Silvertown is a district of

West Ham West Ham is a district in East London, England and is in the London Borough of Newham. It is an inner-city suburb located east of Charing Cross. The area was originally an ancient parish formed to serve parts of the older Manor of Ham, a ...

in the

London Borough of Newham The London Borough of Newham () is a London borough created in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. It covers an area previously administered by the Essex county boroughs of West Ham and East Ham, authorities that were both abolished by ...

, in

east London East London is the part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London Docklands, London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of ...

, England. It lies on the north bank of the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

and was historically part of the parishes of

and

East Ham East Ham is a district of the London Borough of Newham, England, 8 miles (12.8 km) east of Charing Cross. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Essex, East Ham is identified in the London Plan as a ...

, hundred of Becontree, and the historic county of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. Since 1965, Silvertown has been part of the London Borough of Newham, a

local government district Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

of Greater London. It forms part of the London E16 postcode district along with

Canning Town Canning Town is a town in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England, north of the Royal Victoria Dock. Its urbanisation was largely due to the creation of the dock. The area was part of the ancient parish and County Borough of West Ham, ...

and

Custom House A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting ...

. The area was named after the factories established by Stephen William Silver in 1852,. The riverside of central Silvertown continues to be dominated by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery, with residential developments being built to its east and west. Central Silvertown features St Marks Church (now Brick Lane Music Hall), London City Airport, and a new community arts and creative space called The Factory Project. A £3.5 billion redevelopment of part of the district was approved in 2015. Lyn Brown, previously MP for West Ham until May 2024, was introduced to the House of Lords on 27 January, 2025 as Baroness Brown of Silvertown

History

In 1852 S.W. Silver & Company moved to the area from Greenwich and established a rubber works, originally to make waterproof clothing. This subsequently developed into the works of the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company, which constructed and laid many submarine cables. By the 1860s a number of manure and chemical works and petroleum storage depots had been set up. In 1864, the area became an ecclesiastical parish of its own, centred on the church of St Mark's. Sugar refiners in the area were joined by

Henry Tate Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet (11 March 18195 December 1899) was an English merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Britain, Tate Gallery and the company that became Tate & Lyle. Early life Henry Tate was born in White Copp ...

in 1877 and Abram Lyle in 1881, whose companies merged in 1921 to form Tate & Lyle. Prior to the merger, which occurred after they had died, the two men were bitter business rivals, although they had never met. Tate & Lyle still has two large refineries in the area. In 1889 Silver's factory was the scene of a twelve-week-long strike by the majority of its 3,000 workers. The strikers were demanding higher pay and were inspired by the recent successes of New Unionism in the East End of London. Management refused to negotiate with the strikers who had immense popular support. Leading figures in the strike included Tom Mann and

Eleanor Marx Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx (16 January 1855 – 31 March 1898), sometimes called Eleanor Aveling and known to her family as Tussy, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a Socialism, socialist activist who sometimes ...

. The workers were eventually starved back to work, with many being victimised for their role. In the aftermath of the strike, Silver's declared a half-yearly dividend of 5 per cent. The rest of the industry congratulated Silver's management for holding a line against New Unionism. On 19 January 1917, parts of Silvertown were devastated by a massive TNT explosion at the Brunner-Mond munitions factory, in what is known as the

Silvertown explosion The Silvertown explosion occurred in Silvertown in County Borough of West Ham, West Ham, Essex (now part of the London Borough of Newham) on Friday 19 January 1917 at 6:52 p.m. The blast occurred at a munitions factory that was manufacturi ...

. Seventy three people died and hundreds were injured in one of the largest explosions ever experienced in the British Isles. In the early 20th century the area suffered greatly from road congestion due to being located between the

and the

Royal Docks Royal Docks is an area in the London Borough of Newham in the London Docklands in East London, England. The area is named after three docks – the Royal Albert Dock, the Royal Victoria Dock and the King George V Dock. They are more corre ...

, then the largest and one of the busiest dock groups in the world. The area was cut off for much of the time by lifting bridges over dock entrances and

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line or the road etc. crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, o ...

s which were closed for up to three-quarters of each hour by train movements. This led in the early 1930s to the construction of the elevated ''Silvertown Way'', one of the earliest urban flyovers. On the first night of

The Blitz The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War. Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...

, Tate and Lyle's sugar refinery, John Knight's Primrose Soapworks, and the Silvertown Rubber Works were all badly damaged by bombing. Silver's was eventually taken over by the British Tyre and Rubber Co, later known as BTR Industries. The site closed in the 1960s and is now the Thameside Industrial Estate. Another major local employer was the Loders and Nucoline plant at Cairn Mills, a traditional port oleo industry and formerly part of

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

. This originally milled seeds but later concentrated on production of fats from

palm kernel oil Palm kernel oil is an edible plant oil derived from the kernel of the oil palm tree ''Elaeis guineensis''. It is related to two other edible oils: ''palm oil'', extracted from the fruit pulp of the oil palm, and ''coconut oil'', extracted from ...

. The area was part of the ancient parishs of

and

, from the 12th century onwards. The Local Government Act 1894 created East Ham Urban District. West Ham became a county borough in 1900, before merging with East Ham to create the new

in 1965.

