Greenwich Riverside Walk

 

CUTTY SARK GARDENS

 

Before entering Cutty Sark Gardens there is an inlet from the river. This is Billingsgate Dock – which shares its name with the London fish market.  This little dock is lso associated with fish and was the main area for the boats of the Greenwich's substantial deep sea fishing fleet.

 

Stop and Look up river beyond Wood Wharf :

.… beyond the new housing on the power station site is the bulk square brick cold store of Borthwick, meat  importers from New Zealand,   c.1950

…. beyond an arcaded frontage marks Paynes Wharf. From 1860-1913 this was the boiler shop of the marine engine builders John Penn & Son.

… beyond modern sheds mark the site of Deptford Royal Dockyard now in use by Convoys for newsprint transhipment.  The sheds hide a series of covered slips of the 1840s. At the front of the wharf is a concrete landing stage by Christiani and Nielsen of 1934. Shipbuilding and repair on the Deptford Dockyard site probably dates from mediaeval times and by Tudor times it was the main Royal Dockyard. Very many important naval vessels were built on site before closure in 1869. It then became the Corporation of London's Foreign Cattle market.

 ….. finally as the river bends can be seen the Georgian warehouses of the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard  now incorporated into the GLC built Pepys Estate.

 

 

Look across the river – working upstream from the park area to the extreme right.

The park is Island Gardens – on land acquired by the Royal Hospital in 1849  to preserve the view.

.. left of the park is the rowing club. In 1890s this was the site of The Unsinkable Boat Co. Behind it was the DLR Island Gardens Station,  replacing the North Greenwich station of the Millwall Extension Railway.   

..  left again is a slipway for the northern end of the Greenwich ferry to Wood Wharf.  The shoreline continues upstream through an area which was until recently very heavily industrialised.

..  look ahead and right to a chimney and 'bell tower' which belonged to Burrells Paint and Chemical Factory, now converted to housing.

 ..  as the shoreline continues – but largely out of sight – were ship building yards including  Millwall Ironworks, Scott Russell's yard - the launch site of the Great Eastern is no longer marked on the wharf wall – Fairbairn, and Napier.

Back at Cutty Sark Gardens, note the Dome of the entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel built by the London County Council in 1902. Walk towards the pier

Just before the pier, Garden Stairs are mediaeval riverside stairs used by licensed watermen as plying places.  All such stairs are currently under review by the Port of London Authority on issues of ownership, status  - and future.

 

The Cutty Sark (extensively covered by other guides). At the end of the walk can be seen the site of the building of her two sister ships, Halloween and Blackadder.

 

Greenwich Pier. The pier dates from the 1830s but was partly rebuilt in the 1950s to allow the Cutty Sark to be installed.  Thus the upstream walls date from the 1950s while the main frontage is 1843 and the downstream corner 1836.  A planning application has recently been passed for an entertainments centre on the pier

 

Pass the Pier and continue downstream along the river.  As you leave Cutty Sark Gardens Pepys Building of the Royal Naval College is on the left – note medallions of naval heros - Anson, Drake, Cook, Howard, Blake, Benbow, Sandwich, Rodney, Duncan, Collingwood, Howe, Nelson, St.Vincent.

In the garden is the New Zealand Wars memorial.

 

Walk down river alongside the Pier to the Five Foot Walk, made public in 1731 and part of Wren's plans for the Royal Hospital. 

Bellot Memorial – Joseph Bellot was a member of the French Navy who died in an attempt to rescue the Franklin expedition.

The foreshore here was known as Greenwich Beach and was once a popular bathing area.

 

Walk alongside the river to the central steps – South is the Grand Vista going to the Royal Observatory framed by the River Gate of 1849.  The steps into the river were the main river entrance to the palace of Placentia but then became the  Royal Hospital Stairs or Queens Stairs.  This landing place to the palace has been used by every monarch since George I landed here to accept the crown of England.

The site of the College, the Museum and the lawns are the site of the Royal Palace of Placentia – home of the Tudor monarchs, and birthplace of Elizabeth. The Palace building and the enclosed park dated from the mid fifteenth century being appropriated by the Crown in 1447.  The Palace included a massive sports complex built by Henry VIII and also, because of Henry's interests, formed the nucleus of the naval building and armaments manufacturing industries of the area and beyond.

