The Canal & River Trust has just completed a £500,000 project to repair the West India Dock ‘lead-in’ jetty, at the Thames entrance to the West India Ship Lock in London Docklands.

The historic timber jetty plays a vital
role guiding ships and barges into 
West India Lock from the river. The refurbishment work is expected to extend the life of the structure for another quarter of a century.

Officially opened in 1802, the dock
was originally built to accommodate large commercial sailing ships. The design allowed a ship arriving from the West Indies to unload in the Northern Dock, sail round to the Southern Dock and load up with export cargo in a fraction of the time it had previously taken in the heavily congested upper reaches of the Thames.

Today, under the auspices of the Canal & River Trust, this important London

dock again accommodates commercial activity on the river with building materials being off-loaded from barges for developments on the Isle of Dogs – keeping hundreds of lorries off local roads.

West India Dock also attracts calls from super yachts, cruise ships and visiting naval vessels, and it was here in 2012 that some of the participating vessels gathered in readiness for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant.