Black Deep

The Black Deep is a channel which forms the most important of the three main permanent shipping routes through the shoals in the Thames Estuary, the others being the Barrow Deep and Princes Channel.

The Black Deep begins in the open sea and is bounded by two substantial sandbanks, the Sunk Sands to the north and west and the Long Sands to the south and east. Deep-draught vessels making for the Port of London from the North Sea approach from the north-east from the position of the Sunk lightship, pass through the Black Deep, and thence into the Knock John channel to enter the Thames. [http://www.worldvtsguide.org/Ports/UK/London12/LON1.pdf Port of London Authority Area Procedures] , accessed 26-08-08.] Large Bulk carriers also cross the area when entering or exiting the River Medway, as it has a minimum depth of at least 14 metres. [http://www.ukho.gov.uk/content/amdAttachments/CHPP/2005%20TE6A%20Black%20Deep.pdf Black Deep] , United Kingdom Hydrography Office, accessed 26-08-08.]

History

The Thames Estuary was historically a difficult area to navigate due to its many sandbanks. One of the earliest references to maritime pilotage dates from 1387 and refers to a pilot "of the Black Deeps" in the estuary. [http://www.pilotmag.co.uk/2004/08/15/pilotage-history-part-1/ History of Pilotage Part 1] , "The Pilot" (Official Journal of the United Kingdom Maritime Pilots' Association), accessed 27-08-08] Richard Caundish, the sixteenth-century maker of the oldest known English maritime chart, who had charted the Thames shoals, was assisted by a pilot who had found a new, safer route through the Black Deep.Taylor, E. G. "The Haven-Finding Art", Bodley Head, 1971 pp.192-193, ISBN 978-0370013473]

As a strategically important area, access to the Deep has been restricted in wartime, while during the Second World War naval forts were constructed at Sunk Head and Knock John to deter German minelaying activity. Until 1967 sewage sludge from the City of London was dumped in the Black Deep at a point around sixty miles below London Bridge; after this time the Barrow Deep was used. [http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.153/chapterId/3192/Bazalgette-and-Londons-sewage.html Bazalgette and London's Sewage] , portcities.org, accessed 26-08-08.]

A rumour current in the sixteenth century, repeated by the chroniclers John Rastell and Edward Hall, by a continuer of John Hardyng's chronicle and subsequently by John Speed, suggested that Richard III, aided by the priest of Sir Robert Brackenbury, had disposed of the bodies of the murdered Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York in the Black Deep, "whereby they should never rise up, or be any more seen".Speed, in Weever, J. "Antient Funeral Monuments, of Great-Britain, Ireland, and the Islands Adjacent", W. Tooke, 1767, p.291]

The proposed London Array wind farm will be sited immediately to the east of the Deep. [http://www.londonarray.com/about/location/ London Array: Location] , accessed 26-08-08.]

ee also

*Fisherman's Gat

References