planks were expensive because they were sawn by hand, or imported ready sawn; in England there was hostility to sawmills, which were thought to be illegal. Dingley, who was also a major timber merchant, decided to defy convention by building a wind-powered sawmill. He bought up a "stranglehold" of land in Limehouse and built the sawmill strategically close to the line of the intended Cut, which he may have promoted with that very intention. It was the only sawmill in England and did good business. However on 10 May 1768 — the day of the St George's Fields Massacre riots — a mob of 500 men, including hand-sawyers, attacked his sawmill and destroyed the machinery — anticipating the Luddite machine-smashers of later years. It caused Parliament to pass an Act making it a felony to vandalise mills. Dingley repaired his mill by 1769.. Surviving records are consistent with the island and basin being constructed to isolate and protect the repaired sawmill.

The sawmill fell into disuse before 1806, but by 1817 a lead mill was built on the island, called The Island Lead Mills. It continued a thriving business into the twentieth century — it had one of the first telephones in the East End of London — and its barges used the Cut; the company ceased to exist only in 1982.

By about 1868, however, the expanding Regent's Canal Dock had encroached so that the Island was no longer strictly such, and further portions were infilled later in the nineteenth century. Even so, traces can still be discerned adjacent Victory Place, Limehouse, which is built on the site.

Boatbuilding alongside Limehouse Cut

Forrestt's Boatyard. Most of the Victorian era's lifeboats were built here.

Across the Cut from the Island was the boatyard of T & W Forrestt, builders to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The firm built the Institution's self-righting lifeboat, which they publicised by testing in the waters of the adjoining Cut. Reportedly these boats saved upwards of 12,000 lives. Other notable builds included the Admiralty's fast anti-torpedo boats powered by the noiseless Willans engine, and the yawl Rob Roy (one of the first vessels used in solo adventuring). When it became urgent to send an expedition to the Sudan to rescue General Gordon the firm built and delivered, in less than a month, 100 boats to a special design for ascending the cataracts of the Nile.

Forrestt's yard was called Norway Yard, a name that survives in Norway Place. The image — an engraving in the Illustrated London News — shows the boatyard after its restoration from a disastrous 1858 fire. In the foreground is the London and Blackwall Railway with (in the distance) Stepney Station, now Limehouse DLR. The railway arches traverse Mill Place and Island Row. The Cut is visible at left centre. Across the Cut is the Island, with the Island Lead Mills (smoking chimney). The rigging in the background reveals shipping lying in the Thames (left) or in the Regent's Canal Dock (centre).

Stinkhouse Bridge

Bow Common Lane met the Cut at Stinkhouse Bridge; the bridge was so called even in official documents. The name first appears in an 1819 map and in an 1826 magistrates' report listing the bridges of Middlesex.

It was a desolate area originally, recalled a local historian, so chemical manufacturers went there for the opportunity to pollute. Hence the stench and the name. A subsidiary cause was filth from the notorious Black Ditch - a medieval sewer, originating in Spitalfields and discharging its waste in Limekiln Dock. At this place an open ditch, it had been fed under the Cut by a syphon, but it overflowed in stormy weather. More than once Stinkhouse Bridge required the attention of Joseph Bazalgette himself. "The smell is so bad that sometimes we cannot sleep in our beds", complained an 1856 petition. The main cause of the stink, thought Bazalgette, was factories discharging effluent into the Cut.

Near Stinkhouse Bridge, 1885. The RNLI's storeyard where lifeboats were tested before release to service.

As time went by Stinkhouse Bridge became the nucleus of "the largest chemical and inflammable factories in London": the district was a fire risk. In 1866 it caught fire at last. So tremendous was the blaze that, reportedly, every unit in the London Fire Brigade knew to turn out — and where to go — just by "the great light in the sky". Many people jumped into the Cut to avoid being burned to death.

About 200 yards up the Cut was the RNLI's storeyard. Lifeboats were kept there prior to release to service. Before that, they were sunk in the waters of the Cut to test their self-righting powers, as shown. The tests also required men to stand on a gunwale until it was submerged.

