It's Newham Heritage Month again, the second annual celebration of the people who made the borough, this year with a theme of Shops, Docks and Factories. A programme of live participatory events and online activities is available, backed up by a permanent website that's culturally rich and ethnically diverse. Expect embroidery workshops, heritage barge days, twilight theatre, virtual guided tours and films about curry houses, not to mention all the events during the first half of May you've already missed.
I decided to plump for the self-guided Wonderful Women of Newham History trail, Silvertown edition, launched last weekend and produced in conjunction with the East London Women's Museum. Downloading a map and directions allows you to walk from Canning Town to North Woolwich ticking off ten spots where inspirational women made their mark, estimated duration an hour and half. The materials are beautifully produced and well worth a read but the walking instructions, alas, are some of the worst I've ever tried to follow. So here comes a post in which I praise the idea and rip apart the delivery...
Wonderful Women of Newham History trail(Silvertown edition)
If arriving by transport, get off at Canning Town station and turn right on Caxton Street North.
Caxton Street North isn't outside the station, it's a five minute walk away. Even the introductory instruction blows it.
1) 25 Huntingdon Street - Martha Little
I'd never been to Huntingdon Street before and for good reason, there's nothing here bar industrial units, a row of lockup garages and the backs of gardens. The road's also been entirely realigned since Victorian times so there isn't a number 25 and this isn't the spot where Martha would have run her business as a Sawdust and Firewood Merchant. Not a great start.
2) 56 Victoria Dock Road - Mary Lloyd and Martha Wooding
Likewise there isn't a number 56 any more, nor indeed any of the original Victorian buildings, so the high-end drapers where Mary and Martha were partners is long gone. Instead we've been lured to a grubby spot beneath the Silvertown Viaduct on the pretence that two women lived here together for 23 years so might have been romantically involved, even though there's zero documentary evidence that they were.
Continue down Victoria Dock Road and then use the pedestrian step crossing to get to the roundabout.
It took me a long time to work out that by 'pedestrian step crossing' they meant footbridge.
Take the third exit onto Dock Road.
The third exit turns out to be the fourth road.
For wheelchair users take the 474 bus from Charrington Steps (Stop S) and get off at West Silvertown Station and go direct to Silvertown Memorial.
Hell no. Wheelchair users can't access the bus stop because it's on the viaduct up a flight of steps (there's a clue in the name Charrington Steps). Indeed wheelchair users really shouldn't be attempting this trail because they're also going to be royally stuffed between stops 6, 7 and 8.
3) 81 Dock Road - Sarah Ann Cundy
Sarah had the inner strength to run a dockside pub with her daughter, but not this one which she ran with her husband instead. It was called The Bell And Anchor, but like everything hereabouts it was demolished decades ago. Indeed Dock Road is a horribly bleak spot with a vacated cement works on one side and a Silvertown Tunnel worksite on the other, and coming here is inherently pointless.
Continue down for around 15 minutes and then turn right on John Harrison Street.
No, it's called John Harrison Square. The name doesn't appear on any street signs (nor on maps of the Royal Wharf development) so you would never know this was the right place to turn off.
Bear right onto Royal Crescent Avenue.
No, it's called Royal Crest Avenue. Again there are no street signs in any useful locations.
4) Silvertown Memorial - Norah Griffiths
Hurrah, proper history, the site of London's largest ever explosion. But the trail spends so long explaining the blast that Norah's heroic act holding up a roof gets short shrift, and it was only when I did some research later that I discovered she saved a number of young children from a crushing death.
Go back up Royal Crescent Avenue but bear right.
Still should be Crest, not Crescent.
Turn left onto Admiralty Avenue.
No, Admiralty Avenue is on the right.
This turns into Starboard Way.
Only if you've gone the wrong way.
Turn left onto North Woolwich Road.
No, turn right. This is the first utterly disastrous direction.
5) Charles Street - Ethel Colquhoun
Ethel's one of the real-life characters in the book The Sugar Girls, whose career trajectory at Tate & Lyle took her from shop floor to management. But her birthplace was destroyed in the Blitz, and Charles Street is now a grim semi-industrial cul-de-sac leading to scrappy builders yards. The sign at the end of the road confirming that Newham acquired the land for regeneration has an 0181 phone number, which just goes to show how long this place has been a desolate nowhere. This is the fourth time this trail has taken us somewhere miserable with nothing to see.
6) Brick Lane Music Hall - Janet Keiller
The music hall in an old church is gorgeous but ignore that. Instead the trail directs to some anonymous gates on the other side of the road. This used to be the entrance to Tay Wharf where the famous Keiller & Sons marmalade factory was located, but founder Janet had been dead 75 years by then and she lived miles away in Dundee so it's entirely tenuous to claim her as a wonderful woman of Newham.
Continue down and then take the left hand 'restricted usage' road onto Connaught Road.
I still have no idea what this means. No road leads to Connaught Road, restricted or otherwise, because a railway line blocks the way. There is a recently-reopened footbridge, which is the only possible connection, but whoever wrote these directions seems to have an aversion to writing the word 'footbridge'.
7) 2 Connaught Road - Eleanor Marx
Eleanor was an active member of the Silvertown Women's Branch of the Gasworkers Union, who held meetings here in 1889 when this was the Railway Tavern. But it's not the Railway Tavern any more, that was demolished ten years ago and replaced by a particularly ugly silver block of flats which quite frankly you have no need to troop this far to see.
Return back the way you came, continuing left on Factory Road.
That'd mean crossing back (unnecessarily) over the footbridge. Factory Road is a claustrophobic lorry-riddled half mile skirting the high walls of the Tate & Lyle factory and not somewhere I'd ever direct a walking trail. You'd have got a much better view from Connaught Road anyway.
8) Tate & Lyle Factory - Edna Henry
Edna's another of the Sugar Girls, one of the first black women to work at the factory and a union shop steward. Initially overlooked for promotion she later turned promotion down because it would prevent her from representing her girls.
Continue down Factory Road and turn left onto Fenhill Street.
It's actually Fernhill Street, and technically it doesn't connect with Factory Road (unless you haven't been to the area and don't realise Crossrail runs inbetween, in which case you might well assume it did).
9) Henley Arms
This was a popular pub with Tate & Lyle workers, apparently, but that's the best female connection this trail can muster. It was good to see the pub open again after lockdown because I had been convinced it'd permanently closed.
Carry on down Albert Road and turn left on Pier Road.
This one's correct. Credit where credit's due.
10) 6 Pier Road - Connie Hunt
Connie was a key campaigner in the fight against City Airport in the 1980s and helped draw up a People’s Plan which showed how the land could be put to much better effect for the benefit of the local community. This early eco-protest earned a public enquiry, but the government obviously ignored that and built the airport anyway. It's an empowering story but I'm not sure it was worth the trek to North Woolwich see the former campaign office in what's now a laundrette.
To summarise, the Wonderful Women of Newham History trail features several inspirational women, some tangential filler, a chain of locations it's not really worth visiting and some appallingly-written directions that should ensure you get lost. You'd be much better off doing some research into these characters at home, or maybe signing up for that embroidery workshop instead.
