Walking stories
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Discover the hidden secrets of the docks and hear voices from the past with Museum in Docklands’ summer walks programme, delivered by professional guides and Museum staff.
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Our guides will transport you to the harsh days of the Blood Alley on West India Quay, which got its gruesome name from injuries sustained by stevedores and lumpers who handled abrasive sugar sacks. Head further back to an age when the Isle of Dogs was entirely uninhabited, and used as riverside grazing pasture, light years from the smooth architectural lines and bustling commerce on show today.
And there’s no need to walk unrefreshed. We’ll take you on a thirst quenching survey of The Grapes, Booty’s and City Pride amongst others, and tell you some of the tall tales and secrets hiding behind the doors of the area’s historic pubs.
Search out the last standing riverside hamlets of the Ratcliffe Highway, brought to life in all their squalid glory in our Dickensian museum reconstruction, Sailortown. Or travel further to the east and see the regenerated Royals Docks, once the jewel of the Port of London and the largest stretch of impounded water in the world. Venture out with our guides and discover the extraordinary mix of cultures and races that have always made the East End an exotic and historic part of London.
As well as traditional walks, our programme offers Memoryscape, an audio walk in which you are accompanied on a journey around the Greenwich peninsula, listening to oral histories of the river when it was still a working environment for thousands of people. Back inside the Museum free gallery tours (with museum ticket) will take you back to 1878, and tell the story of the worst tragedy to befall a craft on the Thames - the Princess Alice disaster that claimed the lives of over 600 unlucky pleasure seekers.
Put on your walking shoes and visit our events pages to find out details of where they might take you.