
Greenland Dock is the oldest of
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
's riverside
wet docks, located in
Rotherhithe
Rotherhithe ( ) is a district of South London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, with the Isle of Dogs to the ea ...
area of the
London Borough of Southwark
The London Borough of Southwark ( ) in South London forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council ...
. It used to be part of the
Surrey Commercial Docks
The Surrey Commercial Docks were a large group of docks in Rotherhithe, South East (London sub region), South East London, located on the south bank (the Surrey side) of the River Thames.
The docks operated in one form or another from 1696 to ...
, 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
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
, along with the smaller
South Dock South Dock may refer to:
* South Dock (West India Docks), formerly known as South West India Dock, Isle of Dogs, London, England
* South Dock, Rotherhithe
South Dock is one of two surviving docks in the former Surrey Commercial Docks in Rother ...
, to which it is connected by a channel now known as Greenland Cut.
History
Howland Great Wet Dock

The dock was originally laid out between 1695 and 1699 on land owned by the aristocratic Russell family of the
1st Duke of Bedford. The Russells had been given a portion of land in lower Rotherhithe by a wealthy
Streatham
Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
Streatham was in Surrey ...
landowner, John Howland, as part of a wedding dowry for his daughter Elizabeth, granddaughter of Sir
Josiah Child
Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet, (c. 1630/31 – 22 June 1699) was an English economist, merchant and politician. He was an economist proponent of mercantilism and governor of the British East India Company, East India Company. He led the compa ...
– the dictatorial chairman of the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
, who married
Wriothesley Russell, 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 , 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 in mind; it did not have walls,
warehouse
A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the rural–urban fringe, out ...
s or other commercial facilities. Instead, it was promoted as being capable of accommodating ships "without the trouble of shifting,
mooring
A mooring is any permanent structure to which a seaborne vessel (such as a boat, ship, or amphibious aircraft) may be secured. Examples include quays, wharfs, jetties, piers, anchor buoys, and mooring buoys. A ship is secured to a mooring to ...
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
Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...
. It was aided in this regard by its proximity to the dockyards at
Deptford
Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich and London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century ...
.
Whaling and timber trades

From the 1720s,
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
whalers also used the dock and substantial
blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of Blood vessel, vascularized adipose tissue under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds, penguins, and sirenians. It was present in many marine reptiles, such as Ichthyosauria, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.
Description ...
boiling houses were built to produce oil on the south side. Howland Great Wet Dock was sold by the
fourth Duke of Bedford in 1763. Extensive usage by the Greenland
whaling ship
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales.
Terminology
The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Jap ...
s 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 ( , , ) is an List of areas of London, area in south-east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime hi ...
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
The Surrey Commercial Docks were a large group of docks in Rotherhithe, South East (London sub region), South East London, located on the south bank (the Surrey side) of the River Thames.
The docks operated in one form or another from 1696 to ...
, controlling some 80% of
London's timber trade.
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 construction 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
The Baltic Sea Region, alternatively the Baltic Rim countries (or simply the Baltic Rim), and the Baltic Sea countries/states, refers to the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea, including parts of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Un ...
, although these were eventually displaced by large steamers.
Expansion and decline

