*”Canary Wharf & Me” – my ‘journey’….

The 2^nd London Shoes blog of 2026 – takes the form a little nostalgic trip out.

A couple of weeks back, at the beginning of the year – my former work colleague Tony, from my Canary Wharf days – text me to say that he fancied a day out-on-the-road with ‘Shoes’ – and with Tony being a long-time Shoes follower – I was more than happy to oblige.

So – with us having both worked at the Barclays Bank-Head-Office in Canary Wharf for a good few years during the 2000’s – (me from 2001 till 2017 and Tony from around 2012-retiring just a few years ago) – I suggested that we should perhaps return to Canary Wharf and its surrounding dock areas – and spend a day strolling around checking out the ever changing landscape and surrounding that have happened since we left there.

Tony was in full agreement with this suggestion – and so on a bitterly cold early January 2026 morning – we met up at the Dockland Light Railway-‘Canary Wharf’ station – and set off for a good old walk around our former workplace stomping ground to take in the sights, and changes that have taken place since we were last in the locality.

However – before going into detail about how our day went – I think it would help to present a little historic back-story as to how I actually ended up working in Canary Wharf.

So – this London Shoes blog is entitled:-

“Canary Wharf” & Me – my journey

Living and growing up in Ilford, a few miles east of London’s docks, I was familiar with how close the London Docks were to my hometown, as several neighbours and acquaintances of my parents, worked in the docks or for the nearby companies that were an essential part of London’s dock industry.

A brief history of the London Docks:

For a long time, the Port of London was the busiest port in the world.

The emergence of the docks surrounding the port came as a result of simply over demand and overcrowding of the River Thames – with the volume of activity taking place there was very little regulated control of goods and freight.

‘West India Dock’ was London’s first enclosed dock – built in 1802 – and mainly used for the trade and storage of sugar/rum/spices from the Caribbean.

By 1855 ‘East India Dock’ / ‘Surrey Docks’ / the ‘Royal Docks’ / Millwall Dock had all been built and were up and running – making London one of the busiest ports in the world.

Thousands were employed in the London’s docks, which resulted in a massive increase in the population, and they all had to live somewhere – and that’s why districts like Canning Town and Silvertown and other East London suburbs became popular and busy.

With the docks being a chaotic hive of activity – employing thousands, mainly casual labour – there was often quite a bit of unrest among the work forces which in turn led to regular employment disputes and strikes.

To help maintain ‘control’ of the workforce and trade – the ‘Port of London Authority’ was formed in 1909 – to regulate the dock trade business.

Moving on a few decades – in WW2 the London docks took a proper kicking from German bombers – if you disable the docks, you disable London and Britain.

By the late 1950’s and into the 1960’s – the new concept of containerisation started to roll out – where goods were packed into large containers that were transported by larger ships that required deeper water ports like Tilbury / Lowestoft / Harwich – further up the Thames and to its Estuary.

The introduction of containerisation hit the Docks very bad as a large workforce was no longer required – which resulted in a rapid decline of London’s dock industry/trade and life style.

Sadly – in 1981, the ‘Royal Docks’ (which inc Royal Albert / Royal Victoria/ King George docks) were the very last of the London docks to close down for good. So – the end of a historic era and the beginning of a new one.

For me personally, I am of a generation who knew London docks when they were active / when they ceased operating and when they were abandoned/derelict and boarded up ………. and then, when they were redeveloped and regenerated into what they are today – all good stuff.

My ‘Journey’ to Canary Wharf:

This next section of this Shoes blog article, outlines the backstory of my association with Canary Wharf – it’s a loooong read, but try and bear with.

As most will know, I worked for Barclays Bank for 44 years, from 1973 to 2017 – starting as a tea-boy junior at the young age of 16 and then retiring at the age of 60. Throughout those 44 years I undertook many different roles in many different locations. The first 28 years of my career was in ‘Branch Banking’ – ie working in high street branches, mainly throughout London’s East End – 14 branches in total, although I did do a 4 year stint at Wardour Street–Soho in London’s West End.

