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by Jeremy Lovell, 

LONDON - From outpost of the Roman Empire to hub of the world's money markets, London's Docklands have always been a hive of commerce, intrigue and industry.

Now a museum dedicated to life in the teeming port area is opening in the heart of the Isle of Dogs in the oldest surviving warehouse in London.

"This is a local, a national and an international story," Chris Ellmers, curator of the Museum in Docklands, told Reuters on a tour of the restored 200-year-old building. "London's docks spread their tentacles across the world, East to China and Australia and west to the Americas. People and cargoes came and went from here to all corners of the globe," said Ellmers who took 20 years to assemble the collection.

Tobacco, wine, tea, coffee, sugar, spices, timber, textiles, coal, rubber, fish, glass, pottery and slaves were among the cargoes that passed through the port, changing the face of the city, the country and influencing the world.

"The docks were literally a world apart. Sailors and traders from all over the world came here to make their living," Ellmers said. "A melting pot of races and cultures, they were a mystery to those outside the high walls that surrounded them."

Spread over three floors, the exhibition of sounds, smells, sights and artefacts leads the visitor on a chronological tour through the development of the docklands from Roman through Tudor and Victorian times to the present day.

There are lecture theatres, classrooms, a hands-on learning space for kids about the river and the docks and a large space for temporary exhibitions. Under the title "2,000 years of London's river, port and people" the museum, which opens on Saturday (May 24), is crammed with objects and pictures as well as interactive screens which allow the visitor to interrogate actors playing people from the past.

A large model of the old wooden London bridge greets the visitor at the start of the tour on the third floor.

The bridge, which stood for centuries, was pulled down in 1831 and replaced with a granite version which itself was sold in the late 1960s to a U.S. businessman, dismantled stone by stone and reassembled in Arizona.

A host of weighing machines, hoists, barrels full of spices, whale jawbones, boats, pictures, papers and a huge birds-eye view panorama looking west up the river steadily draw the visitor through history. "For years London was the biggest whaling docks in the world. It was also the biggest cod fishing port," Ellmers said.

But with the rich cargoes and the wealth came the seedier side of life. A report in the late 18th century described London docks as the chief den of thieves and corrupt officials in the country.

"Pilfering and river piracy was rife. Pirates were executed at Execution Dock between the high and low tide marks. Some were just hung, others were then disembowelled or hung on a gibbet," Ellmers. "Captain Kidd, the gentleman pirate, was hung on the gibbet here for three years. They tarred the bodies so they lasted longer and acted as a deterrent to others," he added. (reuters)

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