THE UNLOST RIVERS OF LONDON The Ephemeral Stream Millharbour → Millwall Dock (0.05 miles)
A dry river has been uncovered on the Isle of Dogs, meandering through mature woodland to the south of Canary Wharf. It rises in the shadow of the Pan Peninsula Tower and flows east beneath several bridges towards a pebbly pool.
Head for the waterfront alongside Millwall Dock, not far from South Quay station, then follow the resin-bound gravel path into the trees. It's already a popular place to wander, there being little other open space nearby. You might spot a mother taking their toddler for an urban safari along the river bed thankful that their feet remain dry. Low concrete slabs cross the channel at very regular intervals. Stick to the path and the ground springs beneath your feet just as it would were this genuine woodland, which it very much isn't.
The composition of the forest is made of a simple selection of native species - alders, aspen, oaks and willows. Primarily multistem species have been selected for their elegant, naturalistic forms and illusion of a greater density of trees.
It may look as if water should be flowing here but it never will, and never did. The developers have simply created an eco-illusion to help get their cluster of residential towers through the planning process.
Covering a generous 85 by 25 square-metre patch of land, around 100 trees will be planted on undulating land. Far from the wasteland of youthful shrubs that typically populate new developments, these will be between 9 and 10 metres tall on planting, forming a dense patch of very real woodland – an opportunity for Mill Harbour dwellers to forest bathe daily.
The new development is called Mill Harbour. It really ought to be called Millharbour because that's the name of the street which runs alongside. But the branding team instead decided to split the word in two to give the place some fake character and spin a watery heritage vibe.
Abundant greenery and innovative landscaping makes Mill Harbour unique in the area complete with forest and stream.
There never was a harbour, let alone a stream, just an expanse of squelchy marshland transformed into docks in the 19th century. As for a mill, the closest would have been a windmill perched on the river wall quarter of a mile away at Millwall. And as for "rewilding", which is the claim promoted on hoardings around the adjacent building site, if anyone genuinely returned the land to what itused to be then the proposed 42-storey tower would simply sink into the mud.
In amongst the jigsaw of landscape models carefully devised for different parts of the development, Charlton and Smith pause over what looks like a dense patch of forested wilderness that would be more at home on the pages of a fairy tale than on the banks of the Thames. Harbour Forest and The Ephemeral Stream, as it has rather nobly been titled, was inspired by a Dutch Old Master scene and promises to be a jewel in Mill Harbour’s crown.
Calling a few trees between two skyscrapers 'Harbour Forest' is bad enough. But the concept of 'The Ephemeral Stream' for a dry pebbly channel is beyond parody. The planning application also describes the depression at one end as an 'ephemeral pool', and has been forced to write 'river bed' in inverted commas.
Alders are placed close to the ‘river bed’, with particularly fine catkins in early spring. ‘Fallen’ birch trees lie across the forest floor, chopped where a path runs through. They are allowed to decompose and become part of the undergrowth - as if the forest has matured past the pioneer stage that begun it.
To be fair, it is much better to have a fake stream in a naturalistic woodland landscape than a paved piazza or a parking lot. The planners had originally wanted to use this half acre for an 'open-sided market structure' until the council (and prevailing economic conditions) dictated otherwise.
Spacehub’s work at Mill Harbour demonstrates this seamless capacity for ingenuity and integrity. Taking the project’s cue as a village, they set about deconstructing how this might manifest in a landscaping scheme that would go beyond the blandly hollow estate agent-speak that blights so many of the capital’s mixed-use developments.
Alas they couldn't quite get rid of the blandly hollow estate agent-speak.
The willows have been placed throughout the pedestrian journey through the forest, leading towards the Ballymore Design Cube and events space. They tumble and weep over a timber platform, so people can sit or lie whilst enjoying the variety in the canopy of the forest.
