London Yard was a shipyard in London, in use between around 1856 and 1908 by various shipbuilding companies, including

Westwood, Baillie Westwood, Baillie and Co was a Victorian engineering and shipbuilding company based at London Yard in Cubitt Town, London. The company was set up in 1856 by Robert Baillie and Joseph Westwood, previously managers of Thames Ironworks and Shipbui ...

and

Yarrow Shipbuilders Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited (YSL), often styled as simply Yarrows, was a major shipbuilding firm based in the Scotstoun district of Glasgow on the River Clyde. It is now part of BAE Systems Surface Ships, owned by BAE Systems, which has also o ...

Location

The site is on the north bank of the Thames immediately to the south of the

Samuda Estate The Samuda Estate is on the east side of Manchester Road, in Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs. With 505 dwellings it is home to about 1,500 people and covers . Historical background The estate is named for the shipbuilding company of the Samuda ...

Cubitt Town Cubitt Town is a district on the eastern side of the Isle of Dogs in London, England. This part of the former Metropolitan Borough of Poplar was redeveloped as part of the Port of London in the 1840s and 1850s by William Cubitt, Lord Mayor of L ...

on the

Isle of Dogs The Isle of Dogs is a large peninsula bounded on three sides by a large meander in the River Thames in East London, England, which includes the Cubitt Town, Millwall and Canary Wharf districts. The area was historically part of the Manor, Ham ...

, and lies between the river and Manchester Road. It occupies around , with around of river frontage.

History

The site, immediately upstream of the yard of

Samuda Brothers Samuda Brothers was an engineering and ship building firm at Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in London, founded by Jacob Samuda, Jacob and Joseph d'Aguilar Samuda. The site is now occupied by Samuda Estate. Samuda Brothers initially leased a ...

, was acquired in 1856 by Robert Baillie and Joseph Westwood. Westwood and Baillie built a number of ships at the yard including HMS ''Resistance'', but subsequently concentrated mainly on the manufacture of iron and steel bridges. Westwood and Ballie went out of business in 1893. The yard was taken over in 1898 by Yarrows, who had outgrown their original yard to the north at Folly Wall. Yarrows built many

torpedo boat destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in 1 ...

s at the yard. As shipbuilding in London declined, Yarrows subsequently transferred to Scotstoun,

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

between 1906 and 1908. In 1917 the freehold was purchased by C. & E. Morton, a local manufacturer of soups, pickles and jams. The site was used for the manufacture of packing cases and for storage. Mortons employed around 600 people here. Mortons sold the site in 1936. It is said to have been used during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

for the construction of units for the Mulberry harbours used in the invasion of Normandy. After the war it was acquired by Badcocks of Greenwich, which had previously occupied part of the site as a tenant. By the early 1960s Badcocks had been joined by a variety of other firms, all of which made use of existing buildings. By 1972 the wharf was unoccupied. In 1977 it was acquired by the GLC. A plan to build housing, a water-sports centre and a boat-building yard stalled when heavy pollution was discovered. It passed to the

London Docklands Development Corporation The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its seventeen-year existence it was responsible for regenerating an a ...

, and was sold to a private developer, becoming one of the first sites on the Isle of Dogs to be redeveloped. It is now occupied by 312 residential units, completed in 1988. Development included opening up a stretch of the foreshore as a beach (owned by the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...

), and the opening of a section of riverside walkway (owned by the

local authority Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

External links

London Yard website

References

History of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Shipbuilding in London Ships built in Cubitt Town Shipyards on the River Thames Port of London Poplar, London {{london-geo-stub