An East London adventure in Beckton (4K)
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- Опубликовано: 12 фев 2022
- A walk from East Ham across the levels to Beckton. To order a signed copy of This Other London contact: Email: info@newhambooks.co.uk
www.newhambooks.co.uk/index.php
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We start at the marvellous Newham Bookshop on Barking Road before heading along Boundary Road and Lonsdale Avenue to Beckton Alp. This is a curious remnant of the old gas works that in the 1980's was turned into a dry ski slope. “Ah, but there was a fondly remembered mountain down here, the Beckton Alp, with a fully functional ski lift and a log cabin coffee shop - until, when they were considering, in advance of the Olympics, an iconic Antony Gormley piece to dress the A13 corridor, they discovered that the conical manmade hillock was largely composed of arsenic from the demolished Beckton Gas Works.” - Iain Sinclair, LRB
We then move on through the Industrial Estate to Gallions Reach Shopping Village where Stanley Kubrick filmed Full Metal Jacket on the disused Beckton Gas Works.
Music
Outlaw's Farewell (part II) - Reed Mathis (RUclips Audio Library)
Just This - Bonn Fields
You Belong Here - Across The Great Valley
Deep Blue Delta Sinus - Ookean
courtesy of Epidemic Sound
Maps:
Open Street Map “© OpenStreetMap contributors” using data available under the Open Database Licence
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Hi John, we've only recently found your RUclips channel, so are binge watching and really enjoying joining you on your walks. My husband Peter is a Mitcham boy, and i lived in Greenford for a few years during childhood, We are now in our 70's, living on the Isle of Wight, and Peter is having chemo for Leukaemia, so we are still shielding, your videos are a huge help to us, bringing back memories as well as taking us 'out' on a great walk. Thank you, Jenny and Peter Osborne
Well wishes Jenny
Best wishes with the chemo, hope this video gives you both a boost.
🙂
best wishes for Peter's treatment Jenny - thanks for watching
@@JohnRogersWalks Thank you
Hope all goes well .
Hi John, The gates to the Alps have been locked since serco lost the Newham green space contract and Newham took it back over. I'm a key holder, if you ever want to return give me a shout, I'm in Leyton. Love your videos, it'll be an honour.
Many thanks
Is there a plan for the Alps ?
Wow I didn't know there are people out there who are key holders. I hope the alps get used for something.
For me, in John's video walks - the soulful music, quiet lingering shots of trundling buses, fragile spaces and seemingly forlorn people - is the poetic sentience that holds the piece together and makes the video a thoughtful pleasure to watch.
My father and older brother worked on the film set of full metal jacket, he moved the props around the set, the palm trees etc. I also helped during the school summer holidays! An incredible experience for a 15 year old boy.
Hi John,I l lived on Lonsdale Avenue for many years and watched the Alp transformed from a huge black eyesore to a green mountain that on a summers day teamed with families making the climb with dogs and pushchairs to visit the ski lodge and my teenage kids used the the dry slopes which from the top surprisingly high and the view into London was amazing
Thanks for this John. I grew up in East Ham in the 70s/80s, and we would go play on the Beckton Alp as it was disused at the time. The soil was all sorts of various bright blues and greens - god knows what was in it!!
😅😎
that soil was sold to germany... that's how they found the buried old steam train in it...
Hi John. This is a great video! I was brought up in East Ham and I remember the Beckton area very well. Back in the mid sixties and early seventies I used to ride my Lambretta around the area and I still remember the slag heaps at Beckton which incidentally had a railway on the top which crossed the road via a bridge over the Manor Way. I remember in the sixties filming going on on the top of the heap for a Michael Bentine sketch for a show on the BBC, the name of which escapes me. I left East Ham in 1973 when I got married and moved to Norfolk. My wife as she is now lived in Plaistow and we met while working for a company in Dagenham. It is amazing to see how much the landscape has changed since those days ! Thanks for bringing back the memories.
Thank you John for another great video. Born in Ilford, spent my childhood around wood ford, Epping forest , Leyton and Leytonstone so now you are expanding my knowledge . Will share info re the Newham Bookstore with my sister. Thank you for sharing so much info that most Londoner’s and greater londoners probably don’t know or remember.
