Greenland Dock

The Russells had been given a portion of land in lower Rotherhithe by a wealthy Streatham landowner, John Howland, as part of a wedding dowry for his daughter Elizabeth, granddaughter of Sir Josiah Child – the dictatorial chairman of the East India Company, 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 10 acres (4.0 ha), capable of accommodating around 120 ships.

[citation needed] 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.

[citation needed] From the 1720s, Greenland whalers also used the dock and substantial blubber boiling houses were built to produce oil on the south side.

Much of the timber arrived aboard small sailing vessels from the Baltic region, although these were eventually displaced by large steamers.

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, the engineer who built Tower Bridge.

Cunard Line A-class vessels of as much as 14,000 long tons (14,000 t), driven by large steam engines and carrying passengers and cargoes in both directions, sailed regularly from Greenland Dock to the St. Lawrence River in Canada.

Not long afterwards, the shipping industry moved en masse to the system of containerization, which required bulk carriers far too large to be accommodated in the London docks.

Greenland Dock, which now belonged to the local authority, escaped this fate and in 1981 was handed over to the London Docklands Development Corporation.

A masterplan was produced that advocated evicting the remaining industrial occupiers of the quaysides and transforming the dock into a residential area.