Borthwick Street today runs parallel to river from Watergate Street to Deptford Green. One it was lined with wharves which are now flats and offices. This road from Upper Watergate to Deptford Green is unnamed on the 1623 map of the area but it was eventually to be called ‘Butcher’s Row’ - it is possible that in the past it was Skinners Place. It appears that back in the 17th and 18th centuries it was lined with houses, workshops and pubs but they have long since gone. The street divides roughly into three sections - at the far west end is Upper Watergate, as we have seen in an earlier article; half way along was Middle Watergate and then Lower Watergate nearer Deptford Green.
In my last article I looked at Payne’s Wharf which is the first site as you walk along the road towards Greenwich. It stretches some way along Borthwick Street. At the far end of the wharf there was once a pub, The Bell, which dated from the late 18th century and then we are at Middle Watergate. In this article I am going to look at what was in the road after Payne’s Wharf.
As we walk along Borthwick Street from Watergate Street today we come to a new road which has been built between the blocks of new flats at the far end of Payne’s Wharf. It is called ‘Wharf Street’ and is roughly on the site of a lane which once went to Middle Watergate. This Lane was called Little Thames Street and if you went down it there was a road, called Lower Thames Street, which was close to the river and which went through to Lower Watergate. The developers of the new flats have made an attempt to re-create this old street pattern, which had disappeared under Borthwick’s buildings.
The new block of flats in BorthwickStreet here is called ‘Cornmill House’ and one historian has suggested that in the early middle ages that there was a ‘tide mill’ on the riverside here – that is a corn mill worked by the power of the tides. There was however a big flour mill by the river here in the 19th century. This mill was associated in the 19th century with Dr. Henry Beaumont Leeson who had a laboratory there. He had a medical appointment at St.Thomas'Hospital,but he also worked as a chemical consultant to local industries – particularly the local gas industry and he was in the same Masonic Lodge as some local gas company directors. This is where he did his experiments.
This riverside mill lay between Middle and Lower Watergates and the next occupant of that area built steam engines for use in ships. The Company was called Humphrys, Tennant and Dykes and they had been set up in 1852 by Edward Humphrys, who had been the chief engineer at Woolwich Dockyard. In my article about Payne’s Wharf I described how John Penn’s company made world famous steam engines for ships and, although their main factory was in Blackheath Hill, they had a subsidiary works on the riverside here. Humphrey’s, Tennant and Dykes were to become Penn’smain competitor and their large marine steam engines and boilers were built for the Navy and private warship builders, including those from abroad. They also built compound steam engines for the Peninsula and Orient Line shipping line. There is a lot in history books about the British empire and whatever we think about that now, we should realise that it was the technical expertise in the shipping industry which made it possible – and that much of that expertise was on London and Lower Thameside. This area of Deptford made a major contribution in the 19th century to the power which drove the ships. Plus of course bodies like the East India Company, and we will come to them as we get nearer to Deptford Creek.
Humphrey’s, Tennant and Dykes had begun work in the early days of screw-propellers and they became known for new ideas in design and construction. Increasingly their engines became more powerful. Along with Penn’s it was their products which gave North West Kent riverside its reputation for excellence and innovation in marine engines. They eventually closed in 1907 citing high London wages as the reason but by that time London shipbuilding was almost closed down and moved to the north of England and Scotland.
After the closure of Humphry's the riverside part of the site was taken up by a tin box manufacturer. Lloyds.The firm employed mainly young women who cut up the metal sheets into appropriate sizes and then made up the boxes and cans with the sharp edged sheets. In 1914 industrial action by women workers led to a Trade Board for the industry being set up partly through the work of John Burns MP. On the Warwick University web site are submissions from these young women – they are about low wages, of unfair checks by supervisors but also of dirty toilets with no doors on the cubicles.
There were other similar works in the area, including the more famous Francis Co. on Blackheath Hill. In the Great War however Lloyds became a National Factory under the National Factory in the war effort.
It was not until the mid-1930s that the building most local people will remember was constructed on this site. This was Borthwick’s elegant red-brick cold store designed for them by a ‘proper’ architect, Sir Edwin Cooper. Borthwick’s were in the frozen meat trade –'were' since they have recently announced that they are leaving this to concentrate on flavourings. However their links are with New Zealand and they had a national presence in Britain as a wholesale meat supplier with a number of counters at Smithfield Market and others around the country. When the lease on their Upper Thames Street headquarters building expired it was decided to construct this major building in Deptford. The new store could take 300,000 carcases, at a temperature of 16 degrees Fahrenheit. There were 22 miles of internal pipework. The frontage was 185 foot long with no building supports so that 14 lorries could be dealt with at once. A huge canopy jutted out over the river so that four insulated barges could berth alongside – thus eight barges could come and go on each tide.
