archaeological and historical background prehistoric and roman There is very little excavated evidence for prehistoric activity in the vicinity of the site although layers of peat, probably dating to the Bronze Age have been recorded nearby. A prehistoric forest found in the 19th century is listed as Palaeolithic in date, and a Mesolithic Thames pick has been recovered from the foreshore immediately upstream. Evidence for Roman activity is also very limited: a late 3rd century Roman coin was found in the Isle of Dogs before 1844 and although it has been suggested that marshland reclamation was originally carried out by the Romans, a medieval date is more likely (see below). early medieval During the Saxon period large areas of land would have remained marshy with the Thames frequently overflowing its banks. The marshes and fens, however, were important as grazing for livestock, for the gathering of reeds, plants and berries, for fishing, and for the hunting of wildfowl and other creatures. late medieval The first documentary evidence for settlement dates from the later 12th century, when William of Pontefract built a chapel on his estate, later known as the manor of Pomfret; a hamlet with about 80 acres of arable land and a windmill. Associated with Pomfret manor, to the south of the settlement, was a ferry (known later as Potter's ferry) to Greenwich, although evidence for it lies in documentary form, mentioned in a will of 1450. The earliest reference to a chapel in the marsh dedicated to St Mary dates from 1380; this may refer to a chapel of ease built for the marsh’s inhabitants. On Lady Day 1449 the river burst through the marsh wall opposite Deptford, and it was almost certainly this flood which led to the hamlet's abandonment. It seems likely that arable farming came to an end in the 15th century, and possibly well before 1449 the land was used primarily for grazing. The date at which the Isle of Dogs was first embanked to claim the marshland for pasture and agriculture is not known. Before development the land lay several feet below high water level; protected from flooding by a bank or wall, it was drained by large ditches discharging into the river through sluice-gates. The earliest reference to the repair of a marsh wall and ditches on the Isle of Dogs is dated 1298 but as the settlement existed well before this, there must have already been a wall. Repeated drownings and reclamations probably involved its partial reconstruction or enlargement. post medieval When the medieval chapel was converted to a dwelling is uncertain, but the name Chapel House was in use by the late 16th century, and by 1811 the building was a 'neat farm-house'. After the abandonment of the hamlet, the Isle of Dogs appears to have still been largely uninhabited, but became known as rich pastureland for horses and animals for slaughter. ‘Isle of Dogs Farm’ appears on a map of 1683; title deeds show that the Isle of Dogs was the name of the farm and house originating as Pomfret manor, but it may have been loosely applied to the district generally. How the place name originated remains an enigma; among several, mostly fanciful, theories, the most persistent is that royal hunting dogs were kept there when the king resided at Greenwich during the 16th century. Cartographic and pictorial evidence suggests that the area may have had an association with punishment; mid 18th views by Rocque and Hogarth both show a gallows at the southern tip of the peninsula. The name Mill Wall came into use in the late 18th century, initially referring to the western marsh wall, (just upstream of the foreshore site) where up to 12 windmills were constructed during the late 17th / early 18th century, however by the early-mid 19th century, amid increasing industrialization of the area, none remained in operation.

thames discovery programme Burrell’s Wharf FTH15 The zone is approximately 390m long and 30m wide at its greatest extent. There is no direct step/stair access to the site area; there are 6 x emergency ladders (vertical) only. Walking access to the zone is along the foreshore from the slipway at Poplar Rowing Club (around ½ km downstream). The zone extends from just upstream of the Masthouse Ferry Pier to the housing complex at Langbourne Place. The ground conditions within this zone are generally firm, however other possible

hazards include large amounts of metalwork on the foreshore, wash from passing ferries, uneven foreshore surfaces and access across a rock armoured surface.