For the final years of that 28 yr stint – I was the Branch Manager of 2 very ‘lively’ east end branches, namely Mare Street-Hackney E8 and Kingsland Road-Dalston E8 – following which I was then promoted to become part of the Area Management Team of the North East London Region – looking after 16 branches in total, inc the Hackney and Dalston ones that I had previously managed.

I had been part of the Area Management Team (based in Tottenham) for about a year or so – when it was mentioned to me by the regional management, that I might want to think about a job being advertised at one of the Barclays  head office centres in the City – namely St. Swithins House in St.Swithins Lane London EC4 – a building that was once the home Barclays Clearing House, located just across the road from the Bank of England.

Now – I had never considered myself a Head Office boy, as I had come up the hard way, working on the front-line in branches that, let’s say, were not the most glamorous . I didn’t walk the Head Office walk – and most certainly didn’t talk the Head Office talk. However – it was mentioned to me that someone ‘up there’ was clearly interested in me for this new role within a new team that had been formed (I think the term is called ‘head-hunted).

So – I gave it some thought and felt that, as I had been in branch banking for almost 30yrs, I should at least check out this job being advertised, bearing in mind everyone seemed to be encouraging me to go for it – and so I threw my hat into the ring and sent off an application for the role on offer.

Being a Head Office related job I was totally unfamiliar with the required interview process of evidencing competencies and stuff like that – so, within seconds of the interview commencing in an interview room at St. Swithins House – I knew that I didn’t have a clue what the interviewers were on about – so I just ‘winged-it’ the best I could. All I could really discuss in detail was my front-line experiences and the many challenges faced working in East End branches – serious stuff like raids – plus the daily stuff like threats/arguments//fights/drugs/booze etc……..and that was just the staff !!!

I came away from that interview, feeling a bit embarrassed, as I clearly wasn’t the sort of person for the role on offer – but, I was appreciative of the experience, and it made a nice change to spend a day up in the City.

However – a couple of days later, back at the N E London Region HO in Tottenham – my boss called me in, and to my surprise, congratulated me on successfully passing the interview, and securing the new job role.

Within a few weeks I had waved goodbye to the branch banking network that I loved and had been my life for 28yrs – and found myself starting a ‘new’ work life bang in the centre of the City of London.

St. Swithin’s House – St.Swithins Lane – London EC4

St. Swithin’s House in St. Swithin’s Lane (just across the road from the Bank of England) – had been Barclays Bank’s main Clearing House since 1951-but the actual building itself was a lot older than that – I would guess that it was probably built around the 1930’s. It was a typical long established City building – old, but still majestic in its own way – and certainly completely different to working in a high street branch.

On my very first day – I was greeted by someone, given a laptop (had never used one of them before) and a work mobile phone (I’d only just managed to sort of work out how to use my own one) – and I was led to a desk in the basement that was situated in what I can only describe as a broom cupboard!!!

The ‘new’ team I was working for were all based ‘up north’ and worked out of a business park in Coventry – so, I was very much on my own.

There were probably around 100 other people working down in the basement – surrounding my ‘broom cupboard’ – but they all worked for different functions of the bank – I had nothing in common with them, and they had absolutely nothing in common with me. I was very much on my own and left to my own devices (which I couldn’t work!!).

To say that I was a ‘fish out of water’ would be a massive understatement – and I’m not ashamed to say that it took me a good couple of years to ‘adjust’ to my ‘new’ surroundings and role and people – it was tough – but through it all, I always remembered the advice that my dear old, and sadly now departed carpenter Dad gave me, when I told him I was swapping the East End for the City – he simply told me “Geoff boy – when your working in the City, just remember one thing – it’s not ‘there goes the ‘f%$king fox’…..its ‘tally ho’…..”!!!! That was just one of many ‘pearls of wisdom’ that my Dad left me with, that at one time or another, have helped me along the way throughout my almost 70yrs on this planet.