Thanks John. I worked as a security officer on the old gasworks site and the new DLR depot adjacent in the early '90s. I remember remnants of blown up buildings and the like - particularly the old signs left from the film.
The beautiful gasometers were sadly removed late last year. I love the Kubrick story, one of my favourite London facts.
Then we wonder where the gas storage is. Profits straight to national grid on the land sales
Nice to be watching this video, I live in the area and work as a driver at the Sainsburys. I climbed to the top of the Alps about ten years ago, great views into Central London on a clear day. Shame its all locked up now.
I worked around there sometimes in the 70s, does anyone else on here remember the horrendous smells not from the sewage works but from the knackers yard where they boiled up animal bones ? I was also fortunate enough to be able to drive around the disused gas works after the filming had finished, it was a like a derelict industrial plant with large half collapsed concrete structures. Good video John, enjoyed it.
Dave in Thailand.
As a mature student at Writtle College in the winter of 1995, I drove a mini-bus of 3rd yr., BSc Horticulture students to the Beckton area and we ascended 'The Alp' to get a view of the surrounding industrial landscape. We went through that very gate (then unlocked) on the estate and walked to the very top, even then the ski-slope looked unloved. The day was cold and raw and the student group muted, when the lecturer swung round and asked the group to give the botanical name of three Japanese cherries, to which there was an embarrassed silence. He turned to me and I was able to give him a satisfactory answer, then he pointed to a native tree and demanded to be told what it was, still the group were silent and I was asked to tell the group what it was. The tree in question was just a common hornbeam. Our lecturer that day was a Mr. Clarke, a military type who then marched us back down the alp in semi-disgust. Our next port of call was the Thames Barrier, fortunately not a tree in sight.
Brilliant- thanks for sharing
Need more hornbeams planting in london
In the early 1980's when they were filming Full Metal Jacket, the uniforms for the extras were kept in Pembroke house, Pitsea (The office above R&R Carpets, accessed via the side ramp to the right of the carpet shop, opposite the library) me and a friend chatted with the production staff when we see them taking a rail of army uniforms up to the offices and they said they were filming a war film. Then when full Metal jacket was released it came out where it was filmed.
And in 2008 I delivered a photocopier to his wife's production company at Childwickbury Manor and all the masks and costumes from Eyes Wide Shut' were all down the corridor through to one of the offices with a huge 6ft fireplace in it. my 2x Kubric encounters🙄🤣
Hi john
I just love how the Victorians would turn utility buildings, structures and street furniture into items of beauty. In this video there are ornate finials adding the finishing touch to the functional cast iron gasometer framework and the decorative gates to the gas works. Quite wonderful.
Keep well and keep walking
This video is a absolute gem 💎
Thanks Raj
@@JohnRogersWalks the funny thing is I've spent many hours standing in that same corner of Newham Bookshop, browsing through them same exact books on that exact shelf 📚 😄
Great memories for me, I lived in St Albans avenue, which was on the other side of the A13 and the park, as kids the mound and surrounding area was our playground, it was a game of dodge the security guard, this was prior to 1973 and I remember the gas works with fond memories. At 58 I have yet to grow a second head however only time will tell with regard to any other health issues.
Hi John, I enjoy watching your London walks on the cold and rainy winter evenings here in Melbourne, Australia. As kids we lived in Manor road Dagenham which was opposite Crown street the old village which still existed in those days. I think St Andrews Church and the Cross Keys pub are all that remain. I can tell you what the Beckton alp looked like 70yrs ago. It was a huge black mountain of waste, not a tree on it. There were three huge great chunks taken out of the top, my father told us kids it was the devils teeth marks, whilst he was visiting family in Upton Park. A good story. There is a site on the net showing Dagenham old village photos and maps of the area. Worth a look.
I've just moved to Manor Park, and walked around forest Gate last week. Will need to get that book at the start!
Another great walk and video. Sunday isn't complete until you upload.
