One of the places that I discovered thanks to live in the South of the river for a while was Rotherhithe and the Docklands. The area was, as the name indicates, the docks of London. But the history comes far before the English Empire was created and with it the need of the docks. From the Roman times the only bridge over the river was London Bridge, which originally had houses on it, and it was the gate that was crossed by the cattle every day on their way to the central slaughterhouse in Farringdon (as in other medieval cities only live cattle was accepted inside of the walls) . There was the town of Bermondsey, surrounded by marshs that went up and down with the tides of the river. This was the perfect conditions for the leather trade, which established itself in the area with many tanneries (the last closed in 2007), making it a very unpleasant place to leave due to the strong smells of the skins getting tan and the putrid waters. One of the products more appreciated was the sealskin.

With the Empire the big development of the docks started and it spread from London Bridge to Greenwich, and it was a place of trade until 1960 and 1970, when the shipping industry adopted the newly invented container system of cargo transportation.

All the front of the river is full of nice warehouses that have been refurbished as luxury lofts, but there’re still places left behind by the developers (or they just kept them under their sleeves).
The walk along the waterfront has some nice views of Tower Bridge, the City and the new Canary Wharf.
At the end of the walk you can arrive to Greenwich another nice place…