Launch of the lighter "Apprentice Lighterman" built at South Dock by Bill Robinson

Built at South Dock and launched today in high winds and pouring rain, the 15 ton Apprentice Lighterman was launched at noon today surrounded by a damp but very cheerful and splendidly heartfelt crowd of supporters.

As well as the lovely builder, Bill Robinson (of the Thames Barge Driving Trust), the barge's welder Matt and countless helpers, supporters and well-wishers was the Master of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, John Salter.  

For those unfamiliar with lighters, they are unpowered flat-bottomed barges propelled by human effort.  They are anything but streamlined and are designed to carry cargo, so consist mainly of a large, hollow cargo hold.  Lighters were essential to the infrastructure of the Surrey Commercial Docks, "lightening" ships of their cargo and taking it to quaysides and other ships.  They had a long-standing history of doing this in the Thames but when the docks came, and were seen as a threat to lighterman livelihoods, new arrangements had to be made to grant them free access to the docks and carry on their tasks.  As you can see in the photograph above, where they swarm around a ship in Greenland Dock in 1958, just beyond today's underpass between Greenland Dock and Surrey Quays shopping centre.  They were in invaluable part of dock life, requiring great skill and experience to manipulate with vast oars called "sweeps."  Inevitably they were put out of business by technology, including mobile cranes, and later by containerization.

At 12 noon we all stood back as the crane lifted her gently from her blocks, swung her slowly round and lowered her in to South Dock, just short of the water.  At this point the Chaplain gave a blessing, the Mistress of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen gave her a Champagne send-off and then she was lowered slowly into the water, officially launched to riotous applause and shouts of congratulation.

The original plan was to row her up and down Greenland Dock, but the Harbour Master deemed the weather too bad and this was therefore vetoed.  However, she will be taking part in the July 15th Thames Barge Driving Race, manned by a crew consisting of three - two to row and one to man the rudder, all using sweeps.  The race has been run every year since 1975.


My thanks to Bill for inviting my friend Jeanette, who invited me.  It was a super event, a classic confirmation that the British weather is never allowed to ruin a great occasion.  We all trooped back, under hoods and brollies, to the Moby Dick where Bill had arranged for drinks and a buffet lunch.  There was an excellent speech by John Salter, followed by a short one by Bill, who presented The Company of Watermen and Lightermen with a framed photo history of the building of the barge.  It was an honour to attend.  Lighters are part of the heritage of the London docks and to have a new one launched in 2017 is a marvellous event.

The photos of the event are not the best - trying to hold the brolly during a gale in one hand whilst taking photos one-handed with a thunking great camera in the other was never going to produce the most stunning results - but they are sufficient to give an idea of what it was all about.

Bill Robinson at the Moby Dick following the launch

A wet and windy day!

Apprentice Ligtherman on the blocks

Lift-off

Being shifted towards the dock

The lowering of the barge into the dock was paused for official
launch speeches, the blessing and Champagne

Safely launched

Master of the Company of Watermen
and Lightermen, John Salter, giving
a fine speech following the launch

One of the last lighters laden with timber entering the Surrey Canal from the Greenland Dock in June 1970,
when most of the canal and the Surrey Commercial Docks had closed. 10 June 1970
National Maritime Museum National Maritime Museum
Portcities website: http://bit.ly/2ryjvof

The 1875 Albion Dry Dock at the former Decathlon site

I have updated this post since I first wrote it on 9th April 2016, with information provided most generously by the Museum of London Archaeology's Magnus Copps, who came to the site on the 27th April 2016 to explain the site, its past and its future.  He provided some excellent new information about the brick work, the use of concrete and the structure that sat over the dry dock from at least 1914.  Thanks too to Kate Mensforth for organizing the sessions.

The dry dock shown to the left has become quite a local celebrity in the last month, but for those who are new to this topic, a warehouse-type structure that was formerly a Decathlon sports store was taken down as part of plans for a new development that will sit along the edges of the former Canada Dock (now Canada Water) and the former Albion Dock (now Albion Channel).  During the work to establish foundations an old dry dock was rediscovered, and is really well preserved.  Thanks to the developers for the new viewing platform outside the entrance to the remaining Decathlon.  Climb up a short flight of stairs and you have a perfect view of the site, with the remains of the late 19th Century dry dock clearly visible at the far side of the site.  It is really quite huge!  Wonderful to have the opportunity to see something so splendid emerging so unexpectedly from the ground, and in relatively good condition.

