Misplaced Pages

#813186

41-650: West India Quay is an area in the London Docklands , London , England. It is immediately to the north of the West India Docks and Canary Wharf . The warehouse at West India Quay was used to store imported goods from the West Indies, such as tea, sugar and rum, and is now a Grade I listed building. Museum of London Docklands is in West India Quay, inside one of the two remaining traditional brick warehouses in

82-417: A dock may be created by building enclosing harbour walls into an existing natural water space, or by excavation within what would otherwise be dry land. There are specific types of dock structures where the water level is controlled: Where the water level is not controlled berths may be: A dockyard (or shipyard) consists of one or more docks, usually with other structures. In American English , dock

123-694: A full London Underground line, but the Government refused to fund it. The LDDC also built the Limehouse Link tunnel , a cut and cover road tunnel linking the Isle of Dogs to The Highway (the A1203 road) at a cost of over £150 million per kilometre, one of the most expensive stretches of road ever built. The LDDC also contributed to the development of London City Airport ( IATA airport code LCY), opened in October 1987 on

164-624: A further sign of regeneration in the area, the Docklands now has its own symphony orchestra, Docklands Sinfonia ; which was formed in January 2009 and is based at St Anne's Limehouse . The offices of The Independent group of publications were at one time situated in the Docklands. In 2008, Independent News & Media announced that The Independent would be moving its offices to Northcliffe House in Kensington . London's Docklands has become one of

205-480: A large IRA bomb exploded at South Quay on 9 February 1996 . Two people died in the explosion, forty people were injured and an estimated £150 million of damage was caused. This bombing ended an IRA ceasefire. James McArdle was sentenced to 25 years of jail time but released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and royal prerogative of mercy officially signed by Queen Elizabeth II . In

246-757: A large, secure and sheltered anchorage with room for 120 large vessels. It was a major commercial success, and provided for two phases of expansion during the Georgian and Victorian eras . The first of the Georgian docks was the West India (opened in 1802), followed by the London (1805), the East India (also 1805), the Surrey (1807), the Regent's Canal Dock (1820), St Katharine (1828) and

287-703: A major exception is the Surrey Commercial Docks, which are now largely filled in. Although large ships can—and occasionally still do—visit the old docks, all of the commercial traffic has moved downriver further east. The revival of the Docklands has had major effects in other run-down surrounding areas. Greenwich and Deptford are undergoing large-scale redevelopment, chiefly as a result of the improved transport links making them more attractive to commuters. The Docklands' redevelopment has, however, had some less beneficial aspects. The massive property boom and consequent rise in house prices has led to friction between

328-462: A number of tight-knit local communities with their own distinctive cultures and slang. Due to poor communications with other parts of London, they tended to develop in some isolation. Road access to the Isle of Dogs , for example, was only via two swing bridges . Local sentiment there was so strong that Ted Johns, a local community campaigner, and his supporters, in protest at the lack of social provision from

369-460: Is also commonly used to refer to wooden or metal structures that extend into the ocean from beaches and are used, for the most part, to accommodate fishing in the ocean without using a boat. In American English , the term for the water area between piers is slip . In the cottage country of Canada and the United States , a dock is a wooden platform built over water, with one end secured to

410-648: Is directly connected to the National Grid , reducing transmission losses and improving power density and service continuity. 51°30′18″N 0°01′05″W  /  51.50500°N 0.01806°W  / 51.50500; -0.01806 Wet dock "Dock" may also refer to a dockyard (also known as a shipyard ) where the loading, unloading, building, or repairing of ships occurs. The earliest known docks were those discovered in Wadi al-Jarf , an ancient Egyptian harbor , of Pharaoh Khufu , dating from c.2500 BC located on

451-460: Is technically synonymous with pier or wharf —any human-made structure in the water intended for people to be on. However, in modern use, pier is generally used to refer to structures originally intended for industrial use, such as seafood processing or shipping , and more recently for cruise ships , and dock is used for almost everything else, often with a qualifier, such as ferry dock , swimming dock, ore dock and others. However, pier

SECTION 10

#1732851907814

492-462: The Gulf of Khambhat has the highest tidal amplitude and ships can be sluiced through flow tides in the river estuary . The engineers built a trapezoidal structure, with north–south arms of average 21.8 metres (71.5 ft), and east–west arms of 37 metres (121 ft). In British English , a dock is an enclosed area of water used for loading, unloading, building or repairing ships . Such

533-506: The Red Sea coast. Archaeologists also discovered anchors and storage jars near the site. A dock from Lothal in India dates from 2400 BC and was located away from the main current to avoid deposition of silt . Modern oceanographers have observed that the ancient Harappans must have possessed great knowledge relating to tides in order to build such a dock on the ever-shifting course of