I bought one of the new build houses off Tollgate Rd in 1985. There were still palm trees at the old gas works, but I didnt know about the film at the time.
The Beckton Alps used to be higher when the ski slope was up and running. There was a bar and restaurant at the bottom.
I used to walk to the top with the kids, and we
could see from The QE2 bridge at Dartford round to Shooters Hill. The City, and as far as Alexander Palace.
Opposite on the now developed ground was a golf driving range that also served as a football pitch, and a pub called the Golfer. All gone now. At the Stansfield Rd end of Tollgate Rd. was a Pitch & Putt course near The Will Thorne Pavilion.
In those days the area suffered at the hands of "Travellers" who took over the sports fields, and one year the Newham Festival had to be cancelled, and near the docks the warehoused converted to offices were surrounded by trenches to stop illegal access. It looked a bit like WW1.
Because of the clay ground the houses had to be built on deep piles that were mostly stable but the streets, and in particular Mitchell Walk soon began to sink.
I moved to Devon more than 20 years ago so Im not sure what its like now.
Fascinating post Anthony.👍
Windsor Terrace was developed in the early 90`s, and a great deal of contaminated soil had to be removed.
An even bigger task was the redevelopment of the old WW2 chemical works next to the River Roding in Barking.
They had to remove the top 2 metres of soil, and actually ran a railway line into the site to remove the waste.
All housing now, but I wouldnt fancy living there.
@@w00df0rd In the late 90`s when finances were tight I worked a 9. 30 pm to 1.30 am shift at UPS in Thames Rd Barking.
When driving home at 2 am I would see lots of foxes ambling along Tollgate Rd.
The open ground between Mid Beckton and ASDA has been built over now so probably far fewer?
Thanks John, interesting Full Metal Jacket walk...
Takes me back to 1959 when I had to walk from St Bonoventure's school up to Boundary road, over the sewage pipe and pass by a load of allotments.
At this point the view in all directions was green grass as far as the eye could see. My destination was a school football field in the middle of Becton marshes. It staggers me to see all the development; the houses and roads to a degree that I feel utterly lost. The football field was on a road that led directly to the crossroads of the A1020 and straight on and into gasworks. Again it's bewildering to think that as I stood on that road it was grass to the horizon with the dock cranes silhouetted against the distant sky. As always good work Mr Rogers go to the top of the class. AAA+++
Great walk and film John. Lots of connections here. I also walked from St Bonaventure's school Forest Gate to Beckton passing the great West Ham United Boleyn ground to play football at Beckton around 1964/5. Happy days. As for the 'Beckton Alps', I worked for many years for the British Library. I discovered that although most of the waste was slag from Beckton gasworks it also included debris or spoil from the basements of the newly excavated basements of the British Library at St.Pancras .There are four very deep basement levels at the BL, which I visited or worked in. 'Cyprus' is also a connection as my wife's family are from Cyprus.
@@michaeloneill9831 was it Cyprus, or Cypress - as in trees?
@@Mistydazzle Cyprus is the name of the area close to Beckton.
I made a mistake in saying the road led to the A1020, it was in fact Manor Way.
At 74 it's been a while since I was 13. Lol.
@@Mistydazzle I think there was a Cyprus Dock?
I used to go for a drink in The Pub there. I think it was called The Cyprus, and the sign showed a sailing vessel. Long gone and re developed now.
There was open ground, now built over where a man murdered a father and daughter (the Mainwarings I think?) he dismembered the bodies and dumped them opposite the pub. He got life imprisonment, so hes probably free now.
Thank you from Canada. An absolutely fascinating walk today.
I used to live in Forest Gate before moving to Chingford, lots of memories there.
paths have subsided. you could get in and to the top until everything locked up when covid started, used to run up and down it. remember when the ski slope was in operation.
Another awesome walk John. Thank you.
My brother and I went skiing the alps in 89. He couldn’t ski and went straight into the side of the lodge.
Thanks for taking me along for the ride. Enthused me to walk these areas and get guides to follow. Juliet Campbell
I lived on Thames View Council Estate in Barking and remember the dry ski slope. In the early 1990s it snowed and took Myself and children to the Alps with recently purchased sledges ( tobbogans ) and had great time flying down the sides.