There are many reports of individuals trying to end their lives by jumping off Stinkhouse Bridge. In 1909 Coroner Wynne Baxter remarked that he had held inquests on over 50 suicides there. In a derisory attempt to enhance its image it was renamed Lavender Bridge. So dirty was the water that when a local labourer dived in to save a woman trying to drown herself, the magistrate awarded him special compensation from the poor box.

The bridge was rebuilt in 1929.. It continued to be a well known East End placename even after the stink had gone. In Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s the runaway Irish girl Mary lingers at Stinkhouse Bridge. "It was pleasant standing by the bridge, looking down at the moving water."

Pollution. The cholera and smallpox controversies.

The Cut becomes an open sewer

A gruesome find. (Oracle, 1798)

Until about 1815 it was illegal to discharge human waste except into cesspools; "sewers" originally were for rainwater. Then the practice gradually changed and in 1846 it became compulsory to drain houses into sewers.   Sewers had always discharged into the Thames, and so Limehouse Cut itself became another sewer — in the modern sense — and, when population and industries crowded around its banks, a "very filthy" one.  William Farr wrote that some houses near the Lea had no drinking-water supply, so the poor were forced to dip their pails in the Limehouse Cut. Apart from the chemical waste, he said, "the canal is a receptacle for dead dogs, cats, and other small animals, frequently seen floating on the discoloured waters; and on every occasion of opening the locks at Bromley there is a rush of floating scum into the Lea'. Amongst those who drank the water, deaths by cholera were observed (1849).

The Lea itself became polluted with sewage, which slowly flowed down the Cut. At some point in the 1850s it began to accumulate on its bed. In 1877 it was complained the layer of sediment was several feet thick.

Letter from "A Sufferer", 1865. Agitation gradually led to its cleanup.

Cholera epidemic

In 1866 there was a major cholera epidemic in East London. Conventional medicine (the miasma theory) blamed polluted air, so there was an outcry against the Limehouse Cut. However, The Lancet appointed a sanitary commission who plotted the cases on a large map and discovered that living near (or far from) the canal had nothing to do with the risk of dying of the disease. They were led to reject the miasma explanation and to suspect the drinking-water. It was afterwards proved that faecally contaminated water had got into the East London Waterworks Company's supply and been pumped to households — a step in medical science towards rejecting the miasma theory and establishing the currently accepted germ theory of disease.

But Thomas Orton, the Limehouse medical officer of health, was not a convert. In his district, he said, "water-drinkers" (teetotallers) scarcely ever got the cholera: it must be the bad air from the canals.

The smallpox hospital

"Blow it up!". Smallpox hospital beside the Cut infuriates East Enders.

In 1876 there was a smallpox outbreak in London and the authorities struggled to find suitable hospital accommodation. Some patients were placed in a hospital in Hampstead but this attracted the ire of local residents; one of them, Sir Rowland Hill, sued. The authorities then rented the disused Silver factory - sandwiched between the Limehouse Cut and Dod Street - and made plans to convert it into a hospital. It infuriated East Enders that West End bureaucrats should send smallpox patients to a crowded working district in Limehouse ("Another opportunity for the West to look down on and revile the denizens of the East" sneered the East London Observer) and there were demonstrations in Trafalgar Square and threats of violence.

Samuel Charlesworth, Rector of St Anne's Limehouse, wrote that it was a very bad place for patients anyway. Highly insalubrious, it had no ventilation "to move the fog often settling there, except the current of offensive vapour moving up and down the fœtid canal." He, the Rev. Charleswoth, knew the Cut was unhealthy because he lived next to it himself; his children "when at home always fail in health". Opposite, six children of one family had died in one month — of some blood infection. Their coffins had been superposed in the same grave.

Cleanup

But the cleanup of Limehouse Cut was already underway. It worked for two reasons: Bazalgette's strategic system of intercepting sewers; and an Act of Parliament which gave the Lee Conservancy Board powers to pursue polluters — for this purpose the Limehouse Cut was deemed to be part of the Lee — and to dredge sewage. In the Cut, already by 1877 the Board had closed down 36 private sewers. By the end of the century its dredgers were removing 40 tons of sediment a day.

