Granaries, Shipyards and Wharves - Cycling from Guildford

vessels, including pioneer early steamships, East Indiamen, West
Indies traders, 74 gun ships of the line, bomb vessels, frigates –
and even the odd Royal Yacht, to be built here from the time
of the Commonwealth onwards. Ship repair would continue,
on a declining scale, for almost another century, but as the
value of prime riverside sites for other purposes rose, by 1914,
most of the yards were built over. Many had large granaries
erected on them, and some of these survive, converted to
apartments. Others found new use as timber wharves, or the
sites for oil and metal refineries.
The timber trade, shipbuilding and shipbreaking
These three activities were intimately linked during the wooden
shipbuilding era; a timber yard might be converted to a
shipyard, by the simple expedient of constructing a building
slip. Later, a dry dock for repairs might be added. There were
several of these in Rotherhithe, almost all constructed of timber
until quite late in the 19th century.
A timber yard could also be used as the base for a ship breaker,
particularly during the many wars of the 18th and early 19th
centuries. No special facilities were required – the hull to be
demolished was merely moored securely on the foreshore, and
allowed to rise and fall with the tide, until breaking up reached
the point at which it would no longer float. Final stages of the
work could then only be carried out at low water. In wartime,
timber could be in short supply – particularly the scarce curved
“compass timber” used especially for “knees”, the angled
brackets used to fasten deck beams to ribs, and to help
support the weight of heavy guns. When a wooden ship
reached the end of its working life, there was a great deal of
material which could be salvaged for further use, either in ship
repair, in building a new vessel, or even on land. During one of
these walks you will be passing warehouses, whose floors are
supported by knees salvaged from some long forgotten ship.
As shipbuilding became less profitable, some shipyards turned
over to shipbreaking. Some famous vessels met their end in
Rotherhithe, and will be noted during the course of your walk.
The peak time for this activity was from around 1830 onwards,
when the last survivors of the massive fleet built up during the
Napoleonic wars made final journeys to the breakers. With the
decline in wooden shipbuilding, the later examples suffered the
indignity of being turned into garden furniture, paving blocks,
or firewood.
4 SOUTHWARK HISTORY WALKS