John Day 5 and Pattern making

 

 

Well I think it’s about time I got back to John Day and his reminiscences of his 1930s apprenticeship in the Royal Arsenal. If you have been following this you will see that his apprenticeship consists of working for a department within the Arsenal for a few weeks or months to see what they do and learn some of the necessary skills. They would then move on to another department. John was a premium apprentice and working at the same time for a degree at prestigious Woolwich Polytechnic. He, and his fellows, were destined to move into some sort of directorship - maybe a major management position.  Therefore it was vital that they were able to understand how the complex fabric of a major industrial environment, like the Royal Arsenal, was cordinated.

 

In my last article I described how he was working at the Land’s End electrical substation which was out in the very secret area at the far east of the Arsenal site. The next site he was allocated to was what he describes as the ‘Pattern Shop’.  What and where was this?

 

Clearly, things change, and it is not always going to be easy to pin down reminiscences from the 1930s .was allocated in the 1930s. John may use words to describe departments which are different from those used by today’s historians.The Royal Arsenal History website has got maps and directories but the scale and complexity are daunting.

 

Industrial pattern making wa something which was undertaken in special departments and I’m sure this still goes on where traditional industries survive. It is the making of a pattern – a model – of whatever is going to be cast in metal. Usually this would be in wood although other substances could be used and it would probably be kept and stored.

 

John is clear that he was being sent to work in a workshop where patterns were being made. Where was this? After poring over the ridiculously complex map of the Arsenal site I found ‘C81 Pattern makers shop’ . which was south of one of the loops of the Arsenal canal on the site which is now under, or near, the Plumstead  Bus station. I also consulted some people researching the Arsenal. One of them suggested a connection with the Royal Brass Foundry – and I’ll come back to that – but also to a building, C5, which dates from the 1880s and has since been demolished.   It’s shown on the map as a ‘foundry’.

 

John is quite precise in the position of this mysterious building. He describes it having a ‘kind of mezzanine floor’ with a system of mirrors looking down so that the foreman could sit up there and look at what everybody was doing at their workbenches below. He says that the foreman of the Pattern Shop was ‘Clarke’. Another of the Arsenal researchers sent me a photograph which he says is of the pattern workshops – but I’m not sure if fits in with John’s description or not.

 

John says that all the apprentices took the opportunity to make themselves a toolbox but the foreman told the shop labourer to smash them with a sledge hammer. He had made two boxes, one in pine to hold his tea-making equipment and the other in mahogany, which was kept in a drawer and never assembled. He told Clarke that the pine box was to keep the dust from his cup and it was allowed to remain - Clarke never knew about the mahogany one. Although Mr Clark comes over as a nasty bully I’m sure he had good reason given the amount of private work going on all over the place, as well as stealing what was probably Government property. I have read accounts of the same sort of thing going on in the Royal Dockyards and I guess it was so prevalent that none of them thought it was wrong.

 

Near the Pattern Shop was the Pattern Store. This may indeed have been the Brass Foundry building, although it is not particularly near the building marked on the map as ‘pattern shop. John says the ground floor was used for ‘wooden mock-ups of tanks to find out how much could be stowed and still leave space for the crew’. There are photographs of the Royal Brass Foundery being used as garage in this. John says one of the apprentices surreptitiously moved everything several feet forward and ‘opened a little door to drive his Austin Seven into the space. He then fitted it with a beautiful two seater body painted battleship grey’and ‘when we drove it out through the main gate I had a ‘Brooklands’ silencer for my own Austin between the floor boards’. (tut tut)

 

From the Pattern Shop the next step for John was the Brass Foundry.  I have mentioned the Royal Brass Foundary earlier here and I don’t think that this was where John was working. The Royal Brass Foundry itself is one of the most important of listed buildings on the Arsenal site and is one of the few which was not demolished for ‘regeneration’. Historic England describes it as ‘brass cannon foundry,1716-17, possibly by Sir John Vanbrugh, for the Board of Ordnance; extended and altered 1771-1774 by Jan Verbruggen, Master Founder, extensively repaired 1970s;’

As far as I’m aware it is still used as a bookstore for the National Maritime Museum and I can certainly remember being told I could go there to refer to books ...  but I could not ask where we were going because it was secret. I think that the Brass Foundry where John was working could have been one of several buildings marked on the plan but that it was in the oldest area of the Arsenal, where all the listed buildings are today.

Describing his time in the            Brass Foundry John says ‘I spent most of my time moulding skimmer cores and brackets for the wires of overhead cranes .  A great deal of the casting was done in manganese bronze from which the slag was skimmed off from the molten metal with a ‘cubic core’ .   He says.. the “core box” was used ... This was a block of brass with a hole of about an inch and a half square.  I made them by the dozen and they went into the core oven to dry - the oven was ideal for roasting potatoes for a mid - morning snack’.

He also made risers in which steel rods were pumped up and down to make sure the molten metal filled all the space in the mould and  ‘I spent some days casting arming vanes for torpedoes’. The mould was made in steel with six wedge shaped pieces to be pulled out and to release the fan shaped casting. ‘I stood by a crucible of molten aluminium, ladled it into the mould, gave the mould a bash with a mallet, which took the mould apart, took out a vane, put the mould back together and started all over again. It was not a popular job.’
A month or so later he would be off to another department’

He also mentions another premium engineering apprentice in the tool room at the same time – or a year earlier - and originating from Plumstead. This was Arthur Sherwood who became a Professor of Mathematics in Australia. I’m afraid that I was unaware that there was a Newcastle University in Australia and I wasted a lot of my time looking for him in our own Newcastle.  Prof Sherwood is however more famous for building the smallest ever working live steam locomotive in 1:240 scale in 1973. 

Premium apprentices were the very clever young men and perhaps all the private work and scrounging which John describes well were actually part of a training in which they could learn resilience and think their way through problems. Just part of their education as the future leaders of industry.

