Morden Wharf - Holcombe

 Continuing along the riverside path, walking down river from Ballast Quay and Riverside Gardens, past Enderbys Wharf, we are at Morden Wharf.  Locals might remember that this is where three huge concrete silos stood until around 2010.  This is a complex site where there have been many many different firms – I know someone who has identified over 20.  Some of them, like Amylum and Molassine were well known – others more obscure.  The constant changes have also meant that boundaries have often altered changed complicates things a bit.  The freeholder here is Morden College who, as with their other plots, leased it to a developer who in turn leased plots out to various businesses. 

 

In 1841 Morden College granted a lease on a riverside site they knew as 'Further Pitts' to Charles Holcombe. He had already taken over some land which Morden College had previously leased to Bryan and Howden – and more about them later. Holcombe acted as the developer, as Coles Child had doe, on what is now Riverside Gardens. This was done by leasing parts of the site to a network of other companies. 

 

Holcombe must have been at least middle aged by the time he invested in the Greenwich sites – it is likely that he had previously been the tenant of Hatcham Manor Farm at New Cross. Hatcham is what we now call New Cross and was owned by the Haberdashers Company. Hatcham Manor Farm was on the site of the fire station in Queens Road.  There are various complaints about Holombe’s land here ‘very foul with thistles, and ditches full of rushes’. There was also mention of catgut factory ‘in the summer house.... offensive and disgusting’.  He seems to have had a sub tenant – but who was some distance away on what is now the site of the MacDonald’s burger bar at the junction of Trundley’s Road and Lower Road. The tenant was Richard Torr with an animal charcoal factory. It is likely that Holombe the head leaseholder here and actually lived somewhere rather grander - he also gave an address in Porchester Terrace.

 

It seems very likely that he was one of the Holcombe family who owned the Blackhorse Brewery. This was brewery of considerable size dating back to at least the sixteenth century standing at Maze Pond on the north side of Snows fields in the Borough roughly on the site of what is now Guy’s cancer centre.   Charles Holcombe eventually inherited it and it was sold and in 1838 and eventually demolished 1838 is the same year in which Charles bought Valentines.

 

When Holcombe came to Greenwich he was clearly a rich man. Valentines Park, in Ilford,   is a very grand house in a large and magnificent park now owned by the local authority and open to the public. I would recommend people to go and visit as soon as they can. A road alongside Valentine's House is named - 'Holcombe Road'.  Strangely, the adjacent road is 'Bethell Avenue' - and this is unlikely to be a coincidence. Bethell also had a works in Greenwich, although not on Morden Wharf, but in which some Holcombe family member were involved. That these two Greenwich developers of coal tar products are remembered in Ilford road names must have some significance.

 

Initially Holcombe’s role at Greenwich seems to have been as a backer and partner of one of the earliest firms to move onto the Peninsula. John Bryan and Gidley Howden took up a site at Morden Wharf from Morden College. They had a works on Bankside and wanted to expand. At Bankside they made coal gas manufacturing apparatus - one of many companies in the iron trade who were then taking advantage of the rapidly expanding gas industry. A third partner in the business, who probably provided the finance, was Charles Holcombe,

 

John Bryan had been responsible for the building and setting up of a number of gas works throughout southern England – with varying degrees of financial success and subsequent recriminations from local people.  In this he was typical of several operators in this trade.  Of about 23 gas companies in the old SEGAS area John Bryan is known to have been responsible for about ten of them. Further afield he was responsible for gas works at Farnham and at Winchester. In particular he was associated with early gas works in coastal towns like Hastings and Worthing. They built a factory for distilling tar, comprising - a cooperage, a boiler house and rectifying plant, and a tar still.

 

In 1839, Morden College found that they were could not insure the site because of the ‘extremely hazardous business’ being carried out there. In addition complaints were being made to Trustees. It was aid ‘oily matter was running about’. In 1840 Holcombe wrote to the College on to say that he no longer had any connection with them and in 1841 the College gave them notice to quit and offered the site to other potential tenants. An offer came from Arthur Hills of Battersea – the brother of Frank Hills who we will meet later. He had a naphtha distillery in Battersea. The other from Charles Holcombe.

