Limehouse, Stepney or Stepney East - three names carried by the same station. But which is the correct one? Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jago... Patreon: / jagohazzard
As someone born and Bred in Stepney (indeed from 'Ratcliffe' Highway) and therefore an East End Oik, I'd never dream of being abusive to you Jago. Some people using the internet really need to chill out, get a life and be appreciative of your sterling efforts!
@@henrybest4057 Hi Henry - thanks for the information. I've never heard that song before. However, having just listened to it, I don't think I've missed much! 😉
@@henrybest4057 I will listen to it again Henry - one hearing may be somewhat unfair. Interesting that they must have researched Ratcliffe Highway; as it was simply 'The Highway' for many years. I notice the band originated in London - I wonder if they were from the East End?
I absolutely love how a lot of the DLR runs on those brick elevated sections. Incredibly photogenic line. It’s the best of both worlds, frequent automated metro system, combined with beautiful track. Normally you just get precast concrete.
@@stevebrown3559 Brick arches are wonderful and those that are built on the skew are especially fascinating, but if the Victorians engineers had had access to pre-stressed concrete they would certainly have used it and would have worked wonders with it.
Hahaha. I made a similar comment under Jago's previous video. Words like 𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑐, 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑢𝑙 and 𝑤𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑢𝑙 don't automatically springs to mind when the DLR is mentioned but, with the eclectic mix of brick, water, greenery and rubble, along with a huge slice of history, make this a really interesting rail system. Getting a driver's-eye view of the junctions, routes and stations helps to unjumble the maze a wee bit too, quite apart from being great fun for kids of all ages. I don't think anyone else has covered the DLR to the extent that Mr.H. is achieving: long may it continue.👍👌😁
Jago might be able to do London canals, but for the rest of the country, Paul & Rebecca Whitewick is your go-to channel - they started off with abandoned railways ("Every Disused Station") but have branched out into former canals as well (possibly helped by some routes starting off as canals, then being taken over by railways - and maybe in a few cases then being taken over by roads).
If you are open minded enough to watch a channel featuring a gay couple, Foxes Afloat does narrow boat videos and they discuss the history of the areas they pass through. Colin does great work researching each show.
Jago, I humbly direct you to the Natoonsl Library of Scotland's collection of old maps. These maps show an undefined boundary crossing the Regent Canal docks and crossing Commercial Road and its tram tracks before running north along Brunton Place. These 25 inch to the mile maps from the late 1800s and early 1900s name Limehouse station as Stepney Junction and place the Limehouse curve squarely in Limehouse's St Anne parish.
Whoever posted abusive comments should be ashamed of themselves. I applaud your efforts on behalf of us, your loyal subscribers. Railway history forever!
I'm not a train freak but I love your videos because of the comedy you put in and you have a very nice voice to listen too. Plus I learn something everytime. :)
If viewing figures always go up after mentioning Thomas, here's an idea: April Fool's video which details the history of some fictional extension of that rail network onto the mainland.
I’m trying very hard to grasp the mindset of someone who would be moved to post an abusive comment over a minor point of geographical location? Perhaps these people should not be allowed near sharp objects like scissors or pencils.
Some people get really territorial and believe they live in place B even though it’s actually place A which is backed up by ward boundaries and other indisputable evidence. What gets frustrating is when place B is within place A and yet they refer to place A and B as being separate places. They won’t be convinced and can get abusive!
There is a station in Nottinghamshire called Ratcliffe on Trent. I would imagine that name wasn't used due to possible confusion it would cause. At Norwich you can get trains to Liverpool Lime Street & London Liverpool Street. Travellers are often confused & catch the wrong service.
There are stations in Lancashire and Cheshire called Adlington. There could have been another Adlington in Cheshire but this was named Alderley Edge to avoid further confusion. The other option was to call it Preston. The present town was named after the station.
When I was a booking clerk on the underground, many people, especially American tourists, requested tickets to Liverpool or Oxford. I usually resisted the temptation to send them to Euston or Paddington for onward mainline travel. Similarly Edgware, most expressing the wish to reach there, only wanted Edgware Road.
There are two stations on the London Rail and Tube map called St Margarets. One is on the Hertford East Branch line, the other is on the Waterloo to Reading line and the Kingston and Hounslow loops.
Over the decades they seemed to have named stations to appeal to the public commuters, rather than actual location. So since this is on the boundary then I am on the fence!
Great video Jago. Yes I'd enjoy your take the Regents Canal - or even a video about the sound of one hand clapping (one of my essays when I mis-behaved at school). I'm sure you'd make a better job of it than I did!
@@thomasburke2683 Sadly some people everywhere like posting RU-vid comments putting down others for totally normal behaviour, such as making up amusing derogatory nicknames for places. It's a way of confirming their own feeling of self superiority.
The Limehouse cut's history would be an interesting start to any series on the history of the canals in London. The Surrey canal would be more challenging
Canals would be a great idea because they were a crucial part of history and many people make videos about the train/subways but not many about the canals.
