Coldharbour is a street and wider conservation area in Blackwall, lying on the north bank of the River Thames, east of Canary Wharf. The area is said to be "[t]he sole remaining fragment of the old hamlet of Blackwall" and "one of the last examples of the narrow streets which once characterised the river's perimeter".London Borough of Tower Hamlets. 2009. Coldharbour Conservation Area.

History

Toponymy The placename Coldharbour came in use from the early seventeenth centuryGover, John Eric Bruce; Mawer, Allen; Stenton, Frank Merry. 1942. The Place-Names of Middlesex apart from the City of London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 136. and its origins have been debated since the 1850s.C. M. J. 1850. Cold Harbour. Notes and Queries s1-II 51. Conflicting etymologies are given by authorities, with Ernest Weekley contending that "[t]his name is very frequently, and very unnecessarily, discussed. Its origin is quite well known, and it means what it appears to mean."Weekley, Ernest. 1927. More Words Ancient and Modern. London: John Murrey. P. 162n.

Those accepting the plainest derivationTaylor, Isaac. 1865. Words and places; or, Etymological illustrations of history, ethnology, and geography. London and Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. Pp. 255–256. argue that a cold harbour was a "shelter of bare walls... used by travellers who carried their own bedding and provisions", often along a well-known route and similar to a modern bothy.

In alternative, a "coldharbour" could indicate ancient boundary marks in the form of artificial mounds of earth from Roman times, often filled with crockery or charcoal. The word could be derived either from the Latin , meaning "hill with trees", or from the Anglo-Saxon , meaning "coal" or "charcoal", , "hoary" or "ancient", and , a mound.Sharpe, Montagu. 1922. Coldharbour (Letters to the Editor). The Times, 23 May. The link with Roman roads has been contestedCoates, Richard. 1984. Coldharbour – for the Last Time? Nomina 8: 73–78. on the basis that the proximity of Roman roads provides a statistically weak explanation and the fact that the name is not recorded before 1590.

It has also been suggested that most Coldharbour sites could have been named in a mocking manner after a dilapidated London aristocratic house. Other interpretations include "a place where goods were once... assembled for inland water transport or for portage."Rendel, Vincent. 1967. The meaning of "Coldharbour". Kent Archeological Review 7

Development

Coldharbour was originally a path on the top of the late Mediaeval embankment of the ThamesFord, Steve. 1995. North Wharf, Coldharbour, Blackwall, Tower Hamlets: Archeological Evaluation, Thames Valley Archeological Services Report 95/42. P. 1. Accessed: 22 October 2011 connecting Blackwall Stairs to "somewhere near the present entrance to the south dock of the West India Docks".Porter, Stephen. 1994. Southern Blackwall: Coldharbour. Survey of London: Volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs. London: The Athlone Press for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. Pp. 607–624. Accessed: 23 October 2011.

The first buildings on Coldharbour appeared by the second decade of the seventeenth century, probably as part of the activities spreading on the Thames riverfront after the opening of the East India Company's shipbuilding yard at Blackwall in 1614. A "ribbon of development" alongside the river at Coldharbour is marked on Joel Gascoyne's map of the Parish of St Dunstan's of 1703, comprising "dwelling houses, public houses, storehouses and warehouses ... interspersed with wharves, yards and even gardens."

John Betjeman describing Coldharbour as a place "where some fine Georgian merchants' houses have the water washing up to their walls".Betjeman, John. 1956. City and Suburban. The Spectator, 31 May. P. 13. Although the oldest surviving buildings date back to the early nineteenth century, "many of the riverside sites retain an integrity which can be traced back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."

The opening of the West India Docks (in 1802) and the City Canal (in 1805) cut off Coldharbour from the rest of the riverside road, with traffic being diverted to a newly built Bridge Road (later New Road, now Preston's Road) in 1817. Evidence of land reclamation, probably related to the digging of the docks and canals in the early nineteenth century, was identified by an archaeological survey.No author. 1995. Fieldwork Round-Up, London Archeologist 08, Supplement 1, p. 23. Accessed: 22 October 2011 These changes gave Coldharbour its present layout as "a tiny loop road off Preston's Road,"Nairm, Ian. 1966. The Gun, Coldharbour. In Nairn's London. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Pp. 163–164. upon which architectural critic Ian Nairn remarked: "You will know a bit about East End topography by the time you find this one."

The area between Coldharbour and Preston's Road was progressively developed from the eighteenth century with dwellings around the northern end and mixed industrial premises, including shipwrights, joiners, mast- and blockmakers, ship's smiths, a rigging house, a cooperage, a boot-building yard, coppersmiths, wholesale ships' ironmongers and oil merchants.

Character of the area An investigator compiling Booth's poverty maps noted the following about the Isle of Dogs and Coldharbour: "A great many more people work there than live there, though many of those who live there would like to work there. Those who live there seldom leave. From week to week and year to year the men who are islanders remain there."Booth, Charles. 1897. Walk with Mr Carter, District Inspector of Police, District 11 (Poplar and Limehouse), 28 May 1897. LSE Archives, Booth B346. Pp. 18–19.

