Coldharbour is a street and wider conservation area in Blackwall, lying on the north bank of the River Thames, east of Canary Wharf.

"[4] Those accepting the plainest derivation[4][5] argue that a cold harbour was a "shelter of bare walls... used by travellers who carried their own bedding and provisions",[5] often along a well-known route and similar to a modern bothy.

In alternative, a "coldharbour" could indicate ancient boundary marks in the form of artificial mounds of earth from Roman times, often filled with crockery or charcoal.

[10] The first buildings on Coldharbour appeared by the second decade of the seventeenth century, probably as part of the activities spreading on the Thames riverfront after the opening of the East India Company's shipbuilding yard at Blackwall in 1614.

[10] Evidence of land reclamation, probably related to the digging of the docks and canals in the early nineteenth century, was identified by an archaeological survey.

In 1882 the Metropolitan Asylums Board (MAB) moved its smallpox hospital ships – the Atlas, the Endymion and the Castalia – to new moorings at Long Reach, an isolated stretch of the River Thames near Dartford, about 17 miles (27 km) from London Bridge.

Both these features were designed by the MAB’s own engineer, Adam Miller (also described as a naval architect), who had devised the ventilation system for the hospital ship Castalia.

The Receiving Station had an examination room and an isolation ward for patients too sick to be transferred by river ambulance to Long Reach.

Reputed to be "the finest house in Coldharbour," it was built with two storeys raised above a tall basement and full-height bow windows on the east and north fronts to give the occupants clear views of the Thames and the Blackwall entrance to the Docks.

Nowhere is the muddy horizontal excitement of the Thames more urgent than here, [...] the curvature making sure that the maximum amount of swift-running water stays in view.

"[13] Coldharbour is situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and is bounded by Landons Close to the north, by Marsh Wall to the south, by Preston Road and Wood Wharf to the west and by the river Thames to the east.

BBC World Service editor Andrew Whitehead described it as a "little enclave of riverine London ... spitting distance from Canary Wharf but sealed off from it by dock basins, new developments, and sturdy boundary walls.