Royal Albert Dock

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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 the Docklands Light Railway Beckton line running the length of the dock. From the dock's western end the London Regatta Centre, a major rowing club (with the Yi-Ban Chinese restaurant on top of its clubhouse building) is followed by the impressive Building 1000 office development, which however in early 2007 had stood vacant for three years since completion apart from being used for several film shoots. A large parcel of undeveloped land, used for overflow car parking from the Excel exhibition centre and interrupting pedestrian access to the dock edge follows, and then at the eastern end of the north quayside is the University of East London Docklands Campus, opened in 1999.

[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.