Blackheath Road - shops and school

 

Our trip up the banks of the Ravensbourne/Deptford Creek has now reached Blackheath Road.  Today the River Ravensbourne continues south under Deptford Bridge on its way to Lewisham between concrete flood banks and is very straight and contained. The Greenwich and Lewisham boundary lies to the east of this and seems to follow an older route of the river.  Up until the 1950s maps showed a stream body of water snaking up in a loop to the east of the present river and then rejoining it.  These two water courses ran in parallel for a long time and I have been unable to find anything much out about either except that work was done on the present river in the 1960s and again when the DLR was built.  The eastern stream is what I assume is an older loop and its very plain to see on maps, but very elusive as far as information is concerned.  Its disappeared now and there are blocks of flats and other buildings along its route, but it is clear that until relatively recently a stream of water flowed toward Deptford Bridge along the south side of Blackheath road.  Gradually buildings went up in front of it so you couldn’t see it from the road. It is this short stretch of buildings I want look at today. 

We should perhaps also not that this area of Blackheath Road was once a major part of Greenwich civic life. I want to look at the south side of the road but on the north side was the magistrates court, the police station with the section house behind.  There were schools, the education offices, and of course just round the corner the Miller Hospital – and a whole bevy of pubs.  Almost all of this is either in other use or has gone.  The sites on the south side which I wanted to look at now are – some blocks of flats all of them named after American cities, a Travellodge, a Kwick Fit and an old school turned into flats.  All of them in front of -  or on top of – the line of a stream which once ran there on its way to Deptford Bridge.

The first turning off Blackheath Road, going towards Kent, is called Deals Gateway and it is now a bus stop and bus turn-round and it now stretches down alongside the park to access various blocks of American-named flats. It appears on old maps from the the 1870s but is probably far far older. In the past it was a short road going down between the buildings to a footbridge across the old loop of the river which went over into meadowland.  It appears that in the 1860s a grocer and cheesemonger called Edward Deal had a shop on that corner and also later a coal merchant called Joseph Deal.  It seems likely that there was some sort of archway entrance to the road at this time and that this went to Messrs. Deal’s premises.

From the mid-19^th century this was a terrace of shops and workshops going up Blackheath Hill. It was called Queen’s Place and seems to date from around 1850,there were also some cottages – Queen’s Cottage, down the side and round the back. Most of these traders while having retail shops also manufactured items for sale themselves. 

At no 5, was a Mr.Siedle who was a clock and watch maker  with workmen on the premises.  I found a report of a ceremony where a specially made watch was given as a retirement present for a local fire chief. He also sold jewellery and advertised a ‘self acting instrument – the Eutropean’.  This was advertised in 1866 as “A self-acting musical instrument, producing orchestral effects, and representing the flute, oboes, clarionet, bassoons, flageolet, piccolo, trumpet, trombone, &,c. Price 150 to 700 guineas."  Siedle was important enough to be listed in official records as a British watchmaker with German links. His advertisements say his business was ‘ex-Kettener’ – Kettener was the famous German inventor of the cuckoo clock, and so I guess this was someone different.

At No.2.Queens Place was Erick Norris who was a ‘pewterer’ who made (obviously)  pewter pots, and also beer engines and fitted up and hired out baths .  At No.8 A.Waite  was a ‘locksmith, bell hanger, stove and range manufacturer;’ who also repaired kitchen utensils and also hired out baths. 

Despite workshops on the premises these were relatively small businesses. One large factory dominated this corner for 150 years.  This was a volume printer – and it might be noted that there were other smaller printers further up Blackheath Road and outside the area I am looking at.

Many people will remember this big building - Merritt and Hatchers printing works where Kentish Mercury was produced, both edited and printed. That building was demolished a few years ago but had been built in 1925 with a foundation stone saying that the architect was Arthur C. Russell and the builders were William Mills and Sons.   Russell seems to be pretty obscure as architects go but William Mills (no relation to me) and his family were well known local builders and politicians.    Merritt and Hatcher had originally moved to Blackheath Road in 1868.  They were big general printers with works in the City and Frindsbury and maybe used this Greenwich works initially as an envelope factory.   This original building was burnt down in the 1890s so the building we remember was their third on the site. They had acquired the Kentish Mercury in 1872. 