574-660: The River Thames tended to dock at small quays in the present-day City of London or Southwark , an area known as the Pool of London . However, these gave no protection against the elements, were vulnerable to thieves and suffered from a lack of space at the quayside. The Howland Great Dock in Rotherhithe (built in 1696, and later to form the core of the Surrey Commercial Docks ) was designed to address these problems, providing

615-459: The Sabarmati , as well as exemplary hydrography and maritime engineering . This is the earliest known dock found in the world equipped to berth and service ships. It is speculated that Lothal engineers studied tidal movements and their effects on brick-built structures, since the walls are of kiln -burnt bricks. This knowledge also enabled them to select Lothal's location in the first place, as

656-597: The Secretary of State for the Environment , Michael Heseltine , formed the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) to redevelop the area. This was a statutory body appointed and funded by central government (a quango ), with wide powers to acquire and dispose of land in the Docklands. It also served as the development planning authority for the area. Another important government intervention

697-736: The Security Express robbery and the Tonbridge cash depot robbery . The end came suddenly, between approximately 1960 and 1970, when the shipping industry adopted the newly invented container system of cargo transportation. London's docks were unable to accommodate the much larger vessels needed by containerization, and the shipping industry moved to deep-water ports such as Tilbury and Felixstowe . Between 1960 and 1980, all of London's docks were closed, leaving around eight square miles (21 km ) of derelict land in East London. Efforts to redevelop

738-465: The Steam Tug Portwey have been moved away from the dock as a result of the works. On 22 April 1991, two Docklands Light Railway trains collided at a junction on the West India Quay bridge during morning rush hour , requiring a shutdown of the entire system and evacuation of the involved passengers by ladder. One of the two trains was travelling automatically, operating without a driver, while

779-593: The 1980s and 1990s saw a huge area of the Docklands converted into a mixture of residential, commercial and light industrial space. The clearest symbol of the whole effort was the ambitious Canary Wharf project that constructed Britain's tallest building at the time and established a second business district (CBD) in London. However, there is no evidence that the LDDC foresaw this scale of development; nearby Heron Quays had already been developed as low-density offices when Canary Wharf

820-458: The 1980s. The Docklands' regeneration began later that decade; it has been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name "London Docklands" was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 and has since been almost universally adopted. The redevelopment created wealth, but also led to some conflict between the new and old communities in the area. In Roman and medieval times, ships arriving in

861-529: The Docklands has more than doubled during the last 30 years, and the area has become a major business centre. Canary Wharf has emerged as one of Europe's biggest clusters of skyscrapers and a major extension to the financial services district of the City of London. Although most of the old wharfs and warehouses have been demolished, some have been restored and converted into flats. Many of the docks themselves have survived and are now used as marinas or watersports centres;

SECTION 20

#1732851907814

902-525: The London Dockland area, such as: In the early 21st century, redevelopment is spreading into the more suburban parts of east and southeast London, and into the parts of the counties of Kent and Essex that abut the Thames Estuary . See Thames Gateway and Lower Lea Valley for further information on this trend. The numbers of several London Buses routes are prefixed D for Docklands; all run on

943-561: The West India Docks, as is 1 West India Quay . The West India Quay DLR station serves the area. There is a Cineworld cinema, a Marriott hotel and several restaurants facing the water. The north dock of the West India Docks adjacent to the district has been partially drained as part of the construction of Crossrail and new station is being built at the dock (linking to the West India Quay DLR station ). The SS Robin and

984-557: The West India South (1829). The Victorian docks were mostly further east, comprising the Royal Victoria (1855), Millwall (1868) and Royal Albert (1880). The King George V Dock (1921) was a late addition. Three principal kinds of docks existed. Wet docks were where ships were laid up at anchor and loaded or unloaded. Dry docks , which were far smaller, took individual ships for repairing. Ships were built at dockyards along

1025-567: The dock workers often made ends meet with petty and not so petty criminality, such as theft from the not yet containerized cargo, smuggling and fencing. As a result, the docks became "centres of excellence for criminal practice". Many of Britain's most proficient criminals learnt their trade here, including those behind the Hatton Garden heist , the Great Train Robbery , the Brink's-Mat robbery ,

1066-715: The docks began almost as soon as they were closed, although it took a decade for most plans to move beyond the drawing board and another decade for redevelopment to take full effect. The situation was greatly complicated by the large number of landowners involved: the PLA, the Greater London Council (GLC), the British Gas Corporation , five borough councils, British Rail and the Central Electricity Generating Board . To address this problem, in 1981

1107-419: The goods once they were ashore. Some of the workers were highly skilled: the lightermen had their own livery company or guild, while the deal porters (workers who carried timber) were famous for their acrobatic skills. Most were unskilled and worked as casual labourers. They assembled at certain points, such as pubs, each morning, where they were selected more or less at random by foremen. For these workers, it

