Museum of London Docklands
The Museum of London Docklands is housed in Georgian 'low' sugar warehouses, on the fringe of the Canary Wharf metropolis. Each floor is low 
in height because 'hogsheads of sugar' could not be stacked over 8ft, due to their tremendous weight. Back in the late 1980s when the area received the greenlight for development, it tentatively became the Docklands Enterprise Zone. This former sugar warehouse was one of few standing buildings circling the docks, though derelict at the time. The Docklands Light Railway was installed, opened and ran down to Island Gardens, as One Canada Square (the UK's tallest building until The Shard) grew from impossibly narrow footings in the West India Docks.
Centuries earlier, the wharf had been under royal guard, owing to its precious contents, imported from the Canary Islands and West Indies (sugar, rum, coffee and spice). A faltering start in the eighties, followed by bankruptcy [of developers Olympia & York] in the Nineties, lent London Docklands a 'problem child' persona. Then, when no-one was really looking, it took off. Buildings sprouted upwards like elegant glass weeds, clinging to premium dockside space. Competing with one another for sunlight, as suited professionals swarmed below. Those sugar warehouses sat there throughout, ruined but alluring, in the way trading estates never manage to be. Surely someone would save them - the pontoon footbridge seemed to unfurl invitingly at their front door. Someone do... something.
Fortunately they were Grade I listed and not under threat. Today the warehouses are divided into a startling number of restaurant units and thankfully, The Museum of London Docklands. When entering you're 
immediately struck by its aroma - packing cases, cotton bales, seasoned timbers, coils of hemp rope - it smells like a port. Ride the lift to the uppermost floor to begin your tour. Like a helter-skelter, you circulate downwards, though rather less dramatically. Starting with pre-history, there is no great distinction between London as a port or settlement, until the Romans landed in 55 BC. Britannia was at the outer reaches of the empire and with large gold reserves in Wales, Londinium grew from the extensive sea trade it enjoyed. Many exhibits are interactive and some feature Tony Robinson (host of 'Time Team' in the UK and go-to-guy for archaeological trench digging/Baldrick to BBC America viewers).
The Museum of London Docklands is chronological and thoroughly absorbing, so allow more than a few hours to get around. There are many portable stools, like shooting sticks, in case it all gets a bit much. Highlights include 'Sailortown' - a reconstruction of the London Docks in the 1840s, where hanging out in an authentic tavern with piped revelry and squeezebox jigs, can transport you. As can the extensive gallery covering World War 2. Audio accounts, films and eye witness letters recall the drama, alongside exhibits such as the - barely-portable - individual bomb shelters. Guards on duty in the docks would bolt for these steel micro-shelters, as hellfire and brimstone rained from above. It illustrates the sheer range of life and living, that has always existed in London. A city whose growth is inextricably linked to the River Thames.
The final gallery is among the most poignant for Londoners, especially those who remember the docklands of the 70s and 80s. 
Photographs, speeches, industrial action, political will; all at loggerheads and fighting their corner when the vision of a 'new city' emerged. Which of course necessitated the painful demise of its former self. The shipping business relocated from cities, to coastal container ports.
Docklands was unimaginably modern, with enviable transport links, including a pocket-sized airport. Now beyond it, the regeneration wave is radiating through Hackney Marshes, with the Olympic Park development. It all looks so promising on paper, accompanied by fanciful sketches from artists and children - "...but it'll never work!" When leaving, look up; the vertiginous, financial cathedrals remind you not to commit the cardinal sin of 21st century human beings. Of forgetting how things used to be. A dying and derelict area of London, was transformed into a modern cityscape in 20 years. It did work.
If you're planning a day out from Central London (or via the rail terminals there), then consider taking the DLR out to West India Quay (Bank or Tower Hill). See the city zones radically change as you head east (rich/poor/rich). After the museum you can take lunch nearby (packed - if thrifty), wander on foot through the Canary Wharf complex, before catching the DLR to Greenwich (Cutty Sark). Then continue a day exploring London's river heritage, with a visit to the National Maritime Museum.
Admission: Free.
Museum of London Docklands: exhibition/podcast from several years back covering Jack the Ripper's haunts (interesting though).
Museum of London Docklands - opening times:
Monday to Sunday: 10am-6pm
Please note that the galleries will begin to close at 5.40pm
Closed: 24-26 December
The Museum of London is at London Wall, in the City of London.
Museum of London Docklands, No1 Warehouse, London E14 4AL
Call: 020 7001 9844
Nearest Tube: Canary Wharf or West India Quay DLR
