Tobacco Dock
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Tobacco Dock is an architecturally significant warehouse in Wapping in London's Docklands. It is a listed building and is designated Grade I, which is the highest grade.
The warehouse was constructed in approximately 1812 and served as a store for imported tobacco. It is a brick building with many brick vaults and some fine ironwork. It was adjacent to the particular set of docks named London Docks, which have largely been filled in.
In the late 1980s or the 1990s the building was converted into a shopping centre but the scheme was unsuccessful and it went into administration. The property is not in a major retail area and has only moderately good public transport access. Since the late 1990s the building has been almost entirely unoccupied, and a plan to convert it into a factory outlet did not come to fruition. The whole building is occasionally used for large scale corporate events such as the Vodafone and ABN AMRO 2005 annual staff 'party'. In early 2004, part of the building was used as the studios of the Channel 4 reality television show Shattered.
The building has been well maintained and is still open to the public, but in 2003 English Heritage placed it on the Buildings At Risk register. In 2004 they arranged a meeting with the owners, a Kuwaiti investment company called Messila House to find a way forward. An English Heritage spokesman commented, "We see Tobacco Dock as a future priority because it is too large and important a site to be left standing empty. It is one of the most important buildings in London and if brought back into use it would reinvigorate the whole area." (Regeneration magazine 12 November 2004). In 2005 the owners announced that they were working on a mixed use scheme for Tobacco Dock which might incorporate a four-star hotel, shops and luxury apartments. The architects are Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum.
[edit] See also
- Stanley Dock Tobacco Warehouse - in Liverpool, the world's biggest brick warehouse
[edit] External link
