Nichols Lime Villa

 

I guess I am not the only person who will remember a strange Gothic looking building which stood among the terraced houses in Woolwich Road, in Charlton along past the anti-Gallican pub.  I used to see it and had no idea what it was but I know now that it was called Lime Villa and that it was a small factory.

 

While I’m writing about Lime Villa I also want to pay tribute to three local historians who wrote about this works. First of all is the write up of it in John Smith’s History of Charlton Volume 3 – which is a constant source for these articles.  Vol 3 was published in 1984 but John’s research was done in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the first Chair of the Charlton Society and very,  very knowledgeable about every hole and corner of the area.

 

John had left Greenwich, and then died, before we first set up Greenwich Industrial History Society in the 1990s. To start with we used to produce a proper paper newsletter which went to all our members. In the end this got too much work to send out and I started putting stuff on the Face book page instead, which I’ve done ever since

 

One of the earliest contributors to the newsletter and one of the first members of the GHIS committee was the late Barbara Ludlow. I am sure lots of people reading this will remember Barbara, who was the senior assistant at the Woodlands Local History Library in Mycenae Road. Barbara had lived in Greenwich all her life and was one of the well known local Wellard family. Everybody knew Barbara and that she was an amazingly good historian who wrote a number of books about Greenwich. One of the earliest articles she wrote for GIHS was about Lime Villa,

 

Her article was picked up by Paul Sowan.  Paul wasn’t a Greenwich person, in fact he was based in Croydon where he was well known as the local historian and a geologist.  He was one of the founders of Subterranea Britannica, which now a national organisation is looking at all things underground. Personally he was a specialist in the stone, lime and chalk industries and mines of the North Downs.  Paul was more than a bit - --well - eccentric and I must not get hung up on lots of stories about him (for example sitting next to him at a very boring and pretentious dinner event. All the company was in evening dress. Paul in an immaculate formal white shirt, jeans, and around his neck a whistle and a compass on a hit of string).  I very much enjoyed his company and was sad to know he died recently.  Paul picked up what Barbara had written about Lime Villa and extended it to a much bigger story which was about chalk extraction in the area south of Croydon and on the  boundaries of the North Downs

 

Barbara had explained in her article that Line Villa was built by a Thomas Nichols who had come from Dartmouth and settled in Charlton in the late 1840s, establishing himself as a carpenter and lime merchant in Hardens Manorway. His business prospered and in 1866 he moved to the site in the Woolwich Road to work as a lime burner.

 

In the past I’ve written about lime burning in Greenwich in connection with the area known as The Lime Kilns on Blackheath hill and Greenwich South Street, which was called Lime Kiln Lane. There will be  a whole chapter of this in my new book on Deptford Creek.  There were also kilns in other areas and many of them were in the chalk extraction sites to the south of the Woolwich Road.  Some of this area was owned by Louis Glenton – who I will come to in a later article in connection with what are now Charlton Football ground and the Glenton Railway.

 

Thomas built Lime Villa on a site of the Glenton's works and brought up his family there, and at the rear of the house built two Staffordshire style bottle kilns. It is thought he replaced earlier kilns along with new ovens.  He began to specialise in producing items for the local gas industry. The 1871 census shows that Nichols employed 13 men in Charlton and they all lived nearby. However there was not enough chalk and limestone for a local supply and Thomas began to bring in chalk from the Riddlesdown Quarry near Whyteleafe in Surrey

 

And this is where Paul came in and wrote an article himself for our newsletter about the various pits in Charlton and picking up on the Thomas family’s use of chalk from the Riddlesdown area.   Paul said that the large chalk pit which Nichols used was the huge and very dramatic Rose and Crown pit at Kenley. This is the pit which has the railway line from South Croydon to Oxted passing through the centre on a bridge. But despite this there is no interchange with the railway for goods transfer. Paul also said that Nichols used nearby Whyteleafe chalk pits and kilns in the Godstone Road – they are now not recognisable since the site has now been used for housing. He also pointed out that these Whyteleafe works had a siding at Upper Warlingham station which would have made it easy for chalk to be sent from there to Charlton.  

 

Paul said that as a result of the Quarries Act 1894 all open pits for mineral working over 20 feet deep were subject to inspection and regulation. Data for the two pits which Nichols used is published from 1837. This shows that he had a local manager A.E. Mead, and employed inside and outside men with 19 men for the smaller pit and 13 for the larger one. There are no accidents or prosecutions.

 

Thomas Nichols’ son Fred was employed in the Rose and Crown pit for 12 years and then in 1887 took over management of the business from his father. The business expanded as Fred took on about a dozen men from Austria and Surrey with expertise in ceramics. Production began on many new items. Fred retired around 1914 and his son Eric took over.  The family is shown as being in possession of the Surrey pits as lime burners up until 1924. 

 

In 1920 Eric Nichols went into partnership with the Crown Gas Stove and Fuel Co. which specialised in makig ‘Asbestos fuels’. If  you think about it gas fires they had these little white elements inside them which the gas heated up and they became radiant.  They were called ‘fuels’ and they were made by the pottery industry from clay containing asbestos fibres.  These were made at Lime Villa along with a wide range of ceramics which young women were employed to decorate. In the 1950s Crown seem to have left the business and it was known as the Greenwich Pottery. For the Festival of Britain the firm made little statues of decorated pottery but they were for export only despite being advertised in the 1951 Greenwich Festival Guide. By the late 1950s this had all closed down leaving a kiln on site.

 

The site was bought by the Greater London Council in 1965. Everything was eventually demolished and the Barney Close flats built there. Barney Close was the last estate built by the GLC and I remember well it being built when I worked adjacent to it in Floyd Road in the late 1970s;

 

 Barbara says that an industrial archaeologist surveyed the sites before it was pulled down and I think it must be the man in the photograph which I reproduced in my book Greenwich and Woolwich at work. I don’t know who this industrial archaeologist was and no one that I know who has researched the early days of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society seems to recognise him. Has anyone any ideas?

 

I am sorry that the kiln was demolished by the GLC because it would’ve made an interesting feature in the area and something which he would come to look at in the future I can’t imagine that today there will be a petition and a bit of a fuss to keep it but it wasn’t like that in the 1960s

 

I do remember Lime Villa and how strange it was sitting in the terrace of houses and I had no idea it was a factory I thought it was just an eccentric house built by a wealthy resident.