Jago, I've walked the length of the Regent's Park Canal many times both from Paddington /Little Venice to Limehouse and in the opposite direction too. There is much to see, so I'd love to see you doing a video on it in your own informative, and unique way.
Stepney was the Headparish (St Dunstan) . Limehouse is what one would have been called Chaplery of Stepney. Abutting Limehouse was Ratcliffe, that has fallen into disuse now and is now generally thought as Limehouse, too. Hope that adds some context.
Excellent video , Jago. My first job was in the city and I travelled from Laindon to Fenchurch daily, and Limehouse was called Stepney East , also I remember Tilbury riverside as a station too. Occasionally , when there were problems we got diverted to the Bow curve and ended up at Stratford , then back to barking . I do remember at Limehouse - the track split into 4 lines , with 2 of them eventually becoming DLR. I also remember the old signal box at Fenchurch street and when it got removed
-5 points for not mentioning that the real Stepney locomotive is still around, today preserved at the Bluebell Railway. "Jago gotta eat, son" did crack me up though. Well done. PS: Is Ratcliffe really a worse name than Mudchutes?
@@ReubenAshwell Nah, Jago's a legit rail enthusiast; seen his membership card and all. Probably just didn't have time in that digression. That's why he only lost 5 points; it was negligent, but understandable negligence.
Thank you for this explanation. I have always wondered why the station suddenly changed name. I still think of it as Stepney anyway, and yes I travel on the C2C line (pre Covid)
Having patrolled the streets of Limehouse, Poplar and the Isle of Dogs as a young Met. PC back in the 1960s, I found this post fascinating in many ways and have my own memories of using the underground stations of Stepney, Mile End and Bow - in pre-DLR days with no nearer rail stations for use locally then. Many's the time I alighted at Mile End Station and walked the length of Burdett Road to my accommodation above Limehouse nick in West India Dock Road. How things have changed since those days!
I lived in Limehouse for 20 years - then they renamed it Westferry - but when I talk about Limehouse to friends they imagine Westferry area, not Stepney
There are some very sad people in this world; often still living with their parents at 45 so have nothing better to do than be abusive. Its the only highlight in their lives.
As any railway employee can tell you, anything to do with railways attracts some extremely strange people. Amongst my favourites was the man who had a screaming meltdown at me because I'd been standing on the left on an otherwise empty escalator at Birmingham New Street station as he was going down the adjacent stairs to the platform. Not only did he come running back up the escalator to have the meltdown at me, he then went storming off to the Area Managers Office where he had a major hissy fit because "having" to remonstrate with me meant he'd missed his train!
Did anyone else notice the car parked on the zebra crossing at about 5.51? I think it's a Mercedes, that's the kind of thing Mercedes drivers do. I should know, I used to be one until I bought a Jaaag.
What i really like about your vids is seeing the bits of London that we dont normally see. For instance the marinas you have shown us in this vid. Even though im up north and have only ever been to London 3 times.
I once saw Kylie Minogue with her CP team on the DLR at Limehouse, going, presumably, to a video shoot. Appropriate for me that you 'Stepped back in time' for this vid :)
The problem of an oversized Stepney was created in 1900 with the formation of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney (see the wikipedia page) and it was exacerbated by further expansion later. That meant that Stepney included places that definitely were not Stepney (if you catch my drift) from Spitalfields in the NW to Limehouse in the SE. It was absorbed into the People's Republic of Tower Hamlets in the 60's and we have been trying to cut the reactionary Stepneyists (and their territorial claims) down to size ever since.
Mention of Fenchurch St station always reminds me of the long-gone goods depots at Hayden Square, Goodmans Yard and Commercial Rd. Not much remains of any of these, all gone by 1975.
I’m going with the it’s whichever floats your boat answer to this. I also love the info on how Stepney came to be. Especially as he’s one of my favourite characters
Cannot recall if I have worked on Stepney, certainly did the Bluebell Land cruise with him (her?) using the victorian coaches. Have done cleaning of the wheels on Sutton at Spa Valley.
One could always put forward the argument for Stepney having been more pertinent from 1900 to 1965 when the station lay within the respectively named Metropolitan Borough.
I was in London and Limehouse this past Dec. (2023) I visited the building there at Approach Basin seen at 5:16 and walked all around that area, used the Limehouse DLR station and visited The Grape pub, it's a nice area and just a 10 min DLR ride from Tower Gateway station which was by the hotel I stayed at, London is such a cool city to visit. I yearn to return in 2024.
Wife and I visited Limehouse after being re-routed from our holiday plan. We truly enjoyed the area. Being from Philadelphia, we were no strangers to trains, subways, etc. When we learned Limehouse station was closed on the weekends, we jumped-on the #15 bus and had another great experience in London.
