Millwall, Tower Hamlets

Still a largely working-​​class community in the south-​​western part of the Isle of Dogs, though increasingly intermixed with upmarket newcomers

Thermopylae Gate

Millwall’s name derives from the windmills that once lined the western embankment. Before these appeared this was Pomfret manor – the base for the earliest recorded Thames ferry east of London, which plied between here and Greenwich in the mid-​​15th century.

Great Eastern pier was the site of the Scott Russell shipyard, where the steamship Great Eastern was built and launched in 1857, subsequently laying the first Atlantic cable.

In 1868 Millwall Docks opened to handle imports of timber and grain, and McDougalls flour works were estab­lished here. The Millwall Extension Railway came in 1872, on the route now taken by the DLR. Millwall’s industrial growth brought shipbuilding, engin­eering and chemicals, and an oil works owned by local resident Alexander Duckham.

Workers from Morton’s, a local confec­tionery and canning firm, founded Millwall Football Club in the 1880s. The club played at several locations on the island before crossing the river to the borders of Bermondsey and New Cross in 1910.

After the First World War ‘homes for heroes’ were erected on the Chapel House estate (named after a nearby medieval chapel) in a partnership between Poplar council and Millwall Lead Works. In the 1950s and 60s council blocks and maisonettes provided housing for local people whose homes had been destroyed during the blitz.

Along the riverside more exclusive flats were constructed during the eighties Docklands boom, including Maconochies Wharf, the largest self-​​build devel­opment in Britain. In the 21st century a succession of converted warehouses and new-​​build ‘luxury’ apartment blocks have continued to modify Millwall’s character, but without effecting the kind of trans­formation seen farther north on the Isle of Dogs.

The population of the ward of Millwall – which takes in the whole western half of the isthmus, including the area around Canary Wharf – grew faster than anywhere else in London between 2001 and 2011, adding more than 10,000 new residents – a 79 per cent increase. This makes it London’s largest ward by some margin and the Boundary Commission has therefore recom­mended the creation of a new ward of West India, with the Millwall ward in future taking in the southern tip of the Isle of Dogs.

Postal district: E14
Population: 23,084 (2011 census)
Station: Docklands Light Railway (Crossharbour, once Millwall Dock station, zone 2)
Riverboat pier: Masthouse Terrace (formerly Great Eastern pier)
See also: Island Gardens