London Archive Essay | A1261

---

This image was taken standing underneath the DLR viaduct. I can’t remember what had enticed me to go there. One step leads to another — that is all I can say, I suppose. However, I do know why I took the image, as much as I cherish forgetting what I capture as a part of my practice.  
​
Oh, the excitement when the negatives come back from the lab! Looking at the film strips, I remember where I was, see it anew, but especially, if the shot is successful, I see what I saw when I pressed the shutter; closed the blades — the eyelids of the lens, in front of the black box — thus, committed the view to the memory of the film roll.  

It was the diffused light, the translucent white sky over the DLR viaduct, and the roads that cross over each other, extending into the distance like ribbons in the wind. 

During the first stages of writing these texts, I wondered what in the Zeus could I write about this photograph. It is a minimalistic image whose subject matter is a road, a railway viaduct and the sky. The results of an online search of the name of the road, A1261, were motorists' websites and blogs about roads in the United Kingdom. Similarly, the information about the construction of the Docklands Light Railway, the DLR, consists of industrial vocabulary and the kind of turn of phrases that are only understandable to a civil engineer or a railway aficionado. When I typed ‘West India Dock Road’ on the search box and had a quick glance over the results, I sighed out of relief. I wouldn’t have to spin a story out of the motorways going through London. 

A1261 was built on West India Dock Road in the 1980s when the area was regenerated after the closure of the London Docks. West India Dock Road in turn was built in 1802 as a part of the Commercial Road to serve as a link between the Docklands and the City. The construction of the road coincided with the opening of the first dock on the isle, West India. The building of the West India Docks was funded by plantation owners, slave traders and sugar merchants. Indeed, the development of the London Docks between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries is directly linked to the growing transatlantic slave trade in the British colonies at the time.  Today, theMuseum of London Docklands is housed in one West India Docks’ former warehouses and Canary Wharf, the office building complex is known, stands on the site of one of its three docks.  

Early on in my research, I had given up trying to determine what exactly had been there before the vistas in my photographs. It would have been impossible. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when I found two photographs of a pub on the London Picture Archive’s map, on the very same spot as the view in my photograph, stating that their location on the map was exact. That is how I came across one of the lost institutions of East London: Charlie Brown’s.  

Charlie Brown’s was a pub that stood on 116 West India Dock Road. It was officially called The Railway Tavern but it was better known by the name of its landlord, Mr Brown. Mr Brown was, by all accounts a charismatic and well-liked man. He collected treasures, sometimes as payments for drinks from his clientele, mainly sailors and dockworkers. Some of his more prestigious objects were purchased from antique dealers. All of these objects were on display in the pub and became attractions in themselves. When Mr Brown died in 1932, his funeral was attended by over 6000 people. His daughter took the license of the Railway Tavern and ran it for several years. His son had a pub opposite to the Railway Tavern. Mr Brown’s treasures were divided between the siblings but where they ended up, is unknown. 

A few areas in London have undergone such drastic changes as the Isle of Dogs. The closure of the docks and building of the ‘Second City’ in the 1980s was a massive undertaking at the time and much opposed by the locals.  Numerous historians have explored this bygone part of London life. Some of their blogs are listed below and I would especially recommend ‘The Short History of West India Dock Road’ on the Isle of Dogs – Past Life, Past Lives blog. ​

Railway Tavern Public House, 116 West India Dock Road, photograph, 1925

Pub interior, Railway Tavern Public House, photograph, 1928

Bird's-eye view of West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, showing Blackwall in foreground and the City Canal on the left. Aquatint, 1802 

General view of West India Docks, aquatint, 1810. Images, with the exception of the author's, reproduced with the kind permission of London Picture Archive www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk 

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols43-4/pp117-119 

On the docks and the slave trade https://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/art51852 

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/permanent-galleries/london-sugar-slavery 

https://www.britannica.com/place/London-Docklands 

https://islandhistory.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/the-west-india-dock-road-a-short-history/ 
​
http://stories-of-london.org/charlie-browns/ ​

© Carita Silander