Click on any of the photographs to see a bigger version.

The parallel development of the two dock systems.
Davies map 1843

The dry dock is essentially part of the story of the amalgamation of two dock companies, the Grand Surrey Canal and Docks Company and the Surrey Commercial Dock Company.  The first commercial dock to be built in London was the Howland Great Wet Dock, which was begun in 1699 and opened in 1700.  Greenland Dock sits over the area that was once occupied by the much smaller Howland Great Wet Dock.  The dock passed through different owners until it was eventually purchased in 1807 by the specially-formed Surrey Commercial Dock Company, and new docks and timber ponds were built in a line to the west, each flowing into the next.  At the same time, the Grand Surrey Canal Canal company had been formed in 1801 to build a canal that eventually reached Croydon and Peckham.  It opened in 1804 but was by no means the commercial success that its investors had hoped for, and the success of the nearby docks encouraged the Grand Surrey Canal Company to ask for permission to start building docks.  This being granted in 1811 the company and immediately started using the canal infrastructure to create a dock system of its  own which, running east to west, was more or less parallel to that of the Surrey Commercial Dock Company, with whom they were now in serious competition.  Accordingly, the Grand Surrey Canal Company eventually changed its name to become the Grand Surrey Canal and Docks Company.  Price wars followed, undermining both companies, and the decision was taken to amalgamate them into one large company, which became the Surrey Commercial Dock Company in 1864.  The situation at this time is reflected in the 1868 Ordnance Survey Map.  [This history is the short and simple version, but you can read more about the full and rather complicated story on my previous posts, which I have listed at the bottom of this one.]

The old cut from Main Dock (renamed Albion
Dock) into the old Albion Pond.
Godfrey Ordnance Survey Map of 1868
Click to expand.

Following the amalgamation of the two companies, various decisions needed to be made about the future of the docks.  One of the first things to change was the name of individual docks and timber ponds, with Main Dock being renamed Albion Dock.  Links were made between the formerly separate dock systems, with new cuts and locks between the two, but more ambitious plans were being rolled out.  The dry dock is not shown on the 1868 map, but it is on the 1894 map, and this is because it appeared as the result of major engineering works to expand the dock system.  The second even more considerable difference between the two maps was the addition of Canada Dock, connected to the older Albion Dock of 1860.  The course of Albion Dock is today marked by Albion Channel, the small canal that links Surrey Water (formerly Surrey Basin) and Canada Water.  In 1875 Canada Dock was created, a vast, strangely shaped and ambitious piece of engineering that carried the dock over the area now covered by the shopping centre and car park, established specifically to handle the vast new iron vessels and their high-volume cargoes.  It became the biggest dock in the system at this time.  This area had been in use as timber ponds.   

As shown on the map to the left, a cut connected Main Dock and Albion Pond.  A bridge passed over the cut, but there are no archaeological traces remaining of that bridge to show what it looked like, and there are no known photographs of it surviving.  

The dry dock showing the new Canada Dock
together with the place where the old cut was,
replaced by the dry dock, in red, and the
new cut between Albion Dock and Canada
Dock in green.

In the new scheme, Canada Dock replaced Albion Pond and most of Canada Pond, but Quebec Pond and Centre Pond were retained to its east.  Canada Dock had to be connected to Albion Dock, just as Main Dock had been connected to Albion Pond, in order to link it into the rest of the network.  

The original cut from Main Dock into Albion Pond shown in the red circle on the map above was far too small to be suitable for the new, larger ships that Canada Dock was built to handle.  So the old cut  was closed at its southern end and converted into the dry dock that we see on the Decathlon site, making excellent use of the former link between Main Dock and Albion Pond.   This is shown on the map to the right in red.  A new entrance, much wider and longer, was established to its west to link Albion Dock and Canada Dock, and is also clearly visible on the 1894 map, marked in green on the map to the right. 

So we know that the dry dock dates to roughly 1875, which is why it is not on the 1868 map but is so clearly shown on the 1894 and 1914 maps as a dock in the bottom edge of Albion Dock.   It was around 4.5m deep.  I would guess  that it was used for repairing barges and lighters that were essential to the loading and unloading of cargo from the ships that used the docks.  Full automation never took over in the Surrey Commercial Docks, and in spite of large cranes along many of the wharves barges and lighters were part of the permanent dockland landscape of Rotherhithe, an essential but often battered component of cargo handling. The dry dock probably remained in use until quite late in the history of the docks prior to their closure in 1970.  It was still above ground during the construction of Canada Water tube station, which took its name from the surviving square corner of Canada Dock, and was captured in a photograph in 1996 (see the photo at the end of this post).  The dock must have been filled in and buried shortly after that.

