London Guide
Isle of Dogs
A dramatic horseshoe bend in the Thames creates the Isle of Dogs, a marshy peninsula on which cattle were once fattened for City banquets. In 1802 the peninsula became an island, when a canal was cut to form London's first enclosed trade dock, built to accommodate rum and sugar from the West Indies. With the opening of the Millwall Docks, the population rose to 21,000 by the end of the century. The demise of the docks was slow in coming, but rapid in its conclusion: in 1975, there were eight thousand jobs; five years later both docks were closed.
Now at the heart of the new Docklands, the Isle of Dogs reaches its apotheosis in Canary Wharf, home to Britain's three tallest buildings. Yet while some ninety thousand workers trek to Canary Wharf each weekday, the rest of the "island" remains surreally lifeless, an uneasy, socially divided community comprised of drab council housing, encompassed by a horseshoe of crass, super-rich, riverside developments.