For us, the nearest place we can get even a sense of the sea – seagulls, mudflats and open water – is in Island Gardens, the park at the bottom of the Isle of Dogs where the foot tunnel goes from, but the lift is not working, and one can look across the Thames to the noble accumulation of fine buildings on the other side, with the Queen Anne Court in the afternoon sun. It was designed by Wren and Hawksmoor to replicate the work of Webb to the west, begun in 1698, financed by the proceeds of a state lottery:-