Given that the Albion Dock dry dock has been buried for around 20 years (or more probably because of it), it is in remarkably good state of preservation.  The photos on this page show that it was made of at least two types of brick.  The pale beige stock brick along the sides belongs to the original cut between Main Dock and Albion Pond.  When it was converted to a dry dock black engineering brick was added at the lock end, a type of brick that was in common use around the docks in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The black engineering brick was often used on corner pieces of docks and locks, and particular properties that made it valuable for this purpose.  Where the modern rectangular block of grey cement now stands were a pair of lock gates.  At the opposite end cement was used to block and reinforce the former cut to create a dry dock.  Cement was a new material at this time, and most uses of it had been somewhat experimental up until around 1870.  At the dry dock it was poured into an armature of wooden planks (a technique called "shuttering") until it was set, leaving unmistakeable marks of the planking along the sides of the concrete, clearly visible in one of the photographs below.  Given that it has survived for over 140 years, this early use at Albion dry dock can be said to be a firm success!  On the 1914 Ordnance Survey map an additional black line surrounds the dock, and this shows the outline of an open-sided structure that was built over the top of the dry dock.  A photograph of it (or a newer version of it) survives from 1975. 

The dock has been professionally surveyed and recorded by the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), who have a watching brief to monitor the site.  

As to the future, we were told different things at the 6pm and 6.30pm talks by the representatives of the development.  At the 6pm talk the woman told us that the dry dock will be preserved in the basement of the new development, but although it will not be visible it is possible that guided tours will be available.  At the 6.30pm talk a man, this time, said that it would be sealed beneath concrete and would not be available to visit.  So who knows?  I daresay we'll find out after the building has been built.  At least MOLA has been given access to survey it.

The photographs below were taken during April 2016.
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And from the London Docklands blog, here's this wonderful photograph from 1996, showing the water-filled dry dock at far left, roughly half way down the photo in the green area during the construction of the Canada Water tube station.

With thanks, as usual, to Stuart Rankin's booklets about the history of the area, and to Magnus Copps from the Museum of London Archaeology for coming to talk to local residents about the site on 27th May 2016.
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To find out more see some of my earlier posts:

The development of the Surrey Commercial Dock system 1609 - 1909
http://russiadock.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-development-of-surrey-commercial.html
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A history of the Commercial Dock Company: A history of Norway Dock and the timber ponds 1811 - 2014
http://russiadock.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-commercial-dock-company-history-of.html
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The development of Albion Dock and the timber ponds of the Grand Surrey Dock and Canal Company
http://russiadock.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-development-of-docks-of-grand.html
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The establishment of Canada Dock by the Surrey Commercial Dock Company in 1875
http://russiadock.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-establishment-of-canada-dock-by.html

Charles Hay and Sons, barge and lighter builders

Charles Hay and Son,
Rotherhithe Street

As you walk into Rotherhithe village from the direction of the bascule bridge (heading upriver), Charles Hay and Sons appears on the right at 135 Rotherhithe Street, SE16 4NF.  As the door says, the business was first established in 1789.  A rather fine nineteenth century building, part of it has been now been converted into apartments.

Reverend E.J. Beck provides the information that Charles Hay was the son of one Francis Theodore Hay, who died in 1838 at the age of 70 and was buried at the west of St Mary's churchyard.  Beck does not say what Francis Hay did for a living, but The Gentleman Magazine (195) of that year gives a good account of his life, which gives the background to Charles Hay and Son Ltd.  Francis Hay had started out as a waterman, worked his way up to a master-lighterman, becoming a barge owner and amassing a fortune, estimated by The Gentleman's Magazine at some £100,000.  He was a staunch conservative. During the course of his career he was a member of the Court of Assistants of the Watermen's Company and was the first Master of the company when in it was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1827.  He was one of the Queen's watermen and a King's waterman in the three preceding reigns.  His funeral was very well attended by local dignitaries, shipbuilders, businessmen, traders and "poorer classes," with local shops and businesses closing for the day as a mark of respect.  Francis Hay's estate was bequeathed to his son Charles Hay.

London Lighterman. 
Portcities website. c.1910.

