EPW060800 ENGLAND (1939). Surrey Commercial Docks, the River Thames to Balckfriars Bridge and the surrounding city, London, 1939

St.-George-in-the-East Church, 17/02/2015

St. Paul's Church, Shadwell, 17/02/2015

Bascule Bridge, Shadwell Basin, 17/02/2015

Bascule Bridge, Shadwell Basin, 17/02/2015

Tower Bridge from Hermitage Riverside Memorial Garden, 17/02/2015

St. Katharine Docks, 23/10/2014

The Tower of London Remembers, 23/10/2014

Rotherhithe Tunnel, 30/09/2014

Rotherhithe Tunnel, 30/09/2014

Rotherhithe Tunnel, 30/09/2014

Rotherhithe Tunnel, 30/09/2014

Rotherhithe Tunnel, 30/09/2014

St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe, 30/09/2014

Listed buildings, Rotherhithe, 30/09/2014

St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe, 30/09/2014

A crane, Rotherhithe, 30/09/2014

King's Stairs looking east, Rotherhithe, 30/09/2014

View from King's Stairs Gardens, 30/09/2014

View from King's Stairs Gardens, 30/09/2014

St. Peter and the Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church, Paradise Street, 30/09/2014

This image was taken less than four months before the start of World war II, during which the Surrey Commercial Docks and the surrounding area of Inner London suffered badly from German air attacks. The docks never recovered their former importance and finally closed in 1970, before undergoing extensive redevelopment since 1981.

The Surrey Docks suffered greatly from air attacks during World War II and so this image represents the final period of peacetime activity. South Dock was pumped dry for the construction of concrete caissons required for the D-Day landings in June 1944. Postwar changes took place when the PLA sold the docks to the GLC and Southwark Council, and most of the dock areas labelled on this photograph were filled in ready for building, although Greenland Dock was retained. Surrey Commercial Docks officially closed in 1970.



When the London Docklands Development Corporation was set up in 1981, most of the land was parcelled up and sold to developers to create Surrey Quays and Canada Water. Within 25 years, the area has undergone a transformation into South London's answer to the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf: new roads, railway links, shopping malls, ecology parks, watersports centres, a youth hostel (the writer stayed here on a short field trip in December '91), residential, leisure and commercial enterprises set up around the docks and wharfs. Some of these changes are indicated on Alan McFaden's accompanying images.

Surrey Commercial Docks were constructed piecemeal between 1807 and 1876, largely to deal with the imports of timber and nearly a third of all British imports of this commodity were handled by these docks in 1929. Storage accommodation was provided for almost half a million tons and there were specially built sheds for the seasoning of softwood from the Baltic states and eastern Canada, in addition to ponds for floating.