AT RISK

 

I WAS WONDERING WHAT do for this week’s article and going through new emails  and stuff that was coming I noticed that the Charlton Society have a speaker on the Rotunda in Woolwich which is ‘at risk’ Following that up I find that ythere is a campaign on it, starting with a website - rotundatrust.org.uk

 ‘At risk’ means that Historic England has discovered that it needs urgent attention and will soon not be with us if something isn’t done.   I wrote about the Rotunda here  a couple of years ago. https://maryswritegreenwich.blogspot.com/search?q=rotunda.   It’s a very interesting building, very, very eccentric and it stands in an obscure bit of the Woolwich Barracks site, which means hardly anybody can get to it.   Because of its eccentricities it can’t really be expanded or have  anything added to it and I’m sure it’s very expensive to maintain.  It’s falling to bits because the army now aren’t using = so, yes it is ‘at risk’.

So I thought I would see what else is on Historic England ’at risk’ list for Greenwich and in particular those that could be described as ‘industrial’.   I know that’s a bit problematic as a description for the Rotunda  but it was built to exhibit military apparatus and used for exhibition purposes means it’s not a domestic building.   Anyway I get the ‘at risk’ list – only 17 items on it.   I think I should ignore the  three churches which are on it -  although one is architecturally so bizarre that it could well be an industrial building if you saw it when the light wasn’t too good.

One building on the list we’ve all heard of and it is always saying it’s ‘at risk’ and needs money for this and that, is Charlton House.  Now Charlton House is important and if it was anywhere other than Greenwich it would be a major attraction - but we have so much else!  It is a site of national interest in the way that other sites on the Greenwich ‘at risk register are not  - and that makes it very different to them.  I think that we can be reasonably confident that no one is going to let Charlton House fall down!

There are two other sites on the ‘at risk’ register which are associated with Charlton House. One of these is the stable buildings which front onto Hornfair Road and have been used as offices for many years. Currently they are let to a carers support organisation and  the at risk register describes their state as ‘very bad ’ I’m not sure what this means since clearly if it’s let out it can’t be too terrible but there may be an issue around alterations changing the historic character.  I don’t know.

There’s another building at Charlton which is ‘at risk’. This is the building which is now being described  as a ‘garden house’ and which is on the corner of Charlton House grounds and The Village.  For many years it was used as a public toilet, which ended, I think, in the 1990s.  Traditionally it is said to have been built by 17^th century architect, Inigo Jones – whatever! it’s thought to be contemporary with Charlton House itself. When it was closed as public toilets the then council officer dealing with it, Mike Neill,  made a website on its construction – it was interesting and useful and I’ve no idea what happened to it.  Today the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust website has a page about the work done on the Garden House  by architect Charlie McKeith. It actually says that they’re going to get the  ‘at risk’ status removed. Some years ago Charlie Mckeith came to Greenwich Industrial History Society and gave an amazingly interesting talk about Charlton House and its site in relation to the River and the surrounding countryside. It was all about sightlines and angles and it included the exact way in which the Garden House is located in relation to view down to the River.

So many of these ‘at risk’ buildings   are in the area between Charlton and Woolwich and result from the military presence. The next of these is about the ‘forecourt railings and gates to Red Barracks, and Gate Lodge’  Frances Street.  This is now the entry to a housing estate which apparently dates from the late 1960s and who is responsible for the remains of the barracks isn’t clear.

 

The next site on the ‘at risk’ register is pretty mysterious.  this afternoon, while writing this, I tested  out its mystery level. I had a visitor who – now in her ‘70s – is a life long resident of Woolwich and Charlton. She had no idea about the huge pond -  Mulgrave Pond -which lies just off Artillery Place. You used to be able to see the pond from the top of a 53 or 54 bus – and I did write something here about its past use as a reservoir. It is now in private hands and there is a wall round it and you can’t even really see anything.  The building is ‘Garden House’ and its somewhere  on the edge of the pond – no idea what it looks like except it’s ‘octagonal.  Perhaps someone with a window overlooking the pond can tell us more.

Then the ‘at risk’ register lists ‘Repository Woods’ which is about the same level of mysterious as Mulgrave Pond – and its only just the other side of the road from the pond.  I think we need to get back to the top of a 53 bus. You come out of Charlton, going towards Woolwich  - You go down Little Heath and when you get to the valley bottom  there’s a shop which used to be a pub called  ‘The Woodman’ -helpfully they’ve left the pub sign up.  Don’t look at the pub though, look to the right as the bus climbs up the hill to Woolwich. Over on the right there’s a long brick wall  and behind it It’s all trees and you can’t really see in. It’s all trees because it’s a wood  called ‘Repository Wood’ and there’s another big pond in there too. I started off this article because of the ‘at risk' status of the Rotunda and I think that if you go up to the Rotunda you can get into Repository Wood from round the back - if the army let you!

 

It consists of 7 acres of deciduous woodland created in the early 19th century as a purpose-built training landscape for the Royal Military Repository along with pleasure gardens open to the public.  It is the UK's earliest known purpose-built military training landscape with earthworks, a stream and man-made lake system with a circular island, used by an angling club.  Many of the features including the terraces are scheduled monuments. First created before 1808, during the 1820s an earthwork training fortification was added along the eastern boundary, on which were mounted "all the different sorts of cannon used in the defence of fortified towns. Also featured were two croquet lawns; and a garden building used as a  respirator training room.  Later additions were slit trenches and an assault course and an underground trench shelter.

The ‘at risk’ register defines the problems with Repository Wood as ‘Generally unsatisfactory with major localised problems” but it’s not clear what those problems are.  However I think everyone could be agreed it would be good if the public could have some of that  space.  I mean it could somehow be conserved for the public good.  Let’s see

Back to the at risk ==and a site which is familiar and something which I’ve written about in the past here. This is the Winter Garden of former Avery Hill Training College, Bexley Road, Eltham SE9 - I can certainly remember a time when it was looked after by Greater London Council and when you could go round the very exotic and beautiful gardens; I think it is now open again to the public  but it clearly is ‘at risk’.

