Following, in alphabetical order, is the next site in SELIA - The Industrial Archaeology of South East London booklet - will be ‘Avery Hill. Now that is very well known site and there is currently a petition out about it – but let’s see what SELIA says first.
“Conservatory. Avery Hill, Bexley Rd, SE9. The site was purchased by John Thomas North who made a fortune out of the Chilean nitrate trade in 1889. He diverted the road to allow a 50 room redbrick Italianate house to be built to the design of TW Cutler. It is now used as a training college. Of particular interest is the conservatory, adjoining the main house. The main hot house is approximately hundred foot square with a steel and glass roof. Rivetted steel girders support an octagonal lantern in the centre, the whole supported on an arched framework resting on cast-iron columns. The machinery room was rebuilt after the war and used to house boilers and electric generators. The campanile water tower/chimney still remains.”
Now - before I get any further. I agree that my remit for writing these articles - as indeed was SELIA’S – is industrial Greenwich. I am writing here about a posh house and its ancillary buildings. Can I argue that the house was built by somebody who had made a lot of money out of industry abroad: son of a Leeds coal merchant who trained as a millwright had made money in South America? And one day I will do an article about him for this series. He built this house in Eltham and added to it every facility - stables, gardens, Turkish baths and much else and all on a lavish scale. He died quite soon after it was finished and nobody has lived there as their home ever since. It was eventually sold to the London County Council; who used it as teacher training college for young ladies but otherwise let it rot. None of the many interesting facilities which North had built really reamain - apart from the - glasshouses/winter gardens/ conservatory/whatever. Very soon much of the estate became disused and derelict – and most crucially not talked about. Much was lost after the Second World War and there is much criticism about the little the LCC did to restore it. Can I point out that it was not the only local bombed ‘big house’. Charlton House was owned by Greenwich Council rather than the LCC, but ut had been badly bombed - and - well – I guess much of the funding came from outside the councils and- well, which would you chose? It’s easy for us to moan about lack of work on Avery Hill - but - Charlton House is going to win every time, isn’t it?
That entry makes it pretty clear that they are the SELIA authors were basically just interested in the hothouses although there is so much more at Avery Hill. Since 1982 when SELIA was published everything has deteriorated and so many people have written about it that I hardly know where to start and I certainly wouldn’t want to compete with any of them. There is an excellent Friends of Avery Park website which gives many, many details and includes the struggles that have gone over the last few years. What do they have to say about the it “The 100 square foot botanical garden and conservatory – the largest in the country outside Kew Gardens - was originally conceived to hide the unsightly 40 foot walls of the ballroom - and took eight years to build. Its main materials are iron and steel. The fernery, original peach house and vine houses no longer exist. But In true Victorian style, the botanic gardens contained a wealth of rare and exotic plants and trees collected from overseas, some of which survive today. Nikolaus Pevsner, architectural historian, describes the winter garden as "amazingly sumptuous" and "flanked by fernery and conservatory, the best survival in London of such Victorian extravaganzas".
What else has been said about the conservatory before we get any further? Historic England, describing it as ‘Winter Gardens' have it on their ‘Buildings at Risk Register’. They say 'Large conservatory built in 1889 in a classical style, with domed glass roofs and surmounted by a figure of Mercury. 'The wider site has been sold for new educational use. The building was deteriorating due to blocked rainwater goods and lack of maintenance, especially to joinery at roof level. The Local Authority is ensuring that urgent works are being carried out to improve the building's condition and make it watertight. Joinery repairs to the east and west roof lanterns are now complete. Discussions are continuing to secure the future management and use of the building.
There is much more like this – and no one is mentioning Galatea!
In 1982 when SELIA was written the conservatory was not only accessible to visitors but then it was quite something to see. What a nice place take an old auntie on afternoon to look at the plants. One of my aunties, Maddy, ruthlessly took cuttings off exotic plants as soon as the man’s back was turned and despite the notices telling her not to do it. Elsewhere in the grounds was a large nursery which I always assumed belonged to Greenwich Council but in fact was owned by the Greater London Council – successors and inheritors of the London County Council. Initially the LCC seem to have been mainly been interested in opening up what is now Avery Hill Park. They usually took the view that the people of London deserved the best – but the house, then only 12 years old, was already in expensive disrepair and in some ways never recovered despite its years as a Ladies’ College.
The LCC did however take the various gardens and hothouses seriously. A very interesting article on a local website was written by someone who had worked there and gave detail about the very large scale on which the nursery site was operated and the very important plant collections which they looked after... He starts by describing the hothouses themselves - please read what he says because I can’ keep copying out long extracts here. .” https://jerry-coleby-williams.net/2021/03/16/avery-hill-mansion-and-winter-garden-recollections-of-a-fading-part-of-londons-horticultural-heritage/ ”The Winter Garden is the centrepiece and it had a tropical, a warm temperate and a cool temperate house. The warm temperate house roof was tall enough for a mature Canary Island date. Also on display, just next to the Cool Temperate House, was a collection of Victorian gardening equipment used at Avery Hill”
Still no mention of Galatea?
Of course the nursery didn’t survive the 1980s demise of the Greater London Council and the site sat there rotting for years. I remember in 2010 being asked to put on the GIHS blog site an article about the dereliction and possible demolition of the stable block.
It always seemed to me that there were lots of interesting things to see at Avery Hill but that there was no way of actually seeing them or finding about them. I would read about – for instance – the early in-house electricity generation, but there was no way of finding where it was on site. Such innovations are part of the tourist package at Cragside (arms manufacturer Armstrong’s home at Rothbury in Northumberland) and elsewhere.
The Council sold the site to Greenwich University in 1992. In 1999 I had two coach loads of industrial archaeologists from all over the country to see South London. We had taken them round the Arsenal side the morning and then a brief look at Greenwich Peninsula before going to Evans at Crayford in the late afternoon. It makes sense to go and see Avery Hill at lunchtime.and the early afternoon. We could see the winter garden and hothouses and perhaps the electricity supply and some of the other features on the estates which are not normally available. It was all arranged. I booked it all properly with letters and with consents from the University. We turned up about 1 o’clock to admin staff who were welcoming and helpful but when we got the hothouses they were locked up. The staff who looked after them had gone to lunch. It wasn’t that bad because the visitors were able to climb into the houses by a window in the senior common room but there was no description of the hothouses and certainly about the electricity supply or anything else. I think I probably got the blame for that.
Since then I’ve learnt a lot more about the site and about the park. For example I knew there is medieval ‘ridge and furrow’ here and in the adjacent Pippenhall Meadows. And SELIA missed the 16th century conduit head on the southern boundary of the Meadows. .And the way to get to Crayford when you leave the site is to walk all the way along the River Shuttle from its source to its confluence with the Cray near in Bexley.
And then there is Galatea. If you are an extremely rich man why shouldn’t you put a bit of posh soft porn into your winter garden? She still there although all the plants have gone. She is a “fountain with a marble statue of ‘Galatea Reclining on a Dolphin’, 1882, by Leopoldo Ansiglioni, which depicts the figure and dolphin surrounded by 4 bronze birds and a group of sea turtles” (see https://enthusiasticgardener.com/2015/06/27/avery-hill-winter-garden/)
Galatea is supposed to be surrounded by exotic plants of the world but all she has these days is a few geraniums and a lot of dereliction. I’m glad she’s survived and perhaps her fortunes will change. Someone should adopt her – and perhaps at the same time they could tell local people and tourists a bit more about Avery Hill and what an interesting place this is.
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