Josh and I quite literally stumbled upon the area by accident a little while ago. We had gone to look at a property in Canada Water and after being disappointed by that (tends to be a common theme with our apartment hunt) we decided to hop on the bus and go to Shoreditch. Why you may ask! Well, our dream property is a warehouse conversion - the full works with exposed brick and beams and wood floors. We had seen some previously for rent in Shoredicth on the web so we decided to go check it out. Well, while on the bus we went through the Shad Thames/London Bridge area and after a few minutes of going "wow" and "this looks awesome", we couldn't come up with a good reason we were going to Shoreditch and decided to get off at London Bridge. And we are so glad we did!
London Bridge is about a 10 min walk (five if you haul ass) from Shad Thames, but it's a really nice walk to get to it. I took a few pictures when we went originally, however I had to go to the area this Tuesday just gone as I had a class trip to the Design Museum to see the fashion illustration exhibit. I decided to take advantage of my time there to get a few more pictures, so now I have quite a few to show!
So, like I said, it's a few minutes to get to Shad Thames, however you pass a few interesting things on your way. the first being Hays Galleria.
It's a cool "little" courtyard with some stores around the sides of it, but what is most interesting is this huge working sculpture set in the middle of it. It's called the Navigators, by David Kemp and was made in 1987;
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| the paddles move! |
You can find out more information about the galleria, which dates back to 1651, here; http://www.haysgalleria.co.uk/pages/history_of_the_galleria.html
Moving on from the galleria, you pass by some huge glass buildings/offices, a tree sculpture and a very randomly placed weird looking coffee shops;
You then pass by the Imperial War museum set on the HMS Belfast - a huge light cruiser that was used in the second world war;
It's open every day and admission is £13.50. You can find out more here: http://hmsbelfast.iwm.org.uk/
The last few things you pass to get to Shad Thames is Tower Bridge (commonly mistaken for London Bridge). As well as admiring it from the outside, you can go inside for the Tower Bridge exhibition; http://www.towerbridge.org.uk/TBE/EN/
Here are a few pictures taken both in day and night, as well as one taken from London Bridge looking towards the entire area;
And that ends us at Shad Thames...Now, if any of you have seen the film "Oliver" starring Oliver Reed and Mark Lester, you may recognize a little of Shad Thames. It was were Charles Dickens based the story and subsequently where some of that movies was filmed. The building New Concordia Wharf is also where the apartment in "A Fish Called Wanda" is located.
80% of the buildings in Shad Thames are converted warehouses and mills, so you can see why we fell in love with it. There are also quite a few restaurants, a cool organic food store, a tea store along with a few other stores along the street. And whilst we may not be able to move there at present time, it is where we are gunning for in the future;
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| These were originally used the roll barrels of spices from one building to the other - they have now been partitioned in the middle and have been made in to balconies for their respective apartments!! How awesome?! |
As you probably have already noticed (unless you're reading with your eyes closed?!) it is right next to the water, and the other side of this street is the river Thames. Again, there are restaurants that line the ground level of the apartments of the buildings along with a steamboat!!
And so that brings me to end of my overdue update...for now!
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