Greenwich boundary walk. part1 From Garden Stairs to Greenwich Railway Bridge

 

In the past I have seen published versions of 19^th century Greenwich boundary walks. These are a record of a  pompous civic procession walking around the entire St.Alfege parish boundary in one day. Often there are very amusing details as they encounter various incidents and accidents.

I had intended to write about Garden Stairs this week and was busy researching them. I had come across many several, most of which seemed to consist of Thames Waterman and steam ferry operators scoring points off each other - and then, suddenly  I came across a boundary walk which I had never seen before. It had lots of industrial sites in it so I thought I would do that instead of Garden Stairs.  It’s quite long and I think it will  take several weeks to do

So it’s 9:00 o’clock in the morning on the 29^th of May 1851. It’s a Thursday and we are standing outside St Alfege’s parish church. 

The group consists of the church wardens -  they are the equivalent in the 1850s of the local councillors - and all the parish officers.  There is also the Reverend North, who was the minister of Trinity Church - that’s the church that used to be on Blackheath Hill. I don’t know why the Greenwich Vicar wasn’t there.

Soon after 9:00 o’clock they set off to walk down Church Street to Garden Stairs . They went down Brewhouse Lane, the Gallery, to Wood Wharf. In today’s terms that means they walked down Church Street through Cutty Sark Gardens to the River at Garden Stairs,  which are just by Greenwich Pier. Then they turned left to go upriver and walked up what is still called Thames Street to Wood Wharf. Today this just another block of flats but it has got a big sign on it saying ‘Wood Wharf’. . At the same time we have to remember that the parish boundary is actually out in the middle of the River. So in order to get it right they were accompanied by a waterman in his boat on the River paralleling them as they walk on.

They encircle ‘a portion of Mr Joyce’s premises’.  I don’t know if people remember have read my various writings about William Joyce and his engine works which was in Norway Street and his shipbuilding yard which was on Norway Wharf.  I did an article here about him a couple of years ago and also a very detailed article about his whole career for the Greenwich Historical Society’s Journal.

The report constantly says that they are going ‘through the wharf’  which I think means they were following the Greenwich boundary along the riverside. So basically they must have been walking along what is now the riverside walk -  now called Dreadnought Walk.  Of course in those days it would have been a working area and no doubt they had to dodge all sorts of activities –and also to have permission to be there.

Next they through ‘Mr Tuckwell’s premises now called Norway Wharf’.  Norway Wharf was at the end of Norway Street and is now roughly where the Sail Loft pub is.  Mr Tuckwell had a general wharfage business there from the 1840s and from reports was they were dealing with what appears to be some extremely heavy objects-  ‘a boiler of seven tons’... ‘an immense block of granite’.  However in the mid-1850s he began building iron ships and in 1856 launched a  steam ship for work on French rivers.

The next wharf going up river from Norway Wharf was later called Dreadnought Wharf but not as early as the 1850s.  The report says  they went through premises ”formerly Messrs. Martyrs- now occupied by the Patent Fuel Company”. Thomas Martyr was well known locally and operated a timber business but I don’t know if that is what he used the wharf for.  The Patent Fuel Company worked on several sites in the area – but they cannot have been on this site for very long. They had a process for making what we would call ‘briquettes’  blocks of fuel made from of unwanted small pieces of coal – and I suspect all sorts of other rubbish, which they didn’t admit to. 

They then ‘ Proceeded to the river wall at the rear of the  gas works’. The Phoenix Gas Works was on the large site on the south bank of Deptford Creek at the point where it joins the Thames. They supplied gas to a wide area locally and was, by the standards of 1851, a substantial works. It’s not mentioned in the itinerary except here and I take it therefore that they did not go through the gasworks but round the back of it. Perhaps they did not get permission to go through and their silence on the subject may be significant. However they went “next into  Mr Burford’s premises called Phoenix Wharf’.   I’m a bit confused by this because the gas works was owned by ‘the Phoenix Gas Co’ and the gasworks was on ‘Phoenix Wharf’.  I also have no idea who Mr Burford was.

Arriving at the gasworks marks the point at which the procession turned south and began to go up the Greenwich bank of Deptford Creek. The next site mentioned is Mr Walton’s . He was a coal merchant with a site on Creek Bridge Wharf.

Then procession gathered on the centre of Creek Bridge and gave ‘three cheers for the Queen and the Parish of Greenwich’.  So far so good.

They continue up the Greenwich bank of Deptford Creek. This to us is Norman Road but in then1850s the Creekside road north of the raileway was called “Ravensbourne Street”.  First they came to the wharf which we know as ‘Brewery Wharf’ or ‘Priors wharf’ . It is the one wharf still a workplace on the Creek and is currently used by Euromix Concrete . The procession got there ‘passing through the Mason’s yard now Mrs Jarmons’. Mrs Jarman was running a business as a general contractor following her husband’s death.

Next they went ”to the premises known as the Copperas Wharf”. The Greenwich Copperas works,  owned by the the Pearson family,  had closed by the 1830s and in the 1850s the site was  seen as a dangerous and unpleasant place. Within the next few years housing would be built here and coal wharves operate on the Creekside.  The Rennie boiler works was already at work on part of the site.

The procession continued “Thence onward through Mr Hargrave’s garden”. This was Joshua Hargrave  and the site is shown on the 1840s  tithe map as a collection of small holdings  described as ‘market gardens-  a meadow-  and sheds.  Joshua Hargrave was the freeholder and a  local dignitary. The area which is now all housing but once had two gas holders on it.

They arrived at the railway bridge having crossed ’the Railway Wharf’ which once lay alongside it.  This is the London ano Greenwich Railway and a very important railway that everybody in Greenwich should be proud of. It is one of the earliest railways in the world - or what we think of as a railway  - that is a powered locomotive running a set route on rails. It first opened  from London Bridge to Deptford in 1836. Getting the railway across the Creek was a problem.  A fixed bridge needed consent from all Creek users -and there was no chance of that happening.  In fact injunctions were already flying about to stop them building anything at all. 

It was eventually decided to build a drawbridge – the first on any railway in England - and then they had to sort out the machinery. It was finished towards the end of 1838 and is said to have made a loud clanking noise which could be heard at both Deptford and Greenwich Stations. It had two arches one of which included a drawbridge which could be opened in the middle by a complicated arrangement of pulleys and counterweights which took eight men to move taking nearly an hour. It had to observe the principle of ‘sail before steam’. This requirement to lift the bridge for any boat on the Creek  was in the Railway Company’s Act of Parliament and it was a criminal offence not to raise it

When the procession got to the railway bridge they were looking for boundary marks which had been recently renewed.  Clearly the bridge they were looking at is not the one there now. The present bridge with its towering, but now unused, lifting structure dates only for the 1960s. I assume the boundary  marks were on the abutments rather than the bridge itself.  Or maybe on some of the structure out in the middle of the Creek. What remains of the original bridge has been very much studied and assessed for possible listing but I doubt that part of that  process includes an investigation into any possible boundary marks.

Arriving at the railway bridge the procession had done a tiny section of its route round fhe Greenwich boundary – but i hope an interesting section.  It had a very long way still to go.