Royal Victoria Dock

The Royal Victoria Dock lies in east London’s Docklands, the largest of three linked docks on a once-empty stretch of Plaistow Marshes. Built in the 1850s to take big steamships, it was the first London dock with hydraulic cranes and a direct railway line. A swing bridge at the entrance was later replaced by a loop line running round the north side to Silvertown. By 1860 the dock handled over 850 000 tons of cargo a year, twice the tonnage of the London Docks and four times that of St Katharine Docks. After wartime bombing and later containerisation shut it in 1981, the site was reborn in the 1990s with new housing and the ExCeL Exhibition Centre. Jean-Michel Jarre’s 1988 concert Destination Docklands helped draw attention to the area. Visitors now walk past surviving warehouse walls and along the 3.6-kilometre quays. The Royal Victoria Dock Bridge of 1998 arches over the water, and the annual Great London Swim and F1H2O Grand Prix bring crowds. Rowers start the Docklands Head race beneath the bridge each July, while Britannia Village’s Community Foundation organises local events.