Lovells =

 

something enjoyed by locals and visitors for many years.  Now  it iss still hoped that the Greenwich riverside path will be ready for visitors to walk from Greenwich proper to the Dome site.  This is still a working riverside area with a busy boat repair yard and several large factories.

 

Occasioona visitors to Greenwich will remembr that up until about ten years ago there was a real feeling of bustle as you picked your way past many working wharves and a forest of cranes.  Now as they walk past the Cutty Sark pub they will be confronted with just two cranes - and they might be forgiven for not knowing that these are two of only four 'Scotch derricks' left on London's wharves.  They might have heard howeve that the wharf on which these two cranes stand is now. in August 1999, the subject of a planning application to build a hotel.

 

the wharf on which these two cranes stand is today called 'Lovells wharf' but it has had other names in the past.   In some ways its history could be said to encapsulate that of manny of the wharves in the area - from mid-ninneteenth century prosperity to closure at the eend of the twentieth.

 

The wharf was built on the very area of whaat was known as

Greenwich Marsh and which covered the area of the Greenwich Peninsula.  The Marsh had clear boundaries. At one time it had had its own administration and there were gates for those wanting to go there.  On the riverside path the Marsh really begins at the point where the path leaves the metalled road and turns onto the riverside where it continues along a series of wharves.  The first wharf, then, of the marsh proper is the one known today as 'Lovell's Wharf'.  The name 'Lovells' can be seen from the river in large white lettering very clearly in two places - one along the wharf wall above the path, and one on the gable of the internal buildings.   In recent weeks Lovells has come into some local prominence since it is now the subject of a planning application for a hotel. On the riverside are two large cranes - 'Scotch Derricks' - and these have been the subject of some local discussion. Lovell's Wharf, its formation and subsequent history, are almost a microcosm of the rise and fall of wharfage in the history of Greenwich peninsula.   It has not always been known as Lovell's - for many years it was Greenwih wharf.

 

The wharf's is at the western boundary of Greenwich Marsh in an area not developed until the middle of the nineteenth century.  To the immediate west is Ballast Quay - the name 'Ballast Quay' can be traced back to the early seventeenth century and is probably much older. Lovell's is therefore the boundary site. Behind the wharf to the south and east, behind Ballast Quay, is an area of nineteenth century housing. This development is associated with the building of wharf became Lovell's Wharf and which was itself developed during the second half of. the nineteenth century.

 

In the early nineteenth century Ballast Quay was the site of industrial buildings associated with the Crowley/Millington business. Ambrose Crowley had been a seventeenth century ironmaster who set up warehousing in this area of the Greenwich Riverside and lived in a big house on the site of what is now the Power Station.   His family, and its successors the Millingtons, leased much of the land in this stretch of riverside from Morden College until the mid-nineteenth century.  This includes the area then, and now, known as Anchor Iron Wharf.  In the early nineteenth century the Ballast Quay area was developed for riverside housing by Morden College and became known, for a while, as Union Wharf.  The riverside pub, 'Union Tavern', is now known as the 'Cutty Sark' and is a popular local venue.

 

In the late seventeenth century the Government had sited its gunpowder testing depot down river of Greenwich - a subject which I covered earlier for Bygone Kent. The site had been sold in the late eighteenth century but seems to have gone quickly into other industrial use as a ropewalk. Between this establishment and Ballast Quay was a belt of meadowland which remained to be developed as wharfage and this is where what is now known as 'Lovell's Wharf' was built. 

Although no formal wharf existed on site before the 1840s it is very likely that the area was well used by a variety of river interests - fishermen, boat builders and repairers and 'watermen'.

The area on which Lovell's was built is the riverside section of a field one known as 'Great Meadow'.  It was bounded on the south by a path called 'Willow Walk' - which became known as Pelton road when the housing estate was laid out and still in use as the major road to the riverside.  On the east and north the site was bounded by lines of apparently nameless dykes.

 

THE GREAT MEADOW

The owners of the area known as Great Meadow, was, and is, Morden College.  The College was set up on Blackheath by Sir John Morden in the late seventeenth century in order to provide an almshouse for 'decayed Turkey merchants'.  The area was leased to the Crowley/Millingtons but there is no evidence that it was used for anything other than meadowland - grazing of horses and cattle and, along the riverside, the growing of osiers for basket making.  It is however clear that Morden College wanted to develop the land and the riverside associated with it in the same way that they had just developed Ballast Quay.