The formation of the ferry roads in 1812-15 opened the Isle of Dogs for development, but this was focused along the river due to poor infrastructure across the rest of the peninsula. In the immediate vicinity of the foreshore zone, initial development during the 18th century was focused around ‘Drunken Dock’, and gradually spread downstream:

The Mast House: in the early 18th century the ‘Land of Promise’ estate, consisted of marsh, with reed beds and osier hope along the foreland. A windmill was built at the north end, beside Drunken Dock, about 1722, together with a house and granaries. These were replaced c1766 by a warehouse, dwelling house, and cottages, which became the centre of a large mast-works that flourished for a century. Robert Todd, mastmaker of Wapping, bought the estate in 1771 and on his death left it to his partner Thomas Todd and his late wife's cousin, Elizabeth, wife of Charles Ferguson of Poplar, also a mastmaker. 'Smoke-stack' industry arrived in 1824, with the construction of a chemical-processing works of the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company. In 1835–6 the estate passed to Ferguson's son, Charles Augustus, who sold the undeveloped greater part of the ground to the Scottish engineers William Fairbairn and David Napier (see below). Upon the closure of the Mast House in 1861, when Ferguson became insolvent, the dock was enclosed and the site sold to the newly formed Millwall Iron Works, Ship Building & Graving Docks Company Ltd. After the collapse of this company, the Mast House property was occupied for some years by N. J. & H. Fenner of Fenner's Wharf, who briefly let it to a ship-breaker. In 1877 they began using it for storing barrels of petroleum, and the name was changed to St Andrew's Wharf. St Andrew's Wharf was broken up into the following: Ferguson's Wharf, comprising the Mast House, Ferguson's house and the cottages; Rose Wharf, covering the north-western half of the Mast Pond, but excluding an area to the north-east occupied by a coconut-desiccating works; and the other half of the Mast Pond, known as St Andrew's or St Andrew's Union Wharf. Later industrial activities included jam making, oil refining, metal-working and the manufacture of paint and colours.

Napier Yard: David Napier, marine engineer, bought the site in 1837, laying it out as a shipyard for his sons John and Francis. By 1843 it contained a workshop, a villa (Millwall House), and some dwellings along Westferry Road. The works remained in operation until destroyed by fire in 1853; most of the yard was then leased to John Scott Russell as the building site of the Great Eastern, and was later bought by the Millwall Iron Works, Ship Building & Graving Docks Company Ltd. It seems to have been wholly or partly unoccupied for some years after the collapse of that company. However, by the 1880s it was partly occupied by ship- and barge-builders, to whom building slips were leased by the Millwall Iron Works Company, successor to the earlier limited company. A narrow strip alongside Deptford Ferry Road, where sawmills and a joiners' shop had stood, subsequently became the works of the Guelph Patent Cask Company Ltd; the premises were known as the Canadian Cooperage, and were burned out in 1900. The greater part of Napier Yard, which retained the old name, was occupied for many years from the mid1880s by Joseph Westwood & Company, engineers, contractors, stockholders and manufacturers of constructional iron- and steelwork. South of Westwood's was Britannia Yard, a small shipyard occupied by Forrestt & Sons from the early 1880s. The premises included the former foundry, engine factory and smithies of the Millwall Iron Works, which were pulled down c1906 for Venesta Ltd (manufacturers of wood and metal cases, boxes and barrels); in 1937 the name Whittock Wharf was adopted, and after World War II, the premises were amalgamated with Burrell's Wharf.

Millwall Iron Works: In 1836–7 the engineer (Sir) William Fairbairn laid out an ironworks on a three-acre site, purchased from Charles Augustus Ferguson. More than 100 ships, mostly under 2,000 tons, were built here by Fairbairn, including vessels for the Admiralty, the merchant marine, the Tsar of Russia and the King of Denmark. Fairbairn's works were for sale by 1845. In 1848 the premises were occupied by John Scott Russell (later J. Scott Russell & Company).

Napier and Fairbairn’s respective establishments made Millwall an important centre of iron shipbuilding. The culmination of the shipbuilding boom was the creation of the Millwall Iron Works complex, which fragmented into miscellaneous wharves and works after the financial crash of 1866. The Iron Works of the 1860s was the most ambitious industrial concern ever established in Millwall, employing between 4,000 and 5,000 men.

