8, Ballast Quay SE10

8 Ballast Quay is an early 19th-century terraced house with minor later alterations. The narrow house features a single window bay and stands four storeys high with a parapet. On the left side, there is a narrow, six-panelled door, which is a late 20th-century replacement, topped with a cornice head and a plain fanlight, all set in a stucco-lined reveal beneath a round, gauged brick arch. To the right, a six-over-six wooden sash window, also a late 20th-century replacement, is positioned under finely gauged brick flat arches at the ground, first, and second floors. An additional window was inserted on the fourth floor in 1993.

The interior has not been inspected. The houses on Ballast Quay represent the earliest development in this area during the first half of the 19th century, as shown on Wyld's map of 1827. Further development occurred in the adjoining streets during the 1840s and 1850s under William Coles Child, who led a prominent coal-importation business. Ballast Quay, originally known as Union Quay, was renamed because ships unloading their cargoes were loaded with local gravel from this location. The area is also notable for the rare survival of 1860s granite setts street-paving, laid by Coles Child to facilitate coal delivery from the Greenwich waterfront.

No 8 Ballast Quay is a good example of the early development of the Docklands area, retaining its early 19th-century character, and it holds considerable group value with the other listed houses on Ballast Quay, as well as being adjacent to an important historic street surface.