There were however, some good things to come out of working at St.Swithins House in the City – as I did make friends with a few of the 100+ folk working down in the basement like me – and although they worked for other functions/teams, we became friends and they introduced me to experiences like ‘Beaujolais Breakfasts’ – a celebratory, early-morning tradition held on the third Thursday of November to mark the release of Beaujolais Nouveau wine – an experience far removed from the backstreet spit & sawdust pubs of East London that I had been used to. Plus, these kind folk would often invite me for a lunchtime tipple at places like a wine bar roof gardens – again, something completely alien to me. So it wasn’t all bad !!!

Anyway – as always, I’ve digressed yet again – and you’re probably thinking to yourself – what has all the above got to do with Canary Wharf???…….well, all will become clear from hereon in.

Whilst working from the basement broom cupboard of St. Swithins House – I used to follow the daily Barclays company news on its intranet – and one topic that kept coming up was the about the construction of a ‘new’ Barclays Head Office in Canary Wharf – that was going to be called “1 Churchill Place” (abbreviated to….1CP).

The general view was that all the people working in the various Head Office departments in the City like Lombard Street / Gracechurch Street / Fenchurch Street and St. Swithens Houseetc – would eventually all be ‘relocated’ to the new Canary Wharf building.

Well – surprise surprise – it wasn’t long before I received notification that I was one of the ones that was gonna be relocated, but – not to the brand-new HO 1CP – but to another office building at Canary Wharf….namely….’Hertsmere House’.

Hertsmere House – Hertsmere Road – London E14

Now – Hertsmere House was a 3 storey office block, that had the accolade of being one of the very first buildings to be constructed on the massive Canary Wharf–Isle of Dogs regeneration project in the 1980’s. It was officially opened in the late 80’s – and there are photos in existence that show it proudly standing all alone in what was a massive building site.

Hertsmere House was located at the far western end of the picturesque West India Dock, where spices/sugar and rum from the Caribbean were once traded  –

Geographically, it was one of the last buildings to the western end of the entire Canary Wharf regeneration/redevelopment site – and although it had been up and running for around 20 years by the time I was relocated there in the early 2000’s – it was very basic in comparison to today’s corporate buildings.

Once again, for me – relocating to Hertsmere House and its unique surroundings, was like moving to a completely different world – and of course, a completely new ‘journey’ to work.

Hertsmere House was only 3 storeys high – the floor space areas were much much smaller – it had its own little kitchen with sofa & chairs – and looking out of its windows you could view the tranquility of the West India Dock waters surrounded by corporate skyscrapers.

In  the distance, you could see the newly constructed Barclays Bank Head Office  – 1 Churchill Place (1CP)………which us Hertsmere mob humorously re-named ‘The Death Star’ !!!

Lunch time was a treat at Hertsmere House – no queues and no extortionate rip-off prices as there had been in the City. I had the choice of the ‘Docklands Diner’ a tiny old skool greasy spoon café, just outside of the main West India Dock development area – or – the wonderful ‘The Ledger Building’ pub – an early 1800’s built building that was once the administrative centre of everything being traded in and out of West India Dock, which in the early 2000’s had been converted into a Wetherspoons pub that served up by far he cheapest pint out of all the wine bars that were now located throughout the ‘Quays’ of the Docks.  Sitting outside the ‘Ledger’ on a summers day, with the backdrop of West India Dock watching the world go by– was just perfect for me.

Anyway – having worked a year or so at Hertsmere House, I suddenly get the call, to relocate yet again – to the now fully completed and up and running Head Office building ‘no.1 Churchill Place’ (1CP).

1 Churchill Place – Canary Wharf – London E14

Churchill Place was the new prestigious Barclays Bank HQ – which I had watched being built from my Hertsmere House workplace.

The new 1CP building was 30 floors high and had a floor space that could accommodate 7,500 people plus 1,500 ‘visitors/guests’.

Everything about 1 Churchill Place was top range state of the art – with atrium’s/breakout zones/hot desks/staff cafés/a gym/staff restaurants/lifts that zoomed up & down to floors, at speed/security barriers/security staff/a floor for mending laptops…..everything and more.

By this time a lad called Stuart was working with me, both of us reporting in to our team up-north – and me and Stuart were re-located to 1 Churchill Place and allocated 2 workstations on Level 24.