As a kid in the 60s and 70s I remember the area being a flat brown marshy grass land leading from the A13 down to the river and docks. We would be sent on blackberry picking missions and look forward to being greeted by the local friendly horses but try to avoid a small scary abattoir. As an occasional treat I would scramble to the top of Mount Doom with my father and shoot at anything that took our fancy, bottles and bits of trains etc, not animals. My father once tumbled into a large pool of oil up there and I didn't get into trouble for laughing. A particular treat would be playing with puddles of mercury. Years later as an archaeologist I realised that all those mounds of light and dark blue material was cyanide and arsenic, similar to what covers the whole of the Olympic site in Stratford. Beneath the surface and peat marsh Beckton is littered with Bronze Age trackways and well preserved ancient forest floors. I remember seeing the palm trees from a bus but knew nothing of the filming at the time.
Thank you for the great local tours, my partner just rolls her eyes at me if I carry on like that. Paul 🙂
Your films are always good, John. Today, I really enjoyed the Full Metal Jacket story.
I remember the Beckton slag heap when I was young. Cyprus was then a prefab estate. Nice walk.
You have inspired me to watch Full Metal Jacket with this video, fantastic landscape. Thank you John.
Great book shop. I was in Foyles the other day and they also have a great selection of London walks so I’ve got some reading to do. Your knowledge has been so helpful in offering these walks, showing us around and writing out all that history I’ve learnt so much. Thanks for all this, it is greatly appreciated. I really look forward Sunday.
That was absolutely fascinating to watch and hear about Full Metal Jacket. I didn’t have a clue it was filmed here! It’s always an education and adds to my knowledge bank watching your walks. Thank you!
Wow, what great stories for this walk John. It was a shame we couldn't climb the alp with you, but a fab walk and my Sunday fix is in. Hooray!
"Noooo!!" Me, everytime John concludes the walk.
I love the Greenway even if it's not exciting, lol
Thanks again for another great video, I've been binge watching your back old videos now, I must say I find them s joy john, I find them great for alleviating with mental health also , looking forward to the next one
Getting nostalgic, used to be around this area all the time..looking forward to the rest of the video!
As always, a most enjoyable journey...Thank you.
Fell flat on my face on the alps many times, almost lost an eye on the harsh astro-turf. Great times!
Nice one Johnny, brings back some memories, i used to ski the Alps at Beckton and also remember the old gas site where they made that film. Im also sure there is still one of the smaller pylon or giant antenna that was in the film and is still there today. What a massive change around that area now, great vid as usual, cheers, all the best matey👍👍👍
Another uncanny and strangely picturesque region of London, as you say very eldritch... I love how you uncover and recover so many strange and varied stories wherever you go, thanks for taking us with you, I always look forward to Sunday evenings, thanks John!
John I remember before all that building and the dry ski slope went up for a little while and when there wasn’t even any trees planted up there. We’d get the ferry over to north Woolwich and get the 101 to East Ham. I’m talking late 70’s early 80s before the dry slope. From my dads allottment in Plumstead we could see the choppers and palms of the set on Kubricks film and the girl who played the sniper went to my wife’s secondary school (Kidbrooke)
Whenever I’ve rarely been over there in last 20 years, I can’t make head or tail of where anything is. I recognise som of north Woolwich still but a lot of the developments messes up my orientation. It’s funny but that bit of the river near Woolwich is where heart of darkness’s narrator tells his story. John you need to come over here and walk Woolwich to crossness there’s untold interesting psychogeography.
I love the way that John discovers the wonders of the mundane, the great in the small.
Haha!
Proudly already in possession of your splendid tome Down Under! 👍
I've thought about why these walks are so relaxing...I think it's the ambient background sound, the pleasant but understated music and a nice relaxing conversational voice. Cheers.
