Charley, My appologies for not making it to Sharps last night but I was too late getting home to get food and out again in time for it to be worth while.
With Reference to Londons seafaring community, Some of the more"modern" seamens hostels are still in existance(tho with changed functions) along Commercial Road which is the main artery road North of The Highway, These include the Edward the VII Hostel building, which is of particularly ugly yellow bricks (hence its name among seafarers "The Stack of bricks") built in about 1900-1910 and the rather handsome Norwegian Seamans mission (now sadly converted into apartments) which is a few hundred yards further east. If you get the chance to travel on the Docklands Light Railway(DLR) it takes you through much of the remaining docks and gives a good idea of the sheer Scale!of the commercial capacity of the Port of London since Victorian times. If you get a chance ,in Rotherhithe, there is The Mayflower pub still in existence from Elizabethan times where the Pilgrims Ship allegedly left from to go around to Plymouth to pick them up for their voyage to the Americas, it is still in pretty much the same condition too as it was then!

Good Luck
Micca