River Thames Gallery

London Docks 1958 EAW071687

LONDON DOCKS, Southwark. Aerial photograph of Greenland Dock, Rotherhithe in June 1958. Also showing South Dock, the River Thames and the entrance to the Millwall Outer Dock (on the Isle of Dogs). Freighters are unloading into barges and butties. The dock was mostly used for Baltic shipping, notably whaling and timber. Greenland Dock is the oldest of London's riverside docks, originally laid out in 1695 to refit East Indiamen. The commercial docks closed in 1970, and the warehouses have now been replaced by Docklands residential developments (Swedish Quay, Baltic Quay and Brunswick Quay). Aerofilms Collection (see Links)

© Historic England Archive

Fish wharf at Billingsgate Market CC72_01834

BILLINGSGATE MARKET, Lower Thames Street, City of London. Looking from London Bridge down the Thames with the Tower of London in the distance, and the old Billingsgate Market in the foreground to the left. For centuries this was the main wharf for fishing vessels to unload and moor, with the Custom House next door. Photographed by Henry Taunt in 1880

© Historic England

Folly Ditch, Jacobs Island, (c1878). Creator: Unknown

Folly Ditch, Jacob's Island, (c1878). Jacob's Island, a notorious slum on the south bank of the River Thames in Bermondsey, London, was made famous in Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist. The villain Bill Sikes is chased by police and dies in the mud of Folly Ditch'. From Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, And Its Places. The Southern Suburbs, Volume VI, by Edward Walford. [Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., London, Paris & New York, c1878]

© The Print Collector / Heritage-Images