Around 11,300 inhabitants, mostly port workers crammed into unsanitary slums, lost their homes; only the property owners received compensation.

To create as much quayside as possible, the docks were designed in the form of two linked basins (East and West), both accessed via an entrance lock from the Thames.

Steam engines designed by James Watt and Matthew Boulton kept the water level in the basins about four feet above that of the tidal river.

[3] Because of their very restricted capacity and inability to cope with large modern ships, the St Katharine Docks were among the first to be closed in 1968, and were sold to the Greater London Council.

The site was leased to the developers Taylor Woodrow and most of the original warehouses around the western basin were demolished and replaced by modern commercial buildings in the early 1970s, beginning with the bulky Tower Hotel (designed by Renton Howard Wood Partnership; opened in September 1973)[5] on a site parallel to the river just to the east of Tower Bridge.

This was followed by the World Trade Centre Building and Commodity Quay (both designed by architects Watkins Gray International).

[4] In 1980, a plan was approved to open a St Katharine Docks Underground station on the proposed extension of the Jubilee line.

[6] An eastwards extension was eventually built as part of the Jubilee line, but took a different route south of the Thames.

[10] The area now features offices, public and private housing, a large hotel, shops and restaurants, a pub (The Dickens Inn, a former brewery dating back to the 18th century), a yachting marina and other recreational facilities.

The east dock is now dominated by the City Quay residential development, comprising more than 200 privately owned flats overlooking the marina.

[17] The nearby Tower Millennium Pier, located on the other side of Tower Bridge, now provides the main commuter river boat services to Canary Wharf and Greenwich in the east and the West End in the west, and a fast visitor service to the London Eye.