Back in the early 70s I was a bakers boy working for the Wonderloaf (Spillers French) at Wantz Road Dagenham, I was 13 at the time so 71. I used to help a driver on a Saturday and he had the East London route...looking back now...how lucky I was to be on that round as most of East London has changed....Any ways one day the we got an order for a few trays of Wonderloaf White (still in waxed paper) from a company inside the Beckton works (maybe North Thames Gas or demolition companies) and we had to go through Beckton Gas works or what was left of it. It was early start with the Wonderloaf and as we left Dagenham it was the first. stop on the way to East London. As we drove into the Beckton site which was massive then, Early morning dawn was just breaking and I can recall all this rubble as we drove along the old roads on the site in the gloomy first light of day. My job was to carry the trays of bread from the van ....I cant recall where I would have delivered them too...but I do recall it being a bit like a bomb site ...no wonder they used it for film scenes.
My mothers father worked at the sewage works for years. He was a Scot . Married my cockney grand ma from Stratford. He got my dad a job at the works. He lasted about a week.
The oasis ‘do you know what I mean’ video too.
I biked for a few years from Ilford to Covent Garden and went along the cycle highway there often . Long quiet boring / interesting ride . The greenway has so much potential and is so under the radar
Thanks for another cracking ramble around London always informative and interesting 🧐
In the late 70s early 80s when I was a child I used to go to work with my dad...he was a sales rep ....and drove all round the East End. On a Friday we go past the Alps off the A13(no flyover) to a coal merchants to get 3 bags of coal for £1 for our central heating at home. The whole area was a desolate wasteland then and the Alp was a black bare slag heap. Also used to drive past the Silver Spoon Factory in Woolwich(?)
brilliant - i'm also a fan of kubrick, john - one of my favourite kubrick-related movies is Moonwallers (2015) starring Rupert Grint and Ron Perlman. it's all about the fable that kubrick shot the "phony" moon landings in '69, but that's all i'll say for spoiling it, if you haven't seen it yet. 😊
Love your videos. I’ve learned so much from you. You’re a great teacher!
Coming from the East End
I find your videos very informative, keep up your videos
Thank you. Really enriching experience, your walks are.
Hi John have you walked around Custom House area? West Ham speedway stadium was there and was huge. The Hammers were massively popular. The roads around there are named after former riders. Atkinson, Rd, Young Rd etc etc
Wonderful film John. During (semi)Lockdown I took a stroll with a friend down the Greenway (it is boring) and we managed to find a way up the Alp.
The gates were open at the time but I suspect they were forced. There is the most spectacular view across East London and Canary Wharf to be had. There’s still the remains of the ski slope’s decking still there but it’s full of holes.
I’d love to know if there are any groups campaigning to restore the Alp to a nature reserve.
Real edgelands , wonderful John and Kubrick too , fabulous thanks
Full Metal Jacket is awesome but who'd have thought it was filmed in East London. When I watch it again I will look out for an elderly lady asking one of the grunts to carry her shopping!
I was born in East Ham in 1946 and lived there till 1958. We lived just along the bypass on an estate of Canadian Prefabs which for their day were quite luxurious with fitted bathroom complete with heated towel rail. A fitted kitchen with e "fridge". At the Manor way cross roads was the gas works and there loomed "The Slag Heap"" which we were not allowed to go near. Now Beckton Alps.. I went to Roman Road school another prefab building. Today it has been rebuilt and is much extended. My brother went to Central Park school and would cut across the "Sewer Bank" on his bike as a short cut. I went to St Mary's Church on the other corner of the gas works . Our vicar was Fr Sir James Rolls who, to the best of my knowledge was a son of Rolls as in Roll Royce. I wouldn't like to be quoted on that as I am not sure it is an absolute fact.. AS a child in post war Britain New Year's Eve was wonderful. Everyone in their gardens celebrating and the ships down in the docks sounding their hooters. The whole thing was magical in not noisy and we all forgave the "Bridgers" that night. We would wait at the top of the bypass just in High St South for a101 bus which usually ran every 10 to i5 minutes. However sometimes you waited an hour or more if there was a Bridger. There were two swing bridges this side of the docks and if they opened for the boats to go through the road was blocked by the open bridge, thus a bridger to the locals Most of the area I knew as a child has now been altered so much it is unrecognisable to me so it is nice to watch your channel which I have just found, so thank you
,.
