[1] Leave Skylines Office Village by the exit onto Limeharbour. Turn left into Limeharbour. After a few hundred yards, past the left turn into Glengall Grove/East Ferry Road, cross the road by the pelican crossing.
[2] Double back for about 20 yards and turn left into the pedestrian walkway – there is a blue sign labelled Tiller Road, Newspaper Education Trust etc. Pass Crossharbour DLR station on your left and pass a row of shops with an open colonnade in front. At the end of the colonnade turn left into Turnberry Quay. Slightly to your right and ahead you will see the water of Millwall Dock, walk onto the Dockside walkway and turn left along it. There are a number of large houseboats – former barges – moored here.
[3] Follow the Dockside walkway round in front of a tall block of apartments and past a semi-circular green space. Carry on round the long arm of the Dock – on the Clippers Quay development. This is a graving or dry dock.
Clippers Quay was one of the first new estates on the Isle of Dogs after the closure of the docks and its subsequent redevelopment.
Keep on the Dockside you will see the Docklands Sailing Club at the end of the Dock. When you reach the end, walk out into Westferry Road and turn left.
[4] As you pass the first road off to your left, notice its name - Dockers’ Tanner Road.
This is a reference to the Dock Strike in 1889 when the Dockers went on strike for a minimum wage of 6d an hour; a sixpence in pre-decimal money was known as a tanner.
Carry on along Westferry Road for about ¼ mile. You will pass the unusual looking building now called The Space – an arts centre. It was a Congregational Church, built in the mid 19th century in what was called Byzantine style. Pass St Edmund’s Church and then cross Westferry Road by the zebra crossing. Then take the second turning to your right off the main road where you see a sign pointing towards the Thames Path and Mast House Pier (there is no street name on this road).
[5] Go straight ahead through Ferguson Close and through the chicane on the left hand side of the double archway at the end. Stop here on the riverside to look at the view. Looking upstream, to the right, you will see the oddly shaped building known as The Gherkin and other tall buildings in the City. On the opposite bank, and to the right, is Rotherhithe Pier and immediately opposite is Convoy’s Wharf – the last working wharf in this section of the River. Carry on walking and a little further along there is a stop for river boats – Mast House Pier.
[6] Just past the Pier stop again for a few minutes to look at the slipway to the left of the Thames Path where Brunel’s ship, the Great Eastern, was built and launched; there is an explanatory panel to read. A little further along the River there is another panel telling the history of Burrell’s Wharf and the dye works that used to occupy this site. Continue walking along the riverside until you reach the Thai restaurant, Elephant Royale. Stop to look across the River towards Deptford and Greenwich. Looking over to the opposite bank you will see the tall brick tower of Greenwich town hall with its prominent clock which built in the 1930s. You can now also get a good view of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich with its magnificent frontage on the River. This was built for retired seamen by Christopher Wren in the late seventeenth century and is now the main campus of Greenwich University.
[7] Here the Thames Path leaves the River briefly and you will have to walk through the restaurant car park and out into the street by The Ferry House pub. Continue in the direction in which you have been walking, along Ferry Street; the River is just out of sight to your right. Felstead Wharf, with its green painted garage doors, is on your right. At the end of Ferry Street go straight ahead – Poplar Rowing Club is on your right - following the sign to Greenwich Foot Tunnel and go through the gates into Island Gardens. The first building you will see is the little cafe with a teapot and teacup design in the brickwork.
[8] Walk along the riverside - where there is an information panel detailing the buildings you can see across the River in Greenwich - and then double back at the end of the Gardens to do a complete circuit. (There are picnic tables in the Gardens and the cafe is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10am til 5 or 6pm; closing time depends on staff. There are no toilets at the cafe but there are some beside Island Gardens DLR station). Leave Island Gardens by the gates through which you came in. Cross the road and follow the sign to Island Gardens DLR station along a pathway with a high brick wall on your right.
[9] Cross the main road – Manchester Road – by the pelican crossing and take the path to the right of the DLR station. Go into Millwall Park through the chicane. Follow this path with the playing fields on your right and the arches of a viaduct of carrying a disused railway line to your left. At the end of the line of brick arches take the left hand fork of the path. Go through the chicane to leave the Park and turn right into East Ferry Road. You will now follow this road for about ¼ mile past Mudchute Park and Asda and back to Skylines Village.