Coldharbour...

I’d like to share this story about the Isle of Dogs

Charles Napier Hemy, R.A., R.W.S. (1841-1917) Cold Harbour, Blackwall 1896

Coldharbour in Blackwall is one of the most unusual streets in Docklands, it was once part of the old Blackwall that followed the river until it reached Trinity Buoy Wharf.

However the construction of the West India Docks and the City Canal in the early years of the 19th Century effectively cut off Coldharbour from the rest of Blackwall.

There has been buildings on the site since the 17th Century, but two of the better known is the Gun public house which still exists and another tavern called the Fishing Smack which has been demolished but had a curious history.

There had been a tavern on the site since the 1760s, firstly called the Fisherman’s Arms before changing its name in the early 19th Century to the Fishing Smack. We know it was called the Fishing Smack in 1808 due to the following report in The Gentleman’s Magazine

As a young woman, a servant in the Fishing-Smack public-house, Cold Harbour, Blackw’all, was standing on the steps leading to the River, she was so much alarmed by a flash of lightning , that she fell in the river and was unfortunately drowned.

The change of name probably reflected the arrival of Fishing Smacks from Great Yarmouth who frequented this spot when selling their catches in London. This trade and the area was known to Charles Dickens who had written about the other Taverns in Blackwall such as the Artichoke and Plough that were known for their Whitebait dinners. Although Dickens did not write directly about the Fishing Smack, he did use characters in his books that could have had their origins in this  area.

George Haw recalls walking around this area in 1907 with well known local MP Will Crooks and having the following conversation with some old characters that used to work this stretch of the river.

“Ah!” exclaimed the other, fetching a sigh; “but don’t you remember that old Yarmouth fisherman who used to bring his smack round here from the Roads and sell herrings out of it on this very Causeway?”

“Remember! What do you think? That was the old man who would never keep farthings. In the evening, when he’d got a handful in the course of the day’s trade, he would pitch them in the river for the boys to find.”

“Likely enough,” interposed Crooks. “I mudlarked about here myself as a lad.”

The eldest of the ancient watermen would have it that this old boy from Yarmouth was the original of Mr. Peggotty, and that it was at Blackwall Dickens first made his acquaintance. He said he had often seen Dickens himself about those parts.

We ventured a doubt.

“Why, bless my life!” he cried; “ain’t I talked to him at the Causeway here many a time?”

This, of course, was unanswerable, so we asked what Dickens did when there.

The ancient waterman thought a moment.

“What did Dickens do?” he ruminated. “Now, let me see. What did Dickens do? I know: Dickens used to go afloat!”

The other declared that Dickens did more than that: he would often go into the fishing-smack.

We immediately assumed that it was the fishing-smack of the old Yarmouth salt that was meant. We were wrong. It was another “Fishing Smack,” one of the quaint old taverns by the river still standing in Coldharbour.

Mr Peggotty of course was a character from David Copperfield  and it was not impossible  that Dickens could have met some of the old Yarmouth fisherman at this very spot.

Although the old tavern was rebuilt with a frontage onto Coldharbour in the  early 20th Century, it did not regain its glory days and was eventually demolished after the Second World War.

And that leaves us with a mystery for although Coldharbour  has escaped much of the recent developments of the Docklands, there has been modern developments.

However standing at Number 9 Coldharbour  is a line  of brown shiny bricks that seem strangely out of place with the well attended houses nearby.

This line of bricks is the last remains of the Fishing Smack tavern , but why is it still there ? A local writer recalls being told that the last owner of the pub sold the land but demanded that a small part of the old pub must remain.

Whether this is true or not, nearly 70 years later we still have a strange small reminder of the historic tavern.

Historic Coldharbour

 

All that remains of it today