East Ham is a shithole now
0:51 That is an amazing book, I'm half way through it.
What a shame, would have been fun to see you skiing down the alps in your blue bobble.
Bell Green Gas Works in Sydenham have also had their structures removed in recent years. The original plan was to build a housing tower within the structure but it never happened.
Another great walk.
Thanks Sean
Thanks for the hard work of doing these videos 👍🏻
Fantastic!
Thoroughly enjoyed that.
Thank you
Hi John,
Another fascinating video and particularly so for me as I have a long standing obsession with former industrial sites. Beckton is somewhere I’d have given my right arm to see while it was in it’s hey-day. The site frequently has the Full Metal Jacket connection, but do check the 1975 John Wayne film Brannigan as it’s closing scenes have some great shots of the works. James Bond also uses it in the opening pre credits of For Your Eyes Only. Oasis shot their D’You Know What I Mean music video there as well. Brannigan has the best shots in my mind and filmed in that lovely 70s saturated colour too! Best regards from an East Midlands based industrial psychogeographer.
The Beckton Alp "Trespassers will be prosecuted" more likely you would be carted off to some obscure military decontamination facility than any court. It could probably be used for some low budget horror movie on the lines of "The Hills have Eyes" which was about mutant humans living in a toxic wasteland😂😂 As always great videos John.
Thank you John, another great video. Please, keep them coming. They are a joy. Definitely giving Newham Bookshop a go. Best wishes, Bill.
Fantastic video. Had great memories of East London
When my dad was a child in the 30's they used to play on the slag heaps. To be in the gang they had to climb down a ladder and dip their foot in the blue water. Dad told me fell into one of streams, full of his knows what, he ended up in hospital.
The houses in Lonsdale you said we're built after the war we're built in the 20's, same type in Charlemont Road and Hameway where my dad was born, no.96. They are flats. I remember the flat well where my grandparents lived until the 70's when they moved into a brand new block if flats in Heigham Road, East Ham.
Wow amazing walk your walk are way amazing to watch I always enjoy watching
Thanks John Keep safe and well.
Thanks Dave
I had no idea they filmed FMJ there. This video was amazing. Thanks John 👍
Thanks Michael- glad you enjoyed it
@@JohnRogersWalks your welcome John
Oh my... The Boleyn Tavern❤⚒😎 As a Hammers supporter (oh dear I hear you say!) and born in Brentwood Essex, I loved this tour. As an aside, that area is part of Brentwood diocese✝ KTF🙏
Another great episode cheers John we enjoy all your episodes biggles was filmed in beckton gas Wks Aswell
Interesting to see. We lived on a prefab estate in Beckton in the 60s and had to walk all the way up Boundary Road to visit our GP at the top of Central Park Road. The 'Alps' was just a slag heap from the gasworks then. Some else mentioned the awful smell coming from Ziff meats. I can still remember it.
we used to play in the buildings as kids in the 90s what a place to explore
love the work houses john
Good one this week John.
Another wonderful video John, thankyou.
I have walked this area a lot inspired by you John. I love the video (as ever) and will endeavour to get out to Newham Bookshop for a signed copy of your book.
Thanks so much John for this one, great to see Winsor Terrace- my great great grandfather lived at number 11! Sorry you couldn't get onto the Alp though. Cheers for uploading.
Many memories up the alps from the 90s and 2000s, they was meant to reopen the ski slope but the company run out of funds
Interesting history John, thank you so much. I did enjoy that. 💕🇦🇺
Thanks John, a really interesting video. I didn't realise that the ski slope had gone. Bob.
Definitely not the most picturesque walk you've ever done. Nevertheless brilliant and interesting. Always a pleasure with you sir.
Really enjoyed this walk . Full of the usual quirky places . Loved the old gates and who knew about Full Metal Jacket. Awesome stuff 👍
Cheers Stu
I've always assumed that the Beckton Alp is closed off because it was used by drug dealers.