The Mercury is said to have been founded in 1833 by John Hooper Hartnoll who was Mathematical Master at Greenwich Hospital Upper School.  Like most local papers in those days Mercury mainly printed stories copied from other papers and the national press. It did however have a favour of its own and I  always enjoyed the early editions with all those retiring and delicate Victorian ladies fighting the police in Deptford High Street of a Saturday night.  A remember a report of one such fight where the weapons used were two herrings and a haddock.  At one point in the nineteenth century the paper ran a big campaign against crinolines – this makes sense because those huge skirts and open fires meant that some unfortunate women, reaching to the mantelpiece, discovered too late that they were on fire.  It’s a shame to see how the paper has deteriorated now.

Next to the Mercury on Blackheath Road E.Bailey had a business as house furnishers and carpet specialists and had ‘the cheapest house in the trade for bedsteads’. Latterly the building was used as a cooperage by Seagar Evans,  gin distillers to make their barrells. In the 1890s down the side of the building was a ‘train plateway’ – a very very short pathway built for a trolley to run down.

The final building which backed on to the loop of the Ravensbourne was Blackheath Road School. This was a new state school built on the site of a ‘collegiate’ private school. This building is now flats and I must admit to a lot of confused gaps in my knowledge of the school which seems to have been more than ordinarily interesting.  It was built in the great days of the London School Board.

There are some wonderful drawings and prints of Blackheath Road School – someone has even used it as a design in a mug. The school dates from 1875 and was designed by the School Board’s great architect, Edward Robson.  In the prints the building looks absolutely wonderful – but, however, what remains of the building now look nothing like it.  I can see that it is something like what is in the drawings but all the wonderful detailing and the bell tower are missing. I guess it has been changed a lot – but even so!!  Having said that these London School Board1 schools are a real revelation. They must have cost a fortune at the time but what a good investment. Inside they have tough walls and corridors to withstand generations of little hobnailed boots, and the huge open floors have coped with 150 years of changing teaching practices and classroom layouts. And they look really really good – many of them are listed. Blackheath Road school doesn’t appear in the Greenwich listed buildings register – and I’m not surprised because it is a shadow of what it was supposed to be  - but some accounts claim it is listed Grade II.

Blackheath Road seems to have been set up as a special ‘school of science’ and a ‘higher standard school’. There are reports in its early days of it being one of nine schools picked out nationally to get special equipment for classes in Machine Construction and some other subjects – it is described as teaching ‘geometry and steam’. The school was built next to John Penn’s engineering works and I wonder how much influence this neighbour had on its elite status.

The school took both boys and girls and scholarships were available to both sexes. Prizes were won for subjects like advanced mathematics, advanced electricity and magnetism, advanced steam and much more.  I’m afraid that the girls were winning prizes for shorthand and typing – but in the 1890s this was still a breakthrough which could allow young woman independence and a (sort of) professional career.  It was a lot more than what was normally available for working class girls in Deptford.  One girl got a French teaching certificate and another had a prize for speaking Portuguese.  The school also ran evening classes – preparing for matriculation and the civil service.  There was also a big emphasis on ‘art’ and I reminded that only a few miles away the Lambeth School of Art was educating young women to decorate Doulton’s pottery – today the work of some of them sells for may ££££thousands.

I don’t know when all this scientific and intellectual education ended because by the early 20^th century the school seems to have been an ordinary elementary school with girls, boys and mixed infants.  Across the road Catherine Street School was built in 1904, apparently as an annexe.   Blackheath Road continued as an ordinary sort of school and after the Second World War was renamed Brookmill or West Greenwich School.  It is now converted to flats, pretentiously called 'Greenwich Academy'. I would be very interested to know more about the scientific and mechanical education carried out here and why it stopped.

The school, like the other buildings lay in front of what I suspect was the old course of the Ravensbourne and was backed by meadows which later became playing fields and is now part of a park. The loop of the river has vanished but what remains is the borough boundary.   Now there are all these new American named flats (why???).  I can well remember a Greenwich planning meeting where us councillors were asked to agree consent for the corner of one of the blocks as the only bit of the building which was in Greenwich – the rest of the building had already been agreed by Lewisham planners.   I am sure every member of that Greenwich Planning Committee thought what would happen if we refused consent  and the resulting panic and the fall out.  But we were better behaved than that, and so we agreed it.  There really is no fun in planning, at all.