 

After that on the there are a couple of street properties and which I won’t look at now but will come back to them. There  are also some general conservation areas.

 

The next one made me really jump when I saw the ‘Thames Barrier. How can the Thames Barrier be to ‘at risk’.  Of course when I read it more carefully it is not the barrier which it’s at risk, it’s the grisly area around it. It was set up originally to be a big tourist attraction with an enormous car park and a cafe and another attraction all of which seem to not be used.  So there’s a project for someone.

Upper Kidbrook and Morden College

                                                                    

  

A few weeks ago I said that I would write about Kidbrook and eventually give a detailed  history of the area. Kidbrook might appear to be completely suburban and not somewhere with an industrial history ..... but ....wait and see! I said that I start by working down the three streams which constituted the origins of the Kidbrooke area and although they are now mostly out sight – diverted or buried – they made the area what it is today. They all begun on the western slopes of Shooter’s Hill and ran down to the area we now know as Kidbrooke and made it very marshy.

So far I’ve done one episode about the Upper Kid Brook which was the most northern of the  streams. I described  it from where it started at Hervey Road, near the sports ground, and ran west. I ran out of space  to write more when I got to the edge of Kidbrooke Park Road. So I’m carrying from that point where I left it a few weeks ago.  I would say that from this point the line of the stream is in what is now Lewisham Borough –but its always close to the boundary with Greenwich.  The Greenwich/Lewisham boundary through Blackheath is weird to say the least anyway. Much of the route of the stream is given in booklets and articles by the late Michael Egan.  Kidbrooke Park Road is today the major road through the area and in the past provided access to  farms and, in the early middle ages, the church. The fields through which the Upper Kid Brook flowed were known as Heathfield and Swing Gate Field.  According to the sewer records the stream ran south west from Annesley Road, crossed Westbrook Road, and then ran between 35 and 37 Kidbrooke Park Road, where a slight dip might be noticed.  

This covers a considerable distance of the stream running unseen through gardens at the back of houses. I would recommend the aerial views now available online on which a tree line may indicate where the stream went. It ran through this area of large comfortable houses many of which were occupied by owners and managers of industries  - not just in Greenwich, one large house was for a Mr. Frean of the Bermondsey biscuit works.  Much of the area of Kidbrooke Grove was developed by Lewis Glenton – whose works, including the Glenton Railway,  I have so far failed to write up.  All of this area and many of its occupants were described by the late and much missed Neil Rhind in various of his books on Blackheath.

In addition to the main stream a small tributary ran from Shooters Hill Road to around 20 Kidbrook Grove and  then flowed south on a line which might have followed the tree lines between gardens. It crossed the western end of Kidbrooke Grove and joined the main stream in the garden of 35. 

Having reached 35 and 37 Kidbrook Grove the main Upper Kid Brook stream turned south to the backs of 38 and 40 Kidbrook Gardens, then turns west again to run along between the ends of Kidbrook Gardens back gardens and the northern boundary of Morden College.

Kidbrook Gardens then is following the route of the Upper Kid Brook I’ll come back to this point later.  We  are approaching the grounds of Morden College and the stream ran along its northern boundary. There is a footpath system which around some of the College grounds and which can be accessed from Kidbrooke Grove which goes round the buildings and lets you admire gardens immaculately maintained since around 1700. It leads to a path which runs parallel to Kidbrooke Gardens.  I would recommend the Running Past blog which includes photographs of the line of the stream here. https://runner500.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/in-search-of-upper-kid-brook/

Perhaps I had better explain about Morden College – I have to remember that not everybody would know about it. It’s been there since the late 17^th century and is basically an old people people’s home.  Sir John Morden had experience as an overseas trader and was aware of the insoluble problems which could lead to financial ruin  and so this almshouse was set up to house merchants who, in old age, had lost money through no fault of their own but through shipwrecks and other disasters. He had acquired the Greenwich Manor of Old Court and estates which the College managed to provide an income for the charity.  Over the centuries the charity has acted as a developer in promoting industry and providing housing and under the requirements of Sir John’s will the charity is currently managed by the City of London.  

The main block of the College was started in 1695 and is said to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren himself but probably wasn’t. It was built on the site called Great Stonefield which may imply gravel extraction here.

In recent years new buildings have provided a home and care for increasing numbers of old people – but the charity generally only takes those who have had influential careers. The footpath will provide views of the original 17^th century block as well as numerous modern flats and care facilities.

The Upper Kid Brook seems to have provided the northern boundary of the College site and was also the Kidbrooke and Charlton Boundary line’. The 19^th century map marks a couple of boundary stones and I have no idea if they are still there. One was there in 1979 when Michael Egan wrote about it in Greenwich Antiquarian Transactions. He said it was on the footpath at the point that it was crossed by the Upper Kid Brook and was marked ‘K/C’.  I think that if the stones are within the College Ground they are likely to have been looked after.

So, back to Kidbrooke Gardens. If you continue along the road you come to Montague Graham Court,  16- 22 Kidbrook Gardens, a Morden College block of flats for old people.  I have no idea who Montague Graham was and it is, strangely enough, not an unusual name and there are several possible candidates. The block stands in a big square area as you can see looking at the aerial view on Google Maps. Michael Egan found evidence that in the early 19^th century this was a commercial gravel pit and that the Upper Kid Brook flowed diagonally across it. He pointed to the ‘sharp fall in he land here .... consistent with excavation’.

