Puddle Dock

It is a square opening in the river bank, between two blocks of warehouses, a place where the dark, drift-strewn waters of the Thames flow right up to the streets of the City.

[3] There is an indirect link to Shakespeare, as he gifted in his will a house to his daughter, Susanna Hall, a house described in the conveyance as "abutting upon a streete leading down to Puddle Wharffe on the east part, right against the King's Majesty's Wardrobe ... now or late in the tenure of one William Ireland or of his asignee or assignees.

[5] The warehouse facing the Thames was 7 stories high, and "the principal front fell with a tremendous crash into the river, about 5 o'clock in the morning."

It was owned by Messrs J & J Hadley, who had built the premises in 1852 on a vacant piece of land stretching to the riverside, and within it there were steam powered grinding mills as well as a large grain store.

The redevelopment of the area was a protracted affair, with Simon Jenkins of the Illustrated London News commenting in 1971,[11] of the "Blight around Blackfriars" with the destruction of the Gothic and renaissance warehouses.

He refers to the barge that was in the Puddle Dock "just 10 years" ago alongside the Mermaid Theatre, which is now "an underpass slip-road".