GUN WHARVES

GUN WHARVES, 124-130, WAPPING HIGH STREET E1

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1242445
Date first listed:: 01-Jul-1983
List Entry Name:: GUN WHARVES
Statutory Address:: GUN WHARVES, 124-130, WAPPING HIGH STREET E1

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Date:: 2006-10-31
Reference:: IOE01/16217/14
Rights:: © Mr Andrew More. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1242445
Date first listed:: 01-Jul-1983
Date of most recent amendment:: 22-Nov-2006
List Entry Name:: GUN WHARVES
Statutory Address 1:: GUN WHARVES, 124-130, WAPPING HIGH STREET E1

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: GUN WHARVES, 124-130, WAPPING HIGH STREET E1

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Tower Hamlets (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 35001 80132

Details

788/22/6 WAPPING HIGH STREET E1 788/23/4 124-130 01-JUL-83 GUN WHARVES (Formerly listed as: WAPPING HIGH STREET E1 126-130 GUN WHARVES)

GV II Warehouse, late 1920s, of stock brick with compostone dressing, built in the giant arcaded and pilastered warehouse tradition.

EXTERIOR: The street elevation, of 15 bays, has a deep crowning entablature with moulded cornice and parapet. A panel, above Warehouses A and B, rises from the parapet announcing 'Gun Wharves' in a late C20 script. 124-126 Wapping High Street (Warehouses C and D) have a deep granite plinth and granite faced reveals to ground floor openings and waggon entrances. Some windows have brick 'mullions' and there are three loading bays. 128-130 (Warehouses A and B) are more ornate and the bays are treated as a giant arcade with deep plat band beneath first floor and flush band level with capitals of pilasters. Again, there are three loading bays. Paired iron frame with windows with mullions and lintels. H-section girder hoists; housings for roof mounted cranes. To the riverside, the flat elevation of 13 bays overall is treated as one long giant arcade through 6 storeys with channelled rustication to ground floor piers. The pilasters, coupled in some cases, have fluted necking. There is a deep entablature with moulded cornice, surmounted by name plaques. Three wall-mounted, lattice, jibbed cranes with operating cabins, hydraulic powered. The warehouses were converted to residential use which involved replacement of the windows and the insertion of balconies in the loading bays.

HISTORY: Wapping developed along the northern embankment of the Thames, hemmed in by the river to the south and what was Wapping Marsh to the north, creating a peculiarly narrow and constricted shape, consisting of the axis of Wapping High Street and some north-south side streets. The building of the London Docks to the north and west of the High Street in the 1805 transformed the area from residential to docklands and the population declined as houses were destroyed to build giant warehouses along the riverfront. The site now occupied by Gun Wharves, originally known as Wheatsheaf Wharf, had a warehouse building on it from at least the 1870s. In the 1890s it was called Sharpe's Wharf and in the early C20 it was a paper wharf. A company called Litchfield and Soundry appear to have redeveloped the site in the late 1920s as Gun Wharves. In the 1980s the London Docks were largely filled in and redeveloped with a variety of commercial, light industrial and residential properties. Gun Wharves was converted to residential use at this time.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Gun Wharves has special architectural interest as a handsome Thames riverside warehouse of the late 1920s, built with a giant arcade marking the divisions of the loading and window bays. The warehouses close the vista of Wapping High Street as the footprint of the building traces the curve of the street. Along with Warehouses E, F and G and King Henry's Wharves, with which Gun Wharves has group value, the ensemble creates one of the few 'cavernous' streets remaining in Docklands.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 441790
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.