Author and historian Chris West reveals the 1,000-year story of St Katharine’s-by-the-Tower on board a barge on Friday moored at the dock quayside.
Chris, whose definitive history of St Katharine’s Docks was published earlier this year, gives a talk on what has happened over the past nine centuries.
He begins with the Hospital of St Katharine-by-The-Tower, founded in 1147 under Queen Matilda’s rein, then describes what happened to the ancient order when the controversial docks opened in 1825 which caused wholesale destruction to the community in the area.
The story continues with 19th century imperial expansion and the docks’ global trade in luxury goods, to the Great Docks strike of 1889, how St Katharine’s survived the Blitz in 1940 targetted by the Luftwaffe, its post-war decline and its eventual resurrection in the 1970s as the yachting marina of today.
Chris’s 90-minute talk on Friday afternoon on board the Thames barge Lady Daphne begins 4.15pm.
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