The railway going from Blackheath Station to Charlton passes underground at this point . This is the North Kent Line built from 1845 and opened in 1849. The London to Greenwich railway had opened Greenwich station in 1838 but it had proved impossible, because of local objections, to extend the line through Greenwich Park. A bill was therefore promoted in 1846 for the North Kent Railway build a line from London Bridge to Lewisham and Blackheath and on to  Charlton from where it could be extended into Kent. There were various objections from the owners of large estates between Blackheath and Charlton over which the line was planned to pass and it was eventually decided to take the whole thing through in a tunnel which eventually emerges near Westcombe Park. This line was planned to be hidden in the natural valley of the Upper Kid Brook. Recently the tunnel has been closed for major maintenance work and it should be noted that one of the problems they encountered was caused by constant penetration of water from the surrounding area.

The railway crosses Kidbrooke Gardens at an angle and continues to the junction of Liskeard Road which it crosses diagonally.

Kidbrooke Gardens continues westward to come out onto Blackheath and become South Row. The Upper Kid Brooke seems to have run slightly south of it and to have continued down to the area by the lodge to Morden College where there is a stone for the Greenwich Parish boundary. Readers of my articles here may remember that a few months ago I did a series on a Parish Boundary Walk in 1853 and for a couple of hundred yards the Greenwich boundary followed the stream. It continues to areas which are in Lewisham Borough. As I said above the boundary is very strange and it will be easier just to continue along the line of the stream regardless of whether it is in Greenwich or not.

This whole area at the rear of the Paragon, through which the Upper Kid Brook and the boundary line went is difficult to follow because it is now the site of Fulthorpe Road and the council estate – which changed the layout of the area and ignored the various plots of the 1850s. I need to do that whole area in one article and not split it.

I must apologise for taking up a whole article to cover a couple of hundred yar#ds of the Upper Kidbrook.  Hopefully next time I can deal with a more urbanised stretch

REVIEW OF BLACKHEATH IN SOUTH WEST GREENWICH

 

I have just received a copy of a new book, which is sort of by the late Neil Rhind - in that it is an edited work based on notes he left for a proposed book.

So who was Neil Rhind and why am I about to go on at length about this book? It has been produced by the Blackheath Society as a memorial. He was a local historian researching and writing about  Blackheath and its numerous residents over the years.  As he gathered more and more information he began to catalogue it and gradually published works based on it.  He described not only the area and its buildings in an enormous amount of detail but also wrote  about the people who had lived in them. He published many books and pamphlets but what stands out are his three encyclopaedic works on Blackheath

The Village and Blackheath Vale 1973

Wricklemarsh and the Cator Estate, Kidbrooke, Westcombe and the Angerstein encroachment. 1983

Blackheath in Lewisham Parish. Blackheath in Lee Parish. 2020

 

He  had done the notes for fourth volume which was to be about the outskirts of Greenwich and Blackheath but died before he’d even begun to put it together.  It is called ‘Blackheath in South West Greenwich’ defined, by Neil, as ‘Blackheath slopes’.  I must admit some reservations about that and I would define it as ’posh Greenwich’ – covering Crooms Hill, Gloucester Circus and the like. Over the past years my own historical research has taken me there often enough, so perhaps its ‘interesting old Greenwich’, and why not.

 

I first met Neil in 1969 when I moved to Greenwich and had a very short term job with Greenwich Theatre in its first few weeks.  Neil was working as a journalist and was in and out of theatre every day – doing write ups of this and that for them. I thought he was funny and a bit different from some other writers in the press.   Apparently 1969, that same year, was when he began his work on the social and architectural development of Blackheath.

 

As well as the research and the books he undertook a great of community activity in Blackheath. He  was president of the Blackheath Society and involved in Blackheath Preservation from the 1970s. He also worked closely with the Greenwich Society and was involved in many campaigns on buildings like Blackheath Concert Halls for instance, and the Blackheath Art Club. All of which I’ve written about and hopefully have given due credit for the work he did.  I understood that he disapproved of people like me, involved with the Council -  I was not really forgiven.  

 

He also achieved some honours when people began to realise how much he’d done and how hard he’d worked. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and an Honorary Fellow of Goldsmiths College and most of all a Freeman of the Borough of Greenwich.

 

The new book has been put together from his notes by John Coulter and Julian Watson. Julian was the Greenwich Local ‘History Librarian for many years - and he’s been a great support to me as I am sure he was to Neil. The type set, the layout and artwork and so on has been done by Rob Powell.

I know only too well the years of hard work an encyclopaedic book like this takes.  You start off with the local authority rate books which list out every property and every resident householder. They are only too difficult sometimes to read and only enlivened with small bits of scandal.  Basically they are just lists over and over, year after year of properties and residents.  There are often difficulties with trying to work out the relationship of what is in the rate books with what you find on the map. Half the time they seem to be in random order – I remember my desperation trying to sort out entries on the Peninsula riverside.   At least with the sort of streets which Neil dealt with there is usually some form of house numbering. In early 19^th century Greenwich the rate books must have been looked after by a parish official who I’ve come across several times and mentioned with his picture - John Bicknell.  I'm very grateful to Neil to see in the book the story of Bicknell’s mother, Sabrina; who was a young girl taken over two men who want to train her to become the perfect wife. She married somebody else in the end.

So congratulations for the sheer hard work of going through the rate books and then it’s on to the commercial directories and to correlate them with the rate books , and it might be all a bit boring –but there’s going to be an awful lot of it to do. Of course these days you're going to find big websites full of family history information = far more than you could ever want.

I ought to make a few comments about the contents of the book -which is absolutely fine. I am likely to make fussy and pernickety comments  about issues of no interest to the general reader. One thing is that I’m extremely unsure why this book – which is actually about Greenwich  - claims to be about Blackheath. It goes right the way down to Gloucester Circus which is down the hill and not really on the slopes of anything.  Also the book does not really take on the various caverns and chalk extraction sites which that area is well known for. Although of course other people have taken this on in detail.

There are several entries here which relate to varis people or issues I consulted him  about and  I’m a bit surprised that some of details are not included. For example William Joyce in Diamond Terrace where he’s noted Joyce’s father, Jeremiah, but failed to say that William was a ship builder who built the first iron steam ship in Greenwich. Neil also gave me a lot of information about Joyce’s Diamond Terrace house, his tenure there and other details, none of which is included in the book - which I think is a great pity.