Between 1895 and 1904 Greenland Dock was greatly extended to the west at a cost of £940,000, in a project carried out under Sir
John Wolfe Barry
Sir John Wolfe Barry (7 December 1836 – 22 January 1918) was an English civil engineer known for engineering Tower Bridge over the River Thames in London which was constructed between 1886 and 1894. He was the youngest son of architect Sir C ...
, the engineer who built
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is a Listed building#Grade I, Grade I listed combined Bascule bridge, bascule, Suspension bridge, suspension, and, until 1960, Cantilever bridge, cantilever bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones ...
. More than doubling in length and nearly doubling in depth, in its final form it covered an area of , with a depth of and a length of , which cut straight across the old
Grand Surrey Canal. It was also given a large lock, long, wide and deep. This renovation enabled the dock to take large cargo ships and even ocean-going liners.
Cunard Line
The Cunard Line ( ) is a British shipping and an international cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been r ...
A-class vessels of as much as , driven by large steam engines and carrying passengers and cargoes in both directions, sailed regularly from Greenland Dock to the
St. Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawren ...
in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
. 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
The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North Se ...
under the management of the
Port of London Authority
The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...
.
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 or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, when many of the warehouses were razed by
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
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 is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers, or International Organization for Standardization, ISO containers). Containerization, also referred as container stuf ...
, 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
Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
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
The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its seventeen-year existence, it was responsible for regenerating an ...
. During this period the
Inner London Education Authority
The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was the local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. From 1965 to 1986 it was an ad hoc committee of the Greater London Co ...
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 and so on). Today the area is dominated by luxury residential developments, such as the Greenland Passage development and the
gated New Caledonian Wharf. 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, windsurfing, canoeing and dragon boat 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 South Dock may refer to:
* South Dock (West India Docks), formerly known as South West India Dock, Isle of Dogs, London, England
* South Dock, Rotherhithe
South Dock is one of two surviving docks in the former Surrey Commercial Docks in Rother ...
, 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
capstans and some of the hydraulic machines on the quayside have been preserved.
The alternative comedian
Malcolm Hardee
Malcolm Hardee (5 January 1950 – 31 January 2005) was an English comedian and comedy club proprietor.
His high reputation among his peers rests on his outrageous publicity stunts and on the help and advice he gave to successful British Alte ...
drowned in the dock in 2005 while stepping onto his houseboat, ''Sea Sovereign'', from the floating pub he owned, the ''Wibbley Wobbley'', which was moored at the Thames end of Greenland Dock.
Transport

The nearest
London Underground station is
Canada Water
Canada Water is an area of Rotherhithe in the London Docklands, Docklands of south-east London. It is named after a freshwater lake and wildlife refuge. Canada Water tube station, Canada Water tube, Overground and bus station is immediately n ...
on the
Jubilee line
The Jubilee line is a London Underground line that runs between in suburban north-west London and in east London, via the West End of London, West End, South Bank and London Docklands, Docklands. Opened in 1979, it is the newest line on the ...
. The nearest
London Overground stations are
Surrey Quays
Surrey Quays is a largely residential area of Rotherhithe in south-east London, occupied until 1970 by the Surrey Commercial Docks. The precise boundaries of the area are somewhat amorphous, but it is generally considered to comprise the southe ...
and Canada Water, on th
Windrush line
Thames Clippers'
water-bus serves
Greenland Pier. The
Thames Path
The Thames Path is a National Trail following the River Thames from one of its sources near Kemble, Gloucestershire, Kemble in Gloucestershire to the Woolwich foot tunnel, south east London. It is about long. A path was first proposed in 1948 ...
passes along the southern bank of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
.
Nearby places
*
Canada Water
Canada Water is an area of Rotherhithe in the London Docklands, Docklands of south-east London. It is named after a freshwater lake and wildlife refuge. Canada Water tube station, Canada Water tube, Overground and bus station is immediately n ...
*
Russia Dock Woodland
*
South Dock South Dock may refer to:
* South Dock (West India Docks), formerly known as South West India Dock, Isle of Dogs, London, England
* South Dock, Rotherhithe
South Dock is one of two surviving docks in the former Surrey Commercial Docks in Rother ...
*
Surrey Quays
Surrey Quays is a largely residential area of Rotherhithe in south-east London, occupied until 1970 by the Surrey Commercial Docks. The precise boundaries of the area are somewhat amorphous, but it is generally considered to comprise the southe ...
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 o
Rotherhithe
{{Coord, 51, 29, 39.80, N, 0, 02, 24.85, W, region:GB, display=title
London docks
Geography of the London Borough of Southwark
Port of London
Rotherhithe