By River to Limehouse: Barking Riverside to The Grapes

Take the Suffragette line of the London Overground to the end of the line. It was named in 2024 after the movement for women's votes, and Barking was home to local suffragette Annie Huggett. The station opened in 2022 as the centrepiece of Barking Riverside, a whole new neighbourhood being built on former power-station land beside the Thames.

The river pier is about five minutes' walk away: head south from Station Square towards the water and follow the signs for the pier.

The most easterly pier on the Uber Boat by Thames Clippers network, opened in 2022. You can tap in with a contactless card, or show a ticket bought in advance. While you wait, look across the wide river to the Kent bank and Thamesmead. It feels a long way from the City, but central London is about an hour away by boat.

Take a westbound boat (towards central London) and get off at Canary Wharf.

Most Clippers have a café bar: barista coffee, tea and hot chocolate, plus snacks, sandwiches and cakes. They also sell beer and prosecco, if it's that sort of day. Payment is card-only. A few of the smaller boats have no bar, so if you're set on a coffee, get one on board before you settle in.

Take it out to the back deck and watch for these, in order:

• Woolwich, the first stop, where the Royal Arsenal made guns and ammunition for over 300 years.
• The Thames Barrier: the boat passes between its huge silver hoods, which close to protect London from tidal surges.
• The O2 at North Greenwich, and the cable car crossing the river above you.
• Greenwich: the Royal Naval College, the Cutty Sark and the Royal Observatory on the hill.
• The towers of Canary Wharf rising ahead as the river loops round the Isle of Dogs.

From Barking Riverside to Canary Wharf takes roughly 40 minutes, depending on the stops.

Get off here, below Westferry Circus. Instead of heading into the towers, turn right along the river and follow the Thames Path signs north towards Limehouse. It's a quiet walk of 10–15 minutes past riverside flats and old wharves, with views back up the river towards Tower Bridge and the City. The path leaves the river briefly in places, so keep following the signs, and you'll come out on Narrow Street.

A pub has stood on this spot beside Limehouse Reach for nearly 500 years. Originally the Bunch of Grapes, it is a narrow building on (fittingly) Narrow Street, part of a Georgian terrace that survived the Blitz. Charles Dickens knew Limehouse from boyhood, and the waterside tavern in the opening chapter of Our Mutual Friend is widely taken to be this one. Local legend has it that Sir Walter Raleigh set off on one of his voyages from the river just below.

The pub is now run by a partnership that includes Sir Ian McKellen, who lives nearby (look out for the staff behind the bar). Squeeze through the long, panelled bar to the little terrace at the back, right over the water. Standing in the river below is Antony Gormley's iron figure Another Time. There is real ale in the bar and a dining room upstairs.

Open from midday. Check the website for current food times, and book if you want to eat upstairs.