River Walbrook

The Little Ship Club is a yacht club in London. It was founded in 1926 by a group of yachtsmen for the purpose of providing training and lectures over the winter months. The club operates from its riverside clubhouse at Bell Wharf on the River Thames, and is the only one operating from within the City of London.

The City Livery Club is a members-only club in the City of London which was established in June 1914. It is currently based at 42 Crutched Friars, in the City of London, a site which it shares with the City University Club. The Club is open to men and women. The club was founded "to bind together in one organisation liverymen of the various guilds in the bond of civic spirit, in service to the Ancient Corporation and in the maintenance of the priceless City Churches," and it serves primarily as a social and lunching club for those working in the City. While membership was originally open only to City liverymen, it has since grown to include liverymen and freemen of the livery companies, as well as assorted categories of associate membership. The incumbent Lord Mayor of London is automatically elected patron of the club. The City Livery Club has led something of a peripatetic existence, occupying the De Keyser's Royal Hotel on the Victoria Embankment from 1914 to 1923. It then moved to Williamson's Hotel on Bow Lane, off Cheapside, until 1927, when it moved to the Chapter House in St Paul's Churchyard. This site was bombed during the Blitz in 1940, and temporary lodgings were occupied at Butchers' Hall in Bartholomew Close between 1941 and 1944 until that too was bombed. Its post-War situation was somewhat more permanent, with the 1944 move to Sion College on the Embankment. The 1996 closure of much of the college meant that new premises had to be found – at the Insurance Hall on Aldermanbury, and the club moved again to the Baltic Exchange on St. Mary Axe in 2003. It was most recently based in the premises of the Little Ship Club on Bell Wharf Lane.

Walbrook Wharf is an operating freight wharf in the Port of London located in the City of London adjacent to Cannon Street station. It has been given safeguarded wharf status by the Mayor of London and the Port of London Authority (PLA). The wharf is used as a waste transfer station owned by the City of London Corporation and operated by Cory Environmental. Refuse from central London is transferred onto barges for transport to the Belvedere Incinerator in the London Borough of Bexley. Walbrook Wharf was formerly arranged as a dock, but modern containerised loading has resulted in the infilling of the dock. The wharf is the point where the ancient stream, the Walbrook fed into the Thames, a location also known as Dowgate. The riverside walk runs along Walbrook Wharf and is closed to pedestrians at this point only when waste is being transferred onto barges.

Whittington's Longhouse (or Whittington's Longhouse and Almshouse) was a public toilet in Cheapside, London, constructed with money given or bequeathed by Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. The toilet had 128 seats: 64 for men and 64 for women. It operated from around 1 May 1421, until the seventeenth century.The Longhouse, though it was not London's first public toilet, was the first public toilet in the capital with separate provision for the sexes.The Longhouse, and the similarly financed almshouse for five or six parishioners constructed above it, was built by the parish of St Martin Vintry, on a long dock over the Thames. It was on Walbrook Street, at the time an actual brook, approximately where the modern Bell Wharf Lane is, and was "flushed by the Thames". The waste was deposited in a gully which was washed by the tides twice a day – the Thames being tidal there.Rexroth in his 2007 book Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London argues that with the construction of the almshouse above the privies: "pauperes were assigned new households" where shame had been banished (due to the gender segregation). By the seventeenth century the almshouse was being let on a commercial basis, possibly even as warehousing.The Longhouse was destroyed in the Great Fire of London and rebuilt on a more modest scale. The new building had six male and six female seats, and, apart from a period where the lessees kept it locked, continued in use until at least 1851, as it is mentioned in an 80-year lease that commenced that year. In a 1935 lease, however, no mention is made, and it is assumed the facilities were by that time closed. After the Second World War, the site was rebuilt in 1953 as part of "Redevelopment unit number 10". There is, however, as of 2015, a Bell Wharf Lane public toilet. The Longhouse and the other gifts to London, notably improvements to the water supply and a more substantial almshouse as well as schools and hospitals, are credited with raising the profile of Dick Whittington among Londoners, and for leading to the legends that surround his name. Longhouse became a byword for privy, presumably derived from Whittington's Longhouse.

St John the Baptist upon Walbrook was a parish church in the City of London. It stood in Walbrook Ward, with parts of the parish extending into Cordwainer, Dowgate, and Vintry Wards. Of medieval origin, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and not rebuilt.