In 1830 Morden College appointed George Smith as their Surveyor.  He was an architect holding a number of appointments with institutions in the area - he was also Surveyor to the Cator estates and to the Mercer's Company (who also had significant local holdings).  In 1838 Smith prepared a survey of Greenwich Marsh for Morden College and following that riverside land was leased systematically to industrialists who would be prepared to act as developers.

COLES CHILD

The Great Meadow was one of the earliest sites to be allocated and this went to William Coles Child.  He was a young man, in his early twenties, who had taken over his family's coal trade business based at Belvedere Wharf  - on the site of today's Festival Hall.  At Belvedere Wharf the company had been described as 'Coal Merchants, Coke Burners and Wharfingers'. and later as 'coal merchant, coke burner and Russian cement manufacturer'.  This was a very common set of trades in nineteenth century London.

 Coal was brought into London by collier ships from North East ports - Newcastle, Blyth, South Shields, Seaham.  It was a massive industry and one which expanded enormously in the early years of the nineteenth century.  Coles Child was clearly well off and in the 1840s was to buy the Bishop's Palace in Bromley (now Bromley Civic Centre) where he became a local figure of some importance.  He had multiple interests and was to expand into building materials, railways and hop growing.  Coles Child's life and activities in Bromley have been well covered by an article by J.L.Filmer in the 1980, No.5., edition of 'Bromley Local History'.

In Bromley Coles Child owned gravel pits, and a brick works.  He later grew hops near Bromley town centre - sending them to London to arrive as the first in the market every year.    Coles Child was also on the board of the SouthEastern Railway and was responsible for a number of extensions --dressed up as independent companies in Kent. He was also involved in the promotion of a dock scheme in Greenwich, which also seems to have been promoted by the railways.  In these activities he came into contact with Sir John Lubbock. Chairman of Morden College.  Lubbock lived south of Bromley on the High Elms at Farnborough and, like Coles Child, was involved in philanthropic gifts to local people. For example, in 1866, Lubbock opened a Working Men's club for which Child had donated the ground.

One of Coles Child's main activities in Greenwich was to build the estates at the back of Ballast Quay and Lovell's Wharf in conjunction with Morden College. At the same time he developed the riverside wharves of which Lovell's was one. It was to be known as Greenwich Wharf.

On 5th July 1838 Child signed an 80-year lease with Morden College for six acres of the Great Meadow to 'form wharves and erect manufactories'. For this he paid ú8 an acre but would be required to spend at least ú3,000 on 'substantial buildings'.   A year later he signed a lease for more and for the remainder of the area in 1844.  In January 1839 Morden College gave him permission to build a new road to the river along the line of the north side of Willow Walk - and this was to become Pelton Road and work began on a new sea wall.  By 1840 Child are installed a wharf, coke ovens, a limekiln, storehouse and stable.

The limekilns were initially let to a Mr. Walker but by March 1841 Coles Child was operating the site himself. Waste heat from the other coke ovens was being used to fuel the lime kilns where they made Grey Stone and other limes.

Initially his main activity seems to have been as a coal dealer.  By June 1840 he was able to advertise that his wharf and premises had been completed and could now supply coal and coke 'at a considerable reduction in price'.  At East Greenwich he had facilities for the discharge of coal from ships 'of any tonnage' onto his wharf 'such as are enjoyed by no other house' .  This system meant that coal could be loaded 'direct from the hold of the ship into wagons'. 

Coles Child also advertised himself in 1840 as the 'largest manufacturers of Oven Coke in England - and could offer a service to 'directors of railways, maltsters, Ironfounders and consumers. Child used a proportion of the great Meadow for brick making, digging the brick earth from the area, and leaving pools and ponds behind him.

There was also a short lived pier, known as 'East Greenwich Pier' built at the junction of Ballast Quay and Greenwich/Lovell's Wharf - this again will the subject of a separate article.