The Burdett Road Bridge enclave

The Cut in 1819. 1 The Island. 2 Britannia Bridge. 3 Huddart's Patent Cable Works. 4 Stinkhouse Bridge.

In 1819 the Cut ran through open countryside from Bromley lock to Britannia lock, Commercial Road. There was no way of crossing this except at Stinkhouse Bridge. To the northwest, see map, was the Patent Cable Works, a long ropewalk founded by Captain Joseph Huddart where was made his twice-as-strong ship's cable. In due course the area was built up, the Cable Works closed and in 1858 its line was used to construct the "Victoria Park Approach Road" — soon re-named Burdett Road after philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts. A new bridge had to be made over the Cut. For the sake of the barge traffic Parliament required the bridge to allow headroom of at least "Eight Feet above High Water Mark, Trinity Standard".

Dod Street and socialism

Dod Street, on the corner by Burdett Road Bridge and whose factories overlooked the Cut, was built and named by 1861. It first attracted public attention in the smallpox hospital controversy (above) and then as a site for Sunday political meetings. Socialists like John Burns, Amie Hicks, Henry Hyndman Eleanor Marx, William Morris and George Bernard Shaw, among others, were speakers there.

The Dod Street trick

The law blacks Morris' boots in Dod Street. William Morris, a gentleman, was treated leniently.

Dod Street gave rise to the expression "the Dod Street trick" used in socialist politics. The police felt these meetings were subversive and sought to prevent them by arresting demonstrators for highway obstruction. Since there was no traffic to obstruct — it was a street of canal-side factories on a Sunday — the police were perceived as denying freedom of speech.

Dod Street demonstrations. Prominent socialists spoke here, including Bernard Shaw, Eleanor Marx and William Morris.

The Dod Street trick, devised to counter this, was thus described by Bernard Shaw:

Find a dozen... who are willing to get arrested at the rate of one a week by speaking in defiance of the police. In a month or two, the repeated arrests, the crowds which they attract, the scenes which they provoke, the sentences passed by the magistrates... and the consequent newspaper descriptions, rouse sufficient public feeling to force the Home Secretary to give way whenever the police are clearly in the wrong,

which is what happened. Public indignation gathered enormous crowds of people — only a very few of which were socialists — and they were let alone.

Images

The above images illustrate several features of the area in late Victorian times that are described in texts.

In Dod Street demonstrations the street is viewed looking northeast. A large crowd indignantly demonstrates for freedom of speech. The buildings on the left are factories alongside the Limehouse Cut (itself not visible). The inset shows Dod Street, viewed southwest, this time deserted. At the bottom of the street can be seen the Burdett Road horse-drawn tramway — a tram has just crossed the Bridge — and (in the distance) St Anne's Limehouse; while on the left is the factory of Abott, Anderson & Abbott who made oilskins for the Royal Navy.. The last building on the left — the one with the double lamps — is the "Silver Tavern" public house, informal headquarters of the East End Football Association, in which played such teams as Millwall Rovers, Tottenham Hotspur and the East End mission of Eton College.. The law blacks Morris' boots is a political caricature mocking class justice and William Morris' genteel socialism. (At a trial in Arbour Square magistrates court, plebeian demonstrators had been found guilty and punished, but Morris was only dismissed with a warning.) It symbolically has the law blacking Morris' boots in Dod Street — his foot rests on comrades who did get jail time or "smarting" fines — while on his banner is an ironical reference to his high-flown poem The Earthly Paradise.

Cutting edge industry

H Herrmann's furniture factory. Notice the electric travelling crane, highly innovative in 1888.

Taking up most of the north side of Dod Street and backing onto the Limehouse Cut was the highly innovative H. Herrmann factory. Opened in 1877 by American Henry Herrmann, it made hardwood furniture and was the first in England to do so almost entirely by machine. Its stock of timber — easily imported by water — was described in the East London Observer. "Something enormous", it was swiftly turned into good furniture "at the lowest possible prices". Powered by steam, it burned down in a colossal fire in 1887. (The fire got dangerously close to the East London Saltpetre Works, until extinguished by the Fire Brigade's floating engines on the Cut); Herrmann rebuilt the factory and introduced electricity to save on the steep insurance premiums. He had one of the first electric travelling cranes and, as there was no electrical supply in London, the factory, now electrically lit, generated its own.