Thanks as always for your entertaining and educartional videos, Jago! ...And even more confusingly, while the LNER did take over the London & Blackwall mainline and the Bow Curve in 1923 (as you mentioned), the London, Tilbury & Southend was (oddly) controlled by the Midland Railway, and thus became part of the LMS. While the LNER ran their own trains from Fenchurch Street to Stratford and beyond, the LMS gradually became the main passenger carrier on these particular LNER tracks.
The oddity being that the idea was the grouped railways should have an equal mix of loss making and profitable routes, without creating too much local geographical monopoly
@@highpath4776 Which actually makes sense...but even before the grouping, the Midland Railway bought the LT&SR in 1912...but why? Perhaps they wanted access to Tilbury Docks or the like?
@@sewing9434 Maybe it was the only railway buyable that suited their expansion plans. ( GWR/ GC/ GE / too big to buy without a merger. The Midland I think had running rights round to the Tilbury Lines via the North London Line anyway so not a difficult thought to connect in North of London Docks traffic etc.
Stepney trolls awaiting on the 'net; Tackling them with ease - oh "I'll show RU-vid what I can do", Gaily boasts the Jago. In and out he studies about, Like he always does, so. When he pulls ol' Limehouse out - Pop goes the Jago! - Alternate lyrics to the Thomas the Tank Engine song to "Pop Goes the Diesel", probably
Sounds like on a Venn diagram Limehouse would be a subset of Stepney. On the TH boundary map the Limehouse neighbourhood centre lies outside Limehouse ward! Sorry, this episode would really have benefited from a local rail map to remind us of the relative geography - even a few seconds! "Stepney" was one of the first privately preserved locos (on the Bluebell Railway) which was how it got into the Thomas books. Regents Canal video would be interesting, especially told in Jago's inimitable style.
People who send abusive comments over an exact millimetre location of a railway bridge should perhaps reconsider their ways in life. Great video as always sir. On the naming just call it Stephouse and be done with it.
Limehouse presumably gets its name from the practice of crushing limestone into lime dust, which was used to disinfect ships. Many port cities have an area with lime in the name, Lime Street in Liverpool being the best known.
It's named for the lime kilns that would crush and heat limestone (bought up the river from Kent) to use for plaster, mortar and whitewash. It's not clear exactly when it started but it was well-established by the 14th century when they used whitewash to paint St. Mary Matfelon Church, just outside the City, from where the surrounding area gets the name Whitechapel. (Two bits of east London trivia for the price of one, you can't beat that for a bargain)
There's a Lime Street in the City of London, no doubt with similar origins. It is now the centre of the insurance industry and I don't think there are many like kilns there any more.
Regents canal would be good since I used to work near Gunmakers Bridge. I bloke at my work remembers driving a car over the bridge and before 2000 you could park your car the park side of the bridge.
Have you considered a video about the different track and platform layouts at Tower Gateway over the years? You could superimpose Thomas the Tank Engine serving the station for additional viewer numbers.
So that's how that Stroudley Terrier came to be named Stepney. Station names have a long record of being quite random, I did'nt realise it could be a thing with locos too... Ta.
@@caw25sha Subject of big debate in preservation nerdery..Stroudley locomotive green, I think. I've seen it anywhere between yellow and mustard, but I'm red/green colour blind, so.....
Loved this video, as I always do - baffled at people who get abusive in the comments I'd love to see them give this kind of art a shot - I love the curve, always stare at it on the bus on my way to the library - and yes please do the canals, I am obsessed with them, you should do the canal museum in kings x too :)
The frequency of people feeling actual rage when some ambiguity is expressed about which of the million vaguely defined crannies of London something is in makes me wonder if it's something in the water. Lead, maybe. (It also reminds me of that one Jay Foreman sketch about whether anyone truly cares which borough they live in. "Hounslow for the Hounslovians! Hounslow _means_ Hounslow! Death to Ealing!!")
I was working for a tech start-up in an old warehouse on West Ferry Road in the mid 1980s, and using Stepney East/Limehouse for my commute when it was renamed. The sense then was that Limehouse was just far trendier - it had started to gentrify before the Docklands proejct got going than good old East End Stepney ever could be. Pure marketing. I also remember drinking in the Five Bells And Bladebone pub nearby, which was renowned for having the best kept Burton's in London and for being the local nick's boozer, which meant once you got your face known licensing hours and other inconvenient laws ceased to apply.
Yes please to video on the Regent’s Canal. I very recently went for a walk along the Regent’s Canal towpath after visiting the beautiful Regent’s Park.
Yay Jago mentioned Stepney from Thomas this deserves a thumbs up! And he even made a reference to the Season 19 episode 'No Help at All' towards the end XD.
I miss London, 7 hours away by air, guess next year is the earliest opportunity to return, until then your videos brighten my humdrum Canadian existence.
Great video Jago and thanks. Having lived at Westferry and travelled through Limehouse (and used the Fenchurch St Line a lot) a lot I always wanted to know more on this subject... and now I do. You are my answers to my inquisitive interests!!!
