HOME AT FIRST's

London

DREAM DESTINATIONS WITH ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME

BRITAIN & IRELAND

Comfortable, modern one and two bedroom apartments
at a location with superb history, atmosphere, and convenience.

THE ACCOMMODATIONS: the Apartments at St. Katharine’s Marina are located in two multi-story modern apartment buildings which border a rectangular yacht basin, the historic East Dock at St. Katharine’s. The apartments come in various sizes, with sleeping capacities of from 1-to-6 persons. The larger flats are maisonettes, that is, two-story flats with 2 bedrooms, 1½ baths, kitchen, dining, and living rooms.
          Most of the one-bedroom apartments have small balconies overlooking the marina toward the famous Tower Bridge on the inside of the square. The larger maisonette apartments have furnished patios. All of the apartments have well-equipped kitchens, color cable TV (with CNN), washer/dryer, microwave, coffee maker, and hair dryer, as well as a table-top coin-operated pay telephones.
          The apartment buildings all have elevators ("lifts" in British) and locked entrance doors for security. Once each week all apartments are cleaned and fresh towels and linens are supplied. Guests can contact the helpful, welcoming caretaker with questions about the apartments or even about getting around London.
 

THE EAST DOCK OF ST. KATHARINE'S
MARINA. HOME AT FIRST'S APARTMENTS ARE
 LOCATED IN THE APARTMENT BUILDINGS IN
THE BACKGROUND BORDERING THE EAST DOCK.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

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CLICK THE ICONS to see images of the Apartments at St. Katharine's Marina
and their spectacular setting by the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London:
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CATHERINE
OF ARAGON
(1 BEDROOM)
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ANNE BOLEYN
(1 BEDROOM)

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JANE SEYMOUR
(1 BEDROOM)

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ANNE OF CLEVES
(2 BEDROOMS)

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KATHRYN
HOWARD
(2 BEDROOMS)
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IMAGES OF ST.
KATHARINE'S
MARINA
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THE SETTING: St. Katharine’s Marina is an urban renewal success story. Two decades ago, the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge marked the border between London’s commercial and banking center (called "The City") and Cockney East London, with its tenements, warehouses, and docklands. St. Katharine’s Dock had been the westernmost of these warehouse-lined dockyards, the last mooring before the Tower drawbridge impeded ocean-going ships. Nearby Fleet Street was home to the many London newspapers.
 
                                                        During the 1980’s expansion brought

TOWER BRIDGE BY THE ENTRANCE
TO ST. KATHARINE'S MARINA.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

developers into East London. The blight and decay of East London was replaced by a well planned and fashionable district called The Docklands. Entirely new neighborhoods with parks, shopping centers, schools, and the Docklands Light Railway sprang up seemingly overnight in the district. Fashionable restaurants soon followed. One of the first projects to take shape was the redevelopment of the St. Katharine’s Dock and warehouses into an upscale yacht basin surrounded by apartment buildings, offices, restaurants, and shops. The dock was renamed St. Katharine’s Marina, and was restricted

to pedestrian traffic only.

          In the years since completion of the redevelopment of St. Katharine’s Dock the neighborhood has become one of London’s most desirable addresses. Residents do not contend with the noise and bustle of constant city traffic. They can shop and eat within their own complex, and need not cross a city street to reach the nearest tube stop (at Tower Hill Station) or to cross the Thames (on the Tower Bridge).

THE SERVICES: St. Katharine’s Marina has numerous shops and restaurants within a couple of minutes walk of any Home at First apartment in the complex. Best known of all the restaurants is the Dickens Inn, a 18th century brewery that has been brought to St. Katharine’s and houses a pub, a restaurant, and a pizza restaurant. The complex also offers an ice cream parlor, and restaurants featuring Indian cuisine, seafood, Continental cuisine, light meals, American cuisine, British cuisine, even a medieval feast theme.

AN ARCADE OF SHOPS LINES
THE MARINA'S CENTER BASIN.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

THE DICKENS INN, ONCE A BREWERY, HAS
BECOME THE CENTERPIECE OF THE MARINA.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

THE LOCATION: A series of marked footpaths leads in all directions from St. Katharine’s Marina. From most apartments the walk to the Tower Hill Underground Station takes 5-10 minutes. The marina complex includes the Dickens Inn, with a pub and restaurant, plus many other restaurants and shops. After a day of sightseeing in the hustle and bustle of downtown London, guests find the marina’s quiet atmosphere a joyful refuge.

ACTIVITIES POSSIBLE: St. Katharine’s Marina is an ideal location for those looking to enjoy the best of London's history and culture while staying in a quiet, safe, beautiful environment. From the Tower Hill tube station all of central London is within a 30-minute Underground trip or less. London’s primary theater district centered around Covent Garden and Leicester Square, and the major museums of Trafalgar Square, Moorgate, and Bloomsbury are within 20 minutes of the marina.