THE HOUSING

A description of Coles Child activities in building the estate around the Pelton Road/Christchurch Way area has been described in an article by Michael Kearney 'The Development of an Early Victorian Artisan Estate in East Greenwich' (Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarian Society Vol. IX No.6.). In this article Kearney raises an important issue which may have a bearing on Coles Child's business actives.   The street names on the estate which appear to relate to the Durham coal field - and I hope, in due course to produce another article based on this important subject.

GREENWICH WHARF

In 1852 the wharf was divided and a portion to the west of what is now Lovells was leased to Mowlem, the road building contractor.  This site has now passed from them, via Wimpey, to Tarmac, but is in effect in the same ownership.    This long running leasehold has provided a permanent eastward boundary to Greenwich/Lovells Wharf.  Between the two sites runs Cadet Place - originally known as 'Paddock Place'. Another proposed lessee was a soapboiler - a suggestion that drew complaints from the tenants of Ballast Quay.

Coles Child clearly did not intend to keep managing this wharfage business in Greenwich personally and it passed into the hands of his managers - William Whiteway and Frederick (Constantine) Rowton. Rowton announced that they had come to an arrangement with 'Caradoc and Usworth' Collieries in Durham.  This was in order to meet the competition, which was then beginning to arise from coal brought into London by rail.  Rowton advertised that he had been made the sole agent in London for these collieries which were owned by the Rt.Hon. Lord Howden and Messrs. D. Jonassohn and Co.  It seems likely that these were newly sunk pits in the north east of the area now covered by Washington New Town in Co. Durham.  Caradoc was the family name of Lord Howden, a career diplomat and soldier.  Two sorts of coal were sold 'Caradoc's Wallsend' and Jonasshon's Wallsend' - and it should be noted that 'Wallsend', a mining area north of the Tyne in the Newcastle area, was by that time also a generic term for good quality domestic coal.

Rowton and Whiteway also operated what they described as a cement works - hence the lime kilns. - on the easterly portion of the site.  An area to the rear of the wharf was dug for brick earth and bricks were probably made there.  Plans were put forward for a Portland Cement Works with the river frontage let as a separate concern.  At this time a number of others were taking up sites further down river in Greenwich for Portland Cement manufacture and it is possible that they provided more competition than Whiteway and Rowton could stand.

Coles Child died at his home in Bromley in 1872 and the Greenwich Wharf business remained in the hands of Whiteway and Rowton. Whiteway, who had worked locally in the coal trade since the age of 17, left the wharf in 1882 in order to enjoy his retirement. He became an activist in local politics as a staunch member of the Conservative Party and died in 1894 aged 68. 

Both Whiteway and Rowton lived locally. When Whiteway died he was living at No.11 Westcombe Park Road called Teign Villa.  And had also owned no.9, Gatcombe Lodge.  Both of these are big grand houses built in 1871 so he moved into No.11 as a new house, and no doubt influenced its design.   Rowton moved round the area rather more to end up in No.4., Carlisle House, Humber Road in 1888. Before that he had been in 5 Westcombe Park Road, Meadowbank.  This was, of course next door but one to his partner, Whiteway and was later occupied by another cement manufacturer, Hollick of Morden Wharf, slightly down river.

From the 1890s the wharf was clearly divided with Rowton remaining on the westerly section where the limekilns were located and this is the area which became known as Greenwich Wharf.  The easterly portion, itself subdivided, was let to a variety of others. 

The easterly section of the wharf became known as Waddell's Wharf during the occupation of John Waddell and Co.  It was later said that Waddell had built a 'dock' and it seems likely that this refers to an improved wharf frontage since there is no sign of an inlet on the river wall.   By 1918 this was not being used and the river was silting up rapidly. An inventory of 1918 gives this part of the site was having a 1,290 feet frontage to the river and a 245 ft frontage to Pelton Road.  There was a gateway into what was by then called Banning Street. Inside the wharf were brick buildings with slate roofs. A stable for fourteen horses lay along the Pelton Road side and above it was a loft with living rooms. On the wharf was a travelling crane.  On the other part of the wharf was a 90-foot river frontage with more brick buildings and a stable for six horses. In this part was an entrance onto what is now known as Cadet Place.

