Wapping basin and warehouse

Wapping Basin
1855
Grade II

Wapping Basin, together with Wapping Dock, was built in 1855 by Jesse Hartley in his usual "Cyclopean" granite, principally to connect Salthouse Dock and others to the north with King's Dock and others to the south and Duke's Dock to the west.

Wapping Dock was badly damaged in the Blitz of May 1941, and although it has been repaired, it is not listed.

At Wapping there is another block of noble Hartley warehouses similar in principle to those at Albert and Stanley, in brick, iron and slate. It has segmental headed windows with small paned iron casements. 

The building was originally 232 metres long, had forty bays and was divided into five fireproof sections, but it has been reduced in length following damage suffered in the May Blitz, 1941.

Its original length can be gauged from the partially redundant colonnade of iron columns on the quayside. Each section had a hydraulically powered lift and an open two-storey elliptical arch on the quayside, which were all open.

The original granite perimeter wall still stands on the east side and incorporates the stumps of the stanchions of the overhead railway. The building has been successfully converted into flats.