| Silvertown | |
|---|---|
 Wesley Avenue in Britannia Village, a completed part of theSilvertown Quays redevelopment project. | |
  Silvertown Location withinGreater London | |
| OS grid reference | TQ415795 |
| London borough | |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | E16 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| UK Parliament | |
| London Assembly | |
| 51°30′N0°02′E / 51.50°N 0.03°E /51.50; 0.03 | |
Silvertown is a district ofWest Ham in theLondon Borough of Newham, ineast London, England. It lies on the north bank of theThames and was historically part of the parishes ofWest Ham andEast Ham,hundred of Becontree, and thehistoric county ofEssex.Since 1965, Silvertown has been part of the London Borough of Newham, alocal government district of Greater London. It forms part of theLondon E16 postcode district along withCanning Town andCustom House.
The area was named after the factories established byStephen William Silver in 1852,.[1] The riverside of central Silvertown continues to be dominated by theTate & Lyle sugar refinery, with residential developments being built to its east and west.
Central Silvertown features St Marks Church (now Brick Lane Music Hall), London City Airport, and a new community arts and creative space called The Factory Project.
A £3.5 billion redevelopment of part of the district was approved in 2015.[2]
Lyn Brown, previously MP for West Ham until May 2024, was introduced to the House of Lords on 27 January, 2025 as Baroness Brown of Silvertown[3]
In 1852 S.W. Silver & Company moved to the area from Greenwich and established a rubber works, originally to make waterproof clothing. This subsequently developed into the works of theIndia Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company, which constructed and laid manysubmarine cables. By the 1860s a number of manure and chemical works and petroleum storage depots had been set up.[4] In 1864, the area became an ecclesiastical parish of its own, centred on the church ofSt Mark's.
Sugar refiners in the area were joined byHenry Tate in 1877 andAbram Lyle in 1881, whose companies merged in 1921 to formTate & Lyle.[5] Prior to the merger, which occurred after they had died, the two men were bitter business rivals, although they had never met.[6] Tate & Lyle still has two large refineries in the area.
In 1889 Silver's factory was the scene of a twelve-week-long strike by the majority of its 3,000 workers. The strikers were demanding higher pay and were inspired by the recent successes ofNew Unionism in the East End of London. Management refused to negotiate with the strikers who had immense popular support. Leading figures in the strike includedTom Mann andEleanor Marx. The workers were eventually starved back to work, with many being victimised for their role. In the aftermath of the strike, Silver's declared a half-yearly dividend of 5 per cent. The rest of the industry congratulated Silver's management for holding a line against New Unionism.[7]
On 19 January 1917, parts of Silvertown were devastated by a massiveTNT explosion at theBrunner-Mond munitions factory, in what is known as theSilvertown explosion. Seventy three people died and hundreds were injured in one of the largest explosions ever experienced in the British Isles.[8]
In the early 20th century the area suffered greatly from road congestion due to being located between theThames and theRoyal Docks, then the largest and one of the busiest dock groups in the world. The area was cut off for much of the time by lifting bridges over dock entrances andlevel crossings which were closed for up to three-quarters of each hour by train movements. This led in the early 1930s to the construction of the elevatedSilvertown Way, one of the earliest urban flyovers.[9]
On the first night ofThe Blitz, Tate and Lyle's sugar refinery, John Knight's Primrose Soapworks, and the Silvertown Rubber Works were all badly damaged by bombing.[10]
Silver's was eventually taken over by the British Tyre and Rubber Co, later known asBTR Industries. The site closed in the 1960s and is now the Thameside Industrial Estate.[11] Another major local employer was the Loders and Nucoline plant at Cairn Mills, a traditional portoleo industry and formerly part ofUnilever. This originally milled seeds but later concentrated on production of fats frompalm kernel oil.[citation needed]
The area was part of the ancient parishs ofWest Ham andEast Ham,Essex, from the 12th century onwards. The Local Government Act 1894 created East Ham Urban District. West Ham became acounty borough in 1900, before merging with East Ham to create the newLondon Borough of Newham in 1965.[12]
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Since the closure of the former mainline Silvertown rail station, the small commercial area nearby has suffered, with a loss of shops, post office, local social club, and library. Of the many previous pubs along the Albert Nate Road in Silvertown, only one now remains. Some small pockets of residential development occurred in the 1980s, however since then, little has been done to improve the centre of Silvertown.
