Departure
“I sped down the gangway clutching my rucksack and my stick while the others dashed back to the steps . I was signalling frantically back as the hawsers were cast loose and the gangplank shipped. Then they were gone. The anchor-chain clattered through the ports and the vessel turned into the current with a wail of her siren. How strange it seemed, as I took shelter in the little saloon – feeling, suddenly, forlorn; but only for a moment – to be setting off from the heart of London! No beetling cliffs, no Arnoldian crash of pebbles. I might have been leaving for Richmond, or for a supper of shrimps and whitebait at Gravesend, instead of Byzantium. Only the larger ships from the Netherlands berthed at Harwich, the steward said: smaller Dutch craft like the Stadthouder always dropped anchor hereabouts: boats from the Zuyder Zee had been unloading eels between London Bridge and the Tower since the reign of Queen Elizabeth.” Patrick Leigh Fermor, Chapter 1 ‘The Low Countries’, ‘The Time of Gifts’ John Murray 1977
Irongate Wharf as it was
The Irongate Wharf as it is today
The Wharf was dismantled and replaced by what is thought to be one of the ugliest buildings in London, according to Wikipedia.
However it gains some acclaim by being used as a set for the Doctor Who series “The Dalek Invasion of Earth
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