The Borthwick cold store was demolished along with everything else when the current flats were built. Once we are past the new flats we go alongside a rather nice looking brick wall. Behind this is a big electrical transformer station which must originally have been built, probably in the 1920s, as part of Deptford Power Station. It is now, effectively, one of the last reminders of the Ferranti power station. A cable tunnel runs from here to the other side of the river.
There is no access to Lower Watergate which is now used
by the Ahoy Centre. There are granite
setts in the pavement at what was the access to the entrance and there seems to
be a draw dock into the river.The Ahoy Centre dates from around 2002 being
opened by Princess Anne in 2004. The name stands for “Adventure
Help and Opportunities for Youth Centre”. It promotes sailing and power boating
courses for people otherwise unable to take part in water sports due to
physical disability or social disadvantage sailing, encouraging people to
attend courses, and to gain recognised qualifications . It has boats adapted
for people with disabilities
The
Ahoy Centre is on the riverside at the north end of the road called Deptford
Green. This has beendescribed as the centreof
the original medieval fishing village of DeptfordStrand. The road leads from
the river to the church and it was here that the earliest Trinity House was set
up. We need to look for Skinners Place
which was the big house in this area up to the Tudor period.
Skinners Place has proved elusive- although it may have survived as a street name somewhere in the area to the 1870s. It has however been suggested as a predecessor name for the area now covered by Borthwick Street. Skinners Place itself was a big house which burnt down in 1619; but had had previously been owned by a variety of important people, and latterly had been one of the homes of Sir Thomas Smythe, first governor of the East India Company and a member of the Skinners Company. It had then a dock, a wharf and a shipwrights yard. This would indicate a site near the north end of Deptford Green but the name also seems to refer to the stretch of the land between Deptford Green and what is now Payne’s Wharf – in effect Butchers’ Row.
I remain however very confused about Skinners Place – and assume it consisted of more than one dwelling. A house said to be here at the north end of Deptford Green is said to have been the residence of the Lord High Admiral, starting with Elizabeth’s Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham. It is said to have had ‘two wharves, gardens enclosed with a brick wall a barn and a stable and several houses’. The main house later became the Gun Tavern and eventually owned by Messrs Gordon and then by the General Steam Navigation Company. Some web sites reproduce a drawing of a panel said to have been in the Gun Tavern, describing all this. (http://www.dover-kent.com/2017-project/Gun-Tavern-Deptford.html) . A print of this area in 1841 shows the Gun Tavern slightlysouth of and at right angles to Deptford Pier. It is a small weather boarded building with no windows above the ground floor – there is a larger building to the north of it. If this is so, and this building survived then what was the house which burnt down in 1619? Perhaps someone with more specialist knowledge can enlighten me.
Messrs Gordon, mentioned above were certainly on this site from at least 1784 occupied a site marked as ‘foundry’ on old maps. They had acquired the site in partnership with members of the Harrison family whose adjoining property is described as an ‘old established anchor smith’ - an ironworking business which produced all important ships anchors. Here Gordon and Stanley operated an anchor smiths business which was soon to deal with more general iron working and engineering. Gordon’s were associated with and eventually owned, a much larger shipyard up river at Dudman’s Dock – beyond the remit of this article. There they built a series of important ships. However they continued to operate the Deptford Green ironworks.
By 1842 this works consisted of warehouses, sheds, and engine house and a dwelling house – and extensive wharfage. Was a very extensive iron and brass foundry and manufactory for anchors, chain cables, ironwork for steam engines, boilers with machinery of all kinds.’ It is thought they built some marine steam engines for the London and Westminster Steam Boat Company and are known to have built steam railway locomotives for the London and Greenwich railway. They certainly cast the beams for Brunel’s Bishops Bridge canal bridge and for the Wolf Rock Beacon and other lighthouses
Gordon’s sold their works and business in 1843 and the site appears to have passed eventually to General Steam Navigation Co – and more of them in a future article.
This has been about BorthwickStreet which was once Butcher’s Row and part of Deptford Strand. Now – apart from the transformer station – it is lined with flats, offices and a park and you can’t see the river. It is an area which had come from a fishing village with houses later occupied by City of London interests and important people from the Royal Dockyard to an area with great expertise in marine steam engineering. My perception is that Deptford historians have rather down played it, but we will see.
Until a very short time ago from the end of Borthwick Street we would have had to turn up to St.Nichlolas' church and then back down Stowage to the riverside. Now there is a cut through to the new estate on the site of Deptford power station, so we can walk on. On to the site of the first power station in the world, which was preceded by several world changing ship building sites. There is not a single reference to any of them among the new housing. Deptford should start talking about its history and talking a lot louder!
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