St Katherine Docks, London 1976

An elevated view of the West Dock during the early years of its rebirth, capturing the fascinating overlap of Victorian industry and 1970s modernity. The warehouse blocks on the left — their loading bays long since boarded up — still speak of the area’s 19th-century cargo-handling past, while the round-arched Ivory House (right), built in 1858, stands as the docks’ sole original warehouse to survive fully intact. At this date it was still unrestored, decades before its conversion into high-end apartments and shops.

The marina had only recently begun accommodating pleasure craft, part of an experiment to give the largely redundant docks a new purpose while long-term redevelopment plans were taking shape. A mixture of yachts, motor cruisers and Thames barges fill the basin, their presence foreshadowing the leisure-led regeneration that would define the area in the 1980s.

Beyond the docks, the skyline of Wapping and Shadwell is dominated by the tall residential tower blocks built in the 1960s and early ’70s, forming a dramatic contrast with the low-rise Victorian brickwork below. This photograph captures St Katharine Docks at a moment of transition — no longer a commercial port, not yet the polished marina district it would soon become, but a unique blend of dereliction, experimentation and quiet promise.