Sugar Quay is a quay alongside the Thames in the City of London, London, England.

Location

The quay is located on the North banks of the Thames, between

Custom House A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting c ...

and the Tower of London.Andy Sharman
Barratt and CPC to develop Sugar Quay
''The Financial Times'', May 23, 2014 It stands between Lower Thames Street and the Thames, on Water Lane EC3R.

History

The quay was named after the cane sugar trade, which relies on Caribbean plantations originally worked by African slaves.London, Sugar & Slavery: Sugar Quay Walk
/ref> As early as 1377, the site was known as Wool Quay and was the location of a custom house used to collect duties due on exported wool. In 1380, John Churchman is recorded as building a custom house on the site, which stood until 1559 when construction of a new custom house was overseen by William Paulet, 1st Marquees of Winchester and Lord High Treasurer. Paulet's structure was destroyed in 1666 in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...

. A new building was designed by

Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches ...

and completed in 1671, being built by the King's Master Mason Joshua Marshall. This structure was damaged by fire in 1715, and was deemed too badly damaged to save. The final iteration of the custom house on the site was built to a design by Thomas Ripley, and remained in use until the early 19th century. At this time, the growth in trade and increase in duties due on goods necessitated the construction of a larger replacement building. Construction of the new

began in October 1813 on a site immediately to the west of Sugar Quay. On 12 February 1814, a fire began in the housekeeper's quarters of Ripley's custom house building, which due to the large volume of spirits, plus smaller amounts of gunpowder, stored on the site resulted in an explosion which destroyed Ripley's custom house at Sugar Quay. By 1934, the site was referred to alternatively as Wool Quay or Custom House Quay, and was recorded as being in the ownership of Wm. H. Müller and Co., owner of the

Batavier Line The Batavier Line ( nl, Batavier Lijn) was a packet service between Rotterdam and London from 1830 until the 1960s. The line was established by the ''Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij'' (known as NSM and in English as Netherlands Steamship C ...

which operated a steam ship passenger service between Rotterdam and London. Since 1899, the quay had been used as a berth for the ships. In 1970, architect Terry Farrell designed an office building for British sugar company

Tate and Lyle Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...

. The development included its own private jetty extending out over the Thames foreshore for outdoor recreational functions. In May 2014, it was announced that Barratt Developments and

CPC Group Nicholas Anthony Christopher Candy (born 23 January 1973) and Christian Peter Candy (born 31 July 1974) are British luxury real estate, luxury property developers. The brothers were estimated to share a joint net worth of £1.5 billion in the '' ...

(owned by

Christian Candy Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...

) would develop 165 luxury apartments across 11 storeys. The Sugar Quay development contains a mixed use ground floor incorporating residential facilities and amenities, and a waterfront commercial unit.Buildington London property open database: Landmark Place
/ref> Moreover, the CPC Group is redeveloping 110,000 square feet into a 230,000 square feet of office buildings.
/ref> Construction involved closure of the Thames Riverside Walk (part of the Thames Path) for some years, which only reopened again in March 2019.

References

{{Coord, 51.50827, -0.08086, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title City of London