Limehouse

A walk pretty much directly westwards from the junction of Burdett Road and Commercial Road, through old Limehouse ... beginning with the church of St. Anne's ...

Nothing special, just some period detail on the East India Dock Road ...

Again, some nice detail on Brickfield Street (i.e. there were once fields here, where they dug up the clay for bricks - perhaps including these very bricks) ...

Amoy Place, an alley behind the police station, with some very thin Egyptian-style bollards ...

Graffiti ...

Two of those lovely S shaped things that hold buildings together ...

Side wall of the police station, probably 1930s building, extensive projecting brick decoration ...

Dragons, a brief nod to Limehouse's (brief) Chinese history? ...

Maritime history to this ?wholesalers? building ...

The Passmore Edwards Sailors' Palace ...

Slightly run-down but nicely designed ?1860s?1870s? pub ...

Abandoned warehouse buildings ...

The old town hall, c.1900, thought it was flats but it's not ... see comments below ...

The Limehouse Cut leading into Limehouse Basin ...

No sadder sight, an abandoned Passmore Edwards Library ... presumably now destined for flats ...

Christ figure on the back of church ...

Unusual filling-in between girders on railway bridge, with bricks! ...

A rather ruined street lamp under that bridge; I think the pigeons got to it before the nails were added ...

Another under-bridge abandoned lamp ...

A water fountain and cattle-trough, erected by a sister to honour her dead brothers ...

Ominous for the neighbours, presumably ...

Limehouse Basin ...

Nice 19C doorway ...

Another abandoned under-bridge light fitting ...

Callegari's Restaurant ...

Deserted Fishmongers ...

Commercial Cars in very bad attempt at Tudorbethan style ...

Odd shops ...

Methodist mission, now flats ...

Abandoned pub ...

Railings galore in Albert Gardens ...

Spiky tree thing ...

Not terribly jubilant ...

And a lost sign from Jewish Whitechapel, a bit down the road ...

Round Clerkenwell

The doors of the former Hugh Myddelton school (long since converted into flats, sadly) contain a couple of unusual headings, apart from the typical 'Boys' and 'Girls and Infants' reflecting, perhaps, it sheer size.

This house in St. James' Walk has a rather narrow door ...

Whereas, not far distant, 11 Sekforde Street has a gaslight that belongs more in Mayfair ...

The arches (at the rear of a warehouse?) opposite boast an unusual metal STICK NO BILLS sign ...

Railings on Woodbridge Street, surrounding the Woodbridge Chapel ...

An inadvertent pavement abstract ...

And more railings outside the chapel ...

And a strange and mysterious piece of street furniture (ok, I know it's telephone and cable, but still) on Hayward's Place ...

The unlikely conjunction of an old (?electric?) light fitting, a stink pipe from the sewers, and a gaslight, on the border of St. James's church ...

There's something perfect about this simple bench, right down to the sagging piece of timber ...

On Clerkenwell Close, ventilating grill above window (bottom) and decorative ironwork of singular quality above ...

Easy to miss the beauty of the benches on the Green, unless you look at them exactly from the side ...

Decorative corbel on Albemarle Way ... the face is unusually well-preserved, I think ...

This Flatiron-style narrow building with semi-circular end bit, graced by clever use of cast iron columns ...

Love the proportions of this building on Clerkenwell Road, the way the windows work on each floor ...

Across the junction, some brilliant decorative interruptions to the brickwork ...

Presumably Clerkenwell guided walks operate on the Dr. Who 'psychic paper' principle ...

I like this hangover from the golden age of air travel (well, 1960s?) ...

Warehouse in the close at the bottom of Britton Street ,,,

With this strangely isolated tree in corner ...

And here's the beautiful iron finishing things that are holding that warehouse together - just beautiful ...

Disturbing geometry on St. John Street ...

Never noticed how petulant the Little Red Man looks before ...

Obligatory shot of the classic Smithfield roof ...

The lion of Justice and Strength of Herbert and Son's Weighing Machines (thanks for Alan Wylie to link http://www.herberthistory.co.uk/ ) ...

The part of Smithfield that was recently saved from redevelopment ... I think a new 'retail units' plan is going through now ...

A Victorian mid-road sewer ventilating grill, quite possibly 1830s or 1840s ...

Justice - who always looks tiny on camera but is actually rather massive ...

And some decorative work on the pub opposite ...