Blackwall, Tower Hamlets, England, United Kingdom

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Blackwall is an area of Poplar, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, East London. The neighbourhood includes Leamouth and the Coldharbour conservation area.

The area takes its name from a historic stretch of riverside wall built along an outside curve of the Thames, to protect the area from flooding. While mostly residential, the Poplar Dock and Blackwall Basin provide moorings for vessels.

The area's significance derived from its position on an outside curve of the Thames, where currents slowed down, making it a sheltered spot useful to a range of shipping activities. This sheltered position was enhanced by the presence of the Blackwall Rock reef, though this could also be a danger to shipping. A further advantage of the area was that it lay east of the Isle of Dogs, so loading and unloading here avoided that time and effort of sailing round that peninsula to London, while still being very close to the City of London.

The area developed on the riverside, next to Poplar's East Marsh and was known as Blackwall by at least the 14th century; taking its name from the colour of the river wall, built - with its stairs - in the Middle Ages. Having never been an administrative unit, the area lacks formal definition, but can be broadly described as the part of Poplar close to the Thames on the north-east part of the Isle of Dogs peninsula extending eastward to the confluence of the Thames and Lea.

Blackwall gives its name to Blackwall Reach, the stretch of the Thames east of the Isle of Dogs. Blackwall Reach gives its name to Blackwall Point, the northern tip of the Greenwich Peninsula, south of the Thames in Greenwich (and not in Blackwall).

Blackwall was historically part of the Hamlet of Poplar, an autonomous area of the Manor and Ancient Parish of Stepney in Middlesex. The Hamlet of Poplar became an independent parish in 1817. The civil parish of Poplar had a vestry committee which organised services such as poor relief and road maintenance. Indeed, the whole Isle of Dogs was until the late 20th century referred to as being in Poplar. In 1965, the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar merged with its neighbours to form the new London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Transport The areas major roads; the A1261 (Aspen Way) and the A102 Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road bring a significant degree of air pollution and community severance.

London Buses routes D3 on west-east Blackwall Way, and D6, D7 and N550 on north-south Preston Road give local access to neighbouring Poplar, Leamouth, the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf.

The Thames Path (north bank) National Trail which opened in 1996 is connected to Blackwall, it enters the district at the South Dock Entrance and goes via Coldharbour and Blackwall Way and rejoins the River Thames at Virginia Wharf till the East India Dock at Blackwall Point.