I do find Beckton to be a very strange place. It has a real middle of nowhere feel to it, which I suppose is because of all the empty space where various industrial buildings no longer exist. It's very much an edgeland sort of area, with some oddly suburban housing developments in it.
It's named after a Mr Beck who was Chairman of the company that built the gasworks there. It was East Ham Marsh when the sewage works were built.
Thanks for that info Christopher
the land was so marshy on one of the new build houses down there, someone wanted a later added front porch, we decided to mini pile a 3ft square area and cast frame the top before laying insulation and block and beam floor for it, otherwise it would have sunk to oblivion Nice little £3k earner in the day
I was told that much of the Alps was used in rte new road works at the bottom of High St. South?
I had moved away before that happened.
@@anthonyhatfull5484 certainly the widening of the A13 would have eaten into some of the ex gas works land and required earth moving, has it been widened again more recently?
@@highpath4776 The side of one house next to Stansfield Rd did actually fall down.
1n 1985 my 3 bed house(actually 2 bed + a cupboard with a window) cost me £39K. I think they are North of £400K now?
Looking forwards to this off seeing Iain on Saturday in Faversham , bringing my London Orbital for signing xxx
Fascinating industrial walk - Thank you, John! Here, we have a mixed-use housing & commercial development that has been built on a big hill that was accumulation of rock ore processing debris/tailings, which contain lead & arsenic! No cellars/basements allowed, and a layer of new topsoil was brought in to cover the old tailings. Remedial actions included placing an environmental cap on the 220 acres of metal ore processing & refining tailings pile. Our city is growing so quickly that all the pieces of land, once deemed unbuildable, are now being built up with homes! It's crazy! We would have certainly built homes on Beckton Alp, too!
Brilliant video John
Don't forget, For your eyes only was also filmed at the gas works & with great views of the surrounding area.
What a super walk John. I was last down that way for work in 1993 and it was pretty desolate then. Thank you for a great sunday evening view.
Thanks Sally
Wonderful!
Another great video John, and now feel I know that area just a little better 👍🏻
You can get into the Alp, and the view from on top of amazing! Can see Canary Wharf, the London city airport and the greenway. You’ll need to walk along the A117 and there’s an entrance in the fence about 30m from the roundabout you were at earlier before you went the other direction to the greenway.
Another fantastic episode John Rogers I remember the ski slope never done any skiing myself but I remember the site very well it’s changed very much now , wouldn’t know it now I remember the rumours of a film being shot there but I didn’t know which film until years later well thanks for sharing John brilliant as always .
Many thanks Brian
Another brilliant effort John. Nice too see an 'Alpine' contrast to the Winter Olympics. All the best from the Anglian Flaneurs. You keep inspiring us.
I used to ride my bicycle from Thames view estate in Barking down to the woolwich ferry in the 1970’s as a kid. Manor way had that desolate road to no where feel.Then going past East Ham United football ground with corrugated iron perimeter and padlocked gates in comparison to its then near neighbours West Ham United. Savage gardens up on the right with terrace houses like Windsor terrace but bull dozed for the “Barratt” homes there now. There is a similar terrace of Victorian houses in Abbey Lane in Stratford which housed workers for water pumping or sewage again next to Greenway. Worth a look in this area of post industrialisation & nouveau Olympic heritage? The Beckton alp had a dry ski slope and Scandinavian apres ski bar with ski lift etc. Only saw the gas works being part demolished & heard at the time about the movie shoot.
Hi John, been enjoying your videos for some time now. I worked in the lab at Beckton Sewage Treatment Works on and off for 20 years, and when I first started there I used to get the 147 or 101 bus down from East Ham in the morning, opposite what was then East Ham Tech, and cross the A13 to wait for a Land Rover that used to pick a few of us up where the entrance to that last section of the Greenway is now, and then ferry us to the lab. When the gas works site and alps were about to be redeveloped in the 1970s, our lab analysed hundreds of samples from the alps, checking for things like tar, phenol, heavy metals and cyanide. I think a decision was made that the alps themselves were too toxic and were capped with clay. The ski slope is long disused.
Thanks for that detail David