Custom House (1817)
The Custom House, built in 1813-1817, is a building in London .
location
The Custom House with the address Lower Thames Street no. 20 is on the left, city-side bank of the Thames , about 300 meters west of the Tower of London and 270 meters east of London Bridge .
history
At the beginning of the 19th century, the existing London Customs House, built by Thomas Ripley from 1717 to 1725 on the foundations of the previous building by Christopher Wren , increasingly proved to be too small for the rapidly increasing movement of goods in the port of London . On October 25, 1813, the foundation stone was therefore laid for a suitably dimensioned new building on the directly adjacent property, which was built according to plans by David Laing in the Georgian classicism style.
The intention to carry out the construction without haste and to move the customs office while maintaining full working capacity after the completion of the new building was destroyed on February 21, 1814. The old Custom House burned down, with much of the archived trade documents lost. The new building now had to be completed in a hurry in order to give the customs office permanent accommodation again.
In May 1817 the customs authorities were able to move into the new Custom House. The hasty completion took its toll a few years later: part of the central building collapsed on January 26, 1825 due to inadequate construction and damage caused by floods. The reconstruction was not entrusted to Laing, who was professionally discredited by the collapse, but to Robert Smirke , who, however, did not stick to Laing's original design, but rather rebuilt the central building almost completely according to his own plans. He used innovative new techniques, such as the use of cast iron columns and beams with a sensationally large span. Outwardly, his new building was particularly distinguished by the addition of a central portico on the river side , which had no counterpart in Laing's original design.
During the air raids on London in 1940, the east wing of the Custom House was badly damaged and was not rebuilt until 1962–1966 with some changes. In 1992 the building underwent an extensive renovation and is still used today by the HM Revenue & Customs customs authority.
The building has been a listed building since June 5, 1972 .
literature
- Charles Craig / Graham Diprose / Mike Seaborne: London's changing Riverscape: Panoramas from London Bridge to Greenwich . Frances Lincoln Ltd, 2009. ISBN 0711229414
- William J. Ashworth: Customs and Excise: Trade, Production, and Consumption in England, 1640-1845 . Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0199259216
- Denis Smith: London and the Thames Valley . Thomas Telford, 2001. ISBN 0727728768
Web links
- Entry in the English monument protection list
- Where Thames smooth Waters glide : The Custom House
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 31 ″ N , 0 ° 4 ′ 56 ″ W.