Tunnels and Staircases

We explored several tunnels and staircases during our walk from Woolwich to North Greenwich, many of them going under the Woolwich Road to what were the factories. The last image shows the only remains of that era, the tall chimney just about opposite where my great aunts lived (now a play area). The last staircase is the Premier Inn in Woolwich.

Regent's Canal

The Regent's Canal Company was formed in 1812 to cut a new canal from the Grand Junction Canal's Paddington Arm to Limehouse, where a dock was planned at the junction with the Thames. Completed in 1820, it was built too close to the start of the railway age to be financially successful and narrowly escaped being turned into a railway. The canal survived and carried huge quantities of timber, coal, building materials and foodstuffs into and out of London into the 1960s. It was closed to shipping in 1969 and its future looked bleak. but in 1979 the British Waterways Board allowed underground electricity cables to be laid in a trough below the towpath between St John’s Wood and City Road. Pumped canal water is used to cool these high voltage cables, which now form part of the National Grid.

CCC King's Cross Outing 1. The Tunnel

Always a great location for images, many of us started our photography in the underground tunnel. I started playing with shutterspeeds to see the effect on the tunnel lighting. The faster shutterspeeds (above 1/200th) gave patterns in the wall as did slow speeds 1/60th (image 7). The smooth effects as in image 2 were shot at 1/125th - no doubt someone will add an explanation. Also here a couple of in-camera multiexposures