Further west, the residential area of Britannia Village was developed in the 1990s in what would come to be known as "West Silvertown".[13]
On 21 April 2015,Newham Council gave planning permission to The Silvertown Partnership for a new £3.5 billion redevelopment in the area. The 7 million square foot (650,000 m2) development will provide offices, a tech hub, 3,000 new homes and brand experience pavilions. A school, health centre and shops are also included in the plan and a new bridge will cross theRoyal Docks to get people toCustom House station[14] andCrossrail. However, little of this proposed redevelopment will benefit the historic centre of residential Silvertown.
The Silvertown Partnership were selected as the development partner to take forward the regeneration of the site. Their plan was to develop the site with homes, restaurants, commercial buildings, local convenience retail facilities, and significant public realm for community use. They predicted that it would provide up to 20,700 new jobs, up to 3,000 homes and contribute £260m each year of gross value to the London economy. The redevelopment is planned to include the restoration of former flour factoryMillennium Mills.[15]
In January 2015, theMayor of London announced an initial £12m of government funding to start work on demolishing part ofMillennium Mills and clearing it ofasbestos.[16] Prior to this latest development, the area was transformed in the 1970s by the construction of theThames Barrier, an adjacent park, new housing areas andLondon City Airport. In the mid-1990s much of the business activity in the area was centred on the brewing firmBass. In 2007Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester visited Silvertown, to formally open the new Silvertown Ambulance Station on North Woolwich Road.
TheTate & LyleThames Refinery is asafeguarded wharf in thePort of London. It is one of the largest sugar refineries in the world, with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum. The Raw Sugar and Refined and Shore Berth jetties include twobulk-handling crane. The terminal commodities are sugar, as dry bulks, and edible and vegetable oils, as liquid bulks: it exports globally and imports fromFiji,Caribbean,Africa andSouth America.[17][18]
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The nearestDocklands Light Railway station isLondon City Airport, with Pontoon Dock station also nearby. Access to Silvertown was much improved by an extension of theDocklands Light Railway fromCanning Town toWoolwich Arsenal, which opened on 2 December 2005.
The oldSilvertown railway station on theNorth London Line was closed in 2006. A new London Underground station at nearby Custom House built by Crossrail was opened in 2022, adding further public transport access to and from central London, Essex, and direct service to London Heathrow Airport. Locally, this new line used the trackbed of the old North London Line and there is passive provision for a stop serving Silvertown to be built in future.
TheLondon Cable Car connects West Silvertown with theGreenwich peninsula.
London City Airport is located in central Silvertown.
A new bridge to connect West Silvertown with Crossrail's Custom House station is one of the features of a £3.5bn redevelopment plan for London's Royal Docks.[19]
TheSilvertown Tunnel is a road tunnel under the Thames which will open in 2025 and provide a toll route to the Greenwich peninsula.[20]
Transport For London public buses that serve Silvertown include the 473 that runs from Stratford to North Woolwich and the 474 that operates from Canning Town to Manor Park. Both the 473 and 474 make stops at London City Airport. A new route 241 runs between Straford and Pontoon Dock.
Some attempts have been made in recent years to establish bicycling lanes, however ongoing construction and road works limit access and cyclists generally are required to share the road with motor vehicle users.
Silvertown is featured in a ballad byMark Knopfler, titledSilvertown Blues, which describes the area as it was before redevelopment.[citation needed]
'Silvertown' was the name of a Men They Couldn't Hang album released in 1989. One song 'Blackfriars Bridge' mentions Silvertown.
The district also features inCharlie Connelly's 2004 book,Attention All Shipping. In the first chapter "Sea, Soup and Silvertown" the author describes his grandparents' flight from the area duringThe Blitz and the inspiration for the book.[21] The docks and factories of Silvertown also provide the backdrop for his 2015 bookConstance Street which traces the once thriving community through the lives of 12 women and their struggle for survival during the chaos of the war years.
Melanie McGrath's bookSilvertown is a novelistic account of her grandmother's life in the area, where she and her husband ran a cafe.[22]
The Sugar Girls, byDuncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, tells the true stories of women who worked atTate & Lyle's Silvertown factories, and features much detail on the area.[6]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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