Silvertown

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Silvertown

Coordinates: 51.4966° N 0.0393° E
OS grid reference	TQ415795
London borough	Newham
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	E16
Dial code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
London Assembly	City and East
European Parliament	London

Silvertown is an industrialised suburb in the London Borough of Newham dominated by the Tate & Lyle sugar factory and transformed since 1970 by the construction of the Thames Barrier, an adjacent park, new housing areas and the London City Airport. Up until 2004, Higgs International Logistics were also situated in Silvertown. It formed part of the County Borough of West Ham in Essex until 1965.

Silvertown, with the now closed station centre. The massive Tate & Lyle works is to picture right (February 2007)

The distinctive Tate Institute, once a social centre for Tate & Lyle workers, which also once housed the local library (February 2007)

Access was much improved in 1999 with the completion of the Jubilee Line extension from Green Park to Stratford and has been further enhanced through an extension of the Docklands Light Railway from Canning Town to King George V which opened in December 2005. However, the old Silvertown station, near the Tate & Lyle works on the North London Line, was closed in December 2006, possibly permanently.

On 19 January 1917 parts of Silvertown were devastated by a massive TNT explosion at the Brunner-Mond munitions factory. Seventy-three people died and hundreds were injured in one of the largest explosions ever experienced in the British Isles.

Silvertown is featured in a ballad by Mark Knopfler titled ‘Silvertown Blues’ and describes the area as it once was before redevelopment.