The Arundel conduit

 

 

The conduit system in Greenwich is relatively well known to those interested in the detail of the park history. Basically there are a number of quite grand structures in the Park which were connected to a system of underground pipe work.  A number of people have written descriptions of them –   many Southeast London bloggers have had a go at them in the last couple of years -band there is a whole back history of past researchers.

The above ground buildings we can see today in the Park seem to date from the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries. I thought however that before I get onto these I should look at what we know about one which may be older and outside of Greenwich Park itself.

The earliest proper map we have of Greenwich is that drawn up on behalf of Samuel Travers in 1695 as part of his survey of the Greenwich conduits. A scatter of features marked as conduits are shown in most of the uphill areas of Greenwich parish. Of course, these may not refer to actual structures but indicate some feature which relate to a relevant underground structure. In collecting up what notes I can about these I’m aware that for most of them there seems to be no information at all.

It appears that running east of the Park was the ‘Arundel’ conduit ran a number of features appear in descriptions of it – some, or all, might be genuine The origin of its name ’Arundel’ could refer to William Fitzalan,  11^th Earl of Arundel  who served as Lord Chamberlain under Henry VIII and thus had ultimate responsibility for infrastructure works on royal properties. However this conduit probably predates the Tudors, is not on Crown land, and can be linked to the Ghent administration of Greenwich which means it pre-dates 1414.

Samuel Travers 17^th century report says that the Arundel Conduit took water from the ‘Primrose Hill area’.  Primrose Hill itself is unidentified but the Travers map shows conduits on either side of the present Maze Hill, near today’s Ulundi Road and another  inside the Park. The report says that the investigating party left the Park, presumably by the ‘wicket gate’ which is now opposite the end of Westcombe Park Road. This is probably the area close to Vanbrugh Castle and the mini roundabout  on Maze Hill by the Park gate. In the 18th century this area was ‘Maze Hill Green and featured a well and a pub called the Duke of Ormond’s Head.

‘Duke of Ormond’s Head’. was a popular pub name in the 17^th century  but  some were changed in 1715 following the Duke’s impeachment for high treason.  A plan of 1735 which accompanies documentation for this Pub mentions the ‘common conduit’ in Maze Hill as being close by and also shows a nearby pond. This pub is not to be confused with the later hostelry on a nearby site in Maze Hill, The George, where a well was also to be found. In 1749 occupants of new cottages in Maze Hill were entitled to use the conduit, which indicates its use as a source of domestic water rather than moving water for use elsewhere.

We should also note that it is often said that some part of a conduit remains in a Maze Hill back garden. By some amazing coincidence when I was doing the final corrections on this article I was copied into an email about a current planning application for changes which could affect gardens in Maze Hill.  I have been told that ‘the conduit had an exit point which was used by schoolchildren in the early 19th century. In those days there was a marble basin, but sadly that has gone. However, you can still see where the water exited.’

There are also a number of reports of structures and various workings in land now covered by the gardens of the houses on the north side of Westcombe Park Road. These include a saga of burglars tunnelling down underground and lighting a fire to keep themselves warm and cook their supper without realising they are under the floor of one of the houses. Most recognisable features will have been cleared years ago.

Travers’ investigating team crossed Maze Hill, and proceeded to ‘Green Lane, commonly called Conduit Lane ‘.  This is probably today’s  Vanburgh Hill – and it is of considerable interest that  ‘Conduit Lane  or Conduit Hill was to persist as a name for Vanburgh Hill for many years, despite several  other names – ‘Love Lane’ is another name used. It must reflect the conduits as a visible and useful local feature much later than we might expect.

At Conduit Lane on the brow of the hill Travers’ team noted a spring in a field ‘apparently owned by Morden College – Sir John Morden had indeed bought Gravel Pit Field in the late 17^th century. They noted that this spring produced a considerable quantity of water, and appears to have been conducted in earthen pipes. Sir John is likely to have bought this property for its commercial potential as there was extensive removal of gravel from this area to be used as ballast in ships whose cargo had been discharged in London. In describing this field, Neil Rhind commented that there must be heaps of London gravel in many ports around the country.  I remember being at talk at Seaham in County Durham where the speaker described the approaches to the port as being contaminated with heaps of discharged ‘London rubbish’.

