Puddle Dock, in Blackfriars in the City of London, was formerly the site of one of London's docks. It is now a minor street and the site of the Mermaid Theatre which closed in 2003.
The area was dramatically altered by major works in the 1960s, involving the reclaiming of foreshore of the River Thames at Puddle Dock and the rebuilding of Upper Thames Street as a major traffic thoroughfare.
Today its name survives as the name of a street connecting Upper Thames Street and Queen Victoria Street.
Berkeley's Inn, the town house of the Barons Berkeley of Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire, stood nearby, at the south end of Adle Street, against 'Puddle Wharf', as reported in 1598 by John Stow in his Survey of London, at which date the house had been abandoned by the family and had been split up into multiple-occupation apartments, in a dilapidated state. Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, son-in-law of Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley, lodged in this house, in the parish of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe.
Puddle Dock forms part of the marathon course of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The women's Olympic marathon will take place on 5 August and the men's Olympic marathon on 12 August. The four Paralympic marathons will be held on 9 September.
The nearest London Underground stations are Blackfriars (Circle and District lines) and St. Paul's (Central line).
Famous quotes containing the words puddle and/or dock:
“An oblong puddle inset in the coarse asphalt; like a fancy footprint filled to the brim with quicksilver; like a spatulate hole through which you can see the nether sky. Surrounded, I note, by a diffuse tentacled black dampness where some dull dun dead leaves have stuck. Drowned, I should say, before the puddle had shrunk to its present size.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“You turn
To speak to someone beside the dock and the lighthouse
Shines like garnets. It has become a stricture.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)