The first dockyard at Deptford was the King's Yard established in 1513 by Henry VIII. It wasn't until 1869 that it closed. It later became the Foreign Cattle Market and then Convoy's Wharf where huge ships unloaded paper until 2000 - my boyfriend Wesley remembers seeing them in the early 1990s. Today it is abandoned (above).
The above photo shows the entrance to the victualing yard at Deptford, renamed the Royal Victoria Victualing Yard in 1858. It finally closed in 1961 and today its ornate gates are hidden amongst the towerblocks of the Pepys Estate. It is hard to imagine how iconic they originally were for the thousands of men who walked through them every morning. Tobacco, rum, chocolate and ships' biscuits were just some of the many items stored at the victualing yard. Ships' biscuits were really rather nasty, being made from just flour and water (and perhaps the odd maggot).
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