THE TOWER OF LONDON
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

          Getting to London’s major rail stations is also

easy from Tower Hill Underground. This makes it easy for guests to travel out of London on day trips to places like Windsor Castle, Brighton, Rye, Dover, Oxford, Cambridge, Stratford-on-Avon, Bath, Salisbury & Stonehenge, and even to Cardiff, Wales. For those in no particular hurry, a bus stop for London’s famous red buses is just 3 minutes from most St. Katharine’s apartments.
 

        Like history, restaurants, walking, and shopping? It’s a short walk (5 minutes) to the infamous, medieval Tower of London, and just as short to visit the landmark Tower Bridge. Walk north to discover the fascinating, historic, and relatively unknown City of London. And, while restaurants and shops abound in the marina and its adjacent neighborhoods, it’s also easy to walk across the Tower Bridge to the South Bank to discover more shops and restaurants. And a walk east or west along the Thames Path is a walk through 2,000 years of British history in the fascinating and ever-changing context of the River Thames. Also reachable on foot from St. Katharine’s are: St. Paul’s Cathedral, Wren’s Monument to the Great Fire, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the Bank of England Museum, the Tate Modern museum of art, Southwark Cathedral, the historic pubs of Wapping and Limehouse, and All Hallows by the Tower church. Nearby are open-air markets at Bermondsey, Borough, Gabriel’s

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

Wharf, Riverside Walk, Spitafields, Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, and Leadenhall.

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 BRING THE KIDS!

          Want to bring the whole family or just a favored child or grandchild? The apartments at St. Katharine's are perfect for families with children: TV, DVD players, grocery, laundry, and pizza
restaurants within 5 minutes from your front door, a safe traffic-free environment, surrounded with 2,000 years of touchable history. All this can be yours for a price that can be much less than a trip to Disney World! See here for more information:
 • Jacklyn Goes to London (a grandmother brings her 7-year-old granddaughter).
 • "Disney World or London" — a surprising price comparison!
 • "Kids Stay Free!" — HOME AT FIRST's special Family Travel promotion.
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2000 YEARS OF LONDON HISTORY
CONVERGE ON TOWER HILL.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

THE HISTORY: The land that has become the modern complex of apartments and shops built around an attractive yacht basin has been involved in commerce since before the Romans came to Britain. When the Romans built Londinium in the first century, the landing wharves of what would become St. Katharine’s Dock were on the river’s edge just outside the city walls.
        Near the end of the first millennium Saxon King Edgar awarded 13 acres of prime riverfront land to a group of knights. This group bequeathed the property to an Augustinian priory shortly after the

Norman Conquest. At least a portion of the land

 was used for a hospice — a medieval concept providing safe lodging for travelers and hospital for the sick. Around 1150 AD, Queen Matilda gave royal recognition to this hospice as the "Royal Foundation of St. Katharine".
          Over the centuries of the Middle Ages the hospice at St. Katharine’s survived despite Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, civil war, and the devastations of plague and fire that swept through London. What it could not survive was the Industrial Revolution.

          During the 18th century rapid commercial growth brought more and more trading ships up the Thames to London, creating a need for new wharves and warehouses close to the markets of the city. The great Scottish engineer Thomas Telford was contracted to build new, high-tech docks at St. Katharine’s. The medieval hospice buildings—including the church of St. Katharine’s—that had survived so much turmoil were demolished for the new docks, which opened to great fanfare in October, 1828. For the next 150 years St. Katharine's Docks served central London merchants

THE OPENING OF THOMAS TELFORD'S
ST. KATHARINE'S DOCK IN 1828.

as their closest major shipping and warehousing

facility. Many of the most valuable of imported commodities—including rare feathers, decorative shells, tea, indigo, marble, perfume, and ivory—came through St. Katharine’s Docks, which warehoused "the world’s greatest collection of portable wealth" during much of its useful life.
          That useful life ended during the Blitz of World War II, when German bombers concentrated on St. Katharine’s Docks and the other warehouse and wharf facilities of East London in an attempt to break the economic backbone of Britain. So effective were these raids that St. Katharine’s was largely destroyed. For the most part the docks and warehouses were not rebuilt after the war, and the area remained a derelict eyesore on the east end of London. By 1970 all commercial operations at the docks ceased.
                                                       A creative vision of a revitalized Docklands

THE EAST DOCK AT ST. KATHARINE'S
MARINA. THE QUIET, BEAUTIFUL MARINA
IS ONE OF LONDON'S MOST DESIRABLE,
FASHIONABLE RESIDENTIAL AREAS.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST
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along the Thames transformed London’s former warehouse district during the last two decades of the twentieth century. New housing, new shops, a new light rail line and an extension of the London Underground has turned the blight of the old docks into a fashionable district to live and work. No portion of the Docklands redevelopment has matched the success of St. Katharine’s Docks, which have become London’s premier yacht basin, and a pleasant, traffic-free destination for shopping, dining, and recreation. The quiet, upscale, and beautiful confines of the renamedSt. Katharine’s Marina are now among London’s most desirable, fashionable residential areas.

AVAILABILITY: For current availability information,
call HOME AT FIRST at (800) 523-5842,
or contact us by e-mail at: info@homeatfirst.com.
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