VicLondon-Docks Wapping
The Docks & Wapping, the City
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District Traits
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Notable Locations
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Another major industry of the City is transportation. Several bridges along the Thames connect the City with Southwark. Blackfriar’s Bridge crosses from Bridge Street to Blackfriars Road in the south. It is girded by rail bridges taking traf c from St. Paul’s and Ludgate Hill Stations over to the south bank. Southwark Bridge, London Bridge, and Tower Bridge (next to the Tower of London) provide foot and carriage traf c into the southern districts, Cannon Street Station a railway connection to the massive London Bridge Station. In addition to the bridges, docks run the length of Upper and Lower Thames Streets. St. Paul’s Pier and Queenhithe Docks and Stairs are used mostly by locals delivering sh and other products of the metropolitan area to the markets along the Thames. Steam Packet Wharf next to London Bridge provides a landing point for postal packet boats.
The markets and warehouses are busy along the Lower Thames Road. Next to London Bridge is the Fishmongers Hall, a meeting place for local sherman, and a massive indoor sh market where market buyers come to purchase product in bulk. Smaller purchases can be made here as well, and the hall is always packed with business. It opens promptly at six in the morning and is often open until seven in the evening. Billingsgate Market is alongside the Customs House, and here there is a steady stream of goods from around London and abroad. It is primarily for wholesale shoppers, looking for a good deal. Across from Billingsgate is the Coal Tunstens Exchange. Stretching from the Customs House all the way to Fenchurch Road are the Communal Sales Rooms, a huge set of warehouse buildings that have grown together sometime in the past to create a Grand Seraglio-like shopping space. These warehouses store goods that have come through the Customs House. Here things are sold in bunk, primarily, to purchasing agents from the department stores and other shops around the city. It is constantly bustling with activity and is open from seven to seven.
The Customs House is west of the Tower of London, and has its own quay to handle shipping, but in the last century, the docks of London have expanded too much for all of the goods transiting the city to come through the building for inspection and taxation. (It should be noted the Internal Revenue Of ce is across Lower Thames Street from the Customs House.) Now customs inspectors, often working with the Thames Police, leave the Customs House to travel by skiff or river steamer to the various dockyards around Wapping and Southwark to inspect cargos and warehouses.
Wapping is on the east side of the Tower, and is a collection of docks and warehouses stretching from Tower Bridge to Limehouse in the east. It follows a curve in the Thames known as ‘the Pool.’ Several dock facilities are here; St. Katherine was the original dockyard of Wapping and was built around a basin on the north side of the Thames. Warehouses for St. Katherine’s traffic are reached by railway and are a mile or so away along Bishopgate Road, just across from the very large and very busy Broad Street Station.
The London Docks lie east of St. Katherine, and connect the Hermitage and Wapping basins. The area is broken into the West, East, and Tobacco Docks, and the area is busy all day and night but most especially when the tides are coming in and out. At these times, steam tug boats are leading the ships in and out of the docks and onto the Thames, where the river pilots, employed by the various dockyards, navigate the ships out to sea and bring them into harbour safely. East of Wapping is Shadwell, with entrances into the Eastern Dock. Massive warehouses, five to six stories high create canyons through which the streets of the dock wind. Cargos are constantly being hauled into higher warehousing bays by crane and pulley, and the work can run all night. The London Docks primarily handle trade from Europe and the Mediterranean, roughly 10% of the London sea trade. Increasingly the docks in Limehouse and Southwark are handling the bulk of the trade coming into the city.
Along the north side of London is a low ridge that outlines the Thames alluvial plain from the land to the north. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, much of this area was farmland. Small towns girded London, but were not part of the city. Carriage travel was dif cult to impossible in inclement weather due to the steepness of the hills. As the century wound on, London grew out into the hills, incorporating formerly rural towns into the metropolitan area. While still primarily agrarian in character, new roads and houses are crowding out the old farms, just as they have in Kensal Green and Fulham.
