3-101-126 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

St Mary Overy's Dock, c1881. St Mary Overie Dock on the River Thames in south London. '"The Dock," says Mr Rendle, "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 public thoroughfare for pedestrians...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 [ie Palace] - originally built early in the twelfth century for the residence of the Bishops of Winchester'. Description by Alfred Marks. In 2008, although the area has been re-built and the dockyards gone, the Dock still exists in name and a replica of Francis Drake's The Golden Hind is now moored there.