The Marchioness disaster was a collision between two vessels on the River Thames in London in the early hours of 20 August 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 51 people. The pleasure steamer Marchioness sank after being hit twice by the dredger Bowbelle at about 1:46 am, between Cannon Street railway bridge and Southwark Bridge. Marchioness had been hired for the evening for a birthday party and had about 130 people on board, four of whom were crew and bar staff. Both vessels were heading downstream, against the tide, Bowbelle travelling faster than the smaller vessel. Although the exact paths taken by the ships, and the precise series of events and their locations, are unknown, the subsequent inquiry considered it likely that Bowbelle struck Marchioness from the rear, causing the latter to turn to port, where she was hit again, then pushed along, turning over and being pushed under Bowbelle's bow. It took thirty seconds for Marchioness to sink; 24 bodies were found within the ship when it was raised. An investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) blamed a lack of lookouts, but their report was criticised by the families of the victims, as the MAIB had not interviewed anyone on Marchioness or Bowbelle, but relied on police interviews. The government refused to hold an inquiry, despite pressure from the families. Douglas Henderson, the captain of Bowbelle, was charged with failing to have an effective lookout on the vessel, but two cases against him ended with a hung jury. A private prosecution for manslaughter against four directors of South Coast Shipping Company, the owners of Bowbelle, and corporate manslaughter against the company was dismissed because of lack of evidence. A formal inquiry in 2000 concluded that "The basic cause of the collision is clear. It was poor lookout on both vessels. Neither vessel saw the other in time to take action to avoid the collision." Criticism was also aimed at the owners of both ships, as well as the Department of Transport and the Port of London Authority. The collision and the subsequent reports led to increased safety measures on the Thames, and four new lifeboat stations were installed on the river.

Skillbeck's Warehouse, formerly 46 Upper Thames Street, London, was a drysalter's warehouse constructed in 1866 by William Burges. Burges was commissioned by the Skilbeck Brothers to re-model an existing warehouse; the result was "hugely influential" representing "probably the most successful attempt ever made to unite the requirements of art and mercantile convenience."The Skilbeck Brothers company had been drysalters in the City of London since the mid-seventeenth century. Burges's re-modelling used "twin pointed bays under a single Gothic relieving arch and gable". The use of exposed cast iron was revolutionary with "..good use of ironwork in the window frames (and) the iron girder which stretch(ed)across the front of the building (was) painted, the bolt heads being gilt". The use of modern materials and technologies was combined with Gothic iconography, "the great crane supported by a corbel carved into a bust of a fair Oriental maid, symbolising the clime from which so much of the drysalter's materials are brought, and over a circular window in the gable (a) ship bringing in its precious freight." The total cost of the work was £1,413.The Victorian critic Charles Locke Eastlake described the warehouse in his A History of the Gothic Revival as; "one of the very few instances of the successful adaptation of Gothic for commercial purposes." The warehouse was demolished after 1970.

The Coroner's Court for the City of London is located at Walbrook Wharf, 78-83 Upper Thames Street.

Five Kings House (formerly Thames House) is an office building in the City of London on the corner of Upper Thames Street and Queen Street Place, postcode EC4R 1QS. It is Grade II listed, Number:1358918.It was built in 1911 by Thomas Collcutt and Stanley Hamp for Liebig's Extract of Meat Company.The façade contains architectural sculptures by Richard Garbe. The figures representing Abundance over the central entrance are by Frank Lynn Jenkins. Over the corner doorway is a canopy decorated with reclining figures, a skull on a pediment and a tablet with cherubs.Those over the grand entrance on the corner with Upper Thames Street represent Mercury and a female figure by George Duncan MacDougald (1880-1945). Above this is a relief of Pegasus with two male figures and capitals with an owl and eagle.The central Queen Street doorway has crouched figures in a canopy and cherubs above.The former doorway to the south has figures in lead. The upper pediment has naked reclining figures with a child above. The winged keystone is decorated with fruit and eagles. The doorway has an Atlas keystone with an owl motif above. In the spandrels are reliefs of two naked female figures. A bronze sailing ship is in front of the oculus, supported on cartouche with the inscription "THAMES HOUSE".

St Martin Vintry was a parish church in the Vintry ward of the City of London, England. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and never rebuilt.

The Worshipful Company of Vintners is one of the oldest Livery Companies of the City of London, England, thought to date back to the 12th century. It is one of the "Great Twelve" livery companies of London, and its motto is Vinum Exhilarat Animum, Latin for "Wine Cheers the Spirit". One of the more peculiar rights of the Company involves the ceremony of swan upping.

The Worshipful Company of Innholders is one of the 110 Livery Companies of the City of London. The innholders were originally known as hostellers, but their name had changed by the time it was incorporated under a royal charter in 1514. The Company has, over the years, lost its status as an association of traders and businessmen, instead becoming, as have most of the other Livery Companies, an establishment dedicated primarily to charity. The Innholders' Company ranks 32nd in the order of precedence of all the Livery Companies. Its motto is Hinc Spes Affulget, Latin for Hence Hope Shines Forth, and it is based at Innholders' Hall in College Street, between Cannon Street and Upper Thames Street.