Peter Batten goes to the Dogs…

Have you ever been to the Isle of Dogs? No, it is not a French penal colony somewhere in the Caribbean. It is actually a part of London, which I have visited many times because my father was born there. Several of my relatives lived all their lives on the Island.

Where is it? If you have watched East Enders on television you will have noticed on the opening map that the River Thames flows around in a big loop, enclosing an area shaped rather like a tongue. That area is the Isle of Dogs, also known as Millwall. In the 16th century, when Henry VIII had a magnificent palace at Greenwich, opposite the southern tip of that tongue, his dogs were housed on the marshy land across the river. Hence the name, or so it is suggested. Little changed until the end of the 18th century, when the port of London began to expand rapidly. First, a channel was cut through the northern end of the tongue, in order to save time sailing around it. This was later converted to become the South West India Dock. Then, in 1799, the West India Dock Company was formed. It immediately proceeded with the creation of a huge dock in the middle of the Island, which was soon in operation. Later, in 1868, the Millwall Docks were built on waste land to the south of the West India Dock.
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