Of all the places in London's East end which have been gentrified over the years, Wapping is one that stands out.
I'm wondering if any of the Porsche and Land rover owners who occupy apartments in the former warehouses are aware of the connection with Dartmoor, the prison, that is.
The former warehouses which line the river front abutting onto Wapping High Street or Wapping Street as it wass then, were designed in the nineteenth century by Daniel Asher Alexander the Surveyor to the London Docks company.
It is said that his work was heavily influenced by the Florentine artist Giovanni Piranesi and in particular his macabre drawings of imaginary prisons.
Not difficult to see that this influence is evident in the warehouses in Wapping. Later Alexander had the opportunity to put this enflunece into greater effect when he was commission in the early 1800s to design the new prison on Dartmoor.
