St Mary Overy's Dock, ca.1881

From: Henry Dixon & Son

RA Collection: Art

""The Dock," says Mr Rendle (p.203), "exists in the very earliest maps...It was generally neglected and a nuisance, and must have been much larger than we have known it to be ."

None of the houses in this photograph are of any great age, but altogether this is a quaint and interesting nook of Old London. The flat-headed doorway to the spectator's left, adjoining one with a round head, is, little as it looks like it, a busy publilc thoroughfare for pedestrians, unless a low swing-door is to be understood as reserving private rights. The passage, turning to the left through the houses, leads to Clink Street. In a granary close by is a large pointed arch, not visible from the outside, the last relic of what was once one of the most magnificent palaces in the land - Winchester House -originally built early in the twelfth century for the residence of the Bishops of Winchester. In Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata are plates giving representations of the ruins of the Palace as they existed about the beginning of this century."

The above descriiption, by Alfred Marks, was taken from the letterpress which accompanies the photographs. In 2008, although the area has been re-built and the dockyards gone, St Mary Overy's Dock still exists in name and a replica of The Golden Hind is now moored there.