Clockhouse

 This week’s article – from my list roughly in alphabetical order - I thought I would do ‘Clockhouse’ which is the Community Centre for the Woolwich Dockyard Estate.  Now it’s an old building and quite remarkable to look at; with interesting features. It was built in the Royal Dockyard as part of its infrastructure. I thought there would be lots written about and I would be able to write a lively article.  But I all turn out to be a bit boring – sorry!

I’ve written articles in the past about buildings on the Dockyard Estate – but perhaps I should remind people that it’s called ‘Dockyard’ because it was built the site of one of the Royal Dockyards set by the Tudors and where the wooden battleships of Nelson’s Navy were built.  It’s a site with a history that Woolwich people should be proud of. – Clockhouse was part of that. 

The building features in both the ‘Industrial Archaeology of South-East London’ and in Darrell Spurgeon’s ‘Discover Woolwich and its Environs’.

The SELIA entry is very short. It says “Superintendent’s offices. These date from the 18th century and now look somewhat dwarfed by new flats’.  Now remember that this site is the Royal Dockyard, not secret like the Arsenal which was the ‘Secret City’ a bit down river.  But I guess that before the flats were built there it wasn’t easy to go to and see.  However, some local people were involved in an archaeology project on the site in the early 1970s. 

So what does Darrell have to say? “The Clockhouse. Formerly the Admiral Superintendents’ offices now a Community Centre. This is a pleasing building of 1784 “handsome and well-proportioned with a fine ornamental clock tower and two wooden porches on either side of front steps added in the mid-19th century are an unusual feature.. and ……on the ground floor two ceramic tiles showing old cannon; one in the large room to the left and the other in the coffee bar opposite. They were brought here in 1980 from the demolished Clarence Arms pub in Plumstead.” 

The building also features in the Survey of Woolwich as well as in Historic England’s and the Council’s listing documents and also in a new assessment of heritage buildings in Woolwich. 

The Clockhouse was built in the late 18th century and replaced a previous building also called the Clockhouse – which was a timber structure with a tower containing a large clock.  The need to have a clock in a central position is to regularise time management within the Dockyard where labour relations were often not easy. It had a large waged workforce, unparalleled at the time, which was also well organised with constant disputes.  It was important to understand ‘time’ and how it was used. I am sure there are people at the Royal Observatory who can go on about this problem at length. 

The present ‘Clockhouse’ not only replaced the older building but did so when the dockyard was changing. Throughout the 18th-century  Britain had an increasing need of naval vessels and as the Navy became an important national institution so Woolwich Dockyard –like the  other dockyards - grew and grew as did their constantly expanding workforce.  Originally the Dockyard covered the land north of Woolwich Church Street from what is now the Ferry Approach right along to the gateway opposite the end of Francis Street. You should follow the brick wall along Church Street which was built for the Dockyard and defines where it was. In the late 18th century the Dockyard took over more land which ran from the main gate/Francis Street all the way to the roundabout at Warspite Road. There were plans for a considerable expansion of work at the Dockyard using this new section.  Before this was done it was decided to find a way of joining  the old and new sections together, so at the point where the old and new areas met a new entrance was built from Woolwich Church Street – the gateway opposite the end of Francis Street. 

Upon entering the new gateway immediately ahead and clearly to be seen, was a large office block  with a prominent central timber clock tower with clock faces to be seen from all directions. This building remains now as one of the dockyard’s earliest surviving buildings and is still known as ‘The Clockhouse’,

The Clockhouse was built in 1783 and designed as the administrative headquarters for the Dockyard. It put the office block at the centre of the enlarged Dockyard and the Survey of Woolwich says it is ‘an almost cubic block that stood in isolation, a beacon of supervision and control’.  From its windows all aspects of the dockyard would be seen. The Survey also speculates on who designed it - maybe the Admiralty’s Inspector? Or perhaps maybe the Master Shipwright at Woolwich?  It is likely that all the work on it would have been done in house. Construction is likely to have been the responsibility of John Johnson, Master of a staff which included forty-three house carpenters, and fifteen bricklayers. 

