Editing Pool of London (section)

==History==
Originally, the Pool of London was the stretch of the [[River Thames]] along [[Billingsgate]] on the south side of the [[City of London]] where all imported cargoes had to be delivered for inspection and assessment by Customs Officers, giving the area the name of "Legal Quays".<ref name=Museum>[http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Themes/DevelopmentPortDocks.htm Museum of London Docklands] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100130055549/http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Themes/DevelopmentPortDocks.htm |date=30 January 2010 }}</ref> Smuggling, theft and pilferage of cargoes were rife, both on the busy open wharves and in the crowded warehouses. The term was later used more generally to refer to the stretch of the river from [[Rotherhithe]] upriver to [[London Bridge]], with the venerable bridge being the [[head of navigation|farthest reach that could be navigated]] by a tall-masted vessel.

[[File:Imports from France Boitard 1757.jpg|thumb|Legal Quays in 1757, by [[Louis Peter Boitard]]]]
[[File:Pool of London, River Thames, 1841.jpg|thumb|A view of the Pool of London, [[River Thames]], 1841]]

The Pool of London was of vital importance to the capital for centuries &ndash; as early as the 7th century [[Bede]] wrote that it was the reason for London's existence {{citation needed|date=May 2020}} &ndash; but it reached its peak in the 18th and 19th centuries. By this time the river was lined with nearly-continuous walls of wharves running for miles along both banks, and hundreds of ships moored in the river or alongside the quays.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=46493 |title=The West India Docks: Introduction, Survey of London: volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs (1994), pp. 247-248. Date accessed: 16 April 2010 |publisher=British-history.ac.uk |date=2003-06-22 |access-date=2012-06-13}}</ref>

The Pool of London saw a phenomenal increase in both overseas and coastal trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. Two-thirds of coastal vessels using it were [[collier (ship)|colliers]] meeting an increase in the demand for coal as the population of London rose. Coastal trade virtually doubled between 1750 and 1796 reaching 11,964 vessels in 1795. In overseas trade, in 1751 the Pool of London handled 1,682 ships and 234,639 tons of goods but by 1794 this had risen to 3,663 ships and 620,845 tons.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=46493 |title=The West India Docks: Introduction, Survey of London: volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs (1994), pp. 247-248. Date accessed: 16 April 2010 |publisher=British-history.ac.uk |date=2003-06-22 |access-date=2012-06-13}}</ref> 

The congestion was so extreme that it was said to be possible to walk across the Thames simply by stepping from ship to ship.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} London's [[London Docklands|Docklands]] had their origins in the lack of capacity in the Pool of London which particularly affected the West India trade. The West India Dock Act 1799 allowed a new off-river dock to be built for produce from the West Indies<ref name=Museum/> and the rest of Docklands followed as landowners built enclosed docks with better security and facilities than the Pool's wharves.

Even after the construction of off-river docks,  the Pool of London remained an important part of the Port of London. Shipping needed unrestricted access to the Pool of London which imposed constraints on the crossings that became increasingly necessary with the commercial development on both sides of the river. The [[Thames Tunnel]] from [[Rotherhithe]] to [[Wapping]] was constructed between 1825 and 1843. [[Tower Bridge]] opened in 1894 as a [[bascule bridge]]. In 1909 the Pool came under the jurisdiction of the [[Port of London Authority]]. The docks thrived up until the 1950s, despite suffering extremely severe bomb damage during the Second World War.

[[File:Upper Pool 1.jpg|thumb|right|A ship unloading in 1962]]
The abrupt collapse of commercial traffic in the Thames due to the introduction of [[containerization|shipping container]]s and coastal deep-water [[port]]s in the 1960s emptied the Pool and led to all of the wharves being closed down, and many being demolished. The area was extensively redeveloped in the 1980s and 1990s to create new residential and commercial neighbourhoods.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lddc-history.org.uk/bermondsey/index.html |title=LDDC Completion Booklets - Bermondsey Riverside |publisher=Lddc-history.org.uk |access-date=2012-06-13}}</ref>