New Fresh Wharf

Fresh Wharf was a wharf located in the City of London close to London Bridge, on the north bank of the River Thames. The site was used as a quay in Roman times and later as an unloading place for Anglo-Saxon boats. A wharf was constructed there at some point in the medieval period and appears to have acquired its name from its customary usage as a landing place for fresh fish. In the 16th century, Fresh Wharf was made a "Legal Quay" authorised for the import of certain goods during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It expanded as London's river-borne trade grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, with large warehouses being established immediately behind the wharf. In the 20th century, the wharf's owners took over the adjoining wharves immediately upstream and downstream, built a new ten-storey warehouse and renamed the site New Fresh Wharf. By the end of the 1960s, however, London's docks had fallen into disuse with the advent of containerization, for which they were not suited, and the wharf was closed down in 1970. An office block was built on the site of the warehouse in 1977 and the former quayside is now part of a public footpath along the Thames.

A quay existed on the site as long ago as the Roman period, but there is no evidence that it was used after 260 AD. Its construction illustrated the effects of climate change in the Roman era. Due to a period of colder temperatures that led to more water being locked up in the polar icecaps, the sea level and thus the level of the Thames fell considerably in the centuries after Roman Londinium was founded. A revetment had been constructed at Fresh Wharf in the second century AD but by the third century the high water mark had dropped so much that the river wharves had to project much further out into the river to maintain the same depth of water. In the case of the timber quay at Fresh Wharf, it was constructed 8.25 metres (27.1 ft) in front of the earlier revetment.

The date of establishment of Fresh Wharf is not known. In late Anglo-Saxon times (10th–11th century), the site of Fresh Wharf appears to have been merely a beach on which ships were grounded for off-loading. A wharf was built there at some subsequent point during the medieval period; its name was first recorded as Fresshffysshewharfe in 1363, which was probably related to its appointment as one of the places authorised for the unloading of fish. On the landward side, the wharf was accessed via Lower Thames Street a short distance down from the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr.

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