Albert Road is a spinal route running parallel to this stretch of the Thames, which served the substantial commercial and residential development built around the Royal Docks during the late nineteenth century. Parts of the road were either in North Woolwich, Kent, or East Ham, Essex, originally having sequences of street numbering in two directions, but all is now within the London Borough of Newham. This view shows the shop of John Walker, a watchmaker originally from Gloucestershire, and its neighbouring cottage in a terrace that was believed to be on the north side of Albert Road between Dock Street, where Antwerp Way joins Albert Road today, and the High Street, since renamed Pier Road. The shop and neighbouring cottage were numbered successively at the time as numbers 88 and 89 at the time, although they were renumbered in opposite sequence by the time of the 1901 Census, Walker living at number 162 with his wife Elizabeth, their three children, and his father George, also a watchmaker. The shop's hoarding states that Walker's watchmaker and jeweller business had at the time been established for twenty years. The shop window has as its centrepiece an eye-catching clock with Roman numerals lettered GREENWICH TIME showing the time as just after twelve noon, the minute hand being blurred by the relative long exposure time. Below the clock, a number of pocket watches are neatly displayed, and rest of the window is occupied by a selection of mantel clocks in what appear to be dark wooden cases. Metal brackets protrude from the brickwork above the shop, although nothing is suspended. In front of number 89, a blurred image shows what appears to be a small girl playing on doormats on the pavement, possibly with a household pet, also blurred. The entire terrace, the one opposite, St John's church, and the schools in the immediate vicinity were all destroyed by bombing during World War II and the site since redeveloped as housing, a fenced and treelined grass space with parking bays serving the houses in Redbourne Way now standing in place of the original terrace.
