* Bow’s “Fish Island”-London E3 – its past history and its current street art

Last week, under grey dull London skies, my London Shoes set out on a trek to a specific district of East London who’s past has a bit of a unique history, and who’s present is full of colour………..and that place is “Fish Island” in Bow-London E3

Fish Island is an old industrial area situated right next to the London Stadium in the Olympic Park – in London’s east-end.

Technically it’s not actually an ‘island’– but the district has had its name for centuries.

There is evidence of early Roman settlement in the area, and it is mentioned in the Doomsday Book.

It was once the main crossing point between London and Essex until the early 12th century, when a stone bridge was built a little further downstream.

The bridge was built in the shape of a bow, and that’s how Bow got its name.

The first evidence of settlement at Fish Island dates back to the 13^th century – when it became an area known as ‘Old Ford’.

The first known map of Fish Island shows it as a village surrounded by a large undeveloped marshy floodplains.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, the Hackney Cut and the Hertford Union Canal, man-made waterways were built into the marshland, connecting the area up to the River Lea.

With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, a number of railway lines were constructed that ran through the district –changing the area from a rural to a heavily industrial district.

The canal routes running through Fish Island enabled goods to be transported up and down the River Lea, and onwards to the River Thames via the Limehouse Cut – and so Fish Island was an extremely busy old place.

In 1865 the ‘Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company’ bought a significant chunk of Fish Island to build a new power factory. However – that project never happened, as they located the power works at nearby Bromley-by-Bow.

But what they did do was develop the land they had bought and turned it into a sort of ‘factory town’ – allowing loads of light and heavy production industries to set up business in the area – which in turn lead to workers housing being built on Fish Island to house all the employees.

Because of its grim industrial backdrop and the masses of ‘workers’ living in the area – Fish Island soon gained a reputation of being a dangerous, violent slum – one of the worst in London – mentioned many times in Dickens novels.

Throughout the early 1900’s there were industries such as a glue factory – pickle factory – peanut factory – timber yards – furniture workshops – and a printing works producing bank notes…..all situated on and operating on Fish Island. Some of these old industrial units still exist today – although not used for the purposes they were originally built for.

Because it was such a productive industrial site, Fish Island took a hammering from German bombs throughout WW2 – and subsequent to that, the working-class housing never really got replaced to the extent it had originally been – and the area became more of an industrial warehousing ‘storage’ site.

By the 1990’s the main industries working out of Fish Island, were to do with waste disposal and recycling.

Fish Island then underwent a complete transformation of occupant and purpose – when artists suddenly began to occupy the area – to the extent that by the late 1990’s the district had the highest collection of artists’ studios in ‘Europe’ working from there.

At its peak there were up to 800 studios located on Fish Island. Also, the district encouraged ‘tech’ companies to set up there – and working co-operatives were formed to share working spaces, to keep rents down and affordable.

Factories changed from being industrial units, to art studios to living accommodations.

Canal paths, footpaths, locks and surrounding roads etc, have all been upgraded and modernised to fit today’s world.

When the 2012 Olympic Games came to the area – even more investment was ploughed into the Fish Island and surrounding areas – including new modernised housing/apartments.

A lot of the Fish Island area is now protected by quite stringent conservation laws – to the district retains some of its history legacy.

But it is the barrage of street art and graffiti that makes Fish Island interesting these days and attracts visitors to the area. As soon as you get off at Hackney Wick overground station there is graffiti and art on every building and wall as far as the eye can see.

The canal waterfront is like one giant canvass displaying thousands of different styles of street art and graffiti – there are literally murals everywhere, where all of the current top artists have left their mark – all of which makes Fish Island a very interesting, cheap and certainly enjoyable day out.

Definitely worth checking out – and I hope the photos do it justice.

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See below the entire gallery of photos taken to support this ‘Fish Island’ – London Shoes blog