The area now covered by Ulundi Road was apparently owned by Lady Biddulph and described as a ‘ferdy field’. In the late 17^th century this was Lady Susann Biddulph, widow of Theobold Bidduph who had bought the Westcombe estate in the 1650. There was a drain from a ditch in the ’ low fields’ found in this estate.  There was also land in this area owned by Lady Boreman which was ‘three roods from the receiver in Merrick’s fields’.  Both of these emptied by distinct drains, and water from the conduits ran via a ‘master-pipe’, to a cistern at the upper end of East Lane.

However, we need to continue northwards down to Conduit Lane, now Vanbrugh Hill. Do the residents of 103- 127 Vanbrugh Hill have any record of their houses being called ‘Conduit Terrace’?   In 1851 they were advertised as having “two good bedrooms, two  parlours,  kitchen, small flower gardens in front, enclosed with ornamental iron palisading, and good garden in the rear”. How did these names come to be remembered in this area some hundreds of years after the structures they record are gone?

Travers report does, most importantly, show ‘Conduit 9’ - north of Woolwich Road and West of the future Vanbrugh Hill.  This marks an above ground structure of some sort, indicating the route of the conduit and also probably providing access to the water. The report explains that ‘Conduit 9’ was the remains of the Arundel Conduit which brought water down the hillside from Blackheath to Crown properties on Ballast Quay ‘in earthen pipes now destroyed’.

The conduit itself is now forgotten.  Was it a source of fresh water to be use by local people or was it just a derelict structure?. When was it removed and who by?  Did it remain as a heap of unidentified stones for many years?  Is it possible some of those stones remained in somebody’s back garden?

At the crossroads at the junction with Woolwich Road the conduit pipes passed on the south west corner.  Things here were changing and houses were built here in 1830 - Conduit House and Vale Cottage on the site which is now The Plaza.  The cottage was the home of local engineer Joshua Taylor Beale and later his son, John. Conduit House later became a clinic for the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich and ended its days as Conduit House Club for the Rechabite Order.

From the ‘conduit’ marked on the Travers plan the line of the conduit continued to the river side and is known to have supplied water to the site which is now covered by Anchor Iron Wharf flats with water. It is shown on the Travers plan as the ‘hobby stables’ and was subject to an archaeological dig in 2001-3. These stables belonged to the Crown and had been in Royal use. Clearly by 1695 when Travers surveyed the site Royal ownership was changing and within two years the site was sold to Morden College, in whose ownership it apparently remains.

 

Travers’ survey of the site of the stables notes that the water supply ran from a spring known as ‘Arundel Conduit  ... towards the King’s House, by the Ballast quay, or Hobby Stables’. A further survey of 1780 for the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital recorded that the “Hobby Stables belonging to the Crown’ was with water supplied by ‘earthen pipes’ from the same conduit, by then redundant

Finally the conduit had reached the riverside. The Hobby Stables were adjacent to ‘Old Court.’ In the riverside area now including Crawley Wharf and Ballast Quay stood Old Court House, described in the Ghent Archives of 1286 AD, as ‘The Old House’ and used by them as a guest house. It was an important building  which had a water supply from the Arundel Conduit.  In 1532 Henry VIII had it refurbished as a home for Anne Boleyn. It was demolished after 1695.

THE UPPER KID BROOK - BLACKHEATH TO THE QUAGGY

 

A couple of months ago I said that I would start to write a history of Kidbrook -  a very neglected area ` west to provide the northern boundary of Morden College’s gardens.

Before I begin I must apologise to the late Neil Rhind, or possibly his executors, because almost everything in this article is taken from his various works on Blackheath. I wish it were not so and I would certainly normally use a variety of source material But his work is so intense on the Upper Kid Brook area that I have very little room to look elsewhere.

