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Tobacco Dock is a Grade I listed warehouse in Docklands, East London, England. It was constructed in approximately 1811 and served primarily as a store for imported tobacco. It is a brick building with many brick vaults and some fine ironwork. It was adjacent to a particular set of docks named London Docks, which have now mostly been filled in. Tobacco Dock is owned by Messila House, a Kuwaiti investment company. At its north entrance stands a 7 ft tall bronze sculpture of a boy standing in front of a tiger. In the late 1800s, wild animal trader Charles Jamrach owned the world's largest exotic pet store, located on Ratcliffe Highway, near to Tobacco Dock. The statue commemorates an incident where a Bengal tiger escaped from Jamrach's shop into the street and picked up and carried off a small boy, who had approached and tried to pet the animal having never seen such a big cat before. The boy escaped unhurt after Jamrach gave chase and prised open the animal's jaw with his bare hands. ==Redevelopment== In 1990 the structure was converted into a shopping centre at a development cost of £47 million and it was intended to create the "Covent Garden of the East End"; the scheme was unsuccessful, though, and it went into administration. Tobacco Dock is not in a major retail area and has only moderately good public transport access. Since the mid-1990s the building has been almost entirely unoccupied, with the only tenant being a sandwich shop, and a plan to convert it into a factory outlet did not come to fruition. In 2003, English Heritage placed it on the Buildings at Risk Register. In 2004, a meeting was arranged with the owners, investment company Messila House which is owned by the Al-Hasawi family of Kuwait, to find a way to ensure the survival of the historic structure. An English Heritage spokesman commented: "We see Tobacco Dock as a future priority because it is too large and important a site to be left standing empty. It is one of the most important buildings in London and if brought back into use it would reinvigorate the whole area."〔''Regeneration'' magazine, 12 November 2004〕 In 2005 the owners announced that they were working on a mixed-use scheme for Tobacco Dock which may incorporate a four-star hotel, shops, and luxury apartments. As of July 2012, the upper areas of the complex are still accessible to the general public whilst the majority of the lower areas are now cordoned off. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tobacco Dock」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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