Rotherhithe before the Grand Surrey Canal in 1799 The church of St Mary's Rotherhithe is marked in red. |
The above is the Richard Horwood map of 1799 and shows the natural water courses before the establishment of the Grand Surrey Canal. St Mary's Rotherhithe church is marked in the red box to help readers get their bearings (it still stands today).
Grand Surrey Canal in 1811 from Stuart Rankin's A Short History of the Surrey Commercial Docks) |
In the late 1700s a number of new canals were proposed in the south London area, and in 1801 the Grand Surrey Canal Act was passed, which would permit the
construction of a canal, an accompanying dock basin and an entrance lock. The vision was to build a canal system that would reach Greenwich, Croydon, Epsom and even Portsmouth, mainly for carrying timber. To this end the Grand Surrey Canal Company was formed to raise money by issuing shares and to run the project. It was envisaged that the canal would provide an efficient link between the docks and the south London towns, and would stimulate commercial growth and expansion along its route. The 1799 map at the top of the page shows how the existing waterways were of use, and how they would influence the path of the Grand Surrey Canal.
Inland Rotherhithe in 1801 was rural, a series of marshes, streams and fields. However, the Thames banks were lined with shipyards where ships, barges and lighters were built and repaired. Rotherhithe's most prominent ship builders were producing vast wooden vessels for the Royal Navy and the East India Company. The only incursion inland was Greenland Dock which had been established on the east side of Rotherhithe in 1699.
The Grand Surrey Canal Company appointed Ralph Dodd as its engineer. and the canal's design and implementation was his inspiration. Ralph Dodd, was something of an unpredictable character, involved in numerous engineering projects some of which either failed or which he abandoned. In his 1999 booklet Stuart Rankin describes him as "a plausible visionary, with a tenuous grasp on reality." In 1795 Dodd published an Account of the principal Canals in the known World, with reflections on the great utility of Canals. In 1794 he invented a canal cutting machine which was trialled on the Grand Junction Canal at Dawley but was not adopted long-term. In 1801 he was appointed engineer to the Rotherhithe South Dock but fell out of favour with the Eastern Dock Company who owned it, and he was paid off and dismissed. Dodd was also involved in the first attempt to build the world’s first under river tunnel from Rotherhithe. This attempt failed and it was Marc Brunel who eventually succeeded, working a short distance away from the remains of the failed first attempt. However, in spite of this succession of dubious projects he oversaw the successful implementation of the canal, which opened in 1807 and reached to the Old Kent Road before being extended later to Camberwell and Peckham.
As excellent schematic of the canal and its two branches, fromWikipedia |
The Grand Surrey Canal Company appointed Ralph Dodd as its engineer. and the canal's design and implementation was his inspiration. Ralph Dodd, was something of an unpredictable character, involved in numerous engineering projects some of which either failed or which he abandoned. In his 1999 booklet Stuart Rankin describes him as "a plausible visionary, with a tenuous grasp on reality." In 1795 Dodd published an Account of the principal Canals in the known World, with reflections on the great utility of Canals. In 1794 he invented a canal cutting machine which was trialled on the Grand Junction Canal at Dawley but was not adopted long-term. In 1801 he was appointed engineer to the Rotherhithe South Dock but fell out of favour with the Eastern Dock Company who owned it, and he was paid off and dismissed. Dodd was also involved in the first attempt to build the world’s first under river tunnel from Rotherhithe. This attempt failed and it was Marc Brunel who eventually succeeded, working a short distance away from the remains of the failed first attempt. However, in spite of this succession of dubious projects he oversaw the successful implementation of the canal, which opened in 1807 and reached to the Old Kent Road before being extended later to Camberwell and Peckham.
The entrance lock in 1826. By George Yates. |
The works for the canal started in 1802. The canal, the first lock and the original entrance basin were supposed to have been built simultaneously but the company ran into financial difficulties so it was not until 1804 that the two-pronged basin was added. The locks, basins and canal are shown on both the 1811 and 1843 maps (see images above and below) with the basins surrounding an artificial island, one intended to act as a a dock and the other to mainly handle through-traffic. Collectively they were named the Grand Surrey Basin, and in the 1850s were renamed Stave Dock (the upper basin) and Island Dock (the lower one).
The main role of the entrance lock and the basin were to provide access for barges that wished to get into the Grand Surrey Canal from the Thames or to offload cargo onto barges and narrowboats. The lock was located just to the east of where the modern Old Salt Quay public house is located today (the west entrance lock, which survives as an entrance to Surrey Water was built later). An inlet just downriver of that location is all that remains both of the lock entrance and the complex set of dry docks and wharves that clustered around this site. The canal could handle vessels of up to 18ft width.