Regeneration

Since the closure of the former mainline Silvertown rail station, the small commercial area nearby has suffered, with a loss of shops, post office, local social club, and library. Of the many previous pubs along the Albert Road in Silvertown, only one now remains. Some small pockets of residential development occurred in the 1980s, however since then, little has been done to improve the centre of Silvertown. Further west, the residential area of Britannia Village was developed in the 1990s in what would come to be known as "West Silvertown". On 21 April 2015,

Newham Council Newham London Borough Council also known as Newham Council, is the local authority for the London Borough of Newham in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under Labour majority co ...

gave planning permission to The Silvertown Partnership for a new £3.5 billion redevelopment in the area. The development will provide offices, a tech hub, 3,000 new homes and brand experience pavilions. A school, health centre and shops are also included in the plan and a new bridge will cross the

to get people to

Custom House station Custom House is an interchange station by the Royal Docks, in Custom House, Newham, Custom House in the London Borough of Newham, London for Docklands Light Railway (DLR) – on which it is branded Custom House for ExCeL – and Elizabeth line ...

and

Crossrail Crossrail is a completed railway project centred on London. It provides a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system, akin to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries, kn ...

. However, little of this proposed redevelopment will benefit the historic centre of residential Silvertown. The Silvertown Partnership were selected as the development partner to take forward the regeneration of the site. Their plan was to develop the site with homes, restaurants, commercial buildings, local convenience retail facilities, and significant public realm for community use. They predicted that it would provide up to 20,700 new jobs, up to 3,000 homes and contribute £260m each year of gross value to the London economy. The redevelopment is planned to include the restoration of former flour factory Millennium Mills. In January 2015, the

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first directly elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The current ...

announced an initial £12m of government funding to start work on demolishing part of Millennium Mills and clearing it of

asbestos Asbestos ( ) is a group of naturally occurring, Toxicity, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous Crystal habit, crystals, each fibre (particulate with length su ...

. Prior to this latest development, the area was transformed in the 1970s by the construction of the Thames Barrier, an adjacent park, new housing areas and

London City Airport London City Airport is an international airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the London Borough of Newham, Borough of Newham, about east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the two centres ...

. In the mid-1990s much of the business activity in the area was centred on the brewing firm

Bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

. In 2007

Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard Alexander Walter George; born 26 August 1944) is a member of the British royal family. He is the second son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, the youngest ...

visited Silvertown, to formally open the new Silvertown Ambulance Station on North Woolwich Road.

Education

Maritime

The Tate & Lyle Thames Refinery is a safeguarded wharf in the Port of London. It is one of the largest sugar refineries in the world, with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum. The Raw Sugar and Refined and Shore Berth jetties include two bulk-handling crane. The terminal commodities are sugar, as dry bulks, and edible and vegetable oils, as liquid bulks: it exports globally and imports from

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Transport

The nearest Docklands Light Railway station is

, with Pontoon Dock station also nearby. Access to Silvertown was much improved by an extension of the

Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated medium-capacity rail system, light metro system primarily serving the redeveloped London Docklands, Docklands area of London and providing a direct connection between London's two major financi ...

from

to Woolwich Arsenal, which opened on 2 December 2005. The old Silvertown railway station on the North London Line was closed in 2006. A new London Underground station at nearby Custom House built by Crossrail was opened in 2022, adding further public transport access to and from central London, Essex, and direct service to London Heathrow Airport. Locally, this new line used the trackbed of the old North London Line and there is passive provision for a stop serving Silvertown to be built in future. The

London Cable Car The London cable car, also known as the Dangleway and officially as the IFS Cloud Cable Car for Naming rights, sponsorship reasons, is a Aerial lift, cable car link across the River Thames in London, England. The line was built by Doppelmayr Gar ...

connects West Silvertown with the

Greenwich peninsula The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South London, South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the River Thames, Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the ...

is located in central Silvertown. A new bridge to connect West Silvertown with Crossrail's Custom House station is one of the features of a £3.5bn redevelopment plan for London's Royal Docks. The Silvertown Tunnel is a road tunnel under the Thames which will open in 2025 and provide a toll route to the Greenwich peninsula. Transport For London public buses that serve Silvertown include the 473 that runs from Stratford to North Woolwich and the 474 that operates from Canning Town to Manor Park. Both the 473 and 474 make stops at London City Airport. A new route 241 runs between Straford and Pontoon Dock. Some attempts have been made in recent years to establish bicycling lanes, however ongoing construction and road works limit access and cyclists generally are required to share the road with motor vehicle users.

Popular culture

Silvertown is featured in a ballad by

Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler OBE (born 12 August 1949) is a British musician. He was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits from 1977 to 1995, and he is the one of the two members who stayed during the band's existence ...

, titled '' Silvertown Blues'', which describes the area as it was before redevelopment. 'Silvertown' was the name of a Men They Couldn't Hang album released in 1989. One song 'Blackfriars Bridge' mentions Silvertown. The district also features in Charlie Connelly's 2004 book, ''Attention All Shipping''. In the first chapter "Sea, Soup and Silvertown" the author describes his grandparents' flight from the area during

and the inspiration for the book. The docks and factories of Silvertown also provide the backdrop for his 2015 book ''Constance Street'' which traces the once thriving community through the lives of 12 women and their struggle for survival during the chaos of the war years. Melanie McGrath's book ''Silvertown'' is a novelistic account of her grandmother's life in the area, where she and her husband ran a cafe. ''

The Sugar Girls ''The Sugar Girls: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End'' is a work of narrative non-fiction based on interviews with women who worked in Tate & Lyle's East End factories in Silvertown from the mid-1940s onwards. Wr ...

'', by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, tells the true stories of women who worked at Tate & Lyle's Silvertown factories, and features much detail on the area.

Notable people

* Frank Bailey (1925–2015), firefighter

References

External links

Silvertown Official Redevelopment Website

Project Silvertown: A film by Ravensbourne students

Stories from Silvertown - Eastside Community Heritage
* {{Authority control Districts of the London Borough of Newham Areas of London Food processing in London Cable manufacture in London Districts of London on the River Thames Port of London