London
Docks were first opened for public use in January 1805. In the seventeenth
century Wapping was little but a long street (Stowe called it a filthy
alley inhabited by sailors and Victuallers) extending from the Tower
eastwards almost as far as Ratcliffe. Before that the neighbourhood
of Wapping was merely a wash, covered by the tidal waters of the Thames.
But in the very late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth, a
large part of the parish of St John's Wapping was excavated for the
London Docks. The docks extended along the Thames almost to Ratcliffe
Highway, and were enclosed by a brick wall and lined with warehouses.
Some
of the docks were massive: St George's Dock, for instance, could hold
500 ships, and the entire area of the docks covered more than twenty
acres. The entrance to the docks was via three basins.
The
warehouses were immense. The largest warehouse was one for the reception
of TObacco. It was 752 feet long and 160 feet wide and had huge vaults
under its ground floor.