When we first got there we found that we were the only ones working on that floor – we had a great time up there –  spending time in the staff cafes / chilling out in the atrium’s / exploring the other floors of the building– we were literally all alone on this massive floor space, with no-one around to grass us up.

The atrium’s in particular were amazing places and we were lucky to have one right next to our workstations on L24.

They were about 2 floors in height and had 3 sides to them that were completely made of glass, from floor to ceiling. The views were amazing and probably something I will never experience the like of again.

At the time I relocated to Churchill Place (around 2006) – it was the furthest corporate building to east of the Canary Wharf development area–there was nothing surrounding it, with the exception of its western side, where the familiar landmark, and affectionately nicknamed the ‘Concrete Pencil’ stood – obscuring the view west and south west.

From the L24 atrium (back in 2006) you could see as far south as the Crystal Palace aerial and the southern hills beyond that.

To the north you could see right the way to Tottenham / Hackney / Haringey and far beyond.

To the east you could see London’s east end districts plus the 02 / the Thames Barrier and right the way over to South Essex and the rolling hills of places like Woodford.

To the west you could see way out to Wembley (the Wembley Arch)

To the south west, although obscured by the Concrete Pencil and a couple of other skyscrapers, you could see the likes of Chelsea/Fulham along the Thames.

Viewing the River Thames from the L24 atrium was also fascinating – as you had a clear view of Greenwich – and all the coming and goings – especially on special occasions where they had ceremonial sailing ships and stuff like that, sailing around the bendy bit of the River at the end of the Isle of Dogs.

On an exceptionally clear day – looking to the east, way in the distance  past the 02 and Thames Barrier – you could just about make out the ‘Queen Elizabeth II’ bridge at the Dartford Crossing….miles away.

I used to love observing life going on below, from my L24 atrium – and one of me and Stuart’s favourite pastimes during our initial weeks/months at 1 Churchill Place-Canary Wharf – was to try and pick out the various  football grounds of the London clubs.

From my unique vantage point in the sky, you could see the football grounds of:-

• Charlton Athletic and Millwall to the south
• To the north you could pick out Arsenal and Spurs stadiums
• To the south west you could just about make out Chelsea and Fulham’s stadium sites
• To the west you could clearly make out the Wembley Stadium arch
• To the east you could see Leyton Orient’s ground – and I was actually able to witness the London 2012 Olympic Stadium being built – a stadium which in 2016 became the home of my beloved West Ham Utd….so, you could say, I was there at its birth!!!

Throughout the 2012 Olympics the old Canary Wharf dock waters surrounding my Churchill Place workplace – became home for a few weeks, to some of the biggest, and most expensive yachts in the world – when the good and the great arrived in London and moored up at Canary Wharf. It was great for us working there as we could go for a wander around and photograph all the massive boats belonging to the multi-millionaires. In fact – one of the largest boats moored up at Canary Wharf during the 2012 Olympics, housed all the German athletes track+field that were competing in the Olympic Stadium.

Another iconic sporting event that I was able to witness from my L24 atrium was Stage 3 of the 2014 Tour de France – where the cyclists, on route from Cambridge to London, sped through the perimeters of Canary Wharf – I had a great vantage point for that, but have sadly lost the photos I took of it.

I was also ‘there’ when the massive Crossrail development work got underway – where I saw the construction teams re-claim land from the docks, to construct the new ‘Canary Wharf’ station that is now an integral part of the Elizabeth Line rail route that officially opened in 2022.

I believe that the new Barclays HQ building cost something in the region of £35M – and I always said, if they had opened the L24 atrium as a viewing platform for the general public – then, it would have been so in demand that they would have paid for the cost of that building in no time.

As I said earlier – I feel extremely privileged and lucky to have had that unique panoramic view of London at that particular – as a born & bred Londoner, it is something that I will never ever forget.

When the 1CP Head Office building started to get too ‘overcrowded’ I was yet again re-located, back to Hertsmere House for a short period – but returned yet again to L24 Churchill Place – where I remained until I retired on my 60^th birthday in January 2017.

