Thriving for centuries as an integral cog in Britain's booming — yet nefarious — trade industry, London's docks plunged into disuse post-war. Even when they started back into life during the 1980s, it was more about rebuilding around the docks, a la The Long Good Friday, rather than bringing life back to the water itself.
Fast-forward to 2023, and the boating scene prospers once more — at least according to a photo book documenting life among the engineers, house boat owners, lifeboat personnel and others, at three of London's docks.
Dock Life Renewed by Niki Gorick takes us to St Katharine Docks, the Isle of Dogs and South Dock Marina in Surrey Quays — once used for the likes of rum, sugar and tobacco, and indelibly stained with connections to the slave trade — to discover how they are now being utilised by fresh generations of sea/river-faring folk — some even living on the water.
Gorick, who lives in a flat at Surrey Quays, explains in her book: "I started chatting to my water-based neighbours, gaining their trust and permission to photograph. I soon discovered many different personalities and a tight-knit, welcoming community of all types, from pensioners to families, business executives to artists."
From visits by tall ships like the Götheborg of Sweden, to the annual Classic Boat Festival, history in the docks is often palpable. Gorick has snapped some wonderful images of the engineers who keep the 'Portwey' tugboat chugging along — it is one of the last steam-powered, twin-engined working tugs in the UK.
had a busy working life on the Dorset and Devon coasts before being usurped by diesel-engined tugs in the 1960s. Saved from the scrapyard by Dartmouth’s assistant harbour master, the Steam Tug Portwey Trust took
over her running in 2000 and now does Steam Experience Days in dock as well as Thames excursions. She’s much loved but new recruits for her upkeep are always needed. © Niki Gorick Photography
Gorick's photos also demonstrate the sheer amount of elbow grease (and maritime) knowhow that goes into maintaining vessels; hulls especially must be checked and maintained regularly, and hard graft comes as part and parcel of owning a boat.
Husband-and-wife team Rebecca and Simon Shillito have gone one step further, by crafting a floating family home at South Dock Marina (where you'll also find their studio selling hand-finished plywood creations).
'Liveaboards' as they're known, enjoy reasonable mooring fees, and an area safely cordoned off inside a gated network of pontoons, and is such a popular way to live now, that Gorick tells us "the waiting list for residential moorings is long".
And while you'll find centuries-old institutions like the sea scouts and the RNLI manoeuvring out on the waters, the docks are successfully adapting to lure contemporary audiences, from paddle-boarders to hen parties on BBQ tub boats.
the move below Canary Wharf’s DLR line and the suspended shipping cranes preserved on the quayside. A hen party meanders peacefully around the waters of West India Quay, with the bride- to-be and friends sipping wine and enjoying a BBQ lunch. © Niki Gorick Photography-24
In the book's foreword, Michael Heseltine describes "Six thousand acres of forgotten wasteland — this was my horrified appraisal of London’s old docks whilst flying over them in a plane 42 years ago."
It shows how far these areas have come since the bad of days of the 1980s.
for her five-yearly insurance survey. This beautiful schooner with a steel hull and wooden decks was built in a French tank factory and is one of only three constructed to this design. A true seagoing vessel, her owner sailed her all the way back from Hong Kong to her current berth in Greenland Dock. © Niki Gorick Photography
Fast, tough and manoeuvrable, this inshore lifeboat is specially designed to cope with the Thames tidal currents, submerged debris and heavy traffic. © Niki Gorick Photography
Dock Life Renewed - How London's Docks Are Thriving Again by Nicki Gorick, published by King & McGaw
