Pudding Mill Lane, Newham
Barely 500 yards in length, Pudding Mill Lane short-circuits Marshgate Lane in south-west Stratford
Pudding Mill Lane before its Olympic transformation
Pudding Mill was probably named (or nicknamed) because of its shape and its last incarnation was demolished during the first half of the 19th century. Also called St Thomas’s Mill, it stood at what became the junction of Marshgate Lane and Pudding Mill Lane. The later Nobshill (or Knobs Hill) Mill survived until the early 1890s.*
Pudding Mill River, one of the Bow back rivers, is a very minor tributary of the River Lea.
Pudding Mill Lane station was built for the convenience of workers at the utilities and industrial estates that pocked Stratford Marsh over the course the 20th century. Until 1998 there was just a passing loop at this point on the Stratford branch of the Docklands Light Railway, which here runs alongside the main line into Liverpool Street, and above the Central Line. The station will be closed during the Olympic Games because it is too small to handle the potential footfall. A new, larger station is planned for construction soon after the games, to take advantage of the area’s ‘legacy appeal’.
The character of the lane has been transformed since work on the Olympic Park began and the little Pudding Mill River has disappeared under the main stadium. One of the Olympic Park’s five neighbourhoods has been named Pudding Mill.
Pudding Mill Lane should not be confused with Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London began.
Postal district: E15
Station: Docklands Light Railway, Stratford branch (Zones 2 and 3)
* Reproduced from A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6, British History Online provides a magnificently detailed account of the ancient mills of West Ham, while often admitting to a degree of uncertainty and employing caveats like: “It seems to have been the mill …” and: “It appears from this charter that …” [Hidden London’s italics].
