Well, after 68 articles about Deptford Creek I think that’s about time I stopped and did something else. I know there is more about Deptford Creek which I’ve missed and that’ll be in the follow up book I’m doing. But I do think I need to move on now.
Before Deptford Creek I did articles on sites along the Greenwich Riverside. I ended those - after 55 articles - at the Angerstein Railway. This is a large and prominent feature which made a good boundary marker. Now I need to carry on to the sites on the other site of the Angerstein Railway - and I have a long-term promise to look at Charlton, its industries and its Riverside. So - here we go!
The Railway provides a strong boundary between Greenwich and Charlton – but there are several other features in that area any one of which could be a boundary marker. The postcode boundary between SE7 and SE10 follows the railway – but there are other boundaries which are slightly different. A number of features provide these boundaries
The most obvious feature is of course Peartree Way – the road which goes from the Angerstein roundabout on the Woolwich Road down to the Yacht Club. I think we could discount that a historical at once - even I can remember when it wasn’t there. In fact I can remember working on a consultation about it. It was built in 1998 as part of the road building program to service the Dome. I remember a road design specialist friend explaining that there was an insistence from the Dome organisers that it was built, but that it has messed up the circulation on the big roundabout ever since.
Then there is the semi-derelict road way which is now called ‘Horn Link Way’. It’s used to be called ‘Horn Lane’ or ‘Horn Man Way’ – and I’ll come back to it later. There is of course the Angerstein Railway itself – and I think this is a relatively modern boundary compared to Horn Lane. I intend to do a separate article about the Railway and its links to the local industries it was built to serve.
The most easterly Greenwich/Charlton boundary marker is 'Lambarde’s Wall' - or is it really called 'Lombard Wall'. This is (or was) quite an important boundary feature – a bank or an earthwork of some sort. It is still the boundary between the Greenwich and Charlton Church Parishes. A road called ‘Lombard Wall’ is now either on top of it, or near it, or named for it – but does it actually exist? Whether it is ‘Lombard’ or ‘’Lambarde’ there is no sign of what is supposed to be (or have been) a boundary earthwork of some sort. It is called a ‘wall’ because that is the old name for marshland features like this – a ‘wall’ is a bank designed to keep something – like river water - out.
I have seen a recent archaeological ‘desk top’ report for the area which gives no mention of this ‘wall’, what it is and where it is (or was). Lombard Road itself is infested with enormous lorries which service the various businesses in the road. Industries, particularly at the River end of the road, are ones which by their nature create a lot of dust. And what with that and the lorries - does this ‘wall’ exist? Is it buried underneath all of the lorries and rubble? or is it sitting sedately in one of the factory areas waiting for me to notice it?
In the days before local authorities took over the management of Marshland they were managed by ’commissioners’ who were appointed by the Crown to manage them and oversee any improvement works. There was (and probably is still) a whole lot of law about this marshland management which is always said to be based on the laws governing Romney Marsh. This marsh law amd the history of these commissioners is detailed in William Dugdale's “The History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes”. I am very impressed that a book written in 1662 is still the standard reference book on the subject. Dugdale describes in detail the various arrangements made, usually by the Crown, to appoint commissioners to oversee and manage various programmes of works and so on. He also lists the men appointed as commissioners usually local landowners and some bigwigs. Until Henry VIII every day marshland management was normally undertaken by the various religious houses which owned the land. After the Reformation a lot of ‘improvement’ work was done on the marshlands south of the Thames between Bermondsey and Gravesend.
It seems most probable that this ‘wall’ was built at sometime in the Tudor period and it is sometimes saod that it was built then by William Lambarde – more about him soon. However ‘the wall’ it is mentioned in a conveyance of a neighbouring estate in 1555. William had inherited the land only in 1554 and was still a minor so its not very likely it was built by him. So if it was built before 1555 it could have been built by his father John Lambarde or – well, someone else.
The ‘wall’ is supposed to have been built to stop flood water from the Thames flowing onto what was then undeveloped marshes. I am confused by this because I would have expected a wall to keep flooding out to be parallel with the River but this is at right angles to it. (I am sure someone will explain soon that I am wrong). In the mid-19 Century a civil engineer speaking to the Institution of Civil Engineers called it ‘a cross embankment” and “one rather stronger than the others”. He also said that it was called “Lombard’s Wall” and said he was sure it was built some people from Lombardy. I am aware that most of the engineers who worked on flood relief schemes in the Thames marshes in the 16th Century were Italians so it’s very possible that one of them was a ‘Lombard’.