At Herrmann's in 1884, worked Irish-American dynamitard Harry Burton, while planning his London bombing campaign; he lodged round the corner in Pelling Street.

The Fire Brigade continued to use floating fire engines on the Cut ("fire boats") until at least 1929.

The Outcasts' Haven

A charity stunt. Walter Austin and Frances Napton lived well off charity appeals, keeping no proper accounts.

In a disused warehouse at 1A Dod Street, opposite the Silver Tavern, was the Outcasts' Haven. According to Charles Dickens Jr., the first rule of the establishment was this:

Any outcast boy or girl, up to the age of sixteen, without parents, guardians or friends, and who has no home but the streets, will be admitted at once, at any hour of the day or the night free, and be provided with a bath, warm clothes, food and a bed.

Any policeman on the beat "who finds some poor outcast shrinking from the flash of his lantern", wrote Dickens, knew to send the child to Dod Street.

But, according to an exposé in the investigative journal Truth, it was part of a charity scam. Run by a man called Walter Austin and his mistress Frances Napton ("the Lady Superintendent"), the charity put on stunts (see illustration), sent out heart-rending appeals, collected large donations, but kept no proper accounts. While it did spend some money on homeless children, its proprietor lived well.

Locks

In 1854, Bromley Lock was moved and rebuilt to accommodate the larger barges which were using the navigation. A report written in 1888 noted that the lock was so full of rubbish that it did not maintain the water levels when the adjacent section was drawn down and in 1899 the company stated that the lock was only used when levels were drawn down for maintenance. The southern gates were removed soon afterwards, with the northern gates retained as a stop gate. Some remains of one of these gates can still be seen beside the floating towpath (for details of which see under Today).

The area around Britannia Lock in 1894. The relationship with the Regent's Canal Dock at that date can be seen.

At the south-western end of the cut, Britannia Lock was built in 1853. The gates were either side of Commercial Road bridge and were oriented such that a boat travelling from south-west to north-east would ascend in height.

From 1 January 1854, the Regent's Canal took control of Limehouse Cut and built a connecting link into the Regent's Canal Dock, now called Limehouse Basin. At the same time, a third set of gates was added to Britannia Lock. These faced the other way to the existing gates and were installed to cope with the situation where the level in the dock was higher than that of Limehouse Cut.

The link was short-lived and in May 1864, it was filled in. A report written in 1893 noted that there was no evidence that the third set of gates at Britannia Lock had ever been used, that they had been removed around 1868 and that the other gates had also been removed because they were useless. Following the takeover of the canal by British Waterways in 1948, a vertical guillotine gate was fitted on the north side of Commercial Road bridge but this was removed in the 1990s.

Bow Locks were originally semi-tidal, as high spring tides flowed over the top of the locks, altering the level in the Limehouse Cut and the southern section of the Lee Navigation. They were modified in 2000, when a flood wall and an extra pair of flood gates were installed, enabling the lock to be used at all states of the tide and stabilising the level of the cut. Funding for the project was provided by the London Waterway Partnership.

By the 1960s, the lock that connected the cut to the Thames was in need of replacement. It had been rebuilt in 1865, after the closing of the link to the Regents Canal Dock, and the design had included massive timber ties over the top of it to prevent bulging of the walls. These were eventually replaced with a steel cage, which served the same purpose. Access to the lock from the cut and from the Thames was awkward, and the gates were operated by winches and chains as the site was too narrow to accommodate balance beams. At the time, there was significant commercial activity on the cut, which would have been severely disrupted by the construction of a new lock. The solution adopted was to reinstate a link to the Regents Canal Dock. The route used in the 1860s could not be reused, as it was now covered by buildings, and so a new length of canal, only about 200 feet (61 m) long, was built. The new link was opened on 1 April 1968, when the tug Miriam towed four lighters through it. The old lock was then filled in but one of the winches was saved and was put on display at Hampstead Lock.

