Last Friday, 23rd January, I visited Phil Abel at Hand & Eye Press under an old railway arch at Pincin Street, just north of Cable Street. There are some images below. I walked along Cable Street to Shadwell, past the sadly derelict Crown & Dolphin and Britannia pubs, as far as Shadwell Station on the East London Line, and then turned south following the line of the East London Railway running deep below (the route is marked by a road and a wide public footpath, studded with huge brick ventilation shafts which, up to the 1960s, helped the steam and smoke of the locomotives to escape). After crossing under the old Radcliffe Highway, the railway then passes under the bed (now dry - a park) of the Eastern Dock of the old London Docks) on its way to Wapping, Brunel's Thames Tunnel, Rotherhithe, Surrey Docks and New Cross/New Cross Gate. After fish and chips and a pint of London Pride at the Prospect of Whitby (which I first visited about 1964) on Wapping Wall, I retraced my steps to Shadwell, and then followed the East London route further north as far as Whitechapel.
The London Hospital, opposite Whitechapel Station
The magnificent Albion Brewery building in Whitechapel Road (27 Jan 2009)
The old East London Railway Shadwell Station building (27 Jan 2009)
Brick ventilation shaft just south of the newer Shadwell Station (in the distance)
In the Eastern Dock, London Docks
The Crown & Dolphin, Cable Street
Phil Abel, at Hand & Eye Press, operating one of his two Heidelburg letterpress machines
Hand & Eye Press publicity poster
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