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King Edward VII Memorial Park |
| King Edward VII Memorial Park, with its
magnificant riverfront, was officially opened by King George V on the 24th June 1922.
"Shadwell Park", as it became known locally, had cost £20,000 to build and
covered much of Lower and Middle Shadwell. This area at the turn of the 20th century had been derelict factories and run-down houses and known as the "brickfields". The Shadwell Fish Market, with its extensive riverfront, was to the left of the Rotherhithe Tunnel Ventilation Shaft. Built as an alternative to the City’s Billingsgate Fish Market in the 1880s, Shadwell Fish Market was unsuccessful and sold to the Corporation of London in 1901. They gradually ran the Market down until finally selling the site to the King Edward VII Memorial Committee in 1914. However, the intervention of the First World War meant that local people had to wait another eight years before the Park was opened. The London County Council, who looked after the Park, place in front of the Rotherhithe Tunnel Ventilation Shaft, a stone boulder to commemorate the 16th mariners who sailed from this reach to explore the Northern Seas. |
