Bow

Today we wandered around Bow, following some bits of a self-guided walk before heading down to Canary Wharf. Part of London's East End, Bow is southeast of us, not too far away, but not really a neighbourhood where there are many (any?) conventional "attractions," so we haven't yet found ourselves there to do some exploring. This walk was just the thing to get us into some of the area's interesting nooks--ones that we definitely wouldn't have found on our own. We peered into the graveyard at Holy Trinity Church,

and thought that Tredegar Square was a lovely spot with nice streets all around.

The extremely faded mural Community Fragments fills one side of this building--and for the Canadians out there, I should mention that "surgery" is what a doctor's office/ medical clinic is called here--the sign doesn't denote a surgeon's office!

Bow Arts Trust offers studio space in its distinctive buildings,

as well as an interestingly named exhibition space down the lane:

They also hold an annual open-studios day that looks like it would be worth a visit. This next building is all that remains from the Drapers Almshouses, originally built in 1706:

The building's modest size is striking amongst the sea of tower blocks that fill this part of Bow.

We cut our walk short soon after this, since we were aiming for a free comedy/music show at a museum that we'd not yet visited down by Canary Wharf, but when we got down there, the show turned out to start at a much later time than was advertised, and so we decided to skip the show and just have another wander before heading home. As I've mentioned before on these pages, I just can't warm up to Canary Wharf, no matter how much it bills itself as a neighbourhood worth thinking about as more than just office-worker-central. Still, it does boast London's only floating church

and retains many of the interesting fixtures of its industrial past,

now firmly surrounded by its commercial present.

Even though we weren't going to stick around for the show, we had a wander around Museum in Docklands, a shipping warehouse that's been converted into a museum of the Thames and London's port.

Although I'm interested in this history, the museum itself feels a bit too much like it's aimed at the school field-trip crowd, and even teenagers would find some of the "interactive" (of the "look behind this door to make a discovery" variety) displays boring. Ah well, at least the regular £5 admission is waived the first Thursday evening of every month, so we were able to satisfy our curiosity about the place. We walked around West India Quay and Canary Wharf for a while as the sun went down
and caught the DLR, which you can see between stations in this next photo, back toward home.

Since we left the area during the weekday rush hour, it was a very squashed ride back to the City, and by the time we arrived at Bank station, we were very happy to be free from our incredibly crowded car. Of course, the station (not a favourite of ours) and the streets of the City weren't any less busy, but at least we could dodge our way through the crowds in the fresh air, rather than being stuck in one spot on the DLR!