Enderby's Wharf is a wharf and industrial site on the south bank of theThames inGreenwich, London, associated with Telcon and other companies. It has a history of more than 150 years of production ofsubmarine communication cables and associated equipment, and is one of the most important sites in the history of submarine communications.
The wharf lies on theGreenwich Peninsula, a little to the north of the historic centre ofGreenwich. It is between the Thames and theBlackwall Tunnel approach road, across the river fromCubitt Town. It covers an area of some 16 acres (65,000 m2) and has a frontage of around 600 feet (180 m).
The wharf was first developed commercially by the whaling company ofSamuel Enderby & Sons. The site was first acquired by Samuel Enderby II, withMorden College assisting in the acquisition of the naval ammunition wharf. It was Samuel Enderby III who initially developed the site along with brothers Charles and George, who acquired the site for a ropeworks.[1] Enderbys also built Enderby House in the early 1830s, which stands today as a listed building among modern housing.[2]
In 1857 submarine cable manufacturers Glass, Elliot & CoandW.T.Henley took over the site; Henleys subsequently moved toNorth Woolwich.[3] As well as jointly making the short-lived firsttransatlantic telegraph cable,[2] Glass, Elliot supplied many early telegraph cables includingCorsica–Sardinia,Lowestoft–Zandvoort,Malta–Alexandria andSicily–Algeria. In the 1860s Glass, Elliot and theGutta Percha Company were absorbed into the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Telcon),[5] which manufactured a second transatlantic telegraph cable at Enderby's Wharf that was successfully laid by theSS Great Eastern. The company went on to manufacture many more transatlantic cables, and others to Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong etc.[6] A cable hauler (a type of winch) and gantry on a jetty, used to draw telegraph cables from the factory to a ship, was made alisted structure in 2025.[7]
In 1935 the site came into the ownership of the newly formed Submarine Cables Ltd. Some of the cross-channel D-DayPluto pipeline was made at the wharf in World War II. After ownership byBICC andAEI, in 1970 the company passed toSTC. Manufacture of submarine cable at the site ended in 1975 (transferring to Southampton), and work concentrated on manufacture ofoptical repeaters andamplifiers. It subsequently passed toNorthern Telecom and then to Alcatel of France in 1994.[8] In 2006 Alcatel merged with American companyLucent Technologies to createAlcatel-Lucent, and the following year their division based at Enderby Wharf was renamed Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, which becameAlcatel Submarine Networks[9] after Alcatel-Lucent was acquired byNokia in 2016.
Around 2010, a large part of the site was sold toBarratt Developments for a housing estate, called Enderby Wharf.[10] Enderby House, the original office building, was within the Barratt site but stood disused for several years[11][12] before being developed to become a bar and restaurant,[13] which opened in April 2021.
In 2010 a proposal was made to turn 3 acres (12,000 m2) of the river frontage of the site not in use byAlcatel into a terminal forhuge cruise liners, and housing.[14] The proposal (known as 'Enderby Wharf') received planning approval fromGreenwich Council in 2011, subject to approval by theGreater London Authority (GLA).[15] MayorBoris Johnson gave his approval to a revised application for a larger terminal in August 2015.[16]
It was expected that up to 55 large cruise ships would dock there every year. Each would need to run its diesel engines continuously to power onboard facilities, generating large polluting emissions near residential areas and schools. While London has strict regulations on air quality and emissions, they do not apply to the Thames, which is in the jurisdiction of thePort of London Authority (PLA) rather than the GLA. At the London elections in 2016 the Conservative and Labour mayoral candidates joined their Green and Liberal Democrat rivals to support the residents' campaign against the terminal.[17] In 2018 Greenwich council changed its opinion, and called forMorgan Stanley, current owner of Enderby Wharf, to implement a less polluting solution for the cruise terminal. Residents of the area proposed it should be "zero emissions", supporting ships able to use onshore electrical power without the need to run their engines while docked. Some cruise ships already support the use of shore power, while others are being adapted to do so.[18]
In 2019, Morgan Stanley sold the site toCriterion Capital for further housing development.[19]
51°29′24″N0°00′20″E / 51.4901°N 0.0055°E /51.4901; 0.0055