SS Robin arrives at new Trinity Buoy Wharf home

SS Robin, the world’s only surviving complete Victorian steamship, arrived at her new home at Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London on Sunday 10 December 2023.

The move to Trinity Buoy Wharf took SS Robin back home to the Orchard Yard on the River Lea where she was built by Mackenzie, MacAlpine & Co in 1890. 

The ship will be open to the public by appointment as soon as the 40m long access brow has been installed.  As the fit out to the pontoon progresses more of the spaces will be opened to the public.

Laid down at Orchard House Yard at Bow Creek, Blackwall, London, in December 1889, Robin and her sister ship Rook, were launched into the River Lea in 1890.

Bow Creek and the banks of the Thames have been considered the world centre for shipbuilding with a proud tradition going back many hundreds of years, supporting the capital as a global trading empire and supplying the bulk of the ships used in the Royal and Merchant Navies.

The Thames Iron Works was one of the largest yards in the country, building the biggest ships either side of the River Lea at Bow Creek.

By 1890 newer ship builders in Scotland and on the north east coast with lower overheads had become fully established and had taken over the market, causing the yard to finally close in 1912. This brought large shipbuilding to an end in London and few smaller yards to go into a steady decline from which they never recovered. Subsequent bombing in World War 2, development and urban regeneration have largely cleared the area of its maritime past.

Trinity Buoy Wharf Lightship Depot and the basin of East India Dock remain as important reminders and are shown as green above.

Robin survives as one of very few London built ships left of this incredible era.

Source: Trinity Buoy Wharf website

Photo credit: Harry Dwyer