 

At the end of the Five Foot walk  is a space once occupied by a treadmill crane – hence the waterman's stairs here are 'Crane Stairs'.

 

Trafalgar Tavern. The Tavern was built by Joseph Kay as part of his improvements of 1837. It is the only survivor of the inns used for the traditional whitebait suppers.  For many years the building was a hostel and homeless families accommodation.

Turn into Park Row – opposite are the Trafalgar Quarters built in 1813 as lodgings for officers at the Royal Hospital.  There is also a nineteenth century fountain.

 

At the back of the pub walk into Crane Street.

The Yacht pub – although rebuilt has a long history and is a traditional local. It has also been known as the Barley Mow and the Watermen’s Arms.

  Until the late nineteenth century another large 'whitebait' pub, the Crown and Sceptre, stood at the end of this street.  Pass the locked gate to a drawdock used by the Curlew Rowing Club - which is said to be the oldest rowing club on the tideway.  Crane Street was once occupied by several  offices of various lighterage and river haulage companies.

Continue forward past the end of Eastney Street – once East Street and the end of traditional Greenwich 'proper', noting LCC flats and new housing.  Finally older offices  wharf buildings with a plate advertising Griffith & Co. - a lighterage  company. Until the 1930s Corbett & Son. boat builders were in this street.

This is High Bridge Wharf which then lets out into a wider area. Continue ahead.

Note on the wall plates recording high tides.

 

Note the 'Strawberry Hill Gothick' building of Trinity Hospital.  This is an almshouse for 21 old 'gentlemen of Greenwich' founded by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton in 1613 and now administered by the Mercers' Company. The building dates from 1812.

 

It is now unlikely that the walk will be closed, however the area is now subject to a planning consultation based on a government wish for redevelopment of the whole area.

 

Walk on under the jetty of the power station built by the LCC in 1906 to power London's trams.  It is still operational and is used as a back up station for the London Underground. Within it architecturally significant spaces remain unused since coal fired plant ceased to be used. Views from the top of the massive jetty are magnificent.

 

PLEASE TELL PEOPLE THAT THE GLIAS JOURNAL CONTAINS AN ARTICLE ON THIS BY PETER GUILLERY. £3.90 FROM GLIAS

 

Under the jetty, but unmarked, Greenwich Meridian Line crosses the riverside path.

 

After the jetty the path turns inland and then ahead through a narrow passage.

At the end of Hoskins Street were - Golden Anchor Stairs, named for a pub which stood here in the eighteenth century. In Hoskins Street is the British Sailor pub – another local with a maritime name.

 

The derelict site on the riverside is Anchor Iron Wharf - a scrap yard now unused.  This was the site of Ambrose Crowley's warehouses on the Greenwich waterfront – his mansion being on the site of the power station.  Crowley, originally from the Black Country, had an ironworks west of Newcastle and made a fortune from anchors made for the navy. This was the site of his London depot.  Latterly the wharf was in the possession of C.A.Robinson, Iron and Metal Merchants, and a commemorative plaque to them remains on the building.

 

Walk on to the Cutty Sark Tavern. This area is called Ballast Quay, a name which dates back at least 400 years. Ballast was taken on here by collier ships returning to Newcastle.  The houses were originally called Union Place and the pub Union Tavern – a name which probably refers to the Union of England, Scotland and Wales.  They date  from between 1804 and 1829 and are owned, as is much else along here, by the Blackheath based charity, Morden College whose 'Invicta' plaque can be seen on the houses.  This ownership goes back to the 1680s.

 

Further on,  The 'Harbour Masters House' is later, dating from 1855.  The garden area on the riverside was once the PLA wharf which, together with the house, were part of a mid-nineteenth century scheme for monitoring colliers from North East England.  In this part of the river, and downstream, were collier stands where the coal ships were required to wait for a berth in the collier docks or berths up river.

 

Behind the houses is an estate built for local workers in the 1840s by  Coles Child for the owners, Morden College.  The street names are mostly of collieries in the Durham coalfield.  The road which ends on the riverside is Pelton Road and the Pelton Arms can be seen a short distance away. They relate to Pelton Main and Pelton West Colliery near Chester le Street – there are several other examples. The wharves here were built for the transhipment of coal. Pelton Road,  marks the line of a watercourse which once ran towards the river and latterly the road was a route for ballast brought from the chalk and gravel pits to the south in Blackheath and Charlton.

