East India Dock Basin, Blackwall
Much of the former East India Docks in Blackwall has been drained and built over (as in the background). However the East India Dock Basin has survived; silting with mud has created a rare saltmarsh habitat close to the centre of London and this is now managed as an important bird and nature reserve.
The East India Docks were built by the East India Company, which was one of the most powerful global traders of all time. Founded in 1600, by the 1750s it had come to rule India via its own private armies, a situation that only changed in 1858 when the Crown assumed direct control following the Indian Rebellion of the previous year.
The Docks were built at Blackwall (where the Company already had a wharf) in 1804 to avoid the increasingly congested River Thames around the Pool of London and the warehouses of Wapping and Rotherhithe. New roads - East India Dock Road and Commercial Road - were constructed to bring goods into the Company's warehouses in the City of London, and were joined in 1840 by the London and Blackwall Railway, with a terminus at Fenchurch Street and Goods Depots in the Aldgate area. The changing nature of trade caused the Docks to decline in the 20th Century, and they closed in 1967.
East India Dock Basin, Blackwall
Much of the former East India Docks in Blackwall has been drained and built over (as in the background). However the East India Dock Basin has survived; silting with mud has created a rare saltmarsh habitat close to the centre of London and this is now managed as an important bird and nature reserve.
The East India Docks were built by the East India Company, which was one of the most powerful global traders of all time. Founded in 1600, by the 1750s it had come to rule India via its own private armies, a situation that only changed in 1858 when the Crown assumed direct control following the Indian Rebellion of the previous year.
The Docks were built at Blackwall (where the Company already had a wharf) in 1804 to avoid the increasingly congested River Thames around the Pool of London and the warehouses of Wapping and Rotherhithe. New roads - East India Dock Road and Commercial Road - were constructed to bring goods into the Company's warehouses in the City of London, and were joined in 1840 by the London and Blackwall Railway, with a terminus at Fenchurch Street and Goods Depots in the Aldgate area. The changing nature of trade caused the Docks to decline in the 20th Century, and they closed in 1967.