Another strange omission is where he has listed a father and son with just names and no information. Both are in DNB which he has noted and the son well known to most Greenwich historians for achievements also  not noted.  Why not?  I had consulted Neil about this family several times because among other things I thought they had a different earlier address but also issues around  schools, neighbours and so on. I know therefore that he knew a lot about them – so why only single line entries here?

But this is all very trivial stuff and I don’t want anybody to think that I’m criticising the book overall. Nothing’s ever perfect and there is so much more here which really is very very good

It isn’t the sort of book you sit down with and have a good read. It’s more book of reference or at least it will be for many  people.  I mean, nerds like me will read our way through it and criticise it as too short. But for almost everyone will be a very very interesting book to look at  and enjoy.

It makes an important contribution to the history of Greenwich – and note I say Greenwich here. Like everyone involved I want to say good things about Neil and his work and his dedication.  So thank you for this work – and for help and support over the years.

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to advertise in Weekender but the book will be available for purchase in Blackheath at the Bookshop on the Heath, Waterstones, and at future Blackheath Society events.  It costs £25

I have written this review at super fast speed.  I got my first look at the book late yesterday – worked all evening and have woken up after the time I promised to send it to Weekender. I hope this all makes sense and also explains why I think this book is so important and that learning about the historians is almost as important as the history.

Fuel Research East Greenwich

 

I’m becoming increasingly aware that many people have no idea that on the Greenwich Peninsula, where the Dome and everything is, was previously a huge and very important gas works.  It was actually a collection of all sorts of works - a big gasworks making ‘town’ – coal gas;  a big tar works,a chemical works. and various others. The one I want to write about today was the Fuel Research Station which was round the back of the Pilot pub in what was then a road called Riverway.

I had always assumed that the Fuel Research organisation had grown from  the gas company’ laboratories.  The South Metropolitan Gas Co which owned the East Greenwich Gas works had done a considerable amount of work during the Great War on poison and explosive gases. I’ve written a very great deal about George Livesey who was the 19^th century gas company chair who set up the gas works on the Peninsula.  I find it difficult to believe that he would have been enthusiastic about the various gases destined for military use as explosive and poison  which the gas works produced on an industrial scale during the Great War. By the time the war started Livesey was dead and the company chair was Dr Charles Carpenter. At the end of the war the company produced a booklet outlining wartime activity which included a chapter by Carpenter outlining with apparent  enthusiasm some of these products and the research which had preceded them. Whatever, it is easy to imagine that he had also been involved in setting up the Fuel Research organisation.

It turns out that I was completely wrong about this. The fuel research body was in during the Great War and it comes as a relief to discover that the Government during the Great War did do things like planning for the future and weren’t only sending thousands of young men to their deaths on the Somme.  The mining of coal, its use and sale, the setting up of the gas industry had all been done, unregulated, by ‘private enterprise’.  Was setting up this research organisation an attempt to evaluate national resources and to regulate their use accordingly?

The organisation was the idea of George Thomas Bielby, a distinguished Scottish chemist with an interest, among many others, of developments in coal based fuels and related subjects. In 1912 he was a member of the Royal Commission on Fuel and Engines for the Navy. During the Great  War  he was the  Director of  the Fuel Research Board and was responsible for setting up the research body.

Initially it had two objectives: one of which was  to research and classify all coal seams in the country. Initially this was referred to staff at Imperial College in South Kensington but eventually a large network was set up to deal with this and to work as a part of the new research body.  This consisted of nine specialist regional Coal Survey laboratories.  By 1945 57 reports had been produced –  but did not include any mention of the Kent coal field

Initially the other main research objective was about the processing of raw coal into different types of fuel -  It is said that this was because of concerns in fuelling naval vessels. It was realised that the research building should be near a gasworks and Bielby approached  Charles Carpenter  to see if the South Metropolitan Works at East Greenwich could help. East Greenwich was then, and was to remain, the most modern gasworks in the whole country,  very large and on the cutting of technology. It was an obvious choice.  A site was soon agreed at a peppercorn rent with access to a number of facilities including the Phoenix chemical works and also the rail  link into the gas works. A building  was constructed for them here  by the South Metropolitan Gas Works. It was claimed that this building was designed and erected by the local of firm of builders, Edge,- who included it in their company history .But please see one of my earlier articles about that Company.

News reports of the setting up of the facility at Greenwich give a number of subjects  on which the research work needed  to be done. I think that it was fundamentally felt that the nation needed to look at its coal reserves to see how they could best be used efficiently.  In particular, what was the best way to use coal to generate electricity and also what will become a huge need for ‘motor spirit’ in the future. How much coal have we got? How can it be used most efficiently?    We have forgotten that there was a time when oil did not come in tankers. Petrol was invented just across the River in Hackney Wick by Carless who also developed aviation spirit there .  Next time you see a film about the Battle of Britain keep in mind  - I was told that the Coalite plant at the local gas works could keep seven squadrons in the air.

It was announced that the new Greenwich facility  ‘will be designed and equipped in such a manner th

at operations on an industrial scale can be conducted under working conditions.’ Initially seven chemists were employed  - and were provided with their own small gas works  to experiment with.

In addition to coal; the researchers were asked to look at Irish peat - an energy resource which today barely registers. In April 1921  100 tons were delivered to the station in Greenwich so that work on it could start.    A lecture and paper on Peat Resources in Ireland was produced in 1919. 

There were reports that ’oil fuel is beginning to have a serious effect upon the coal industry. ..our greatest scientists and chemists are working at high pressure  ...to save the coal industry, and at Greenwich ...making secret experiments in distilling oil from coal  ... to  make Britain independent of foreign countries for her oil supplies and prevent the closing of pits, and consequent unemployment.’    In May 1925 a deputation of Members of Parliament visited the Greenwich facility panicked by all the reasons for a crisis  and reported favourable work on coal oils. The Prime Minister, Tory Stanley Baldwin, described the problems in the coal industry and said how research in Greenwich would solve it ”it will give this country probably the greatest push forward in  development that it has had since the discovery of steam.”

