This modest-sized three-sided pocket park on Limehouse’s back streets exists thanks to land clearance in the 1980s.
The park sits alongside Three Colt Street, which first appears around the 1680s, and within a couple of decades, it was lined with houses, including the spot where Bate Street Green later appears.
R Horwood Map 1799
There’s a hint of development about 20 years later, which could indicate that the plot has the road that runs around it added. Called Batson Street, it was probably named after Robert Batson, the local landowner. Today it’s been shortened to Bate Street.
C. & J. Greenwood Map 1830
In 1840, the London and Blackwall Railway opened between Minories (Tower Hill) and Blackwall, with a railway station next to the pocket park. That was the original Limehouse station, but it closed 100 years ago, on 4th May 1926. The ground-floor ticket hall entrance under the arches still survives, but nothing else does.
Behind the houses, a large building was constructed, marked as the “engine house,” though it’s unclear what it powered. It doesn’t seem to have been in use for long, as I found an auction notice from 1870 offering to sell it with an engineering workshop as the tenant. It was still in use in the 1970s.
Next door was a small block, possibly a former corner shop, which in 1965 was occupied by W.H. De Ritter and Co, Machinists and Plant Engineers.
As with much of the area, it was badly damaged during WWII, with a direct hit on the northern corner. After WWII, the northeastern corner was cleared, but the rest of the houses were left intact and probably repaired.
You can just about see one of the surviving houses in this photo – on the other side of the railway and opposite the pub. You can also see the plot at the bottom (5 o’clock) of this arial photo, just below St Anne’s Church
The big change took place in the early 1980s, when the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was created to redevelop the docks, and it cleared the site to create a small pocket park for the new housing being built in the area.
Today, the pocket park is surrounded by a low brick wall with small blue gates of a colour and style that dates them to the early LDDC work.
A central triangular space with a tall tree and some bedding plants is surrounded by open lawns on two other sides. There are a few more trees around the edges and some more bedding plants along the Three Colt Street boundary.
Candidly, it feels like a disconnected extension of the nearby churchyard and may need a touch of TLC.
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