London Bridge Wharf

Last updated April 20, 2019

London Bridge Wharf was a wharf in the City of London located alongside London Bridge, just to the east of the north end of the bridge. It stood below the Adelaide Buildings and their 1925 replacement, Adelaide House. The wharf was constructed on the site of the London Bridge Waterworks, which had been demolished along with Old London Bridge in 1832. It originally handled general cargo^[1] and also passenger steamships, such as the vessels of the New Medway Steam Packet Company, which offered daily "sea cruises" along the North Kent and Essex coasts.^[2]

A wharf, quay, staith or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbor or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths, and may also include piers, warehouses, or other facilities necessary for handling the ships. Wharfs are often considered to be a series of docks in which boats are stationed.

The City of London is a city and county that contains the historic centre and the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the agglomeration has since grown far beyond the City's borders. The City is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, it forms one of the 33 local authority districts of Greater London; however, the City of London is not a London borough, a status reserved for the other 32 districts. It is also a separate county of England, being an enclave surrounded by Greater London. It is the smallest county in the United Kingdom.

Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure. This was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first of which was built by the Roman founders of London.

In the 1930s it was taken over by the neighbouring Fresh Wharf, which built a ten-storey warehouse next to Adelaide House in 1953.^[1] Only 20 years later the warehouse was demolished and the area was redeveloped into office blocks.^[3] Adelaide House still stands but the area once occupied by London Bridge Wharf is now publicly accessible as part of the Thames Path.

Fresh Wharf was a wharf located in the City of London close to London Bridge, on the north bank of the River Thames. The site was used as a quay in Roman times and later as an unloading place for Anglo-Saxon boats. A wharf was constructed there at some point in the medieval period and appears to have acquired its name from its customary usage as a landing place for fresh fish. In the 16th century, Fresh Wharf was made a "Legal Quay" authorised for the import of certain goods during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It expanded as London's river-borne trade grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, with large warehouses being established immediately behind the wharf. In the 20th century, the wharf's owners took over the adjoining wharves immediately upstream and downstream, built a new ten-storey warehouse and renamed the site New Fresh Wharf. By the end of the 1960s, however, London's docks had fallen into disuse with the advent of containerization, for which they were not suited, and the wharf was closed down in 1970. An office block was built on the site of the warehouse in 1977 and the former quayside is now part of a public footpath along the Thames.

The Thames Path is a National Trail following the River Thames from its source near Kemble in Gloucestershire to the Thames Barrier at Charlton, south east London. It is about 184 miles (296 km) long. A path was first proposed in 1948 but it only opened in 1996.

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Queen Victoria Street, named after the British monarch who reigned from 1837 to 1901, is a street in London which runs east by north from its junction with New Bridge Street and Victoria Embankment in the Castle Baynard ward of the City of London, along a section that divides the wards of Queenhithe and Bread Street, then lastly through the middle of Cordwainer ward, until it reaches Mansion House Street at Bank junction. Beyond Bank junction, the street continues north-east as Threadneedle Street which joins Bishopsgate. Other streets linked to Queen Victoria Street include Puddle Dock, Cannon Street, Walbrook and Poultry.

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Botolph Wharf or St Botolph's Wharf was a wharf located in the City of London, on the north bank of the River Thames a short distance downstream from London Bridge. It was situated between Cox and Hammond's Quay upstream and Nicholson's Wharf downstream. On the landward side, the wharf was accessed via Thames Street. It had a frontage of 78 ft (24 m). The wharf was used for at least a thousand years before being destroyed during the Second World War. A late 1980s office building currently occupies the site.

References

1 2 Ellmers, Chris; Werner, Alex (2000). London's Riverscape Lost and Found. London's Found Riverscape Partnership. p. 2. ISBN 1-874044-30-9.
↑ Andrew Gladwell (29 August 2013). River Medway Pleasure Steamers. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-2394-8.
↑ Ken Steedman; Tony Dyson; John Schofeld; A. G. Vince; Jennifer Hillam (1992). The Bridgehead and Billingsgate to 1200. London & Middlesex Archaeological Society.

Coordinates: 51°30′32″N0°05′13″W / 51.508892°N 0.086936°W / 51.508892; -0.086936

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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[Ellmers2000-1] 1 2 Ellmers, Chris; Werner, Alex (2000). London's Riverscape Lost and Found. London's Found Riverscape Partnership. p. 2. ISBN 1-874044-30-9.

[Gladwell2013-2] Andrew Gladwell (29 August 2013). River Medway Pleasure Steamers. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-2394-8.

[SteedmanDyson1992-3] Ken Steedman; Tony Dyson; John Schofeld; A. G. Vince; Jennifer Hillam (1992). The Bridgehead and Billingsgate to 1200. London & Middlesex Archaeological Society.