Madrone’s home for the coming winter is St Katharine Docks, located right in the center of London. The marina takes its name from St Catherine, a 6th century martyr who was sentenced to torture on a spiked wheel (which came to be known as a Wheel of Catherine). While the marina is not quite as old as its namesake, St Katharine’s has its own long history.
St Katharine Docks is a complex of office buildings and repurposed warehouses surrounding three basins, all accessed from the River Thames through a lock. The land on which the complex sits had its start for marine purposes over a thousand years ago – in the 10th century, King Edgar granted the land to a guild of 13 knights for use in developing international trade.
Then, in the 12th century, Queen Mathilda repurposed the land for a church and hospital, dedicated to caring for the poor and sick. The church St Katharine by the Tower stood for more than 600 years, surviving numerous invasions and even the Great Fire of 1666, and the Royal Foundation of St Katharine still exists today.
By the mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and to support increased shipping a series of inland docks were constructed off the side of the Thames. St Katharine Docks was the last to be built – designed by the renowned Scottish civil engineer Thomas Telford to allow ships to be offloaded directly into the warehouses that line the basins, construction began in 1827 and was completed a year later. Because of the development, over 11,000 (mostly very poor) residents of the area were displaced from their homes without compensation.
As ships steadily grew bigger, the facilities of St Katharine Docks became outdated – by the mid-1960s, the Docks had closed. Redevelopment didn’t take as long as the original development, however, and by the 1990s the current marina was in place, with a mix of newly constructed offices and hotels and renovated original warehouses lining the basins.
Today, St Katharine Docks is a lively place – business people walk through the Docks on their way to work, tourists stroll through to appreciate the history and admire the architecture (and the lovely sailboats, of course), and people enjoy food and drinks in the restaurants ringing the marina. It’s a unique spot, and we’re looking forward to some city life over the winter.
