(Home)

Timber Office Baltic Wharf 1976 now The Cottage — May and Hassell Ltd Timber Office on Baltic Wharf in 1976 now The Cottage Inn

Three masted barque Stratford built 1850 in late 19c unloading timber at Baltic Wharf -Bristol Museums York Collection 4719

Baltic Wharf May and Hassel c1910 — Baltic Wharf c1910

Gefle Timber Wharf c 1920 — Jones and Wainwright Timber Office Gefle Wharf circa 1920

Canada Wharf Taylor and Low early 1900s — Canada Wharf Taylor and Low Brothers established 1854 – Early 1900s

PBA726 Aerial – Cumberland Basin and Timber Wharves

Aerial view of City Docks showing the timber wharves of private firms including Robbins Ltd, May & Hassell and Taylor and Low Bros. Also depicts stacked-up timber, New Cut (lower left), railway tracks, and ships including 4 Campbell paddle steamers, one still in wartime grey.

This picture shows four of the six timber wharves which now make up Baltic Wharf. From left to right: Baltic; Onega (Russia); Cumberland; Canada.

PBA833 Cumberland Wharf – ‘Seaventure’ ex Archangel, with dockers setting up gangplanks ready to unload timber.

‘Trio’ ex Archangel at Gefle Wharf beyond. The various timber wharves along this stretch of the Floating Harbour have come to be collectively known as Baltic Wharf.

PBAX 2544 1941-2 Air raid damage to the premises of Messrs Price, Walker and Croxford, timber importers, at 144 Cumberland Road (behind Chatham Wharf).

PBA2213, Discharge of timber at Baltic Wharf 1955

Gefle (Sweden) and Chatham are to the right of Mardyke Ferry Road. Chatham is now the marina and Gefle is now partly the Baltic Wharf development and also the marina slipway. The caravan park was part of Baltic and Onega Wharves.

Note also top left the Rownham Mead development over the former Merchants Dock.

Most of the wharves appear to have been named after the places the timber came from. It is likely that Cumberland Wharf followed from the naming of Cumberland Basin and Cumberland Road after Prince Ernest, Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover (1771- 1851) who visited Bristol in 1803 during the Napoleonic invasion scare and became a freeman of the City.

It is probable the name Chatham Wharf came from Chatham Yard which is what the Hilhouse family called the New Dockyard sometime after it was built in 1820 until it was renamed Albion Yard in 1848. By 1848 Chatham Wharf had become a timber yard and was not being used for shipbuilding.

Henbury shifting coal in 1981 West beside Cumberland Road

Baltic Wharf Timber Sheds c1979 — Baltic Wharf c1979

Baltic Wharf Caravan Club Site has occupied the area near to Bristol’s Floating Harbour since 1978 and covered part of the old Baltic and Onega Timber Yards. The sheds on the picture above would therefore have been, from right to left, Onega and Cumberland.

In recent years the City Council has been contemplating using the Caravan site for other uses. It was to be a school but more recently it has been for housing , leisure and retail under the auspices of the City Council’s Goram Homes.