Walk Ballast Quay to Enderby Wharf

 

START AT THE OPEN SPACE OF ANCHOR IRON WHARF.

Until the early 2000s this was the site of Robinson’s Scrap Yard which had been here since 1905.  There is a plaque here telling you about the firm.  A block of flats now stands on much of the site— and the landscaping on the wharf was done at the same time as they were built.

The river stairs here are Golden Anchor Stairs—the Golden Anchor was a pub which stood here until the early 19^th century

WALK ON TO BALLAST QUAY

Ballast Quay. This name dates back at least 400 years. Ballast—chalk and gravel from local pits—was taken on here by collier (coal) ships returning to Newcastle and Durham.  The houses were originally called Union Place. They date  from between 1804 and 1829 and were built and owned by Morden College.

Morden College. This Blackheath based almshouse is a major landowner in this area—and our walk soon pass over much of their land. On one of the Ballast Quay houses is their badge.  Their  ownership of the area goes back to the 1680s and these houses were designed by their surveyor.

The Cutty Sark Tavern.  The pub dates from the early 19th century when it was built as The Union Tavern—it has been enlarged considerably since and was renamed when the Cutty Sark ship came to Greenwich in 1952.

Behind the houses is a large estate built for local workers in the 1840s by Morden College.  The street names are mainly mining areas in the Durham coalfield.  For example, the next road is Pelton Road and the Pelton Arms is a short distance away. Pelton Main and Pelton West Colliery were near Chester le Street – there are several other examples.

The Harbour Masters House. This stands on the corner with Pelton Road and was built in 1855.  The Harbour Master was there to control access to riverside wharves by the vast numbers of coal ships arriving from the north eastern coalfields.

The garden on the riverside opposite was once a wharf owned by the City of London River Conservators. It is now leased by two local ladies who have turned it into a private garden—but one which they everyone will see and enjoy. The sculpture of the goat is by Kevin Herlihy

Pier. Opposite the Harbour Master’s House on the riverside is a line of spiky railings. These once led to a short lived steam boat pier—all sign of it has gone. The buildings now used as garden sheds are thought to have been the pier offices.

 

CONTINUE TO WALK ON  KEEPING THE RIVER ON THE LEFT,  ACROSS THE NEW ESTATE.

Before the flats were built here this was Lovells Wharf, used by Shaw Lovell and Co. For metal transhipment. Two massive cranes—Scotch Derricks—stood here and it was hoped to leave them as a monument. They were removed by Morden College in 2000.

The Wharf was built in the 1840s for coal deliveries and was originally called Greenwich Wharf—and this name has now been revived. The original developer who leased the area from Morden College was called Coles Child, and he also built much of the housing estate behind Ballast Quay.

 

Inland here was Providence Wharf where Hughes barge builders had their Yard and where Orinoco was built – and she is still in sail and still sometimes can be seen on the river. Hughes eventually became Tilbury Contractng, specialising in dredging and haulage work on the river

 

WALK PAST THE PLAYGROUND AND LOOK AT THE WALL ON THE RIGHT

The next wharf along was Granite Wharf and this was owned by a series of road builders and stone merchants. On the edge of the site was a wall built of random stone—described as ‘the history of the stone trade in the English channel’.  The developers of the flats have rebuilt the wall—and this rebuilt section stands here—but it has been neatened up.

In the yard behind the Great Globe which stands on a hill side in Swanage, was made by Mowlem's workmen here.

During work on the flats here archaeologists made the discovery of a 12th century tide mill—a water mill worked by the power of the tide.  This was probably owned by St.Peter’s Abbey, Ghent, and very much illustrates how this end of Greenwich was home to industry.

The next section is currently subject to building works.

 

CONTINUE TO WALK ALONG THE PATH AND ROUND THE SMALL BAY TO CONTINUE.

The inlet is called 'Dead Dog Bay' - for unknown reasons

The next wharf was a boat repair yard until late 2014 when it moved a short way downriver—we will get to it soon.   More flats are planned to go on this site.

Thames sailing barges can still be seen on the river—although they all now are in leisure use. These highly versatile vessels were once the main work horses of the river—undertaking the sort of heavy haulage that roads do today on our roads.

 

Barge builders—in this area was Pipers Wharf. This was a famous barge building yard where many prize winning racing barges were built including 'The famous Giralda', Surge, James Piper, Leonard Piper, Haughty Belle, and many more.  Pipers were still at work here in the 1970s. Another barge builder here was Hughes—whose Greenwich built barge, Orinoco, can sometimes still be seen on the river.

On the foreshore here at low tide there are various wooden structures—these are barge slops and stands, and there are also old masts and wood from barges lying around.

 

WALK ON ALONG THE RIVER UNTIL YOU COME TO A LARGE JETTY WITH EQUIPMENT ON IT. STOP HERE FOR A WHILE

 

This is the Enderby site—and although blocks of flats have been built all over it there are still a few things to see.

In the 17th century this was the Government’s gunpowder magazine where all explosives for the army and navy were tested and distributed by river.  This closed in the 1770s and in the early 19th a rope making works—a rope walk—was built here.  Until the new flats were built here in 2015 you could still see a long thin passage way through the factory site which went right through to Blackwall Lane and marked the long ‘walk’ on which the rope was made.

Later the rope works was taken over by the Enderby family who built a large factory here to make canvas and similar items.  They has a fleet of ships which went into the southern oceans to catch and kill whales. They encouraged their captains to discover and record the new lands they saw, and were partly responsible for setting up the Royal Geographical Society. Some parts of Antarctica and named for the Enderbys.

They built Enderby House—when this text was written it is derelict—and it lies behind hoardings slightly beyond the big jetty.  The house was later used as offices by the cable companies who took over the site but became derelict after it was sold to developers in the late 2000s. 

Beale—Enderby let part of the site to an engineer called Joshua Beale who developed among other things an important piece of equipment called an exhauster, and whose son went on to develop an early bicycle and a means of projecting moving pictures

The birth of international telecomunications. In 1857 the site was taken over by the cable making company Glass Elliott to add to the works they already had down river at Morden Wharf. The vast majority of international telegraph cables laid below the seas were made on site here. In particular the  first successful Atlantic Cable was made here and taken to Newfoundland on Brunel’s Great Eastern. There have been a succession of cable making companies here and, behind the flats, is the Alcatel factory where components for subsea cables are still made.

This site is of international importance in the history of communication— since it has been in the forefront of subsea cable manufacture for over 160 years.  Today the cables which carry the internet around the world are very different—but it is developments here which have led to it.  

In 2009 Woolwich-education Charles Kao, who worked here, received the Nobel Prize for optical fibre technology.

 

SO –LOOK AT THE AREA

The big jetty has on some machinery and other items which would have been used to load the cable onto the ships which were moored out in the river.  A repeater which pushes signals through the subsea cables, is also exhibited here.

On the inland side of the path here is where the line of the rope walk lay.

Next to the jetty are some steps. These led to a small ferry which could take people out to the cable ships. On the steps is an artwork which shows the history of cable making here. Under the steps a sluice emerged into the river—this was a medieval drain called Bendish Sluice and it remained here until the current development of flats.

Beyond that is another smaller jetty which has been planted with grass

It is planned to put a cruise liner terminal here—and, in 2016, the future of these items is unclear. Hopefully they will remain when this is read.

 

WALK ON, KEEPING THE RIVER TO THE LEFT

The next jetty  - which is E shaped was part of the old  rubbish tipping plant of the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich. Here dustcarts would tip rubbish into barges go be taken off down river.