By 1930 an experimental low carbonisation plant was being run at Richmond Gas Works in what was then still Surrey at works owned by the north London Gas Light and Coke Co and apparently installed at the request of the Government. Soon workers at Greenwich could boast of making ‘super grade petrol’  from ‘worthless tar’.  Petrol costing 3 ½d  a gallon could be made for  2 ½d.

(For  you poor souls -  readers - who can’t convert thruppence  or tuppence ‘apence to today’s money – both of them are nearest to a penny – 2p...... for a gallon?)

In 1934 the site was visited by a party made up of hundreds of industrialists  and eminent scientists. Reporting in The Kentish Independent it was obviously felt necessary to explain to local people what this building on their doorstep was all about.  They reported ‘ the main object of the work is the application of  the better use of the coal resources of the country which still remain Great Britain’s most important material asset and the foundation of her industrial greatness.”

1939 meant the start of the Second World War. Immediately war was declared in 1939 the whole of the knowledge and experience was put at the disposal of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, Service and Supply Departments . Its trained scientists and technicians dealt ably and enthusiastically with the many items of special work which were undertaken. The Fuel Research organisation had accumulated a fund of experience and information on fuels of all kinds.

War work included the development of gas producers, using anthracite and coke to replace petrol for road vehicles.They made hydrogen for barrage  balloons contributing  sufficient to fill completely more than 11,000. The problem of the smoke emitted from ships’ convoys was vigorously attacked, and as a result of intensive research  a smoke eliminating device was designed and developed at Greenwich. Other activitied included the devising and development of incendiary weapons. Some Commonwealth countries  were worried  that their sources of oil were American and asked for support and help in developing their coal industries in a reasonable and economic fashion.

After the war, at the 1948 Olympics., the torch carried eventually to Mount Olympus was designed and., along with the fuel used,  at the Greenwich laboratories. Nearer home in 1949 they were involved in work with the East Malling fruit research organisation to find a method of heating to save fruit from early frosts.

On 20^th March  1952 – only a month after his wife had become Queen – Prince Philip visited.  He was described as a ‘good looking young man who  drove his large Austin through the streets of Greenwich.’  He watched experiments on smoke elimination and combustion of pulverised coal.  In the domestic heating section he looked at currrent research.  He watched work on making oil from coal by synthetic processes. He talked to many workers - like Charles Guest of Charlton, the longest serving blacksmith and with Audrey French who was examining moisture content in fuel.

I could go on anf]d on about all the various inventions and developments which happened here and the subject really needs a proper analysis and an extended essay.  I’ve hardly touched on the work they did here here in Greenwich. The organisation was closed down in the mid 50s and the laboratory and all the experts were moved to Warren Springs site and it has been reorganised more than once since. Their bibliography, published in 1945, lists over 600 published reports and papers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Substations

 

As ever on a Saturday I was sitting wondering what to do next week for my Weekender article. For weeks I’d been thinking rather guiltily that I’d never done the Tramshed in Woolwich. I didn’t know an awful lot about it and it seemed very difficult to find out more – well more than who was doing stand up there in 1980!   

I was also still thinking about what I did last week - the Land’s End power plant.  It was on the Arsenal site, mysterious, and secret. It seems to have begun as a hydraulic power station and ended as an electrical substation. I daresay we’ll find out more about it as time goes on but it got me thinking about substations -  buildings between the power generating works and whatever it is that needs electricity to function. I am very aware here that I’m unfamiliar with the technology and certainly don’t understand the language used about it  - but then, I guess, neither do 99% of my readers, so maybe they we can all try and find out what was going on in using terms we all understand.

Substations –I realise they come in many shapes and sizes, but I what I wanted to look at here were the small urban buildings which stand in every neighbourhood.   There a lots of them and most of them are all the same size, painted dark red and they’re really -  and I probably shouldn’t say this -  pretty boring. There are various web sites which claim to list many of them and perhaps one day I should come back and look at them.  I want to keep this simple so I will just mention the Geograph  web sites – “photograph every grid square” - and note some of their contributors have looked at some local substation examples. https://www.geograph.org.uk/

I checked substations with Greenwich Council’s site on locally listed historic buildings. There are just three substations in the Borough on it. They are: the LESC building in Greenwich High Road, the Tramshed in Woolwich and the railway building in Troughton Road in Charlton.

The LESC building is something which I‘ve written about here several times before noting it as the only last remaining relic of the world’s first power station at Deptford. It is still in use and it’s just an ordinary square building with ‘LESC’ on the front for ‘London Electricity Supply Corporation’. The Council’s listing document notes:  “ Sub-station of 1891 .....which stepped down high voltage power from Deptford Generating Station ..... unusual survivor from the pioneering days of electrification, which enabled the streets of Greenwich to be lit by electric lighting for the first time, powered at a distance from the first modern – and world’s largest - power station .....substantially intact, an evocative example”.

The next one listed is the Woolwich Tramshed, just up the road from Woolwich Station. Woolwich Council bought this building from London Transport in 1960 and it has had a fairly chequered career ever since, mainly being used as a community theatre. Trying to discover its origins is not easy. Searches on the net will find many, many websites of the various entertainers who’ve been there over the years. Describing its history some say it was a power station generating electricity for the trams.... well, sort of! 

