Deptford, Shipbuilding Yards

Shipyards were only set up on the north-eastern edge of the Deptford peninsula in the Wear some time between John Wood’s survey of the area in 1826 and the 1st edition Ordnance Survey plan of 1855 on which the site is annotated ‘Ship Building Yards’. There were probably 2 yards at that time, and visible on the map are two sawpits, three cranes and two smithies (normal facilities associated with timber construction), along with a number of other buildings. It is uncertain who owned these yards. The yards were subsumed within Laing’s Deptford Yard (HER ref. No. 2803) by the end of the nineteenth century.