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Leamouth: How the SS Robin has returned to within 150m of her London birthplace

Historic ship’s move is the start of the latest chapter as Trinity Buoy Wharf prepares her for opening

The SS Robin, moored at her new home at Trinity Buoy Wharf – image Harry Dwyer

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So there she sits, resplendent in her red and black livery, atop a specially constructed pontoon and ready for the next chapter of her life.

The SS Robin has, after some 133 years, returned to within 150m of the shipyard where the iron plates of her hull were first riveted together. 

She might be smaller in size than the Cutty Sark and HMS Belfast – but make no mistake – as historic ships in London go, she’s deserving of attention.

And following her most recent relocation from Royal Victoria Dock to Trinity Buoy Wharf, the story of the only surviving Victorian steam ship in existence is a big step closer to getting appropriate prominence.

It’s a move that’s been a long time coming.

Having spent a chunk of her retirement (1991-2008) at West India Quay opposite Canary Wharf, the Crossrail project saw her moved to Suffolk, with funding secured for restoration.

That saw her lifted from the water and mounted on a pontoon in 2010, with the intention of returning her to Docklands for public exhibition. 

But plans to open her as a museum ship in Royal Victoria Dock faltered so, while she has been moored near Millennium Mills since 2011, she’s remained mostly closed to the public and inaccessible. 

Nearly there – passing the cable car over the Thames – image Simon Richards

Schemes were mooted, plans made and locations suggested, but in more than a decade, Robin failed to find a permanent home.

A site was not forthcoming in either the Royals or West India Docks, amid the ironically choppy administrative waters of the bodies managing these vast human-made lakes. 

Eric Reynolds is founding director of Urban Space Management, which runs Trinity Buoy Wharf.

He is a man who makes things happen. London is strewn with projects he’s had a hand in – Camden Lock Market, Gabriel’s Wharf on the South Bank, Greenwich Market and Merton Abbey Mills, to name a few.

After becoming involved with the SS Robin and growing frustration at the failure to open her to the public as promised, he’s now overseen the relocation of the vessel to the mouth of the River Lea, where she will have a permanent home among the growing historic fleet at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

“The original intention was to keep going with the project and leave Robin where she was in Royal Docks,” said Eric.

“But eventually I gave up – I just couldn’t get any of the organisations to get off the fence.

“So instead we turned to the Port Of London Authority to get a licence to drive two piles into the riverbed at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Heading through the Thames Barrier on her way to Trinity Buoy Wharf – image Simon Richards

“The ship and her pontoon probably have a combined weight of about 600tonnes, which is not something I’d want to moor directly against the listed river wall as it would pose some risk.

“So, instead, it’s held between two giant ‘knitting needles’, which weigh 17 tonnes each. There’s a seven-metre rise and fall of the tide, so Robin will demonstrate that every day.”

That change in level also presents the last significant stumbling block to opening the vessel to the public.

A 40m gangway is set to be installed over the next couple of months that will go up and down with the level of the water, providing access at a suitable gradient.

Then, members of the public will be able to tour the vessel and view a wealth of information about her past and why she’s been preserved in this way.

“The driving idea is to make that information and Robin herself available to people who live here and know the area, as well as newcomers to it,” said Eric.

“There’s a population the size of Swindon scheduled to move in – a whole new town is being created.

“Shipping is still the major way by which the world trades with itself and London is here because it was driven by this tidal river and the trade that took place on it.

“Robin is the very last complete trading vessel of the period in the world with its original method of propulsion still in place.

“She was sold reasonably early in her life to the Spanish who operated her on a bit of a shoestring, so they didn’t do what nearly everyone else did, which was to take out the steam engine and put in an easily operated diesel.

“When you look at the ship and see the small size of the rudder and the huge propeller, you realise she’s relying on torque rather than revs.

Urban Space Management’s Eric Reynolds – image Jon Massey

“I really take my hat off to her crew – operating her in a crowded dock. With modern vessels you have bow thrusters and they can turn on a sixpence whatever the weather.

“With Robin you’d have had to spend 12 hours just getting steam up – their lives were so hard. We have a lot of material about her working life so we’ll be able to tell people all about it – the crew on her maiden voyage, for example. 

“What we won’t do is commercialise her in any way – the whole point about this ship is she looks and feels like one that would carry coals from Newcastle and salted herring from Aberdeen.

“That should be respected and the entire idea is to create a free access open museum, along the lines of Blists Hill in Shropshire, where people can come to learn.”

Trinity Buoy Wharf plans to work with a cross section of organisations including schools, artists and musicians to explore and illuminate the vessel’s heritage as a jumping off point for study, not least in the fields of science and technology.

It also intends to tell the story of the ship’s construction at the yard of Mackenzie, MacAlpine And Company in Blackwall.

“That’s really quite amazing,” said Eric.

“With health and safety now, we could never imagine a 14-year-old boy throwing lumps of red hot metal up for someone else to catch in a shovel.

“The majority of the ship is original, and when we cut some of the metal and sent it away, the people said that you couldn’t get iron like this any more.

“It was probably made by some process that you wouldn’t be allowed to do now.

“For young people it’s a window into a lost world – an educational asset rather than a tourist attraction.”

In time, Trinity Buoy Wharf plans to bring all the historic vessels in its collection together with row barge Diana and the tugs Knocker White and Suncrest connected to the SS Robin, so visitors can tour all of them.

Watch this space for an opening date for the historic vessel.