In these articles I’ve mentioned a booklet several times;  SELIA -  about the industrial archaeology of South East London and published in 1980.  Yes, it does mention the Tramshed “the former electrical substation of 1900 designed by E. Vincent Harris for the London County Council tramways, misleadingly called ‘the tram shed’.” At least we’ve got the architect’s name even if we haven’t got a clue how they knew what it was. Harris worked for the London County Council at the very start of his career, as a very young man. He went to build many, many civic structures around the country on a monumental scale. Memorably he is reputed, at a dinner for the celebration of his work on his retirement,   to have said that he knew that the architectural establishment of the day didn’t like his work and he didn’t much like their’s either.. Another example of a tram depot building  by him is the rather larger and very much better known one in Rivington Street in Shoreditch. This version is or was  a restaurant, complete with its own Damien Hurst, and  described in 2020 by the Guardian as ‘  so now’.

Looking for sources of information about the Tramshed  –I found something which I had written myself some 20 years ago.  To my embarrassment I haven’t got a clue where I got this piece of information from, but what I said was “electricity substation of 1910 for the London County Council tramways  ... designed to look good in a prominent area. Inside was a ten ton overhead crane, switchgear and motor generators.”I had also discovered that a substation was needed as a result of a plan to extend the tram routes to Abbey Wood. With the demise of the tram system in the early 1950s in favour of buses, another use could not be found for these electrical infrastructure buildings. I have since found a 1910 report in the local papers of Woolwich Council’s support for the construction of this building and it says that the electricity itself would originally have been generated at Greenwich Power Station on the riverside in East Greenwich. Indeed a trench for the cable was being dug along Woolwich Road.

So, what does the Council’s listings page say about it? ..” Large structure with single storey workshop ...dressed up in a handsome Mannerist classical style to diminish bulk ...substations needed to be large well-ventilated sheds located at central transport nodes... rare substation associated with tramways .... survival in such a prominent central location is  highly significant ... has an important place in London’s transport history.”

The third listed substation is perhaps a little bit more problematic. It’s the big railway substation in Troughton Road adjacent to Charlton Station. What does the Council’s listing document say? “Built in 1926 on site of Charlton station’s coal depot following electrification by the Southern Railway; sited at the end of a single track siding of 1873 which unusually extended into the building. Still in use housing transformers, converters and switchgear ... has features designed on a monumental scale, of historic interest recording technological changes to the railway industry”.

In the 1920s the Southern Railway had converted to a v660V-750V DC third-rail system and relied on a network of substations, often nicknamed "cathedrals" due to their design.   I don’t know how many of these exist in our area - I seem to remember a lot more of them - and I am sufficiently ignorant to not even make a guess. There is certainly another one where the railway crosses White Hart Road in Plumstead and that is not listed.

It was apparently a ‘rotary converter station’ which means that it converted incoming power for the railway’s use.  In  the early 20^th century when our local railway lines were electrified the current was distributed from the generating stations – probably from Deptford Power Station. It went to substations that contained transformers, in order to step-down the voltage, and "rotary converters" -huge motor-generators -to convert from alternating to direct current. In the 1940s the Southern Railway developed and used a standard design which had outdoor high-voltage switchgear and transformers, and a mercury-arc rectifier.  They went out of use by approximately 1954 and following completion of the "change of frequency" scheme in the London Area - the SR traction network was connected to the national grid at 66kV / 33kv and the introduction of 50Hz mercury-arc rectifier equipment in the substations – enabled the abolition of the 11kV radial HV network. The rotary equipment was removed from the substations and the large holes in the upper floors filled in. Charlton was “downgraded to a TPH in the CoF scheme”.  In the rotary subs days these stations were manned 24/7.The equipment would be shut at the end of each day and started up again in the morning. The nights were used for maintenance & cleaning and they were kept spotless.

There is one more old substation which I am surprised is not in the list of listed buildings from the from the Council. I was told about this building some time ago by, much missed, Neil Rhind. I have written already in this series of articles about the Blackwall Point Power Station which was sited at the end of what is now John Harrison Way - and the jetty out in the river now which was its coaling jetty.  They had a contract to power Greenwich trams and they had three substations - one in Crooms Hill, one in Westcombe Hill and one in Blackheath Park. The ones in Crooms and Westcombe Hills are long gone - and I’m not even really sure where exactly they were.  The one in Blackheath Park is still there. It is at the back and in the courtilege of the Concert Halls, in Blackheath Park. It is a very substantial building and quite tall. It is marked on old maps as ‘electricity substation’ and appears in them from the early 20^th century. I am not sure when it stopped being used, and what its current function is. It is however an impressive building, larger than most such sub stations and with a decorative grille over the door.  Why isn’t it listed?

(Thanks to Bob for sourcing technical information used above)

John Day and Lands End

 

Over the past few weeks I’ve done three articles taken from the memories of John Day describing his apprenticeship in the Royal Arsenal in the 1930s.  John was an ‘Engineering Apprentice’ which he had got following good school results and a competitive qualifying examination. This meant that he worked in many different departments in the Arsenal over the course of his time while also studying for a degree in Engineering at Woolwich Polytechnic. The young men on this programme were expected to be the future leaders of the engineering profession and John was to spend his working life in the Patent Office.  These episodes of his memories were sent to me intermittently over four or five years and they don’t always connect up that well - so I’ve done my best but it is sometimes a bit fragmentary.

I finished the last episode with a description of the Arsenal motorcycle club and some very big 1930s machines some of which are worth a small fortune today.  His father was in charge of the main power station in the Arsenal and John wrote about him too. Clearly having a father with a senior job gave John access to information over and above his daily work about this vast works and its ways.

Moving on to when John says he had been working, ‘allocated’ to a ‘spell in the western `D.C’.  This was the oldest part of the Arsenal – where Woolwich Works is today - and it had originally had an electricity supply from a building in Warren Lane’ which was originally a DC (direct current) supply only and which was apparently still in operation when John was there in the 1930s. 

