Royal Albert Dock

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This article is about the dock in London. For the dock in Liverpool, see Albert Dock.

The Royal Albert Dock is one of three docks in the Royal Docks of east London, now part of the redeveloped Docklands.

The dock closed to commercial traffic along with the other Royal Docks in the 1980s. The dock itself still exists and is now used chiefly for watersports and as a rowing course, although it is occasionally transited by ships on their way to the Royal Victoria Dock and exhibitions at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre.

The major feature of the dock today is London City Airport, whose single runway has been constructed the length of the south side of the dock, with the dock forming the northern boundary of the airport. Aircraft movements are clearly visible across the dock from the largely accessible north quayside.

Transport links on the north side of the dock have been greatly improved with new roads and a Docklands Light Railway line running the length of the dock. At the eastern end of the north quayside, the University of East London Docklands Campus was opened in 1999. At the time of writing (early 2005), the first commercial office developments are under construction at the western end of the same quayside. The quayside in between has been cleared of all former dock buildings, but is still undeveloped.

[edit] See also

• Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital - initial site for the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Hospital for Tropical Disease, situated as they were close to the disembarkation point from the British Empire.