page_title: Fresh Wharf
section_title: Closure and redevelopment
hierarchical_section_title: Fresh Wharf / Closure and redevelopment
caption_attribution_description: English: From London Bridge looking to the North side of the Thames, showing Adelaide House and St Magnus House.
context_page_description: Fresh Wharf was a wharf located in the City of London close to London Bridge, on the north bank of the River Thames. The site was used as a quay in Roman times and later as an unloading place for Anglo-Saxon boats. A wharf was constructed there at some point in the medieval period and appears to have acquired its name from its customary usage as a landing place for fresh fish. In the 16th century, Fresh Wharf was made a "Legal Quay" authorised for the import of certain goods during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It expanded as London's river-borne trade grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, with large warehouses being established immediately behind the wharf. In the 20th century, the wharf's owners took over the adjoining wharves immediately upstream and downstream, built a new ten-storey warehouse and renamed the site New Fresh Wharf. By the end of the 1960s, however, London's docks had fallen into disuse with the advent of containerization, for which they were not suited, and the wharf was closed down in 1970. An office block was built on the site of the warehouse in 1977 and the former quayside is now part of a public footpath along the Thames.
context_section_description: Only a few years after Bird's description of the fruit ships unloading alongside London Bridge, the inner London docks fell into disuse as a result of trade moving to the container port downriver at Tilbury Docks. New Fresh Wharf closed for good in 1970 and in 1973 the warehouse was demolished. Archaeological excavations on the site between 1974 and 1978 uncovered the remains of the Roman quay and revetment. The demolished warehouse was eventually replaced by St Magnus House, an office building designed by Richard Seifert that was constructed in 1978.
caption: St Magnus House (right), on the site of New Fresh Wharf in 2008
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