It housed offices for the yard’s most senior officials, all resident in a ‘handsome row of double-fronted houses’ nearby, built around 1750. At that time the most important men in the Dockyard were the Master Shipwright, the Storekeeper, and the Clerk of the Cheque, the Master Attendant and the Clerk of Survey. Each of them, of course, had a considerable number of subordinate staff.   Each department had its own suite of rooms off a central staircase. This staircase was in itself revolutionary in that previously these departments would have had their own front doors.

Clockhouse is sometimes described as the Admiral Superintendents offices. However Woolwich, unlike most other dockyards, did not have an Admiral Superintendent in charge.  In the 1780s when Clockhouse was built Woolwich Dockyard was directly under the control of the Navy Board in Central London.  Then, from 1806 it was administered by someone with the lower rank of Captain Superintendent.  

Who were these are the officials each with a department in the Clockhouse?  The ‘Master Shipwright’ should be obvious - he was the chief superintendent in charge of the Dockyard. Over the time period when the building was in use as the administrative centre there were 10 master Shipwrights.  All of them had come up through the ranks of skilled dockyard workers, getting various supervisory roles around all the Dockyards until they reached the top. . Two men who were Master Shipwright at Woolwich, Henry Peake and William Rule, were to continue to become General Surveyor to the Navy and Peake was also knighted.  Many - perhaps all - were distinguished Shipwrights – I should probably mention here, in particular, Oliver Lang.   All of them were responsible for the design and construction of numerous ships of all sorts.

‘The Storekeeper’ and his role should be obvious. ‘The Clerk of the Cheque’ was responsible for mustering the workmen, looking after expenses and keeping account of wages.  ‘The Master Attendant’ was there to 'hasten and assist' the fitting out, or the dismantling and removal, and securing ‘vessels of war’- and making sure that they were moored and maintained in a suitable way. ‘The Clerk of the Survey’ checked the details of all stores received and issued and also surveyed materials.

Woolwich Dockyard finally closed in 1869 and but some parts of the site were sold, The area in which the Clockhouse stands was kept by the War Office - which, we are told, continued to refer to it as ‘Woolwich Dockyard’ or ‘Royal Dockyard’ for the next century. It is far from clear what the Clockhouse was used for during these hundred years – probably by various military organisations which came and went in this period. It remained with the Ministry of Defence until 1966, although over the years much of the area of the old Dockyard was sold off. 

In the 1960s Greenwich Council bought 23 acres and then built the housing estate which now stands around the Clockhouse.   As part of this scheme the Clockhouse was largely rebuilt internally in 1977 – 8. This involved support of the interior and later, in the 1980s, a new bell cupola was added.

It opened as a Community Centre in the late 1970s - I wish I could remember the exact date.  At that time I had a job in Charlton and I went down to see the new community centre and meet its first warden, who was Bob Harris... I remember sitting in his office somewhere upstairs and chatting about this and that.  Bob later became Greenwich Council’s Deputy Leader but in those days he-was a community arts worker and his presence meant that Clockhouse began to have arts events which residents could attend. In the course of writing this article I have found no reference at all to the Clockhouse in the British Library’s local newspaper database - except some advertisements for community theatre events when Bob was the Warden.  He did a good job there. 

So, for fifty odd years the building has provided a centre for the Woolwich Dockyard Estate where people can meet and events can take place.  Most recently a great café has opened  - Have a look at their website https://www.clockhousecc.co.uk/

Something I haven’t mentioned are the tiled pictures taken from the Duke Clarence Pub in Plumstead  and installed at the Clockhouse I have been unable to find a picture of them – sorry – but  I think they are something people should see.  One of them - I think - shows the Woolwich Infant which is something I hope to write about in this series one day. 

Thanks Julian Watson, Clockhouse Staff