263, Rotherhithe Street

TQ3680SE 636-1/21/654 01/07/83

SOUTHWARK ROTHERHITHE STREET (East side) No.263 (Formerly Listed as: ROTHERHITHE STREET Nelson Dock Engine House and Draw Dock)

GV II

Nelson Dock engine house, now restored and used as offices. c1850. MATERIALS: yellow stock brick with 2 pedimented gables to street and dock elevations, vertically boarded timber link between, over off-centre middle bay. EXTERIOR: 2 and 3 storeys, 3 bays, that to north broader with 2 windows on 2nd floor. Street elevation has gauged brick round arches to round-headed windows with radial glazing to heads. Low round-arched works entrance below the north gable, altered linteled entrance to right. Plat band below 2nd floor. Similar elevation to dock head, the timber top-floor link here set back between the pedimented gables. South return has one round-headed window centred to 1st and 2nd floors. INTERIOR: retains restored hydraulic engine. The hydraulic cylinder is embossed "The Hydraulic Engineering Co Ld", that is, late C19 or early C20. However, the style is mid C19 and according to recent research is actually the date of the engine, as the hydraulic slipway was invented in the 1840s. HISTORICAL NOTE: the engine house is probably contemporary with Thomas Bible's pioneering composite, timber-clad iron-ribbed hull constructions in this dockyard. It served the Nelson Dock Patent Slip immediately to its east (qv) where, between 1851 and 1866 Bible and Perry built composite hull clippers for the China Trade. An important remaining structure of Nelson's Dock.

Listing NGR: TQ3654480238