SS Great Eastern: From 1854 until 1859, the Millwall Iron Works and Napier Yard were dominated by the construction and fitting-out of the Great Eastern, conceived and designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–59) for the Eastern Steam Navigation Company and built by John Scott Russell. The completion of the ship was fraught with troubles, chief of which was the launch. The project bankrupted the company, and ultimately Scott Russell, and brought about Brunel's early death. The launch of the Great Eastern was perhaps the most exciting public spectacle in London since the Great Exhibition, which had closed just over six years earlier; while the construction of such a huge ship was comparable in its technological significance to the building of the Crystal Palace itself. The Great Eastern was vastly bigger than any existing vessel and was designed to hold 4,000 people on board. In the end, the ship never went to India, the route for which it had been designed, but made a few transatlantic crossings in the early 1860s before being used for cable-laying in the North Atlantic. Disused for years, in 1886 it was briefly opened as a public attraction at Liverpool, and was then broken up. In 1984, part of the southern launch slipway was uncovered on the waterfront. The remains, comprising a section of the concrete-and timber sub-structure, have been preserved for public display.

Burrell’s Wharf: from c1859, following Scott Russell's bankruptcy, the Millwall Iron Works were in the occupation of C. J. Mare & Company, and then its successor the Millwall Iron Works Ship Building & Graving Docks Company Ltd. After the collapse of that company in 1871, the works were occupied by various ship- and barge-building, iron-working and scrap-iron companies. Most of the site of Fairbairn's original works was sold in 1888 to become Burrell's Wharf. The division of the Fairbairn site was permanent: when Burrell's Wharf expanded, it was into the former Napier Yard, the irregular south-eastern portion of Fairbairn's works having been absorbed into Maconochie's Wharf and redeveloped. Burrell & Co were oil refiners and manufacturers of paints, varnishes and colours and from the late 1880s until the early 1920s the company carried out extensive building work across the site; older buildings were adapted and a succession of stores, warehouses, workshops and minor ancillary buildings were constructed. When the colour-works closed in the 1980s, the site was covered by buildings of several periods, including some from the sites mid 19th century heyday. The Burrell’s Wharf buildings were redeveloped for housing in the 1980s

A101 Slipway Great Eastern slipway remains preserved on waterfront (dry land) A301 Artefact Human skeleton; 18th century child’s burial

A302 Slipway Remains of Great Eastern slipway on foreshore. Concrete with some timber horizontals surviving plus timber piles, with evidence for bomb damage

A303 Artefact scatter Scatter of nails, coins, buttons A304 Hard Chalk base with rubble surface, beneath Masthouse Pier A305 Structure (unclassified) 2 x isolated piles c 200mm diameter A306 Riverfront defence Sheet piled A307 Riverfront defence Brick with timber rubbing posts A308 Hard / bargebed Very eroded, nautical timbers within it A309 Slipway 9 x squared piles. Dismantled rather than sawn off? 2 x large horizontal base plates A310 Structure (unclassified) 4 x large piles in the water (not fully exposed) A311 Deposit Peat A312 Access Causeway A313 Riverfront defence Sheet piled A314 Access ? Causeway (on property boundary) A315 Hard / bargebed Chalk (eroding). Associated with A316 A316 Artefact scatter Wire A317 Slipway Very large timber slipway A318 Drain Wooden shuttered drain A319 Structure (unclassified) 3 x large, 2 x small piles, on different alignment A320 Riverfront defence Brick A321 Riverfront defence Sheet piled A322 Riverfront Modern observation deck on riverside wall A323 Wharf ? Collapsed wharf A324 Access Emergency ladder. Vertical A325 Access Emergency ladder. Vertical A326 Access Emergency ladder. Vertical A327 Access Emergency ladder. Vertical A328 Access Emergency ladder. Vertical A329 Access Emergency ladder. Vertical A330 Pier Masthouse Pier. Modern ferry point.