Walkways

I walked home over Tower Bridge this afternoon and quickly popped to Starbucks in Shad Thames to grab a coffee to try and warm up and escape the rain. But it didn't look like it was about to stop raining any time soon so I zipped up my coat and quickly walked the last 500 yards - but I had to stop to take this picture.

I love the buildings around Shad Thames anyway - originally river-side warehouses built to store all the cargo brought back to London from all over the world, now luxury apartments, offices and restaurants. Most of the buildings are named after the goods that they used to store - Vanilla & Sesame Court, Wheat Wharf, Cayenne Court... I read somewhere that when the first residents moved in to the renovated warehouses, they could still smell the spices in the brickwork that each building was named after.

These gangways are now just incredibly gorgeous balconies but in the late 1800s they were used to transfer barrels, crates, and cases from one warehouse to another.