Listing Text

SOUTHWARK

TQ3680SE ROTHERHITHE STREET
636-1/21/654 (East side)
01/07/83 No.263
(Formerly Listed as:
ROTHERHITHE STREET
Nelson Dock Engine House and Draw
Dock)

GV II

Nelson Dock engine house, now restored and used as offices.
c1850.
MATERIALS: yellow stock brick with 2 pedimented gables to
street and dock elevations, vertically boarded timber link
between, over off-centre middle bay.
EXTERIOR: 2 and 3 storeys, 3 bays, that to north broader with
2 windows on 2nd floor. Street elevation has gauged brick
round arches to round-headed windows with radial glazing to
heads. Low round-arched works entrance below the north gable,
altered linteled entrance to right. Plat band below 2nd floor.
Similar elevation to dock head, the timber top-floor link here
set back between the pedimented gables. South return has one
round-headed window centred to 1st and 2nd floors.
INTERIOR: retains restored hydraulic engine. The hydraulic
cylinder is embossed "The Hydraulic Engineering Co Ld", that
is, late C19 or early C20. However, the style is mid C19 and
according to recent research is actually the date of the
engine, as the hydraulic slipway was invented in the 1840s.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the engine house is probably contemporary
with Thomas Bible's pioneering composite, timber-clad
iron-ribbed hull constructions in this dockyard. It served the
Nelson Dock Patent Slip immediately to its east (qv) where,
between 1851 and 1866 Bible and Perry built composite hull
clippers for the China Trade. An important remaining structure
of Nelson's Dock.

Listing NGR: TQ3654880238