 

Holcombe was to lease a large plot of land from Morden College - most of the lower part of Great and Little Pits. Morden College said that he must spend at least £300 an acre on improvements. The 1843 tithe map is marked ‘Chas and Thomas Holcombe  house, tar factory, sheds and yard’ and elsewhere 'brass foundry, tar and Asfelt works' and ‘refiner of coal tar, spirit, pitch and varnish'.. The Commissioner of Woods and Forests gave consent for an embankment to his wharf plus (unidentified) ‘restrictions of a very unusual and prejudicial character’.

 

Holcombe then developed Morden Wharf including houses built to specifications from Morden College, pubs and a chapel. He complained about the riverside path and then laid asphalt on it and he built a draw dock.

 

Around 1848, he had a public house built close to the riverside. This was originally named the ‘Morden Castle’ but then renamed the ‘Sea Witch’ and accessed by Sea Witch Lane. At the back were a ‘pot house’ and a ‘wash house’.  By 1850 was owned by its landlord, William Drew who was also probably its builder. The pub is thought to have taken its name from the famous American opium clipper called ‘Sea Witch’, which was launched in 1846 and held several port-to-port sailing records. The ship had been built in New York in 1846 and in 1849; she made a record-setting run from Hong Kong to New York in 74 days under Captain Robert "Bully Bob" Waterman.  Clippers are described as “ships which travelled at blistering speeds, conditions on board were brutal, and opium was their most profitable cargo’.  Cutty Sark was not built until 20 years after Sea Witch but her name is said to be inspired by the older ship. Another, Sea Witch a barque, was built just across the river from Morden Wharf, at Blackwall Yard in 1848.  She s also very fast and took part in the First Tea Race from China to England in 1850a and as the fist ship to load tea was.

 

The under lease for the pub was held by Winkfield and Bell, owners of the adjacent cement works, until 1866 when it passed to Jabez Hollick. The management of the pub was by members of the Goss family from 1880 probably as a tied house for Gurney Hanbury of Camberwell.  Even in the 1890s the pub was dilapidated.  A visitor described the walk from Morden Wharf Road “through clouds of dust which obscure the view ahead and the most unpleasant fumes .... Passing under a network of pipes”. The pub had then an “erstwhile garden in front, booth and benches down to the river” but the garden has been disused for some time and the whole place is covered with dirt and cement dust. An ‘ancient lights’ sign on the front remained to guarantee the river view.

 

In 1900, the lease was transferred to Whitbread. In 1935, the Holcombe family lease was due to expire but was renewed by Whitbread although it was in a very dilapidated and rundown state. It was badly damaged by a V-1 on 12 July 1944. This landed on the riverside path near the pub. There were two fatalities 18 year old Ernest Tinton of Grenada Road, and Walter Saveall, 39 from Azof Street. Saveall may have been a member of the Home Guard but it is not clear if he was on duty or not.  Nine other casualties were taken to St Alfege's Hospital. The 'Sea Witch' pub itself , was lost forever.  The pub was not rebuilt and in 1953, the site was leased to Woodward Fisher, barge builders.

 

Hopefully a new riverside pub nearby will be named ‘Sea Witch’.  Holcombe built another pub nearby but nearer to Blackwall Lane, but we know very little about it. This was he ‘The Mechanic’s Arms’ was built in 1869, on the north side of Morden Wharf Road. The first licensee in 1870 was a William Drew and throughout its existence the licence was held by the Drew family. The pub was demolished in the late 1890s as part of the LCC’s Tunnel Avenue construction programme.

 

The largest, and most unreported, industry at Morden Wharf was probably cement.  This was supplemented by the soap works and eventually overtaken by Molassine and Tunnel Glucose with their associated smells