Shipping at Deptford<br><p>A view looking across the Thames towards the Royal Dockyard at Deptford. There was a great concentration of shipbuilding in this area of the River Thames during the 18th century. As well as the major naval dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich, there were many private builders west of the former around Rotherhithe and on the north side of the river around Limehouse, Further down on that side, at Blackwall,  Perry's yard -later Green and Wigram's - was the largest commercial shipbuilder in the world by the late 18th century. The painting commemorates the launch of a two-decker warship at Deptford, shown with launching flags flying on the building slip just west of the Great Storehouse. Unusually, nothing is shown in the double dry-dock (that is, double length) on the other side, between the storehouse and the Master Shipwright's house and offices. The house had a Dutch gable at the river end, not shown here, and other topographical details are odd: the square tower of Deptford church just to its left is shown as brick when it is in fact stone, the Royal Observatory on greatly lowered Greenwich hill entirely inaccurately as a square stone tower with a ball dome on top, and both St Alfege, Greenwich, and Greenwich Hospital also appear in a perfunctory underscaled way. It is possible, perhaps, that the whole was done more from memory than reference to sketches. (Cleveley had been born and raised at Deptford so knew it well.) The hay barge in the foreground is also unusual for this stretch of the river as an 'upstream barge' normally found above London Bridge though they did come further down,  bringing loads like timber in from the west. Here it is the only vessel shown moving in a painting of uncharacteristic stillness. The long craft with a single mast above and left of it is the dockyard sheer-hulk (for masting and de-masting ships), here with the sheer-legs stood down out of use and flying a pennant as part of the launch celebrations.<br></p>
Shipping at Deptford.
<bdi><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Robert_Cleveley" class="extiw" title="w:en:Robert Cleveley"><span title="British artist (1748-1809)">Robert Cleveley</span></a>
</bdi>
Late 18th Century
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