Greenland Dock is the oldest of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's riverside wet docks

Dock (maritime)

A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...

, located in Rotherhithe

Rotherhithe

Rotherhithe is a residential district in inner southeast London, England and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is located on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping and the Isle of Dogs on the north bank, and is a part of the Docklands area...

 in the area of the city now known as Docklands. It used to be part of the Surrey Commercial Docks

Surrey Commercial Docks

The Surrey Commercial Docks were a large group of docks in Rotherhithe on the south bank of the Thames in South East London. The docks operated in one form or another from 1696 to 1969...

, most of which have by now been filled in. Greenland Dock is now used purely for recreational purposes; it is one of only two functioning enclosed docks on the south bank of the River Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

.

Howland Great Wet Dock

The dock was originally laid out between 1695-99 on land owned by the aristocratic Russell family of the 1st Duke of Bedford

William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford

William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford KG PC was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 until 1641 when he inherited his Peerage and sat in the House of Lords...

. The Russells had been given a portion of land in lower Rotherhithe by a wealthy Streatham

Streatham

Streatham is a district in Surrey, England, located in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...

 landowner, John Howland, as part of a wedding dowry for his daughter Elizabeth, granddaughter of Sir Josiah Child

Josiah Child

Sir Josiah Child of Wanstead, 1st Baronet , English merchant, economist proponent of mercantilism and governor of the East India Company, was born in London, the second son of Richard Child, a London merchant of old family.-Family:...

 - the dictatorial chairman of the East India Company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

, who married Wrothesley Russell

Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford

Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford KG was the son of William Russell, Lord Russell and his wife Lady Rachel Wriothesley...

, the Marquis of Tavistock. They immediately set about "improving" the rural property, obtaining parliamentary permission in 1695 to construct a rectangular dock with an area of about 10 acres (4 ha), capable of accommodating around 120 ships. It was named Howland Great Wet Dock in honour of John Howland. Designed by local shipwright, John Wells, the dock was intended to refit East India ships.

In a picture of about 1717, it can be seen in a rural setting some miles outside the (much smaller) city of London, lined with trees on three sides (to act as windbreaks) and with the Russell family's mansion situated at the western end. Unlike the later docks, it was not built with cargo traffic

Shipping

Shipping has multiple meanings. It can be a physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo, by land, air, and sea. It also can describe the movement of objects by ship.Land or "ground" shipping can be by train or by truck...

 in mind; it did not have walls, warehouse

Warehouse

A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

s or other commercial facilities. Instead, it was promoted as being capable of accommodating ships "without the trouble of shifting, mooring or unmooring any in the dock for taking in or out any other". It was essentially a re-fitting base where ships could be repaired and berthed in a sheltered anchorage. It was aided in this regard by its proximity to the dockyards at Deptford

Deptford

Deptford is a district of south London, England, located on the south bank of the River Thames. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne, and from the mid 16th century to the late 19th was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Navy Dockyards.Deptford and the docks are...

.

Whaling and timber trades

From the 1720s, Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

 whalers also used the dock and substantial blubber

Blubber

Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue found under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds and sirenians.-Description:Lipid-rich, collagen fiber–laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except for parts of the appendages, strongly attached to the musculature...

 boiling houses were built to produce oil on the south side. Howland Great Wet Dock was sold by the fourth Duke of Bedford

John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford

John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford KG, PC, FRS was an 18th century British statesman. He was the fourth son of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford, by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John Howland of Streatham, Surrey...

 in 1763. Extensive usage by the Greenland whaling ships prompted the dock to be renamed Greenland Dock. However, this trade declined sharply by the start of the 19th century.

In 1806 the dock was sold to William Richie, a Greenwich

Greenwich

Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...

 timber merchant and founder of the Commercial Dock Company (1807). The Company built a series of additional docks and two new timber ponds to the north while rival companies built additional docks, leading to the jumble of harbours, canals and timber ponds. In 1865, the company merged with the neighbouring Surrey Docks to form the Surrey Commercial Docks

Surrey Commercial Docks

The Surrey Commercial Docks were a large group of docks in Rotherhithe on the south bank of the Thames in South East London. The docks operated in one form or another from 1696 to 1969...

, controlling some 80% of London's timber trade

British timber trade

The British timber trade was importation of timber from the Baltic, and later North America, by the British. During the Middle Ages and Stuart period, Great Britain had large domestic supplies of timber, especially valuable were the famous British oaks...

.

Greenland Dock remained at the centre of London's timber trade for well over a century to come. It was lined with warehouses and immense piles of timber or "deal wood", which were maintained by the athletic deal porters. Much of the timber arrived aboard small sailing vessels from the Baltic region

Baltic region

The terms Baltic region, Baltic Rim countries, and Baltic Rim refer to slightly different combinations of countries in the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea.- Etymology :...

