Living in Custom House: area guide to homes, schools and transport

Shiny new flats along east London's Royal Docks sit next to traditional homes in the more established neighbourhoods of Custom House and Beckton - and the arrival of a Crossrail station will make the journey to central London even faster.
In the sky: Arrive in Custom House by cable car from the southern side of the river
Anthea Masey12 February 2016

Anyone who takes the Docklands Light Railway through the Royal Docks, or drives down Royal Docks Road to the Gallions Reach shopping park knows that this is London’s last frontier. There are shiny new dockside flats next to traditional homes in the more established neighbourhoods of Custom House and Beckton, but there are still endless empty and derelict sites waiting for the capital’s much-vaunted shift eastward.

In the last few months, London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced three major new developments that will start gobbling up some of these redundant acres. A new £1 billion business district to rival the City and Canary Wharf is proposed for the Royal Albert Dock.

Chinese developer ABP is working with UK developer Stanhope and architects Farrells on the site, on a narrow strip of land between Royal Albert Way and the north side of the dock. The scheme is aimed at Chinese and Asian businesses needing a European base. Up to 20,000 new jobs are promised and the first occupants could be in as early as 2017, with an end in sight by 2022.

And even the Royal Victoria Dock itself — the most developed of the three docks which make up “The Royals” — has plans. The Mayor has thrown down the gauntlet with a request to developers to come up with proposals for a floating village on 15 acres of water in the shadow of the giant limbs of the Emirates cable car, where the popular beach is currently attracting hundreds of heatwave sunbathers. The floating village takes its inspiration from similar projects at IJburg in Amsterdam and Hafen, Hamburg.

This is an area already well-served by public transport. The Docklands Light Railway has seven stations on the line between Canning Town and Beckton and five stations on the spur from Canning Town to Woolwich. But with Crossrail coming, the journey into central London and Heathrow will get even easier. A new Crossrail station at Custom House on the site of the old North London line station opens in 2018. It will cut 10 minutes from the journey to Bond Street and 35 minutes off the journey to Heathrow.
 

Between Newham Way — the A13 — and Royal Albert Way there are more traditional roads of modern terrace houses and flats in Custom House and Beckton, where prices remain relatively affordable.

The Crystal is one of London's newest landmarks. Designed by William Eyre Architects, the same team behind the Mary Rose Museum, it houses a permanent sustainability exhibition.
Graham Hussey


Postcodes

E16 is the Royal Docks postcode covering an area from Canning Town and Custom House to North Woolwich. It excludes Beckton which is in E6.

Best roads

Not so much best roads, more best developments, and these are Capital East on the north side of Royal Victoria Dock and Barrier Point, between North Woolwich Road and the Thames next to the Thames Barrier Park and the Thames Barrier.

What's new
There are new flats and houses in pockets all along the docks, from the long-established Britannia Village on the Royal Victoria Dock that was developed as long ago as 1995, and Gallions Reach at the furthest end of the King George V Dock, to the newer Capital East development next to ExCeL, where the asking price for a penthouse is currently an eye-popping £1,000 a square foot.

A £1.5  billion Silvertown Quays development, on the south side of the Royal Victoria Docks is a joint venture between Chelsfield and First Base and will offer an avenue of “pavilions” to showcase and exhibit products from leading global brands.

The development, which also includes 1,500 new homes, leisure facilities and a new bridge over the dock to the ExCeL centre, envelops the smaller Pontoon Dock. Work on the 50-acre site could start as early as 2014.

The area attracts

Young professional singles and couples like the easy commute to work in Canary Wharf. According to estate agent Zed Norat at Royal Docks Property Services, buyers are very international.
 

Staying power

Once couples decide to start a family, the search for a house with a garden forces them to look elsewhere.

Travel

Custom House and the Royal Docks are close to the A13. The neighbourhood is well-served by the Docklands Light Railway and there is a connection with the Jubilee line at Canning Town.

All the stations in the Royal Docks are in Zone 3 and an annual travel card to Zone 1 is £1,424.

Photographs by Graham Hussey

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

There are small parades of local shops scattered throughout the area. The retail park at Gallions Reach on Armada Way, off Royal Docks Road, has branches of high street names including Topshop, Next, River Island, TK Maxx and Tesco Extra.

Yi-Ban, above the London Regatta Centre on the Connaught Bridge, is a Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant where diners watch the planes take off from London City airport. Nakhan Thai is a Thai restaurant at the western edge of the Royal Victoria Dock.

Open space

The Thames Barrier Park, which opened in 2000, is an innovative space overlooking the Thames Barrier. It has an unusual green wave garden, laid out in a former dock basin, with lines of undulating hedges interspersed with perennial plantings. New Beckton Park has football and rugby pitches and tennis courts, while the adjacent Beckton District Park has football and a fishing lake.


Leisure and the arts

The western end of the Royal Victoria Dock has become a summer playground with a beach for sunbathing and swimming, zip wires at Cable Wake Park for wakeboarding, and two bars — The Shack and The Oiler Bar, on an old barge. Nearby, you can find The Crystal, a visitors’ centre opened in September 2012 which is run by Siemens, the German engineering conglomerate, and promotes ideas for sustainable urban living.

There is also the long-established ExCeL exhibition centre and the northern terminal for the Emirates cable car to North Greenwich. The London Regatta Centre on Dockside Road, close to the Connaught Bridge, is a leading rowing centre.

Three things you may not know about Custom House
Who are “The Sugar Girls”?
The stories of the young women who worked at the Tate & Lyle factories in Silvertown and North Woolwich in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s are told in a new book “The Sugar Girls” by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi. Sugar refining is one of the few remaining heavy industries left in the Royal Docks. Tate & Lyle is still a looming presence in the area with a large refinery on the Thames close to London City Airport.

Why was an explosion, which killed 69 people, largely forgotten?
In January 1917 towards the end of the World War 1, the government needed to increase the production of explosive shells. A disused factory at Crescent Wharf in Silvertown was brought into use but in January 1917, 50 tons of TNT exploded, which flattened a whole neighbourhood, killed 69 people and wounded another 400. Government censors suppressed the details of the explosion and the event passed into history largely unrecorded.
 

What do Coldplay fans know about one of the most iconic buildings in the Royal Docks?
The video for Coldplay’s 2011 hit Every Teardrop is a Waterfall was shot at Millennium Mills on the south side of Royal Victoria Dock. This imposing derelict Spillers flour mill was once surrounded by other large flour mills. Now part of the Silvertown Quays development, it has become a magnet for urban explorers and groups of intrepid trespassers who break into derelict buildings to document them before they are converted or demolished.

Schools

Primary School

A high proportion of the pupils in local schools are on free school meals, but notwithstanding this level of deprivation, the area has many well-rated primary schools. The following are judged “outstanding” by the government’s education watchdog Ofsted: St Luke’s CofE in Ruscoe Road, Hallsville in Radland Road, St Joachim’s RC in Shipman Road, Britannia Village in Westwood Road and North Beckton in East Ham Manor Way.

Comprehensive

The best performing local comprehensive school is Brampton Manor (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Roman Road which is also judged “outstanding”.

Private

Faraday School (co-ed, ages four to 11) at nearby Trinity Buoy Wharf is a private primary school.

Higher education

There is a University of East London campus and student village with over 1,200 student rooms at the far eastern end of the Royal Albert Dock, including the colourful circular Edward Cullinan-designed blocks.

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