I have been back to my old Canary Wharf stomping ground a few times since I retired – and every time there are more sky scrapper office buildings being erected along with some residential ones too.

The panoramic views I once experienced and enjoyed are no longer possible – too many buildings now obscure the sights and locations I was able to see. In fact – in today’s Canary Wharf (2026), so much land has been reclaimed from the dock waters, that technically, it should not be called ‘Canary Wharf’ – it should just be called ‘Canary’ !!!

So – with all the above out of the way – the other part of this particular article is the visit my London Shoes made to Canary Wharf a few weeks ago, at the very beginning of the year.

My good friend and fellow ex 1 Churchill Place work colleague Tony and I – under a sunny, and blue but bitterly cold London sky, spent an enjoyable few hours ambling throughout our old Canary Wharf/Docklands workplace stomping ground – a leisurely amble that had us taking in our old 1 Churchill Place home / the new’ish Canary Wharf Elizabeth Line station and its Roof Garden.

We then ventured off to he many dockside Quays that are now home to many bars and restaurants / West India Dock / what’s left of the old Middle and South Docks.

Then we wandered down to a specific part of Docklands that is probably not as ‘fashionable’ or as popular as the main Canary Wharf area….namely ‘Millwall Outer Dock’.

Millwall Dock opened in 1868, to provide dock and wharf areas for shipbuilding and trade, especially timber and grain.

In 1869 ‘McDougall’s’ opened their Wheatsheaf Flour Mill which stood on the south side of Millwall Outer dock – it was eventually demolished in 1980.

The L-shaped ‘Millwall Outer Dock’ has a western entrance into the River Thames and it was London’s first dock with a dry dock and a rail link.

All the stuff dug out to create the Millwall Dock, was moved across to create the land area now known as ‘Mudchute’ – an inner city wildlife landscape that sites Mudchute Park & Farm.

However, as with all London’s docks, the introduction of containerisation throughout the shipping industry, caused trade to move to larger docks downstream of the Thames to docks like Tilbury – that had more advanced operational technology – all of London’s docklands gradually fell into decline throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s – causing Millwall Outer Dock to eventually close down for good by the early 1980’s – although a few of its old dockside machinery, like hydraulic winches, cranes and stuff like that, are still visible.

The 1980’s saw the commencement of massive redevelopment of the old London Dockland sites, inc Millwall Outer Dock – with hundreds of residential houses and offices built on the old industrial sites. One section of the old Millwall Outer Dock site is now home to the Docklands Sailing & Watersports Centre.

The Ledger Building-Pub

So – having walked a good few miles on our old trotters, and with it starting to get darker and definitely colder – Tony and I decided to find somewhere warm and welcoming to have a few ‘cheeky’ beers and a bite to eat – and to be fair, there was only one place that we had to head for, than good old……‘The Ledger Building’ pub at the western end of West India Dock – right next door to what was once the site of Hertsmere House (now completely demolished and boarded up – with plans for it to become the site of a Private Medical clinic)

The Ledger Building pub-Hertsmere Road-London E14 is a Grade I Listed 1803 built building where all the financial dealings and records for the West India Dock were once administered – and now a Wetherspoons pub since about 2000.

It features a large main bar and side rooms that were once the offices – plus an outside terrace – plenty of room for drinking/eating – and its internal walls display photos/pictures and other memorabilia, detailing West India Dock’s and The Ledger Building’s history.

It’s a place that holds happy memories for me – where I consumed many lunchtime and after-work pints during my days working out of Hertsmere House – and the place where I held my works drink up when, in Jan 2017 after working for Barclays for 44 years – I eventually hung up my suit and tie for the very last time and retired.

So, to summarise – I know this is an extremely loooong London Shoes piece – but it’s a story that I wanted to tell as it documents and captures my ‘journey’  and my connections to Canary Wharf – and how I ended up working there for the best part of 15 years.

I hope you haven’t lost the will to live reading this – and I hope you enjoyed the story and its accompanying photos.

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Below is the entire gallery of photos and images that accompany this blog article

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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