, although these were eventually displaced by large steamers.

Expansion and decline

Between 1895-1904 Greenland Dock was greatly expanded by being extended at a cost of £940.000 to the west in a project carried out under Sir John Wolfe-Barry

John Wolfe-Barry

Sir John Wolfe-Barry was an English civil engineer of the late 19th and early 20th century. His most famous project was the construction of Tower Bridge over the River Thames in London.-Early career:...

, the engineer who built Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, England, over the River Thames. It is close to the Tower of London, from which it takes its name...

. More than doubling in length and nearly doubling in depth, in its final form, it covered an area of 22.5 acres (9.1 ha), with a depth of 31 feet (9.4 m) and a length of 2250 feet (685.8 m), which cut straight across the old Grand Surrey Canal

Grand Surrey Canal

The Grand Surrey Canal was a canal constructed in south London, England during the early 19th century. It opened to the Old Kent Road in 1807, to Camberwell in 1810, and to Peckham in 1826. Its main cargo was timber. It closed progressively from the 1940s, with all but the Greenland Dock closing in...

. It was also given a large lock, 550 feet (167.6 m) long, 80 feet (24.4 m) wide and 35 feet (10.7 m) deep. This renovation enabled the dock to take large cargo ships and even ocean-going liners. Cunard Line

Cunard Line

Cunard Line is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...

 A-class vessels of as much as 14,000 tons, driven by large steam engines and carrying passengers and cargos in both directions, sailed regularly from Greenland Dock to the St. Lawrence River in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. They were considered huge ships for so far upstream and they had to be swung round in the river to enter the lock.
In 1909 the dock, along with all of the other London docks, was amalgamated into the Port of London

Port of London

The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames from London, England to the North Sea. Once the largest port in the world, it is currently the United Kingdom's second largest port, after Grimsby & Immingham...

 under the management of the Port of London Authority

Port of London Authority

The Port of London Authority is a self-funding public trust established in 1908 by the Port of London Act to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and the authority is responsible for the public right of navigation and for conservancy of the...

.

In the same era as the big steamships there were, by contrast, the barques and barquentines of less than a tenth the size that brought timber from Finland: survivors of the age of sail with three or more masts and representatives of the Baltic side of the timber trade. Finland Quay, Swedish Quay, Norway Dock and Russia Dock were some of the names arising from what had been the original part of Rotherhithe's timber trade.

Greenland Dock suffered greatly during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when many of the warehouses were razed by German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 bombing and the great lock was rendered unusable due to bomb damage. It soon recovered after the war and enjoyed a brief resurgence of prosperity. However, technological changes in the shipping industry soon pushed the dock into a spiral of decline. The deal porters' jobs were abolished from 1958 when timber started to be packaged. Not long afterwards, the shipping industry moved en masse to the system of containerization

Containerization

Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...

, which required bulk carriers far too large to be accommodated in the London docks. In 1970, the Surrey Commercial Docks were closed. Greenland Dock was sold to Southwark

London Borough of Southwark

The London Borough of Southwark is a London borough in south east London, England. It is directly south of the River Thames and the City of London, and forms part of Inner London.-History:...

 council.

Redevelopment

The Surrey Docks remained derelict for over a decade, with much of the warehousing demolished and over 90% of the docks filled in. Greenland Dock, which now belonged to the local authority, escaped this fate and in 1981 was handed over to the London Docklands Development Corporation

London Docklands Development Corporation

The London Docklands Development Corporation was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its eighteen-year existence it was responsible for regenerating an area of in the London Boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and...

. During this period the Inner London Education Authority

Inner London Education Authority

The Inner London Education Authority was the education authority for the 12 inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990.-History:...

 ran a Surrey Docks Watersports Centre on the dock from a series of portable cabins at the Redriff Road end of the dock. It was at this centre many young people who would not have been exposed to sailing or canoeing were trained.

A masterplan was produced that advocated evicting the remaining industrial occupiers of the quaysides and transforming the dock into a residential area. This went ahead in the late 1980s despite some controversy, with seven residential developments being constructed on the site of the former warehouse complexes (and named after them; hence Swedish Yard became Swedish Quay, Brunswick Yard became Brunswick Quay, Baltic Yard became Baltic Quay

Baltic Quay

Baltic Quay is a large residential development, located in Surrey Quays in the London Borough of Southwark. Completed in 1989 during the London Docklands Development Corporation, it is largely known for its unique architecture, which won it awards from the London Docklands Development Corporation...

 and so on). Today the area is dominated by luxury residential developments, such as the Greenland Passage development and the gated

Gated community

In its modern form, a gated community is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly-controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. Gated communities usually consist of small residential...

