Well, after two weeks worth of articles speculating on the history of industry on Deptford Creek, it’s about time I started moving on. So I will carry on working down the Creek describing it wharf by wharf. The last ones I really did were the Sun Wharves just down from the Birds Nest pub – and so, the next one is Evelyn Wharf
The Deptford Creek Conservation Area report describes Evelyn Wharf as ‘historic’ but doesn’t say why it is. However it does describe some of the features of the Wharf and how they see it as a bit posher than some of its neighbours They note a 19th-century two storey workshop building which faces the street and inside the yard they describe the ‘high quality granite setts ‘with which it is paved– again describing both them and the boundary wall as ‘historic’. Along the street facing wall is written ‘Evelyn Wharf’ in large letters. It notes the ‘substantial gates which frame the entrance to the site’ with ‘stone coping to the piers ...indicating that this once constituted an entrance to a much more substantial industrial premises’.
A lot of my time this week has been taken up with trying to find out what that ‘substantial industrial premises were and I wouldn’t say that I had found it. Today this is a busy site with many good causes having premises there –predominantly a bicycle repair and second hand shop. I’m sure some of them will have done vast amounts of research on it and will read what I’m writing here with a little snigger - but never mind
To add to the general air of confusion about Evelyn Wharf is the provenance of the building at 6 Creekside, between Evelyn and Harold Wharves. At the moment it appears to me to be a complete mystery. The Deptford Conservation Area report describes it as an ‘interesting industrial building dating from the late 19th century, with a gently curving frontage, crenellated roof line and cast iron windows’. They also think it must’ve been bombed amd that a top storey or maybe two top storeys are missing. However, on the London Bomb Sites web site this area is remarkable for not having been bombed at all – and consultation with our local expert on the subject has come up with a similar result. It is an interesting building which appears to have had considerable architectural merit. This Creekside building is not shown on the 1897s insurance plans of the area so we can guess that the Conservation Area report is right and it’s from the first or second decade of the 20th century.
The earliest references that I found for Evelyn Wharf date from the 1850s when it appears to be run by a Mr. G.F. Stevens who is offering quantities of ‘good stone’ to the various local authorities in the area - all of whom turned him down. They give no details as to why this is – if they object to being solicited or if the price is wrong. However it is clear that Mr. Stevens is not doing well. By 1857 the wharf appears to be in the hands of a Mr. J.F. Corbett who is selling by auction ‘40 tons of Yorkshire Stone comprising tooled York paving, inch and inch and a half Robin Hoods slabs, 3 inch Robin Hood landings, headstones etc etc. I have no idea what a ‘Robin Hood landing’ is. He was also selling a ‘Builder’s Cart’ and ‘a light Chaise Cart’.
Predictably in 1858 there is an advertisement for Evelyn Wharf to be let or sold; with ‘immediate possession. It tells us it ‘has room for three barges alongside’ and there is a crane and ‘other conveniences’, stores, stabling for 30 horses, a roomy yard and a new eight-roomed dwelling house attached.
The property seems to have been acquired eventually by a Mr. William Parry who used it as a pottery. When I started researching this article I was aware that there were a number of early potteries in Deptford which were owned by various members of the Parry family and that I would end up writing the all up. But this Mr. Parry wasn’t there for very long - in fact about six years and that to my mind isn’t really a success. Normally I wouldn’t really take much notice of six year tenure but Mr. Parry used his short spell at the wharf to advertise energetically – in fact if you look up Evelyn Wharf on the local newspaper archive almost all you will find are Mr. Parry's attempts to sell his wares.
Mr. Parry sold and manufactured the sort of pottery which we don’t really think about - sewer pipes, chimney stacks and the like. Much of it was ‘redware’- the sort of stuff that they used to make flower pots out of. In 1861 Mr.Parry got a patent for an ‘improved way of making chimney pots’ as well as chimney pedestals and other articles made from clay. Mr. Parry also described himself as a coal merchant. But generally he was a ‘brick, lime and tile merchant’ and in 1860 his works at Deptford is described as the ‘chief office of the company’.
