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A DLR station in south-east Beckton, named after the stretch of the Thames between Woolwich and Barking Creek. Gallions Point, at the entrance to the King George
V Dock, is nine nautical miles below London Bridge. The Galyons were a fourteenth century family who owned property on the
shoreline. The station is located to the north-west of its predecessor ‘Gallions’, a ship-to-rail transfer point
on the Port of London Authority’s railway. Gallions had opened in 1880, but closed with the branch line in 1940. The
grade II listed Gallions Hotel, built to accommodate travellers who were halting overnight, has been restored as part of the
area’s redevelopment after many years of dereliction. At the time of writing, watersports facilities line the shore
and go-karting tracks criss-cross the station’s hinterland but ambitious development plans are in progress; already
a pharmaceuticals company has based itself here and a shopping park has opened on part of the disused gasworks site where
Stanley Kubrick filmed the Vietnam scenes for Full Metal Jacket and James Bond dispatched Blofeld down a chimney in For Your Eyes Only.
In 1878 Gallions Reach was the scene of Britain’s worst ever disaster when the Princess Alice pleasure steamer sank
with the loss of more than 600 lives.
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