Morden Wharf -cement

 

And so – to the various cement works.  This can get a bit complicated as sites and companies change and move! The source of chalk and stone as raw materials for these works doesn’t seem to be known although chalk was quarried for ballast nearby – at Charlton and Maze Hill. For these small works a barge-load a day would have kept them going and could have come from anywhere; Ashby’s stone was said to come from Brightlingsea.

Winkfield, Reid and Bell made ‘Roman cement’ from 1852 on land leased from Charles Holcombe. This is not cement ‘like the Romans used’ but a process patented in 1796 using ground nodules found in clay and copied by others sometimes accurately and sometimes not.  Later, under Ashby, Portland Cement was made here, maybe as early as 1852’. Portland cement is the common type of cement which we all know and recognise. It was developed in England – Leeds - in the late 19th century by Joseph Aspdin and was made by heating limestone and clay minerals in a kiln to form clinker which is then ground. 

Winkfield, Reid and Bell later became the East Greenwich Portland Cement Company and around 1870 it was taken over by William Ashby and Son. This company were based in Staines and had been a river haulage company. Ashbys were a Quaker family with brewing and banking interests who dominated Staines in the 19^th century. George Crowley Ashby who later took over the works had obviously been based in Isleworth – he was also Treasurer of the Isleworth Regatta.  He was said to be very fat. The family also had a warehouse in Upper Thames Street, ‘City of London. Ashbys appear to have taken over a number of small cement works at this time and it is possible that they had another site at Greenwich Wharf – today’s Riverside Gardens. This was a John Ashby described as an ‘ice merchant’, a John Ashby was however leading member of the Staines family in this period, and they had any diverse industrial interests.  They built an ice well on the Lovell’s site which was sadly demolished with n recognition of its existence by the archaeologists.

The initial Ashby Portland cement plant here in Greenwich was a wet process, with a sixth of the site area used for slurry. There were 10 kilns - five of them small bottle kilns and later it was converted to the chamber kiln system. With a captive market through the firm’s builders’ merchants, this small plant was able to continue against price-cutting by the larger and more efficient competitors, but it eventually shut in 1926.  There was no storage space at all, no rail link – everything left the site by barge. The site continued in use by Ashby’s for transport work until the Great War but eventually it was taken over by Molassine and eventually became part of the Amylum sugar refinery. .

A larger cement works was south and adjacent to Ashbys.  It was owned by Jabez Hollick with a lease from Charles Holcombe included the Sea Witch Pub and its gardens and land on both sides of Sea Witch Lane. This included the river frontage which was known as Hollick’s Wharf. Portland cement was made here and the works had a loading dock on the river front since all cement produced was shipped by barge; a sail maker’s shop, a ‘bone’ store and a ‘snowcrete house’- perhaps a storehouse or a demonstration building.

 

Hollick had previously had a cement works at Borstal Court which he opened in 1852 – Borstal is a village in the hills above Chatham, near what is now the M2. He lived locally in Maze Hill and later in Coleraine Road.

 

At Greenwich Hollick converted the five bottle kilns to Portland cement production in 1866. In 1895 the slurry backs were extended and it seems that a further three kilns were added during that period and he plant was producing 70 tons a week.  In 1898 fire destroyed the mill building and work stopped. Clearly Hollick’s was in trouble and soon after went into liquidation. In 1900. Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers (APCM) –better known as Blue Circle  - was set up to take over severa companies on the Thames and Medway, including Hollicks. The existing buildings were pulled down and new ones built. part of thr wharf and foreshore ere let to the adjacent soap wrks and thus it remained in use for barges until the 1970s: The rest of the site became part of the soap works, and now lies under the Amylum sugar refinery.

 

These were relatively small cement works and there was nothing here on the scale of what was close by in Northfleet and Swanscombe.  They must haoever have added considerably to ted dust and general levels of pollution in Greenwich.  To them must be added another cement works at Greenwich Wharf – now Riverside Gardens – where Rowton and Whiteway had lime kilns and may also have had a small scale cement manufacturing business

 

These 19^th century industries produced dust and nuisance but in the 20^th century that was to be replaced by bad smells. Swanscmbe olltion