SS Robin - Education Centre and Gallery

Education Centre and Gallery

SS Robin operated as a learning centre and photojournalism gallery between 2003-07, with an extensive programme of talks, seminars and workshops designed to build bridges between communities. The gallery is a 100 by 23 ft (30 by 7 m) space, with a flexible classroom and exhibition area within the steel hull.

The learning centre and gallery used documentary photography to build skills and knowledge through a diverse programme of international photography exhibitions, workshops and talks. While moored at West India Quay, the centre provided an interactive education programme with local schools and businesses.Listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Core Collection, the restoration of the superstructure of SS Robin began in March 2002. The original beams, structures, fittings and engine were preserved and restored by her volunteer crew.

A bid for lottery funding was refused in 2008; a loan was that year agreed with Crossrail which underwrote essential minimum repairs to the ship. The loan was provided when the vessel had to be moved from its berth to allow for the development of the Canary Wharf railway station which was to be constructed beneath and within the West India North Dock. Without this compensation, necessitated by the Crossrail construction proposals and negotiated at the House of Lords Select Committee during the hybrid Bill process, it appeared likely that SS Robin would have had to be scrapped. Further fund-raising was needed to repay the loan and continue the repair process.

Structural restoration of SS Robin took place between 2008 and 2010. This included the construction of a bespoke display dock. The structure will house her floating museum, opening shortly before the 2012 London Olympics, and provide space for functions and exhibitions.

Before the ship's move to drydock, SS Robin contracted work to dismantle and de-rig the masts, funnel, lifeboats and davits to Cutty Sark Enterprises, beginning mid-late May 2008.

Between 2008 and 2010 she was berthed in Lowestoft for £1.8m of conservation work to her 118 year-old hull. The ship was repaired using, so far as was practicable, the same craft skills with which she was built in 1890, conserving her Victorian technology.

SS Robin left Lowestoft for the Port of Tilbury on 17 September 2010.

In July 2011 she returned to east London, where she was originally built, to undergo internal restoration to become a floating museum at the Royal Docks in Newham borough, for public display starting in late 2013.