Find out more about the SS Robin at Trinity Buoy Wharf here

Read more: How Canary Wharf’s Creative Virtual is taming the voice of AI

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- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
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Leamouth: How Trinity Buoy Wharf could combine a river crossing with flats

Living Bridge would join agreed Hercules plan over the Lea to connect Newham and Tower Hamlets

An artist's impression of USM's Living Bridge idea
An artist’s impression of USM’s Living Bridge idea

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It starts with an idea. The concept of people living on bridges isn’t new – they’ve been doing that for hundreds of years all over the world.

But Urban Space Management’s (USM) “aspirational” suggestion for a residential crossing at Trinity Buoy Wharf, spanning the mouth of the River Lea still feels a little bit visionary.  

There’s something inherently attractive about inhabiting structures over water. Looking back, we have the historical romance of the Old London Bridge and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, for example. 

Flowing forward, there’s author William Gibson’s sci-fi vision of a jerry-built, self-governing shanty town clinging to the steel bones of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge.

This imaginary leap into a near future – where a ribbon of infrastructure is repurposed by a passionate, vibrant community of squatters, reacting to the pressures of insufficient housing and oppression – is a flash of what necessity and collaboration might be capable of. It’s counter-cultural, haphazard and seductive.

USM’s plan for a Living Bridge has something of both examples.

It’s a functional proposal – a connection to Royal Docks for pedestrians and cyclists that would ensure a flow of traffic through the existing site. 

But it’s also the root of a future community, with around 70 properties suspended from the steel arch that would support the entire structure – brought to life in Cartwright Pickard’s illustrative designs. 

USM founding director Eric Reynolds
USM founding director Eric Reynolds

Access to the river would be preserved for taller vessels with a section of the bridge able to lift to allow safe passage.

Planning permission has already been granted for one crossing in the area – Hercules Bridge over the Lea on the northern edge of Ballymore’s Goodluck Hope development. 

If built, this would connect to both a footpath towards Canning Town station as well as to the Lower Lea Crossing flyover for access to Royal Docks.

USM is currently gathering feedback on a range of ideas to improve connectivity in and around Trinity Buoy Wharf, with a consultation running until July 20, 2022.

Its plans aim to help overcome barriers such as roads, rivers and railways to make journeys that are complicated now, simpler in the future.

USM founding director Eric Reynolds said: “Right from the beginning, I thought the problem for this whole bit of London was that it is disconnected from itself in every way. 

“Standing on the roof of the building that’s now occupied by Faraday Prep School at Trinity Buoy Wharf in the late 1990s, it was clear we should be doing something about this.

“Our outline planning application for the site allows us to build a bridge as a continuation of Orchard Place because it always seemed to me that the Lea should have more than a road bridge over it – there should also be something for pedestrians and cyclists.

“We should be connecting people, not just for us, but also for people living north and east of here – in Canning Town for example.

“They should see the river as part of their back or front garden, not something that’s just hidden away.”

A rendering of the Living Bridge by night
A rendering of the Living Bridge by night

The case for a second bridge becomes increasingly clear when future development is taken into account.

The Thameside West scheme is expected to deliver some 5,000 new homes just across the river as well as a new DLR station, a school and industrial and creative workspaces.

“One of the things we did achieve years ago was to persuade the DLR planners to leave a straight bit of track on that land to allow potential for that station,” said Eric.

“It didn’t make sense then, but, with thousands of homes and a new town centre coming, it does now.

“Regarding the bridge – it may be that we put homes on it, we don’t know yet. We think there are two good reasons for doing it.

Firstly it creates new land and a new opportunity for a community.

“Secondly, in doing that, it offsets the cost of the bridge – so there’s an economic and a social argument.

“The Living Bridge would also be a big signpost to the importance and value of the River Lea, which was a vital part of the transport of this area – a line of power and industry – before it silted up. It deserves that recognition.

“Imagine coming up the Thames and seeing this out-of-scale bridge, all lit up with people living inside it.

“I really think it would appeal to Londoners – every building along the river is worked so as many properties as possible have views of the water.

“Here it would be right underneath – with no risk of anyone building in front of or behind you.”

An artist’s impression of the Hercules Bridge proposal

But does an area that is already connected to Canning Town via London City Island’s bridge and, potentially the already agreed Hercules Bridge really need another crossing?

“At the moment, the existing bridge takes you to the top of London City Island but we have an awful lot of walkers, dog owners, cyclists, hikers and so on who come to Trinity Buoy Wharf and would really like not to have to go back on themselves,” said Eric.

“The Hercules Bridge gives people the chance to do something different – to walk round the edge of the Lea and follow the river north. 

“What the Living Bridge would do is to make it much easier to follow the Thames along the southern edge of Royal Docks as far as Barrier Park.

“It increases the potential for pedestrians and cyclists to reach these areas.

“It’s also in some ways an attempt to re-invent a community that was here in the past.

“There was a small fishing community and a school here, which was wiped away when local authorities decided that slum clearances were the thing to do.

“There also used to be a little ferry that took people across the Lea because the Thames Ironworks and Orchard Wharf needed to get their workers to work.

“During the Crossrail Works, the foundations for that ferry were found, so this has grown partly out of what we perceive as a respect for the past and an aspiration for the future.”

At present Trinity Buoy Wharf is a dead end for walkers and cyclists
At present Trinity Buoy Wharf is a dead end for walkers and cyclists

Read more: Genomics England set for relocation to Canary Wharf

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- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
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