The last article I did on this ended at the actual entrance to Morden College –  their lodge at the corner of Morden Road. The line of the stream was followed by the Greenwich Parish boundary in the section which runs along the southern edge of what was the gardens at the rear of the Paragon. It was therefore included the series of articles I did here about the 1853 civic procession around the Parish boundary.

I felt that I should now continue to follow the Upper Kid Brook on its route to the Ravensbourne although its flow continues almost entirely in Lewisham Parish.

Following the Upper Kid Brook from the Morden College Lodge can be very difficult.  There is no sign of the stream on the ground although the direction of slopes and dips in the road can reveal much. Map based evidence is often conflicting or non existent.  The North Kent railway’s line which has run from Lewisham station to Charlton since 1849 defines the area we are looking at.  Neil Rhind said that the railway company bought the land along the length of the stream as a convenient place to lay the line. If this is so it gives us a way of following the waterway which has been underground for almost 200 years.

It seems most likely that the stream crossed Morden Road slightly to the south of the Morden College lodge and north of the present day Fullthorpe Road. In this area and slightly to the north on the west side of the road, was once Cator Lodge built for the Cator Estate. This and the gate across Morden Road indicate one of the entrances to the Cator Estate which is still privately owned and managed. The lodge was destroyed by bombing in 1940.

From Morden Road the stream apparently continued to the rear of The Paragon on land used as gardens. There was at least one pond. Its route is followed by the Borough boundary and the account of the civic procession in 1853 describes the house nearest to Morden Road with a ‘garden ... in which there is a water course or brook’. We must assume the procession followed it ‘through some asparagus beds to another stone, and from there over Mr Hobart’s stabling -  on each side of which is placed a stone in the wall.’ It went from there to a junction of three parishes.

This area, at the rear of the Paragon is now the site of council housing built in 1954. I am very, very confused by this estate.  Half of it is in Greenwich Borough and half in Lewisham, on either side of Pond Road. It was designed  by architect Albert Richardson, commissioned by the  London County Council. Such estates were passed from the Greater London Council to the Boroughs in 1974 and this makes sense because the estate would have been split and added to the relevant Boroughs housing stock in each case - something similar happened in Deptford with the Pepys Estate. However Neil Rhind, writing about the estate in two separate books says that it was a Lewisham Housing estate and that Richardson was commissioned by the London County Council on behalf of Lewisham. Now this doesn’t make a lot of sense  - because if that is so how is it that half of it now is in Greenwich Borough and managed by their housing department? However, to complicate things further the Running Past blog says that the land was purchased by Greenwich Council from the Cator Estate, with no mention of Mr Richardson. I would welcome some enlightenment on this.

The next feature on the route of the Upper Kid Brook is the pond which once stood in Pond Road. Its site is very easily recognised as a large circular area to the left as you travel south down Pond Road and now called Pond Close Green. One of the most important features of this area was  the huge and very grand Wricklemarsh House which stood slightly to the south near to the site of St Michael’s church in Blackheath Park. The pond appears to have been an ornamental water for the house. It is said to have survived as an overflow tank for the Kid Brook. It was eventually filled in and there are apparently some willow trees remaining.

From the late 18^th century a nursery stood in Blackheath Village on the site which is now Blackheath Grove. It became extremely prosperous in the early 19^th century and in 1831 was taken over by John Halley who built staff housing on the site which is now that of the Post Office. The nursery was watered by a canal - an overflow basin for the Upper Kid Brook. John Halley cleaned it up and turning it into a swimming pool. ’Tastefully laid out with gardens and nursery ground’. He built greenhouses and did many exotic plantings with gardens on either side of the main road and a little wooden bridge. The gardens were open on a regular basis and were a big attraction in Blackheath Village

Problems began when the railway was built in 1848. It took land from both sides of the road and also the swimming pool had to go. The Upper Kid Brook went into a conduit and the ground between Blackheath Village and Pond Road was cleared for building The new site was called Blackheath Grove developed with houses and public buildings at the post office

The Upper Kid Brooke continued to flow along the path of the railway although severely constrained by the work of the railway engineers. And also in various houses alongside the railway but largely on the north side with a series of lagoons and ponds most of all of which have now gone and most of which were used as ornamental water. Neil Rhind commented that the ‘former route of the Brook is almost certainly hidden beneath the 1970s Lewisham council housing of Hurren Close, and then crossing Heath Lane (formerly Lovers Lane) to St Joseph’s Vale.”