1148-645: The last of the docks, the King George V, in 1921, as well as greatly expanding the Tilbury docks . German bombing during the Second World War caused massive damage to the docks, with 380,000 tons of timber destroyed in the Surrey Docks in a single night. Nonetheless, following post-war rebuilding they experienced a resurgence of prosperity in the 1950s. Before the later Docklands' redevelopment and gentrification,

1189-477: The new arrivals and the old Docklands communities, who have complained of being squeezed out. It has also made for some of the most striking disparities to be seen anywhere in Britain: luxury executive flats constructed alongside run-down public housing estates. The Docklands' status as a symbol of Margaret Thatcher 's Britain has also made it a target for terrorists. After a failed attempt to bomb Canary Wharf in 1992,

1230-672: The north bank of the River Thames as part of the London bus network, and act as feeder buses to the DLR. The D network was developed in the early stages of Docklands redevelopment; it was originally much larger, but as transport rapidly improved across east London, the need for the D routes reduced. Today only four remain, running primarily in Tower Hamlets and briefly into Newham and Hackney . Stagecoach London operate routes D6, D7 and D8, and Blue Triangle operate route D3. The population of

1271-485: The other was under manual control. London Docklands London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London . It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of Southwark , Tower Hamlets , Lewisham , Newham and Greenwich . The docks were formerly part of the Port of London , at one time the world's largest port . After the docks closed, the area had become derelict and poverty-ridden by

West India Quay - Misplaced Pages Continue

1312-506: The riverside. In addition, the river was lined with innumerable warehouses, piers, jetties and dolphins (mooring points). The various docks tended to specialise in different forms of produce. The Surrey Docks concentrated on timber , for instance; Millwall took grain; St Katharine took wool, sugar and rubber; and so on. The docks required an army of workers, chiefly lightermen (who carried loads between ships and quays aboard small barges called lighters ) and quayside workers, who dealt with

1353-571: The spine of the Royal Docks . The London Underground's Jubilee line was extended eastwards in 1999; it now serves Rotherhithe/ Surrey Quays at Canada Water station , the Isle of Dogs at Canary Wharf tube station , Greenwich at North Greenwich tube station and the nearby Royal Docks at Canning Town station . The DLR was extended in 1994 to serve much of the Royal Docks area when the Beckton branch

1394-461: The state, unilaterally declared independence for the area, set up a so-called "Island Council" with Johns himself as its elected leader, and blocked off the two access roads. The docks were originally built and managed by a number of competing private companies. From 1909, they were managed by the Port of London Authority (PLA) which amalgamated the companies in a bid to make the docks more efficient and improve labour relations . The PLA constructed

1435-401: The world's leading global internet hubs since the opening in 1990 of the carrier-neutral Telehouse campus, which hosts the vast majority of LINX 's internet peering traffic, occupying over 73,000 square metres. In August 2016, Telehouse Europe opened the $ 177 million North Two data centre of 24,000 square metres that became the only UK data centre to own a 132 kV on-campus grid substation that

1476-477: Was addressed by the LDDC with the construction of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which connected the Docklands with the city. According to Transport for London, the owner of the project, it was a remarkably inexpensive development, costing only £77 million in its first phase, as it relied on reusing disused railway infrastructure and derelict land for much of its length. The LDDC originally requested

1517-476: Was effectively a lottery whether they would get work on any particular day. This arrangement continued until as late as 1965, although it was somewhat regularised after the creation of the National Dock Labour Scheme in 1947. The main dockland areas were originally low-lying marshes, mostly unsuitable for agriculture and lightly populated. With the establishment of the docks, the dock workers formed

1558-611: Was opened. The Isle of Dogs branch was extended further south, and in 1999 it began serving Greenwich town centre—including the Cutty Sark museum— Deptford and finally Lewisham . In 2005, a new branch of the DLR opened from Canning Town to serve what used to be the eastern terminus of the North London Line , including a station at London City Airport . It was then further extended to Woolwich Arsenal in 2009. Further development projects are being proposed and put into practice within

1599-427: Was proposed, and similar development was already underway on Canary Wharf itself, Limehouse Studios being the most famous occupant. Canary Wharf was far from trouble-free; the property slump of the early 1990s halted further development for several years. Developers found themselves, for a time, saddled with property that they were unable to sell or let. The Docklands historically had poor transport connections. This

1640-460: Was the designation in 1982 of an enterprise zone , an area in which businesses were exempt from property taxes and had other incentives, including simplified planning and capital allowances. This made investing in the Docklands a significantly more attractive proposition and was instrumental in starting a property boom in the area. The LDDC was controversial; it was accused of favouring elitist luxury developments rather than affordable housing, and it

1681-405: Was unpopular with the local communities, who felt that their needs were not being addressed. Nonetheless, the LDDC was central to a remarkable transformation in the area, although how far it was in control of events is debatable. It was wound up in 1998 when control of the Docklands area was handed back to the respective local authorities. The massive development programme managed by the LDDC during

West India Quay - Misplaced Pages Continue

#813186