Waddell had a local office - from which presumably their coal was distributed. From 1896 this was at 14 Royal Parade in Blackheath. This was a premier position in what are still prestige shopfronts facing across Blackheath.   Later, and throughout the First World War they were at 7 Blackheath Vale. This enclave of mill sites and semi-industrial uses was probably more suited to a coal merchant but also probably shows a downward drift in the Waddell fortunes.

For a short time in the 1880s an ice merchant, John Ashby, rented part of the site.  An Ashby cement works was already in business on a site a short distance down river.  This had been started by a member of the Staines based Ashby banking family. While it is not known if this ice merchant was one of them or not it is worth noting that in 1880 the main family member in Staines was a John Ashby.  On deeds from the 1890s on an ice well is shown marked towards the south east portion of the site underneath some buildings.  Details of it appear in some dilapidation's reports.  People who worked on the wharf in the 1970s remark on it still being there then and no probably it still remains.  Such commercial ice suppliers were fairly common in this period - there were several others in Greenwich. Ice was usually brought from Norway and stored to provide domestic and commercial refrigeration.

Another sub tenant were Yarmouth Carriers, based in Hull.  It is likely that they were general river haulage operators.   It was also sublet to Davis Morgan and Sons for a while - although it seems likely that they and Yarmouth Carriers were one and the same. Yarmouth Carriers/Davis Morgan left the site in the early 1920s, following some prevarication as to whether they would renew their lease or not. They left behind a crane which - a forerunner of today's discussions on the cranes left of Shaw Lovell - became a problem for the landlords.   It was described as the 'Grafton crane' and repair work was needed on it.  To do this a local firm, Flavell and Churchill of Bellott Street, were called in for an estimates and eventual refurbishment work.

SHAW LOVELL

Shaw Lovell took on the lease in the late 1920s.  Shaw Lovell  (now Bristol ICO Ltd.)  were a family business dating from 1869.  They originated in Bristol and had grown out of a nineteenth century company known as 'Bristol Steam Navigation Co.Ltd.' They had connections and interests in London and  Ireland. They employed as their General Traffic Agent, Charles Shaw Lovell who was already in business as a shipping agent.  A history of the company 'The story of Lovell's Shipping' was written by Eric Jorden in 1992 and published by White Tree of Bristol.

Charles Shaw Lovell had a City of London office in Fenchurch Street by 1871 as a 'Shipping and Forwarding Agent' and by the 1890s had taken his sons into partnership with him and moved to St.Benet's House in Gracechurch Street- and by that time this was also the address of the Bristol Steam Navigation Co.  There were also offices in Liverpool, Manchester, Hull and Birmingham.  It appears that the two younger Lovells were soon in effective charge of the Bristol Navigation Company.    In 1908 the business was incorporated as 'C.Shaw Lovell & Sons Ltd.' and they moved again to 38 Eastcheap where they remained until bombed out in the Second World War. Changes had however come after the First World War with expansion and a younger generation of Lovells.

Eric Jorden describes how the company had used the wharf at Greenwich before the First World War and how in, 1911, they took up shares in the then owners, Joseh Guy Ltd.  and eventually bought the wharf from Guy in 1922 for ú3,850.  Although this may appear to be the case from  Lovell's own sources, in fact Guy held a sub-lease from Morden College through the Coles Child interests and Lovell's were to sub-let from them, then take this over and eventually became head lessees in the early 1920s.

It was then only from the 1920s that 'Greenwich Wharf ' became known as 'Lovells Wharf'. Under Lovells that wharf was soon thriving with the handling of non-ferrous metals. The Greenwich wharf was ideal at a time when transhipment into barges was common place.   In the 1920s the company has played a major part in dealing with scrap metal from First World War battlefields. Since much of this military hardware had doubtless been made in Woolwich and Erith it is ironic that it should come back to Greenwich as scrap.  Eric Jorden considered that it was this trade which encouraged Lovell's to actually buy the Lovell's site.  The scrap was collected from the battlefields and stored on the wharf awaiting disposal.  In this material the odd unexploded shell was, no doubt, only one of the hazards.   The company also had a sideline in the export of stone for war grave headstones.