Cold Harbour Infectious Diseases Receiving Station In 1882 the Metropolitan Asylums Board (MAB) moved its smallpox hospital ships – the Atlas, the Endymion and the Castalia – to new moorings at Long Reach, an isolated stretch of the River Thames near Dartford, about 17 miles (27 km) from London Bridge. The removal of the ships to their new location required the provision of a River Ambulance Service to ferry patients from central London. The following year a pier was constructed at Long Reach for the reception of smallpox cases from wharves to be built at Rotherhithe, Poplar and Fulham.

This 1870s a Cattle Wharf was acquired by the MAB, just north of the Gun public house in Cold Harbour (until the MAB took it over in 1884 it was used by the General Steam Navigation Company for keeping imported cattle in quarantine), with the aim to build the new "North Wharf Receiving Station" for infectious diseases.

The East and West India Dock Company was dismayed at the prospect of highly contagious patients being brought to North Wharf along the narrow confines of Coldharbour, where several of the company's dockmasters lived. This potential source of conflict was averted when the MAB decided to make a new road between Coldharbour and New (now Preston’s) Road over their land on the west side of the street, and the dock company readily consented to give up the small strip required to make the opening into New Road. Laid out in 1884–5, the new road was called Managers Street, after the managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. At the wharf itself the MAB’s main requirement was a floating pier or pontoon, so that the transfer of patients could take place at all states of the tide. It was connected to the wharf by a gangway. Both these features were designed by the MAB’s own engineer, Adam Miller (also described as a naval architect), who had devised the ventilation system for the hospital ship Castalia. A galvanised-iron canopy was built in 1887 to protect patients, who were getting soaked through waiting for ambulances in the rain.

The Receiving Station had an examination room and an isolation ward for patients too sick to be transferred by river ambulance to Long Reach.  Other land works were postponed while priority was given to building of the pier, which opened in 1885, just as the epidemic subsided. As the number of smallpox cases declined, the service was reorganised in 1913.  The North Wharf was used only for smallpox patients, while the South Wharf at Rotherhithe dealt with general fever cases. By 1921 the North Wharf had 9 beds.

In 1930 the LCC took over administrative control from MAB.  By this time the river service was rarely used, most patients being transferred by road.  The service closed in May 1930 and, by 1933, the steamers had been sold.

By the 1980s, the pier and pontoon had been removed and the wharf was being used for storing wood. The buildings were demolished in 1992 and as part of the revival of the Docklands, in 1997 the land of 17 Coldharbour was redeveloped by the Bethnal Green and Victoria Park Housing Association with a £370,000 grant1999. Housing: Appendix – Tables: TABLE 3 LDDC New Build Social Housing Programme. LDDC History Pages. Accessed: 25 October 2011. from the London Docklands Development Corporation's housing programme.LDDC. 1996. Housing in London Docklands. London: London Docklands Development Corporation. P. 4. Accessed: 25 October 2011.

Famous local individuals

Charles Dickens is reported to have been a regular patron of the Fishing Smack, "one of the quaint old taverns by the river still standing in Coldharbour."Haw, George. 1909. From Workhouse to Westminster: The Life Story of Will Crooks, M.P. Cassell and Co.: London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne. P. 32. Accessed: 17 February 2013. He wrote about the area after visiting it in May 1853.Dickens, Charles. 1853. Exploring Expedition to the Isle of Dogs. In "Household Words. A Weekly Journal," 21 May. Pp. 273–277. The Fishing Smack public house stood at and was demolished about 1948, though "a section of the brown glazed brickwork which was once part of the street front survives at the south corner of No. 7." Horatio Nelson's association with the area is preserved in the name of Horatio Place. Local tradition claims that Nelson stayed at Nelson House at no. 3 Coldharbour "during a fleet refit",St George, Genevieve. 2009. Trafalgar Day Walk in London October 21st 2009. Nelson Society, 4 Sep. though the connection is open to doubt given that the name was first associated with the building only in 1881. The Gun pub at No. 27 Coldharbour claims an upstairs room was used by Nelson to meet Emma, Lady Hamilton2011. History. The Gun Pub. and the toilets are marked "Emma" and "Horatio".The Gun: Good Lunch, Not Such a Good Walk. Thames Facing East, 19 March 2013. Accessed: 27 March 2013. Walter Raleigh had a house in southern area of Blackwall, opposite the Artichoke InnPorter, Stephen. 1994. Old Blackwall. Survey of London: Volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs. London: The Athlone Press for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. Pp. 548–552. Accessed: 17 February 2013. where Northumberland Wharf now stands.Thorne, Wm. B. 1935. Notes and Queries 168, p. 196. Accessed: 17 February 2013. His exploration of Guyana in 1595 is commemorated by Raleana Road – Raleana being the name he gave to the territory.Royall, Arthur. 1999. The Streets of Poplar. Prebendary Arthur Royall's Articles. Accessed: 25 October 2011. Thomas Spert, Controller of the Navy to Henry VIII and first Master of Trinity House, lived in a wooden manor house at 152 East India Dock Road at a time when the Coldharbour stretched farther towards Blackwall.Sir Thomas Spert (died 1541). PortCities London. Accessed: 25 October 2011.

Heritage The industrial and maritime activities of Coldharbour's past are no more and today the area is largely residential. The Coldharbour conservation area, designated in 1975 and expanded in 2008, comprehends several historic buildings as well as engineering structures pertaining to the former docks.

Listed buildings