Other names

Limehouse Cut has been known by other or alternative names:

NAME(S)	SOURCE	DATE
"River Lea" (even where entering Thames at Limehouse)	John Cary's New and Accurate Plan of London and Westminster	1795
"Limehouse Cut or Bromley Canal"	John Fairburn's Map of London and Westminster	1802
"Poplar Cut"	Edward Mogg's London in Miniature	1809
"Lea Cut" (in Bromley); "Limehouse Cut" (in Limehouse)	G. F. Cruchley's New Plan of London	1827
"Bromley Canal or Lea Cut"	Kelly's Post Office Directory Map	1857
"Lea Cut" (east of Bow Common Lane); "Limehouse Cut" (to west)	Cross's New Plan of London	1861

Today

In 2003, an award-winning 240-metre (262 yd) floating towpath was installed to link the existing towpath to Bow Locks.

Factories and warehouses line the Cut for the initial section of the cut above Limehouse Basin, but whereas they used to be serviced by the canal they are now serviced by roads. Most use of the canals is for pleasure, both on the water and beside the water on the towpaths. Regent's Canal, the Hertford Union Canal, the Lee Navigation and the Limehouse Cut form a four-sided loop, covering a distance of 5.5 miles (8.9 km), which can be walked or cycled. The scenic towpaths cut across roads and railways in the area, providing a distinct viewpoint.

Access on foot along the Limehouse Cut was difficult in the area below the Blackwall Tunnel approach road, but was made easier as a result of an innovative scheme to create a floating towpath. This was opened in July 2003 and consisted of 60 floating pontoons, creating a 240-metre (262 yd) walkway complete with green glowing edges.

The Cut is part of the Lee Navigation and is administered by the Canal & River Trust. It was built for sailing barges, and can accommodate vessels which are 88 by 19 feet (26.8 by 5.8 m). Headroom is limited to 6.75 feet (2.06 m). The lock from Limehouse Basin to the Thames was originally a ship lock, but has been replaced with a smaller one. Although the area around Limehouse Basin and the original lock into the Thames have been extensively developed as part of the Docklands Regeneration scheme, the row of houses overlooking the lock, which were built in 1883 by the Lee Conservators, have been retained and refurbished, while the site of the lock is now a shallow pool. At the end of the London 2012 torch relay, David Beckham arrived with the Olympic torch on a speedboat via the Limehouse Cut to the Olympic opening ceremony.

Points of interest

Point	Coordinates (Links to map resources)	OS Grid Ref	Notes
Bow Locks	51.5233°N 0.0081°W / 51.5233; -0.0081 (Bow Locks)	TQ382823	northern end of cut
A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach	51.5216°N 0.0104°W / 51.5216; -0.0104 (A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach)	TQ381821	Floating towpath under bridge
Docklands Light Railway bridge	51.5192°N 0.0154°W / 51.5192; -0.0154 (Docklands Light Railway bridge)	TQ377818
A13 road bridge	51.5124°N 0.0318°W / 51.5124; -0.0318 (A13 road bridge)	TQ366811
Limehouse Basin	51.5111°N 0.0362°W / 51.5111; -0.0362 (Limehouse Basin)	TQ363809	southern end of cut

See also

• Spratt's Complex, an adjacent warehouse conversion including a large building called Limehouse Cut
• Canals of the United Kingdom
• History of the British canal system

