Narrow Street
Narrow Street is a narrow road running parallel to the River Thames through the Limehouse area of east London, England. It used to be much narrower, and is the oldest part of Limehouse, with many buildings originating from the eighteenth century. History Most archaeologists believe that Narrow Street represents the line of the medieval river wall. The wall was built to reclaim riverside marshland and to protect it from the tides. Houses were built, on the wall itself at first, but then outwards onto the foreshore by a process of encroachment. The eastern end of Narrow Street was previously known as Fore Street. A combination of tides and currents made this point on the Thames a natural landfall for ships, the first wharf being completed in 1348. Lime kilns or oasts ("lymehostes") used in the production of mortar and pottery were built here in the fourteenth century. The area grew rapidly in Elizabethan times as a centre for world trade and by the reign of James I nearly half of the area's 2,000 population were mariners. The area supplied ships with ropes and other necessities; pottery was also made here for the ships. Ship chandlers settled here building wooden houses