The orgins of the ‘wall’ are more usually ascribed to the Kentish Lawyer and historian William Lambarde who lived in the Westcombe Park area in the 16th century – although as I said above it must pre-date him. . I wanted to mention him however because he was a very distinguished man indeed and the new Greenwich Centre has its central road named after him. His house must have been very near to where I live now – in fact I could probably have seen it from my back window.
In the 1550s the Westcombe estate was sold off after the then owner, a Mr Ballard, was prosecuted for rape of a twelve year old. It was quite complicated because of the type of tenure- all sorts off legal positions – gavelkind, socage etc. which we have forgotten because, happily, they were abolished. The buyer of the Westcombe Manor area was a London draper called John Lambarde – he seems to have been buying up parcels of land all over the country having married a very wealthy heiress, Juliana Horne. He renovated the old Westcombe Manor House but died soon after. The estate was inherited by his son William, who went on to have a very distinguished legal career and to write, among other things, a detailed history of Kent. Among many other things William founded Queen Elizabeth’s Almshouses which still stand in Greenwich High Road.
It is clear however that William did not really live in Westcombe Park except for short periods although he continued to ‘improve’ to the property. In ‘Blackheath Village and Its Environs Vol II’ Neil Rhind has worked out where the Manor House building was and has found two drawings which he reproduces. He describes a ‘large but simple house’ …’roughly half way down the south east end of what is now Vanburgh Hill’ – and so it must have been very near to where I live in Humber Road. Neil also says that he is not sure if this drawing is genuine. It also shows ponds and streams running downhill – I’ve always said they are there but this was denied by developers who built some new houses here a couple of years ago. And of course no one would have contemplated any archaeology here. Neil also reproduces a drawing of a stable or similar building dated to 1638.
But I should get back to the boundary between Greenwich and Charlton. Horn Lane was the boundary between Westcombe and the next door landholding of Eastcombe – also called Spitalcombe. It was then a‘man way called ‘Hornewall’. It is now called ‘Horn Link Way’. I am also interested to discover that although I think that ‘Man Way’ is a perfectly reasonable way to describe Horn Lane, no one else seems to have heard of such a thing Brought up in Gravesend I know that footpaths across marsh land going to the river are ‘Man Way’s. Do they only exist on the North Kent marshes??
Horn Lane or Horn Wall –or even Horn Link Way – went from the Woolwich Road down into the marsh and stopped before it got to the River. At the south end there are some stores and warehouses which are perfectly ok. The end near the River is a total mess, unused, full of rubbish and ending up in the yard of the aggregate works.
I don’t know any dates for naming Horn Lane. There are so many places around Charlton which are ‘horn’ related. There is of course Hornfair Park in the upper part of Charlton and further away is Horn Park. I am aware of a Kentish family called Horn who owned land in the Well Hall area. I wanted to mention something which I think is may or may not be important in the naming of Horn Lane in that William Lambarde’s Mother was a Juliana Horne, although I expect ot is just a co-incidence,
Most local people will know story of the Horn Fair which is supposed to have been connected to King John who was wandering around at some point of the Middle Ages– and how he met the Miller’s wife and then the Miller caught them kissing, Somehow or other this ended up in a very ribald annual procession from Cuckold’s Point in Rotherhithe up to Charlton when there was an even more ribald fair which was eventually closed down in the 1870s. I would recommend the long description and history of the fair by John Smith in Part III of his History of Charlton. Today it has been revived as an entirely decorous and respectable event where local community groups sell books and plants.
I am informed that ‘Hornfair’ has nothing to do with King John and that it had begun as a cattle fair – cattle which were transshipped to Rotherhithe and that such events picked up the word ’Horn’ in their name because cattle have horns. I am not doubting this but I still don’t really understand why that leads to the naming of ‘Horn Lane’ or ‘Hornesmarsh’ because they are nothing to do with Rotherhithe, or indeed upper Charlton.
This boundary between Greenwich and Charlton is an old one – and is referred to in documents we may not really understand. Today we are ignoring the Charlton/Greenwich boundary amd the current political ward boundaries just pass over it as if it wasn’t there. But people in Tudor England thought it was important enough to build an embankment down it,
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