3-021-692 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Trinity Buoy Wharf, Blackwall, 1868. Workshop which repairs and maintains devices to warn of hazards at sea. '...if any light, buoy, or beacon is rendered unfit for service by weather or casualty, another may immediately be substituted in its place or the damage be repaired without delay. [View showing] the river front of the wharf...at the principal depot in London, from which supplies are sent to all the others. It is...built on the point where the River Lea joins the Thames...The buoys] are mostly constructed of iron, and vary from 12 ft. to 20 ft. in their largest diameter...They are distinguished by diversity of colour...[Some are] adapted to carry a bell...and these are found to be of great service to mariners. Workmen and seamen when not on duty afloat are constantly employed upon the wharf in repairing and painting buoys, chains, and gear...At the east end of the wharf a light-vessel may be seen refitting...The warehouse on the left is surmounted by an experimental lantern, from which different methods of lighthouse-illumination, and all new projects for the improvement of lights, are tested before being installed at a station...A floating hulk lies off the wharf, in which coals and marine stores for the steam-vessels are kept'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.