He was next allocated to substation No.4 (Sub 4).  I am told that this was ‘Lands End Power House’ which was to the east of the old main part of the Arsenal. In the last episode I wrote here I described how John visited the Crossness Explosives pier, which was on the riverside at what is now Thames Bank Place’. The Lands End site power plant was to the south and quite a way away – in fact so far away as to be almost at the eastern edge of the Arsenal site. John says it was east of the Sales Ground where ‘unwanted bits and materials were sold off by auction’ and served the Danger Buildings, the F shops ‘where all the woodwork was done’ and Crossness Explosives Pier. The substation was divided into two areas - one of which held the voltage reducing transformers switchgear and the other was the rest room. 

It seems that originally Lands End was primarily a hydraulic power station built in c1905/6 to operate equipment on the, then new, Crossness Explosives Pier. It appears that it was built using money from the Army and Navy. This is possibly to do with land ownership as the Arsenal began to expand into new areas to the east of the main site in order to meet the need for the new high explosives being developed in this period by research staff at Woolwich and Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills, originally under Frederick Abel and James Dewar – although Woolwich based Abel died in 1902. Along with the pier and tumps this power plant was designed to minimise the risk posed by these new materials. Woolwich production was to concentrate on the propellant Lyddite, although this had not been developed by chemists in the Royal Ordnance like Abel.

The power plant was eventually transferred to the Royal Ordnance in 1910 following an agreement with the Admiralty and the War Office. It supplied hydraulic power to the cranes on the Pier, and steam for heating and electricity for capstans at some of the tumps - magazines 3- 15 - and for lighting the pier and other structures in the vicinity of No. 2 magazine. It also supplied steam for fire-fighting purposes. On maps an accumulator tower, blacksmiths and fitters shops are marked along with a boiler house with a tank and chimney and a coal bunker between them. It was later converted into an electricity substation probably in the 1950s. Thus in a location far from the central part of the Arsenal, was ‘well out of sight and out of mind of the main part of the Arsenal’. It stood roughly where Crossway crosses a canal between Pointer and Eastgate Closes – a site now in the Borough of Bexley.

When John was there in the 1930s the substation was the responsibility of Andy Clements, with Syd Freeman as electrician’s mate and Bill Nunn as motor cleaner. Work began in the morning when they `made tea and waited for the next phone called to say something had gone wrong’. As ever, John has a story to tell us about a lesson learned:

“One morning while Syd brewed the first cup of the day, Andy pushed the newspapers off the table and produced a bit of chalk and proceeded to introduce the then resident apprentice into the deeper intricacies of electricity distribution of three-phase current. Then the phone rang and Andy told me to take Syd and sort out the trouble. 

“I forget what the trouble was but I do know that I hadn’t a clue how to solve the problem. Syd, who after all was three or four times my age, suggested a solution and all went well.

“When I returned to the substation Andy asked me what I had done and I told him that Syd had suggested a solution. Oh dear! Andy really went for me!  The gist of his tirade was if you’re in charge of a job you do not follow the instructions of a subordinate and you take responsibility. A lesson learned – but would it have been better to have the problem unrepaired? There seems to be no concept of teamwork?  I guess that this strict respect for skills embedded in a hierarchy was, and probably still is, all part of this world of apprenticeships and the handing on of knowledge to a selected successor – with many class issues included. The world we seem to have lost.  The point about responsibility is significant – but, like so much else, must be subject to past legal decisions in the real world.

One sort of skill being passed on was the art of scrounging and how to improve your life in the workplace by unofficial initiatives.  The vast size of the Arsenal must have made it ideal for such activities.  

John says Andy had ‘acquired’ a garage on the other side of the road which could be used for the benefit of engineering apprentices who, John said, ‘wanted to work on their cars or motorcycles particularly on Saturday mornings.’  I suggested a lathe might be useful so Andy took me on a ‘scrounging trip on the dilly’.  (I must say that the phrase ‘on the dilly’ is unfamiliar to me - or at least in this context.  I can guess, but if anybody wants to enlighten us on this - please feel free.)

Returning from the scrounging trip they had ‘a ½ inch centre lathe from a ‘mothballed’ shop’.  This was set up in the substation driven by a motor, acquired by more scrounging. Then ‘news of the lathe reached the shop steward of the main shop and he began to raise great concerns. John comments that ‘he would, he was the shop turner’. Then ‘he was soon told to be quiet - the lathe would only be used by an apprentice and was only for ‘foreigners’.

John’s time at Lands End was in the 1930s and it seems it was converted into an electricity substation in perhaps the 1930s - it was substation No. 11.  Maps from the early 1950s no longer show the accumulator tower and by then the cranes on Crossness Pier were electric. At that time the Arsenal was responsible for the navigation/warning lights on the large pylons which used to carry power across the river. The lights on it were on a rope and pulley system so that they could be wound down to ground level for maintenance. They were built in 1933 and carried 132Kv over a distance of 3,060 feet, they were dismantled in 1987.

Many of the tumps remain, some in other use and some abandoned.  They were magazines  used to store explosives – described as ‘mainly cordite’ although very little of that was made in Woolwich. They date from the late 1880s and were usually circular and surrounded by a wall and a moat, designed to minimise and contain blast. They provided only part of the storage needed for an eventual 40,000 tons of explosives . Some tumps have since been used for a variety of recreational and other purposes – but others are derelict. Most remain hidden behind houses and away from roads and invisible – needing to be sought out.

Some of the jobs John described required entry to the Danger Buildings. These were a series of wooden huts of relatively light construction surrounded by high earth banks and joined by wooden walkways a couple of feet from the ground. These walkways were known as a “clean” area whereas off the walkways was the “dirty” area. Access could only be attained through the dirty/clean building where all smoking, snuff taking and metal articles had to be left and one had to put on special nail less overshoes as one stepped one foot at a time over the  barrier from dirty to clean. One step off the “clean” walkway, one became “dirty” and was not allowed back.

More about all of this in future articles. For more information about all of this please look at the huge and very complex Royal Arsenal history website https://www.royal-arsenal-history.com/and also thank you very much to both Ian Bull and Steve Peterson for help and information