St Katharine Docks

St Katharine Docks occupies a site with a transformation that spans nearly a millennium, beginning in eleven forty-eight as a medieval hospital founded by Queen Matilda of Boulogne. For centuries, this area was a protected royal liberty, meaning it operated independently of the City of London and served as a sanctuary for immigrants, craftsmen, and eventually, a dense population of sailors and laborers living in crowded tenements. By the nineteenth century, the area had become a sprawling, impoverished slum directly adjacent to the Tower of London. To make way for the modern docks we see today, over twelve hundred houses and the ancient hospital itself were demolished, displacing more than eleven thousand people in one of the most drastic redevelopments in London history.