1843, showing the expansion of the canal along its flanks |
It soon became clear that the canal was not going to generate the profits that the company had hoped for. The canal was used mainly by local market gardens and handled much less timber than had been originally predicted, failing to act as the busy artery that had been envisaged. It was therefore much less profitable than expected. Nor did it stimulate the major development of the area
that its investors had hoped would happen, and the Grand Surrey Canal Company began to look for alternative ways to generate revenue from their canal system. At the same time, the Commercial Dock Company was successfully carving out docks on the other side of Rotherhithe and the Grand Surrey Canal Company followed suit. In 1811 they received parliamentary permission to expand the the channel of
the canal that led from the island to create docking areas and wharfage. The result was that the section of the canal that passed out of the entrance basins and passed over Rotherhithe towards Greenland Dock became the Grand Surrey Inner Dock, through which the canal and its traffic now passed.
The map of 1811 shows it as a conventional canal passing from Surrey
Basin across a nearly empty Rotherhithe, but the 1843 map above shows the extent to which the canal had been widened at this time, being renamed the Inner Dock, whilst the basin was the Outer Dock.
In 1855, to reflect its increasing investment in the creation of docks, the company's name was changed to the Grand Surrey Docks and Canal Company. The company immediately set about making substantial changes in order to accommodate the larger and deeper vessels that were being built and purchased land from the Lord of the Rotherhithe Manor, Sir William Maynard Gomm with a view to seriously extending their operations. An extended lock was built upriver and the old one was eventually filled in, certainly by 1888. The new lock, the Surrey Lock, opened into a new basin, the Surrey Basin (now known as Surrey Water). The basin was filled in when the docks were closed but re-excavated by the London Docklands Development Corporation to provide a focal point for new housing projects.
By 1860 the new basin was connected not only to the Thames via its new lock, and to
the newly modernized docks that flanked the canal channel but also to a new dock to its south, named the Main Dock, later renamed Albion Dock. All these improvements were
completed by 1860.
The route of the canal by 1868, showing Surrey Basin and both old and new locks. |
In 1855, to reflect its increasing investment in the creation of docks, the company's name was changed to the Grand Surrey Docks and Canal Company. The company immediately set about making substantial changes in order to accommodate the larger and deeper vessels that were being built and purchased land from the Lord of the Rotherhithe Manor, Sir William Maynard Gomm with a view to seriously extending their operations. An extended lock was built upriver and the old one was eventually filled in, certainly by 1888. The new lock, the Surrey Lock, opened into a new basin, the Surrey Basin (now known as Surrey Water). The basin was filled in when the docks were closed but re-excavated by the London Docklands Development Corporation to provide a focal point for new housing projects.
By 1862 the Grand Surrey Canal Dock and Canal Company had added four timber ponds to their system named Timber Ponds 1, 2, 3 and 4 (later renamed Albion Pond, Centre Pond, Quebec Pond and Canada Pond respectively)., all accessible from the Grand Surrey Canal. The network of docks and ponds was parallel to, but completely separate from the Commercial Dock Company's Russia Dock. This was soon to change.
New hydraulic lock gates. 1870s |
In the 1870s hydraulic lock gates were added to the Surrey Lock, one of a number of improvements that were being made throughout the system.
Hydraulic gear for the lock connecting the Grand Surrey Canal, which ran through Russia Dock, to the newly enlarged Greenland Dock. |
The Surrey Canal Office |
The canal was partly abandoned in 1940,
drained in the 1960s and in-filled in 1971 two years after the Surrey Commercial Docks were closed to shipping. The Surrey Basin had been closed in 1967, but was re-opened as an enclosed water feature by the London Docklands Development Corporation. Russia Dock was filled in, but became Russia Dock Woodland, an attractive park that crosses Rotherhithe along the canal's route, and its eastern quayside has been preserved.
1902 canal office |
On this blog: The remains of the canal's Rotherhithe leg
- Evelyn Street to Surrey Canal Road
- Surrey Canal Junctions
- Surrey Canal Wharves
- Burgess Park - Canal Terminal
- The Peckham Branch
Apparently there were plans afoot some years ago to mark out the route officially, but this has never been done.
Aeriel view from the 1930s showing the Surrey Basin on the left and Island and Stave Docks. From the PortCities website. |
Hello Andie
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for this post and for the blog!
A question: by any chance did you see any information on why the Russia Dock was named Russia Dock? And the same for Odessa street & wharf? Or probably you know where I might find it?
Thanks!
Daria
Hi Daria. Good to hear from you. Most of the docks and many roads were named for countries and towns with which the docks traded from the late 1800s. Wood and grain were important imports, mainly from Canada and the Baltic, including Russia. Russia Dock was given its name in 1864, at a time when Russia was becoming an increasingly important exporter of cereals.
ReplyDeleteIn the early Nineteenth Century Odessa was an important Russian port on the Black Sea, exporting grain and flour. Some of that grain was brought into Rotherhithe docks, including South Dock, and wharves, including Odessa Wharf. The Odessa Wharf building, near the Ship and Whale public house, is one of the oldest surviving in Rotherhithe, dating to 1810, and was used for the storage of grain imports. The original brick-built warehouse has now been converted to apartments, and runs along the side of Randall Rents, a right of way that predates it.
Best
Andie