 New Caledonian Wharf

New Caledonian Wharf

New Caledonian Wharf is a luxury gated community in the Rotherhithe area of London on the River Thames.-History:The wharf was originally known as Redriff Wharf and continued to be a commercial wharf until the late 70s. It was located adjacent to Greenland Dock and part of the Surrey Docks , though...

. Additionally, a new watersports centre was constructed on the site of the former entrance to the now infilled Grand Surrey Canal. This has maintained the dock as a popular site for sailing

Sailing

Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...

, windsurfing

Windsurfing

Windsurfing or sailboarding is a surface water sport that combines elements of surfing and sailing. It consists of a board usually two to four metres long, powered by the orthogonal effect of the wind on a sail. The rig is connected to the board by a free-rotating universal joint and comprises a...

, canoeing

Canoeing

Canoeing is an outdoor activity that involves a special kind of canoe.Open canoes may be 'poled' , sailed, 'lined and tracked' or even 'gunnel-bobbed'....

 and even Chinese Dragon Boat

Dragon boat

A dragon boat is a human-powered watercraft traditionally made, in the Pearl River delta region of southern China - Guangdong Province, of teak wood to various designs and sizes. In other parts of China different woods are used to build these traditional watercraft...

 racing.

The dock itself is still substantially intact, other than its former entrances and exits, all but one of which have been filled in or blocked. It still has a working connection to South Dock, which is now a marina, and it has a small marina of its own at its eastern end. There are no traces of the former warehouses, although many of the old capstan

Capstan (nautical)

A capstan is a vertical-axled rotating machine developed for use on sailing ships to apply force to ropes, cables, and hawsers. The principle is similar to that of the windlass, which has a horizontal axle.- History :...

s and some of the hydraulic machines on the quayside have been preserved.

The alternative comedian Malcolm Hardee

Malcolm Hardee

Malcolm Hardee was an English comedian, author, comedy club proprietor, compère, agent, manager and "amateur sensationalist"....

 drowned in the dock in 2005 while rowing to his houseboat from the floating pub he owned, the Wibbley Wobbley, which is moored at the Thames end of Greenland Dock.

Transport

The nearest London Underground station is Canada Water

Canada Water tube station

Canada Water station is a London Underground and London Overground station in Rotherhithe, in south London, UK. It takes its name from Canada Water, a lake which was created from a former dock in the London Docklands....

 on the Jubilee Line

Jubilee Line

The Jubilee line is a line on the London Underground , in the United Kingdom. It was built in two major sections—initially to Charing Cross, in central London, and later extended, in 1999, to Stratford, in east London. The later stations are larger and have special safety features, both aspects...

. The nearest London Overground station

London Overground

London Overground is a suburban rail network in London and Hertfordshire. It has been operated by London Overground Rail Operations since 2007 as part of the National Rail network, under the franchise control and branding of Transport for London...

 is Surrey Quays on the East London Line

East London Line

The East London Line is a London Overground line which runs north to south through the East End, Docklands and South areas of London.Built in 1869 by the East London Railway Company, which reused the Thames Tunnel, originally intended for horse-drawn carriages, the line became part of the London...

.

Thames Clipper

Thames Clipper

Thames Clipper is a water-bus service operating in London on the River Thames. The company offers commuter services between eastern and central London, as well as tourist services under licence from London River Services. At present they transport around 7,500 passengers daily.-Company:Sean Collins...

s' water-bus

Water taxi

A water taxi or water bus, also known as a commuter boat, is a watercraft used to provide public transport, usually but not always in an urban environment. Service may be scheduled with multiple stops, operating in a similar manner to a bus, or on demand to many locations, operating in a similar...

 serves Greenland Pier. The Thames Path

Thames Path

The Thames Path is a National Trail, opened in 1996, following the length of the River Thames from its source near Kemble in Gloucestershire to the Thames Barrier at Charlton. It is about long....

 passes along the southern bank of the River Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

.

Nearby places

• Canada Water
  Canada Water
  Canada Water is a freshwater lake and wildlife refuge in Rotherhithe in the Docklands in south-east London. Canada Water tube and bus station is named after the lake, and lies immediately to the north, while Surrey Quays Shopping Centre is also adjacent, sitting immediately to the south...
  
  
• Russia Dock Woodland
• South Dock
• Surrey Quays
  Surrey Quays
  Surrey Quays is a name given to a largely residential area of Rotherhithe in south-east London, occupied until 1970 by the Surrey Commercial Docks...
  
  

Further reading

• Shipbuilding in Rotherhithe - Greenland Dock & Barnard's Wharf by Stuart Rankin, Bib Id 482821
• Shipbuilding in Rotherhithe - An historical introduction by Stuart Rankin, Bib Id 488375, pp.5-6

External links

• John Butler's Landscape Photography page on Rotherhithe