Wapping

I didn’t realise how cool Wapping was till the other day. 200 years ago London docks were the main area of commerce in London and the river would have been full of ships coming and going. Over time the ships became too big to travel far up the Thames and the commerce of the docks began to dwindle. Eventually, the area was redeveloped. Part of Wapping’s colourful history includes it being the final stop for convicted mutineers and pirates who were brought to Wapping’s infamous Execution Dock to be hung. Condemned prisoners faced slow suffocation using a short-drop rope rather than a quick neck-breaking drop and the bodies remained tethered in the mud or gallows structure to endure three complete tidal cycles of submersion before removal or gibbet display.

Although Execution Dock was used for this grisly purpose for around 400 years, there are no records to show where the original gallows were located. #wapping #wappinghistory #london #secretlondon