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As a youngster living beside the Thames Estuary in the early 1950s I was an avid shipwatcher and spent countless days with my telescope on the end of Southend Pier.

Alongside others with the same passion, I was lodged in a little room below the Lloyd’s Signal Station and we scrupulously maintained a log book of the ships that passed. The book has long since vanished, but my clear recollection is that our record for a single day, from about 9am to 8pm, was over 200 commercial ships passing Southend Pier—that was something like one ship every three minutes, non-stop, for 11 hours.

Read more: Port of London - The Estuary

Words by Robert Straughton. Pictures by John Wright and Elisabeth Christopher aboard the Fred Olsen cruise ship "Braemar".

See the rest of this article in Sea Breezes Magazine - September 2009 Issue

The Port of London’s river and wharf facilities were becoming inadequate by the end of the 18th century. Ship arrivals from overseas in 1702 numbered 839, but by 1794 the figure had risen to 2,219 – and the average ship size had doubled. Coastal trades told a similar story, with 11,964 arrivals in 1795, almost double the figure for 1750.

By 1800 those increases dictated a need for radical development. The only solution was the construction of docks – the daunting prospect of digging massive holes in the ground and letting the waters of the River Thames fill them.

Read more: Port of London - The Docks