Greenwich Industrial History Society

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Any suggestion that ‘not much is going’ on in Greenwich is quite untrue.Down here we are, as ever, run off our feet –although it’s mostly about retrieving what we can as sites continue to be ravaged by developers. Where do we start?  There is so much.Mary Mills

We set up the Greenwich Industrial History Society in 1998.  Initially it was all about the Royal Arsenal, thanks to our first Chair, the late Jack Vaughan.  The vastness of the Royal Arsenal would beat most people and wasn’t helped by its previous military owners who disposed of anything interesting before anyone was allowed on site.  Professional archaeologists did what they could and there was amazing support from the English Heritage officer – the late Paul Calvocoressci, who many in the AIA will remember- and a large body of reports resulted. Jack, who didn’t’ really care who he upset, and was prepared to fight for every inch has been succeeded by a younger generation still trying to record and preserve.  The size and complexity of the Royal Arsenal means that despite the flashy flats built over the past 20 years and a whole new town built over the past 50–there are still many  untouched acres. 

Greenwich Industrial History Society kept on trying to report on what was going on, doing what we could. I am now the only surviving member of our original committee – Jack Vaughan, Barbara Ludlow, Sue Bullivant, Hugh Lyon, and Steve Daly – all gone. A few years ago we set up a discussiongroup/committee.  This was to provide a forum for people who were involved in localplanningbattles or were doing research on industrial sites.

So – for a quick look round the Borough.  Most industry was along the riverside while the southern town of Eltham was mostly suburban – apart from a Royal Palace, a large scientific instrument factory, railways, two farms, and much else – including many of those little works which proliferate in London – around the back of houses, in a shed, making something ever so clever and very specialist.

The Royal Arsenal dominated the riverside at the east end of the Borough and beyond, but to the south of it lies Plumstead. The Matchless works was gone before we got going, although many devotees of big bikes make the pilgrimage. Currently there is concern about the early refuse destructor/generating station – until recently used as offices by Crossrail. There are also – as throughout the Borough – many sites for what was the ubiquitous Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, including a large factory complex on the riverside.   The first ever recorded co-op was in Plumstead, a corn mill from the 1750s.    An active community group is trying to save remaining Woolwich industrial sites – wharves, the market, and much in the back streets.  Plus the offices of the earliest Labour Party.  In the 1960s activists did what they could to preserve something from the Woolwich Royal Dockyard and in the 1970s volunteerarchaeologistsuncoveredanearlystoneware ‘Woolwich kiln’ and much more.

In Woolwich we have, of course, a new ferry – and also one of the three London County Council free cross river tunnels.  The two foot tunnels – Greenwich and Woolwich - have a Friends group–but the poor old Blackwall  has never been befriended.  Revolutionary in design and construction techniques, it has existed for over 120 years carrying traffic volumes which would have been beyond unthinkable when it was built.

On the riverside in Charlton are the remaining buildings of Siemens huge electrical engineering and telecommunications complex. A developer has now taken over, bent on change. A group of historians and archaeologists are hoping to work with them. Beyond the Thames Barrier are more developers awaiting planning consent. There are many sites here still ‘undeveloped’ - rope works, the biggest glass works in Europe, two private railways, ship breakers and much else. A very recent planning inspectorate decision will mean a re-evaluation of these sites. Stone’s Foundry may still be in production –it is where Stone Manganese Marine made propellers for the likes of the Queen Mary were made. South of the main road was a chain of chalk and gravel extraction pits one of which has been made a site of ‘Geodiversity importance’. There are also the remains of the Johnson and Phillips electrical engineering works awaiting a developer for a huge and largely hidden site.  

