THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

The “Prospect of Whitby” is nothing much to look at from the street side; but if you go along the narrow passage which separates it from the next building, and so down the worn steps to the waterside, you can step right back three-quarters of a century.  There are a couple of barges lying on the mud, with some men working on their hulls, and behind is the old-fashioned inn, with its green-painted wooden balcony overlooking Limehouse Reach and the Rotherhithe shore opposite, and a row of faces looking over the tops of pint pots, and spitting solemnly into the tide, as the owners of similar faces have done for generations.

Fox Smith/Sailor