 

Walk onto the river front and continue onwards along the path.

 

Two large cranes remain at Lovells Wharf. This wharf was safeguarded by John Gummer, when at the Dept. Environment,  in 1996 but a planning application for a hotel and holiday accommodation here is still outstanding.  The wharf was built for coal but from the 1920s -1980s it handled the transhipment of metal by Shaw Lovell and Co.  The downriver crane was refurbished in 1987 at a cost of £30,000. The cranes are 'Scotch Derricks' – the larger one by Butters of Glasgow -  but have been so altered that it has proved impossible to trace their origins. Such cranes were until recently a very common sight on the Thames but it probable that only two others still remain.

 

After Lovells is Cadet Place – a pathway going back to local estates. In the wall of the passage is a jumble of miscellaneous stone – some of it Portland Stone.  In the yard behind the Great Globe from Swanage was made by Mowlem's workmen and it is assumed that some of the stone in wall must relate to this.

 

The inlet here is called 'Dead Dog Bay' and seems to be where animals – perhaps ones which had escaped from the Foreign Cattle Market at Deptford were washed up drowned.

 

After Lovell's is an operational wharf – Tarmac.  This wharf was let to John Mowlem and Co. in the 1840s and essentially is in the same ownership since it was passed by Mowlem to Wimpey and from Wimpey to Tarmac. It handles aggregate brought by Prior and Co. from Deptford Creek – by ships which call at the wharf several times a day.

 

At the next wharf is a jumble of boats. This is Pipers Wharf and is still a working boatyard  although no longer run by a Mr. Piper. Under Piper this was a famous barge building site where many prize winning racing barges were built including 'The famous Giralda', Surge, James Piper, Leonard Piper, Haughty Belle, and many more.  Inside the inland section of the wharf the name 'J.R.Piper' can be seen on the wall – but the site is busy and does not welcome visitors.

 

Note the jumble if disused equipment on the foreshore past the wharf.

 

Past Pipers there are a number of disused wharves – they include a site used by Joshua Taylor Beale and where the 'exhauster' was developed. This important piece of equipment was subsequently manufactured by Donkin in Chesterfield.  Beale also made steam road locomotives on this site in the 1840s.

 

Eventually arrive at Enderby's Wharf -  a very famous and important site.

 

Things to look at in the area, are,  in order,

…the line of a rope walk, with some cable gear now inside the gates

….some sluice gear on the inland side of the path

….Enderby Wharf with cable loading gantry

….an office block with cable motifs

….Causeway and sluice

….a second jetty – currently with a seeding project in place

….Enderby House

 

In 1680 this was the site of the Government Powder Depot where all gun powder for the forces was tested and distributed.  It was built alongside a Tudor drain – Bendish Sluice. Note the disused sluice gear inland of the path.  At low water the sluice can be seen emerging from underneath a causeway into the river. In the seventeenth century two massive jetties were built here – on the sites of the two jetties still standing.

 

The gunpowder depot was closed in 1770 and a rope walk built on the site. The line of the rope walk can still be seen by peering through the double gates down through the line of the Alcatel factory. The rope walk was slightly to the left of the path. In the 1830s the site was bought by the Enderbys.

 

The Enderbys were a whaling family for whom 'Enderby Land' in the Antarctic is named. Behind the jetty is 'Enderby House' now used as offices by Alcatel.  The Enderbys built a large factory for rope and canvas manufacture here which was burnt down in the 1840s. Before this they had been asked to tender for the manufacture of the first telegraph cable to be laid between Euston and Camden Town stations.  The site was eventually bought by the cable making company Glass Elliott and an enormous number of important international telegraph cables have been made on site here. In particular the  first Atlantic Cable – loaded onto the Great Eastern via ferries from here. The structure on the jetty is cable loading gear and for many years a cable ship, the John H.MacKay also stood here. Following Glass Elliott the factory was owned by the Telegraph Construction Co. – Telcon. The site is still in use as a factory employing 900 people working on repeaters for today's submarine cables.  See on the door of the office block carved gutta percha leaves – the plant from which the insulators used in the manufacture of telegraph cable is derived. On the lintels are cable motifs.

At Enderby House, c.1840, see the window looking out onto the river. Above this is a cupola and the room contains relics of the Enderby family (not available to view).

 

The next section of walk is dominated by the Glucose refining factory of Amylum. They make specialist sugars in a wheat derived process.