Susan has started a new job at the Greenwich Heritage Centre which is the local museum and archive for the Borough of Greenwich. The Heritage Centre is located in Woolwich in what was once the Royal Dockyards and Arsenal. When we walked the Capital Ring, the 70+ mile signposted path that runs through  a corridor of parks and greenways around the city, we had walked through the Royal Arsenal, but had no time to stop and explore. Susan's new job gave us a good reason to plan an excursion to the eastern end of the Thames Path to see the Thames Flood Barrier.

We began our walk at the North Greenwich Tube Station where the infamous Millennium Dome is to be found. From the worst public exhibition ever slapped together ten years ago, through years of redundancy, the Dome is now the highly successful O-2 concert venue.

This end of the river is not all beautiful. Yacht clubs and high rise flats mix with warehouses and working piers. Aggregate stone for construction is loaded onto a barge at this pier.

Along the way, the Greenwich Ecology Centre provided a lovely view of the natural river with a boardwalk and bird hides.

On our Capital Ring Walk from Woolwich last spring, we did not detour to visit the Thames Barrier because, sadly, the Thames Path has a major diversion away from the river to a very unpleasant busy road just to the east of the Barrier.  The Barrier looms out of the water like some sort of giant art installation of silver helmets.

The Thames Barrier was completed in 1982 to prevent tidal surges — the Thames is a tidal estuary through London — from swamping the city when storm surges are forced up the river from the North Sea. When a surge is predicted the Barrier's gates rotate into place to hold the incoming tide back. This will work until rising sea level caused by global warming requires a taller barrier. And it doesn't offer much help to the river dwellers to the east of the Barrier.

Looking back to the Millennium Dome and Canary Wharf

The unprotected side of the Barrier. The navigation channels are spaced to the same size as  Tower Bridge, the entry point into the Pool of London.

To avoid the unpleasant road, we took the bus into Woolwich where we met Susan at the Royal Arsenal
for lunch.  Woolwich has had a long connection with the military since Henry VIII chose the spot to build his warships at the Royal Dockyards. The Royal Navy that ruled the world was the product of that Dockyard. When guns and ammunition and bombs became the preferred weapons of war, a dedicated metal working facility was needed to ensure quality production of armaments, and Woolwich Arsenal was founded in the late 17th century. War was a growth industry and the Arsenal employed up to 80,000 workers during the war years of the 20th century. In the late 1960s the Arsenal closed, however the site remained in military use until the 1990s. It is now being rehabbed for mixed use residential, office and commercial space, with a few cultural amenities too.

At lunch, Susan mentioned one of the new commuter boat services being encouraged by the Mayor, stopped at the Royal Arsenal pier, so we thought a boat trip back to central London would top off the day. We wended our way through a public sculpture at the pier entrance.

And discovered the boat comes out to Woolwich only during commuter rush hours, so we hopped a bus back to North Greenwich where the boat leaves every 20 minutes.

Our boat was one of the ones painted with Damian Hirst dots  by the Tate.

Entering London through Tower Bridge.

And we were back home in time to meet friends for dinner at the gastropub at the end of our street.