Bermondsey Docks and Jacob's Island

This was one of my favourite walkabouts - if you time your visit to when it's just getting dark then it is such an atmospheric place to explore. 

Just ashort walk from Bermondsey or London Bridge station, this area of London has a very colourful history. The area around the old docks used to be Victorian London's most infamous and impoverished slum, 'Jacob's Island'. Described by scandalised social reformers as 'the very capital of cholera'. It was so notorious that Charles Dickens associated it with his most famous villain, Bill Sikes, who met his end slipping from the roof of one of its wretched dwellings. 

Historic image of the slums crowding the waterways
of Jacob's Island - once one of London's most notorious areas.

Nowadays there are still lots of narrow streets with Victorian warehouses and mill buildings - though in a dramatic reversal of the area's fortunes, many of these have now been converted into frighteningly expensive apartments. 

Follow the winding roads away from the roar of Jamaica Rd and you'll find yourself at the Thames. Here you can rest your elbows on the riverfront wall and breathe in the warm smell of the foreshore mud, listening to the slow slap and hiss of the water below. 

Immediately before you are banks of houseboats joined by platforms covered with plants in an improvised garden, while in the distance this peaceful scene is overlooked by the neon glow of the City. After dark, the bridges and London landmarks are lit up in a stunning display - though this atmosphere also has a darker edge; even putting aside the area's destitute past, this was also a place of execution for pirates.