I have written a good deal  about the Greenwich Peninsula and there were many, many big industries here –the largest gas works in Europe, a smallish power station, Bessemer’s steel works, several chemical works, stone works, cement works, lino, glucose, soap and others.  Like the rest of the riverside the foreshore was interspersed with wharves, boat and barge builders.  When I talk about ship building in Greenwich, I ask audiences, "when do you think the last vessel of any size was built on the Peninsula?" They say “1900?or maybe 1920?” Wrong -a large pleasure craft now working from Reading was built on Point Wharf in 1990.  I really think that if the developers went away the boat builders would be back before you could blink.  Anyway, thereis a large boat repair facility on the Peninsula at Bay Wharf where Cutty Sark's two sister ships were built. We mustn’t miss out all the work Enderby Group have done at Enderby’s Wharf – where gunpowder testing was replaced by rope, whalers and Antarctic exploration, to be replaced by the Atlantic cable and a revolution in the technology of communication.  The Alcatel factory on this historic site is still at work.

South of all this is Blackheath – and like Eltham it has various back street works making something important in obscurity.   I should also mention the Art Club home of the wartimeGPO film unit.

On the western edge of the Peninsula an early medieval tide mill was discovered ten years ago. As we go towards Greenwich proper on the riverside there was the site of Crowley’s seventeenth century warehouses – where recently archaeologists have found evidence of iron working.  We pass Greenwich power station – is it the oldest power station in Europe? It is still at work in roughly the same ownership. And s on to 'Royal Greenwich'.I wouldargue that the palace was itself an industry –starting with the Royal Armoury and its mill on the border with Lewisham.The professional archaeologists are busy on the foreshore uncovering Tudor jetties and the like.

Before the Cutty Sark was brought in– this area was a maze of boat repairers, barge builders and disreputable pubs with some quirky stuff – like the Noakesoscope.  The biggest industry here was fishing, which moved to Grimsby in the late nineteenth century. And so – along the river, past new flats on the sites of boatyards, an interesting steam ferry site, a gasworks and much else until we get to the Creek.

Deptford Creek has a group of local residents who are trying to get a footpath on its banks opened up and signage installed about the industries which were there. The Greenwich part of the Creek goes all the way up to the waterworks and the Kent Well -supplying water to Greenwich since the seventeenth century. On the way there is the lifting bridge on the Greenwich Rail– the first suburban railway in the world, built on a viaduct said to be to the biggest brick structure anywhere.   The Aston Webb Mumford’s Mill is now flats but locals were unable to save anything from Merryweather’s fire engine and pump factory – or anything else- and there was so much there.

Over on the Deptford side of the Creek mouth there is no mention of General Steam Navigation, an amazing and innovative company whose depot dominated the area. Scandalously there is also no mention of Ferranti's Deptford power station– the first ‘proper’ power station in the world.   A local group here still campaign to learn more and save what they can. Nearing the border with Lewisham there are more flats on the sites of important eighteenth and nineteenth century shipyards - including the two earliest sites of the East India Company. Finally at the border is what was Penn's boiler shop –Penn’s were the internationally leading marine steam engine manufacturers in the nineteenth century with theirmain works on Blackheath Hill.  Their main rivals were Humphreys, Tennant and Dykes a few yards down from Penn’s riverside boiler shop.  Thanks to residents, Chris and Willi, we now know that the famous boiler shop was actually built for a never finished riverside extension to the Greenwich Railway.

The wall of Deptford Royal Dockyard stretches along the boundary with Lewisham. At the river end of the wall is the Upper Watergate - watermen’s stairs – and a new battle is looming on the preservation of these ancient plying places, drawdocks and foreshore access.

This has just been a quicktour roundthe Royal Borough of Greenwich. I’ve tried to cover some of the larger sites, allthose that have had their supporters and theplanning battles.  There have been many many others.  In the 24 years of Greenwich Industrial History Society we have listened and helped where we could.  We have tried to report on them and worked with the volunteers who monitor planning applications of behalf of community groups.  Most battles, to be honest, were lost - but there is a consciousness now of our past and that it wasn’t all just about Royalty, Nelson and clocks.