Sadly in 1864 Mr. Parry petitioned for bankruptcy and sooner or later we find that the lease on the wharf is up for sale. It is described as a ‘commodious wharf with 150 feet wharfage on Deptford Creek’. There is also an advertisement from a young man aged 23 who gives his address as Evelyn Wharf who is anxious to find employment as a barman because he would like a ‘thorough insight into every branch of the trade’. There are also accounts of an extraordinarily long court case about this bankruptcy which the recovery of £16. 12s 2d. - which even the 1870s doesn’t seem to be a vast sum to go to court for. It is confusing in that nearly everyone involved in the case from the bankrupt, the creditors and even the lawyer have the name of Parry – one whom turns out to be ‘our’ Mr. Parry’s mother. More arguments later on in the case were about who it was who actually submitted the written petition and what their names were. It’s probably a big family row of some sort which a sensible historian should ignore. The Parry family had a long and distinguished record as potters on a number of sites along Deptford Creek and William Parry’s short stay at Evelyn Wharf is only a small episode in that.
None of this account so far has told us why the wharf has this rather posh gateway nor anything about the mysterious building alongside it. But even more mysterious is that in 1866 there was a submission to the local Board of Works to build a chimney on the site, along with three houses and shops, for a Zinc and Galvanized Iron Works
Now I got quite excited about this because one of the reports says that it’s being done for the Vielle Montagne company working with Frederick Braby and I thought– ‘wow - I’ve discovered a major company on this site - which would account for the posh buildings and everything’. But oh no -
The Societe des Mines et Fonderies de Zinc de la Vielle Montagne dated from 1837 and exploited a mine in what became Belgium. Since then they have worked a zinc mine in Zinkgruvan in Sweden. On-line notes about the Company say they didn’t come to Britain until 1896, but they do seem to have had agency arrangements – one of which was indeed with Frederick Braby. Braby, now Bristol based, are a big company originally specializing in galvanized iron. They had two works in Deptford -the Ida Works up at the Blackhorse Bridge on the Surrey Canal and the Victoria Works in Grove Street. There is no mention whatsoever of a works in Creekside. And what about that chimney? There is no chimney on the 1897 insurance plans of Evelyn Wharf.
In the later part of the19th century – at least by 1872 - John Penn and Sons engine company owned this site. They had a major works in Blackheath Road – which I wrote about some months ago in this paper. They made engines for the world’s most important ships and a great deal else. They also had what is now Payne’s Wharf at Upper Watergate in Deptford on the Greenwich Lewisham border. They appear as the owners of Evelyn Wharf on the 1897s Goad code insurance plans and the deeds for the site are mentioned in Richard Hartree’s book on the Penn family which implies ownership.
Clearly the Wharf must have been used by Penn’s to take heavy goods by water down to the Thames. It would have been easier to take large items there from Blackheath Road than to drag them all the way down to Payne's Wharf by road. However all was not necessarily well - in 1872 an angry letter to the local paper described the nuisance caused by Penn’s and gives us some details about the noise made by their traction engines. These were used to transfer coal and other items from Blackheath Road to Slaughter House Lane in Deptford. ‘The vibration caused by the engine and tracks disturbs the sleep at the unreasonable hour of 3 am …. The injuries caused to house property … ceilings and roof suffers greatly … (it has) hitherto been drawn by horses and carts in the day ‘. They call on the District Board of Works to ‘remedy the greatest of street nuisances.’
An accident is also reported to a Mr. Anderson who both lives and managed Evelyn Wharf for Penn’s. He seems to have slipped when a barge fell with the tide and he landed in a barge loaded with pig iron. He managed to scramble out but was reported to be in the Miller Hospital
I have another report in 1880 for a galvanized iron factory on Evelyn Wharf. Now it would he perfectly reasonable for Penn’s to galvanize iron but the 1897 insurance plans for Evelyn Wharf show only one building on site and I would have thought that if they were manufacturing anything there that they would need more than one building. So I must continue to say that I don’t know who built that gateway – although wealthy company like Penn’s could well have afforded it.
I also can’t explain the long frontage of the building fronting on Creekside - which I guess was built after Penn’s had left the site.
The industries of Lewisham’s Creekside are proving more elusive than those on the Greenwich side. I have a report of a car manufacturing company moving there around 1900– but I don’t know the site address or the street number. So – hmm – I’ll let you know if I find out. But I am wondering about Evelyn Wharf or its neighbour. Deptford built motors! Well – one of the many things I have missed I these articles is the very early vehicle built on the Merryweather site, so I need to come back to that.
Soon I will get to wharves where you can learn about Felix Mendelssohn and the very wicked Mr. Hills
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