There may have been a small tributary joining the Brook. There is a small valley clearly shown  on OS maps.ThIs ran from The Orchard up on the Heath, with an obvious dip in Eliot Vale. Its course following Baizdon Road to the stream.

A major site in Belmont Hill is The Cedars where a big house with extensive grounds has been converted to other uses and much new housing.  The railway split its grounds. The northern part of grounds had been laid out by architect George Gwilt in the late 18th century. The then owner was  Samuel Brandram, a paint and chemicals manufacturer whose business was based in Rotherhithe.  The  Upper Kid Brook was dammed to form a pair of ornamental lakes, big enough for boating. A bridge connecting it the area to the house in Belmont Grove, was built at the same time as the railway. The estate later became the home of local engineer, John Penn. The lakes were filled in by a future owner, Penfold, who probably rented land here in the Great War and bought it along with the stables in the 1920s. Their carting business led them to fill the lakes with rubbish before selling the site on for housing development in the 1980s,- it is now called  St Joseph’s Vale.

Another small lake existed in 1893, where the brook had been dammed - the site of new housing. It was at the end of the grounds of a house called Belmont, built for the architect George Ledwell Taylor around 1830.

The Upper Kid Brook joins the river Quaggy near St Stephen’s church in Lewisham

 

 

 

 

 

                            

early conduits

 

this article started off as an idea I had at the beginning of last week - that I ought to write something about water supply in Greenwich before any waterworks were set up.  First, I _­thought I should write ­about the Greenwich Park conduits  - just like everybody else who writes about the Park!  But then I got a bit distracted as I realised those  Greenwich Park brick structures old – but  are actually rather late in the history of water supply conduits. The late 17^th century may seem like a long time ago  but people have been drinking water a lot longer than that   So how, if anything, did they collect and use water in Greenwich before the conduits.

Of course people relied for much of the time on the network of little streams and one wells. Greenwich had a ’town well’ – the ‘stock well’  which everyone could use. This would, obviously, have been in Stockwell Street in the town centre. A description of the conduits written in the  1960s quotes documents from 1431 which give the Duke of Gloucester permission to lay pipework between his house and a ‘certain fount called Stockwell’.  This was given ‘in perpetuity’ – if so we might ask why it isn’t there now? A search using A1 tells me that in Stockwell Street there is a wall plaque about the ‘stock well’.  I can't see anything like  that there and information would be gratefully received. I suppose it’s not possible AI is making things up?

On 3^rd February 1434 King Henry VI granted “to his dear uncle the Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and Eleanor his wife” permission to construct a subterranean aqueduct between the house he was building and ‘a certain fount in Greenwich called Stockwell, outside the King's Highway’. Apparently this went from the Duke's garden to the Park.

It’s very, very difficult to track down wells and I’m not going to try – but there was water.  There must have been lots of  little streams  trickling down the hillsides from Blackheath and Shooters Hill, soaking into the marshlands  and into the River - and I guess many are still there. When new places are built down in Trafalgar Road sooner or later the builders will be complaining about unexpected flooding.  A few years ago I went to visit a site which was to have new housing on it.  Some locals were saying that there was underground water there – but ‘no no’ said the Planners - it  had been cleared by Thames Water who had said there was no such water in that area. While we were standing talking on site someone started kicking the ground, removing a few millimetres of top soil. Under it was a stream of clear water running down the hillside.