Sources

Books, journals, reports and web encyclopedias

• Appleby, John H. (1995). "Charles Dingley, Projector, and his Limehouse Sawmill". In Saunders, Ann Loreille (ed.). London Topographical Record. Vol. XXVII. London Topographical Society. pp. 179–193. ISBN 0 902087 35 5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ayers, Gwendoline M. (1971). England's First State Hospitals and the Metropolitan Asylums Board, 1867-1930. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520017924. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Boyes, John; Russell, Ronald (1977). The Canals of Eastern England. David and Charles. ISBN 978-0-7153-7415-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Baker, T F T, ed. (1998). "Stepney: Early Stepney". A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11, Stepney, Bethnal Green (London: Victoria County History). Retrieved 17 July 2019. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bazalgette, Joseph William (1865). On the main drainage of London: and the interception of the sewage from the River Thames. Institution of Civil Engineers. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bevir, Mark (1996). "Fabianism, Permeation and Independent Labour". The Historical Journal. 39 (1). Cambridge University Press: 179–196. JSTOR 2639945. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Butler, Sir W.F. (1887). The Campaign of the Cataracts: Being a Personal Narrative of the Great Nile Expedition of 1884-5 (2 ed.). London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Livingston. Retrieved 14 July 2009. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Committee of Magistrates (1826). Report on the Public Bridges of Middlesex. London: J. Rider. Retrieved 16 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cooney, E.W. (1991). "Eighteenth Century Britain's Missing Sawmills: A Blessing in Disguise?". Construction History. 7: 29–46. JSTOR 41613688. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cooney, E.W. (1998). "Eighteenth Century Britain's Missing Sawmills: A Return Visit". Construction History. 14: 83–7. JSTOR 41601862. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cumberlidge, Jane (2009). Inland Waterways of Great Britain (8th Ed.). Imray Laurie Norie and Wilson. ISBN 978-1-84623-010-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dunstan, James (1862). The History of the Parish of Bromley St Leonard in the County of Middlesex. London: Hunt & Son. Retrieved 16 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Edwards, Clive D. (1995). "BRITISH IMPORTS OF AMERICAN FURNITURE IN THE LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY". Furniture History. 31: 210–216. JSTOR 23407909. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Farr, William (1852). Report on the Mortality of Cholera in England, 1848-9. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Retrieved 17 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Flower, Captain L. (1877). "Pure Air and Pure Water". Journal of the Society of Arts. 25 (1280): 689–693. JSTOR 41335120. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Forrestt and Son". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
• Higgins, Clement (1877). A Treatise on the Law Relating to the Pollution & Obstruction of Watercourses. London: Stevens & Haynes. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Holmes, Rachel (2014). Eleanor Marx: A Lif. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-8384-4. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hyndman, Henry Mayers (1911). The Record of an Adventurous life. Macmillan. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jones-Baker, Doris (1995). "Technological innovation". RSA Journal. 143 (5461): 22. JSTOR 41376793. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Keller, Lisa (2009). Triumph of Order: Democracy and Public Space in New York and London. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-51847-5. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kerr, Matthew Newsom (2015). "Chapter 10: Sites of complaint and complaining: Fever and smallpox hospitals in late-Victorian London". In Reinarz, Jonathan; Wynter, Rebecca (eds.). Complaints, controversies and grievances in medicine: historical and social science perspectives. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-79490-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Leather, John (2001). The Gaff Rig Handbook: History, Design, Techniques, Development,. Brookline, Maine: Woodenboat Books. ISBN 0-937822-67-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• London Borough of Tower Hamlets (2011). "Limehouse Cut Conservation Area" (PDF). London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Retrieved 17 July 2019. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• London County Council (1903). Annual Report. London. Retrieved 19 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Macgregor, John (1880). The Voyage Alone of the Yawl "Rob Roy" (4 ed.). London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Livingston. Retrieved 14 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Metropolitan Board of Works (1861). Minutes of Proceedings. London. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Metropolitan Board of Works (1866). Minutes of Proceedings, July-December. London: Brickhill and Batsman. Retrieved 16 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nicholson (2006). Nicholson Guides Vol 1: Grand Union, Oxford and the South East. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-721109-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "JAMES GEORGE GILBERT, HARRY BURTON". Old Bailey online. 20 April 1885. Retrieved 25 July 2019. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Orton, Thomas (1866). Special report by Mr Orton, Medical Officer of Health, upon the cholera epidemic of 1866. London: Board of Works for the Limehouse District. Retrieved 18 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pett Ridge, W. (1923). A Story Teller Forty Years in London. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Post Office London (1891). Commercial and Professional Directory for 1891. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rickards, George Kettilby (1858). The Statues of Great Britain and Ireland 21 & 22 Victoria, 1857-8. London: Eyre & Spottiswood. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sargent, Edward (2015). "A History of Rope Making (Docklands History Group Meeting March 2015)" (PDF). Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Select Committee on the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (1897). Report of. Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Retrieved 18 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sloane, Nan (2018). The Women in the Room: Labour's Forgotten History. London and New York: Tauris. ISBN 978 1 78831 223 3. Retrieved 21 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Staniland, C.J. (1886). "Lifeboats and Lifeboat-Men". The English Illustrated Magazine 1885-1886. London and New York: Macmillan. Retrieved 18 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• The Lancet Sanitary Commission (8 September 1866). "Report on the Epidemic of Cholera in the East End of London". The Lancet. II: 273–274. Retrieved 17 July 2019. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Thomas, Richard (2010a). Bow Back Rivers. History of the Lee and Stort Navigation. Richard Thomas. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Thomas, Richard (2010b). Limehouse Cut. History of the Lee and Stort Navigation. Richard Thomas. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Thomas, Richard (2010c). Limehouse Lock. History of the Lee and Stort Navigation. Richard Thomas. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• von Helmholtz-Phelan, Anna A. (1927). The social philosophy of William Morris. Duke University Press. Retrieved 22 July 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Worth, Jennifer (2012). Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s (Illustrated Edition). Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978 0 297 868 781. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Maps