In the 1920s Lovell's bought ships of their own to carry on the metal trade. These included Innisulva, Innishannan, Tower Bridge and Eiffel Tower.  Eric Jorden considered that Tower Bridge was used on the London/Paris service since it could go under low bridges.  They also owned a tug and two lighters.  The company continued to expand with other foreign offices.  The Greenwich Wharf continued in busy use mainly handling metals. On site there was a London Metal's Exchange approved warehouse for the storage of copper, zinc and lead.

Lovell House had been built at the southern end of the wharf area as the head office for Lovell's Sea Container Trade. A large computer system was installed there and it operated as a Head Office.  In 1975 when economies were needed much of the work undertaken in these offices was moved to Bristol.  In due course Lovell House was taken over by the Greater London Council.

In the 1970s a great deal of expansion took place at Lovell's Wharf with the arrival of the Butters Crane from Bristol Seaway at Custom House Quay, Dublin.  However the container revolution continued to diminish the amount of work available.  The company continued to retreat to their Bristol base. However in the early 1980s another expansion programme was entered into. The 20-ton crane was moved to a central position on the wharf. Shed space was increased and a special lorry entrance created working with the GLC in order to cut down lorry movements in local roads. 

In 1982 the wharf handled 118,000 tons of cargo - steel, aluminium, galvanised sheeting and gas pipes as well as timber and some other items. Much of this was modern 'high tech' products, Lovell's did not consider itself old-fashioned and they were proud of their experience and the techniques developed to handle specialist cargoes.   In this the two cranes, still derelict on the wharf, played a key role.

THE TWO CRANES

The two cranes which remain on the riverfront are a dramatic local feature - much photographed and the subject of many paintings and drawings. Cranes have always played an important part in the activities on this site. In 1918 there were two travelling cranes on site and when Lovell's took over the site these were repaired and used. In due course they were replaced.

They not really 'cranes' at all but 'Scotch Derricks' - that is a stationery piece of equipment of a type often made in Scotland.  Such equipment was once very common around the Port of London but has now almost completely disappeared - we think there may be examples left at Rotherhithe and another on the Lea.

Derricks in a permanent position are most practical for the sort of wharfage operations carried out at Lovells.  The problems with them were that they took up space and could slew through less than 3/4 of a circle.

It has proved surprisingly difficult to find anything very much out about the two cranes themselves.  Shaw Lovell's records do not reveal when they were first acquired. The lattice-framed style of the derricks was characteristic of such equipment in the first half of the twentieth century and date them probably to before 1950.  They are both electrically powered.

The down river crane is the 'Butters' crane brought from Dublin Custom House in the mid-1970s. ú30,000 was spent on refurbishment in 1986 when it was moved. It was then capable of handling 20 tons.  'Butters' were a Glasgow based firm of crane builders, taken over by Morris Cranes several years ago.  Investigations to locate any archive information with Morris is still ongoing.

The upriver crane was manufactured by Anderson Grice but very little is known about it . Information from Bristol ICO suggests that it was capable of handling 5 tons only but contacts who worked on site say that it could handle 10.  A great deal of time and effort has gone on in researching these cranes but very little has come to light - it seems amazing that there should be so little information available about two such relatively modern pieces of equipment.

 In 1999 the wharf has been empty for many years.  Lovells appear to have surrendered their lease it is now managed by Morden College's agents.  In the last ten years, despite its apparent dereliction, it has occasionally been used for the storage and transhipment of building materials. In mid-1990s it became obvious that wharfage facilities on the Thames were disappearing and that a need for it still existed - if only for emergency and specialist use.  The Government therefore decided to designate some wharves as 'safeguarded'  - which should have ensured the future of the wharf as an industrial site.

By the time this article appears the fate of Lovells' Wharf will have been decided. Will it remain as an industrial site or will it have been taken over and become the site of a hotel.  What will happen to the two cranes which represent almost the last vestige of Greenwich's once thriving wharfage businesses.

 

This article has been prepared from archive material at Morden College and London Borough of Greenwich. Reference is made in the text to articles about Coles Child by J.L.Filmer and Michael Kearney, and to Eric Jorden's book on Lovells.  Help has also been received from numerous people - in particular Tim Smith and Mr Gale.