Woolwich Dockyard

Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard along the river Thames at Woolwich in north-west Kent, where a large number of ships were built from the early 16th century until the late 19th century. William Camden called it 'the Mother Dock of all England'. By virtue of the size and quantity of vessels built there, Woolwich Dockyard is described as having been 'among the most important shipyards of seventeenth-century Europe'. During the Age of Sail, the yard continued to be used for shipbuilding and repair work more or less consistently; in the 1830s a specialist factory within the dockyard oversaw the introduction of steam power for ships of the Royal Navy. At its largest extent it filled a 56-acre site north of Woolwich Church Street, between Warspite Road and New Ferry Approach; 19th-century naval vessels were fast outgrowing the yard, however, and it eventually closed in 1869 . The former dockyard area is now partly residential, partly industrial, with remnants of its historic past having been restored.

Woolwich Dockyard was founded by King Henry VIII in 1512 to build his flagship Henri Grâce à Dieu , the largest ship of its day. The ship was built in Old Woolwich, which is where the dockyard was initially established: past Bell Water Gate, east of the area later known as Woolwich Dockyard. The site consisted of one or more rudimentary dry docks, a long storehouse and a small assortment of other buildings. Like its counterpart Deptford Dockyard, Woolwich was probably chosen for its position - on the south bank of the tidal River Thames conveniently close to Henry's palace at Greenwich - and for its proximity to deep water. Several other ships were built here after Great Harry, but in the 1520s shipbuilding appears to have ceased . By 1540, however, the royal shipwrights had begun operating on higher ground further to the west at what was to become the permanent site of the Dockyard, where a pair of dry docks formed the centre of operations. The site was purchased by the Crown in 1546 and in the second half of the century several sizeable ships were built there. The yard was also used for heavy repair work.

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