The one actual minor river we have is down on the Lewisham border and is, of course, the Ravensbourne.  The only other identified stream is east, in and out of the Bexley boundary, and is sometimes called ‘Plumstead River’ but has a very detailed Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wogebourne.

Old maps show other small streams. There was, until the start of the 20^th century, a stream which ran down what was then Nightingale Vale  before it all changed and the council houses were built .  In Westcombe Park on some of the estate plans  a stream appears to be running down parallel with Westcombe Hill.  Also I’m told by neighbours that there was until the 1960s a visible stream on a site in Westcombe Park, later used for council houses in the 1970s.

One of the problems in our area is that we had some very large and important institutions; which will have needed a lot of water - the main one, of course, was the Tudor Royal Palace at Greenwich, the site of which later became the Royal Hospital – and the story of that is the conduit system in Greenwich Park.  

In the meantime there are some older systems which I need to write about.  Greenwich wasn’t the only palace we had in the area now covered by the Royal Borough. One of the oldest of the conduit systems was built for the older palace out at Eltham. This is the listed conduit head which is just off Southend Crescent.

To find it =  if you go down Southend Crescent away from Eltham High Street, stop just before you get to Holy Trinity Church where there is a footpath going off to your left. There is a signpost saying that the footpath will take you to exotic locations like Avery Hill Park and that it is part of the route of a number of footpaths like the Capital Ring and the Green Chain Walk. I think its called “Butterfly Lane” – or is that just the name of the path nearer to Avery Hill?  But you’re not going to go as far as that and although the footpath can look intimidatingly overgrown,  it soon widens out to a space behind the church where there’s a little field and the conduit head is there. It is said to be ‘permanently closed’ but I think that just means you can’t walk up to it, you can certainly look at it from the footpath.

In older photographs it is an incoherent lump of bits of flint and broken down this and since it’s been done up quite nicely and it looks quite good now -  although historically the brickwork has been patched and buttressed in places. What we see above ground and the only evidence of the conduit itself  is in effect a ‘settling tank’ which filtered out sand and gravel.  It was conserved by English Heritage in 2011 and what we see is the ‘head’ of the conduit. This is a red-brick structure with an arched opening within which is the entrance to a chamber with a pointed barrel vault.  Inside this main chamber are five arched openings.  One of these goes along another passage to a square chamber with a low brick dividing wall which makes it into a tank. This was to control the flow of water from springs going to Eltham Palace via a pipe under the moat. It’s said to have been built under Henry VIII’s father, Henry VII.

Wooden pipes brought water to this ‘head’  from a spring in the Eltham Warren higher up the hill. This spring is still said to be visible on Eltham Warren Golf Course and takes its water away through a wooden pipe and continued via an underground network. Recently a Tudor pipeline – actually the conduit itself =-has been an issue in a planning application involving  a school which is west of the conduit head. They cited maps  from1838 showing  the pipe travelling from the school by way of North Park and the Royal Blackheath Golf Club and then to the conduit head. Strangely, this pipeline is in a completely different direction to the one  coming from Eltham Warren.

This conduit is one of the oldest and longest in the country, ranked by English Heritage alongside constructions at Hampton Court and Greenwich in their importance. The remains of it are listed at Grade II.

 I mentioned above the conduit system for Hampton Court Palace which is much bigger and much more comprehensible then the remains we have Eltham -and even those in Greenwich. The main and most accessible of the Hampton Court ones  in the ownership of English Heritage. But there are others which you can read about and maybe visit. No doubt if you keep an eye on the relevant websites it will be possible to find out when they are open.

These are quite substantial buildings and in relatively good condition. I seem to remember when I went there  - many many years ago -that you could actually see water running through the relevant bits of the system. They were built either by Henry VIII or by Cardinal Wolsey both of whom owned Hampton Court.  The strange thing about them is that they are on the south side of the river whereas Hampton Court is on the north so the water has to be taken across the river in lead pipes.  There are several websites which cover parts of this system and I understand there is at least one book. They really are quite spectacular.

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.