All of the roles that Francis Hay performed are part of the greater social, business and  political circle in which the lighter and barge operators and builders functioned.  Watermen were (and are) those in charge of boats that convey passengers along and across the Thames and other rivers.  Lightermen take their name from lighters, the boats used to transport goods between ships moored in the Thames and quaysides.  The Watermen's Company (later the Company of Watermen and Lightermen) was a City Guild, acting on the interests of its members.

Charles Hay was clearly a successful lighterman and barge builder in his own right, having established his own business in 1789, a long time before his father's death nearly forty years later, although it is entirely likely that he had financial assistance from his family to start out.  He was also involved in the wider world of Thames boat building, was a Queen's waterman and a Master of the Watermen's company.  He built himself a substantial house on Lower Road, which eventually became a Vicarage for the parish of Christ Church.

Thames Barges on the Thames Estuary
Photograph by James Gray

Barges and lighters do not have the same prestige or expense associated with the large sailing ships and paddle steamers posted about to date.  They were very much the workhorses rather than the thoroughbreds of their world, and they were produced to a fairly standardized formula, so tracing individual barges is rarely possible.  However, barges and lighters were the nuts and bolts of the Port of London industries, delivering construction supplies to the riverside wharves and taking over where the big sailing ships left off, redistributing their cargo to wherever it was needed next.

There are a handful of the larger nineteenth century Thames barges left today, some seagoing, with wooden hulls, attractive low lines, reddish-brown sails on two masts, shallow flat-bottomed draughts (which allowed them to rest, beached, at low tide), lee boards, sprits and spritsails.  Nineteenth century photographs of the Thames show large numbers of them, and one or two survive today.

Lighters were smaller barges, flat-bottomed and used exclusively for transferring cargo between ships moored in the Thames and the quaysides.  Astonishingly, they were unpowered, relying on the tide for propulsion up and down river, and on large oars to direct the vessels. 

Charles Hay and Son,
Rotherhithe Street

135 Rotherhithe Street, SE16 4NF, was the base for the Charles Hay and Sons lighter and barge building operations.  Although the business was established in 1789, this building dates to around 50 or 60 years later, and was certainly standing in 1857.  A photograph from 1937 shows it with an open river frontage with two barges beached immediately in front of it, clearly marked Charles Hay and Son Ltd on the Thames side, flanked by tall brick-built granaries, of which Brandram's Wharf remains, and it probably hadn't changed much over time.  It is now Grade II listed (TQ3530279943) and is, to all appearances, very well maintained.  Here's the description from the British Listed Buildings website:

Stock brick with pitched slate roof with range of clerestory lights; gabled ends to north and south, that to street coped and with kneelers, that to river plain. 2 storeys, 3 bays. Street elevation has 3 tall segmental-arched openings with hatch (now adapted) over central works entrance. Brick string between floors. River elevation has altered ground floor and openings, small hoist hatch in gable. All windows have gauged brick segmental arches. INTERIOR: not inspected. Occupied by Charles Hay and Son, barge owners, builders and repairers, established 1789. A rare survival of its kind.

The top floor was a sail loft, and this has been converted into apartments. 

A very fuzzy photograph of the
premises in 1937, with the
Charles Hay and Son Ltd. sign
 on the Thames-facing side with
two barges beached outside.

As well as his son Charles, Francis Hays's two daughters, Eleanor Russell and Elizabeth Hay, set up a fund in memory of their father the year after his death  for the benefit of impoverished Rotherhithe residents.  They donated the sum of £200, the interest from which was to provide "good dark blue great-coats and cloaks for the benefit of six or eight poor men and women belonging to the Parish of Rotherhithe, watermen and their wives and widows always having preference" (Beck, p.171).  The rector and church-wardens of the parish were entrusted with the task each Christmas.  

Charles Hay died in 1868 at the age of 78, and was buried in the family tomb in St Mary's churchyard, along with his father and mother (Eleanor Gordon Hay who died at the age of 33), amongst other family members.  His daughter married George Legg, an architect who was a surveyor to the Vestry of Rotherhithe, but I have found nothing about his son, with whom he was in business.  By the time that Beck was writing in 1907 the business had passed into the hands of Charles's grandson, another Francis Theodore, who was resident in France but left the company in the hands of two mangers: Mr John M. Plaice and Mr Grey.

The riverside face of Charles Hay and Son
today, taken from the Thames Clipper, hence
the rather wobbly focus!