• Horwood, Richard; Faden, William (1819). Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster the Borough of Southwark, and parts adjoining shewing every house (Map) (4 ed.). London. Retrieved 16 July 2019. {{cite map}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ordnance Survey (1895). OS London 1:1,056 — Sheet VII.70 (Map). Retrieved 20 July 2019. {{cite map}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Newspaper and magazine reports

• "News". Oracle. 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection. 28 September 1798.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "New Life Boats". Norfolk Chronicle. 18 February 1854.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Examinations at the Incorporated Law Society". London Evening Standard. 19 November 1856.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "The Life-Boats of the Royal National Life-Boat Institution". Illustrated London News. 4 December 1858.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Fire at Limehouse". The Times. 21 June 1858.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "The Ayr New Life-Boat". Greenock Advertiser. 28 June 1859.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Messrs. Forrestt's Life-Boat Building Yard". Illustrated London News. 16 November 1860.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Tremendous Conflagration in London". Leeds Times. 12 May 1866.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Naval and Military Intelligence". The Times. 6 May 1878.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "The Proposed Small-Pox Hospital in Limehouse". East London Observer. 13 January 1877.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "East London Smallpox Hospital". The Times. 15 January 1877.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "An East London Industry". East London Observer. 23 October 1880.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "The Alleged Dynamitards". Dundee Courier. 24 February 1885.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Mr William Morris Taken Into Custody". Sunday Times. 27 September 1885.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "The Socialist Sunday Meetings at the East End". The Graphic. 3 October 1885.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Stafford, John Phillip (10 October 1885). "The attitude of the police". Funny Folks.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• "East-End Football Association". Sporting Life. 27 November 1886.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "East-End Football Association". Sporting Life. 8 December 1886.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "A Life-Boat Competition". Illustrated London News. 18 December 1886.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Sporting Diary". Sporting Life. 3 February 1887.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Great Fire at Limehouse". London Evening Standard. 8 November 1887.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "East End Football Association". Sporting Life. 12 November 1887.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Dickens, Charles Jr. (14 January 1888). "The Outcasts' Havens". All the Year Round. Retrieved 28 July 2019.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• "An Electric Travelling Crane". The Times. 12 December 1888.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "An East End 'Mission' Examined". East London Observer. 4 October 1890.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Mr Walter Austin and His 'Charities'". Lloyds Weekly Newspaper. 5 October 1890.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "About Miss Napton and Walter Austin". Lloyds Weekly Newspaper. 28 June 1891.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Truth". Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser. 3 July 1891.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Bankruptcy Court". London Evening Standard. 27 July 1906.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Eastern Echoes". Tower Hamlets Independent and East End Local Advertiser. 28 August 1909.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "Destructive Oil Works Fire". Aberdeen Press and Journal. 11 July 1929.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Hillier, Bevis (12 November 1994). "Books: Knowledge of two lifetimes". The Spectator. Retrieved 22 July 2019.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

External links

• Limehouse Cut – a history
• Lee Valley Park
• Lea Rivers Trust
• Old Ford to Limehouse Basin (Video in rapid motion)