Garden Stairs

 

I think it’s about time that I continued looking at the various sets of waterman's stairs along the Greenwich riverside. The last article I did on them was about the apparently non-existent stairs at Greenwich’s Billingsgate dock. So this leads us to the next ones which are virtually next door to Billingsgate and they are ‘Garden Stairs’.  They’re right near the foot tunnel and like all the others the lead down to the foreshore where in the past licenced watermen could pick up and leave passengers.

In the last few weeks I’ve written a bit about the boundary walk around Greenwich and I think it’s notable that these processions of local worthies started at Garden Stairs as a key point in the centre of the Riverside stretch of the Greenwich Parish boundary.

When these stairs were first created is not known but a document of 1449 refers to them. It is said that they were originally called ‘Skarne’ or ‘Skerne ‘ Stairs after an Elizabethan family who owned land here. An Edward Skerne was ‘of East Greenwich’ in 1517 and may have had connections to the Hatcliffe family, whose charity is still an important Greenwich property owner. At the dissolution of the monasteries an Edward Skerne was listed as a ‘vicar’ at Charterhouse – where Henry VIII’s government was monstrously murderous to leading  theologians. The family seem to have been landholders in north Lincolnshire – but there were others with that name including a 15th century politician. Back on the Greenwich riverside it had been claimed that ‘Garden’ is a corruption of this – although I must say I can’t turn ‘Skerne’; into anything like ‘Garden’.

These stairs were used by the industry which everybody has forgotten - this bit of the Greenwich riverside was the centre for the fishing industry which dominated Greenwich until the end of the 19^th century. The stairs at one time led up into Fishers Lane. In the ad columns of newspapers of the 18th and 19^th centuries we find many fishing vessels for sale. One example from 1801 ‘to be SOLD and now lying at Greenwich, Garden Stairs, the JOHN and JANE FISHING-SMACK, of 15 tons, and British built; she is a very fast sail .....’

So Garden Stairs are ancient and more than any of the other sets of riverside stairs embody the romantic picture of maritime Greenwich which the tourists come to see. For centuries visitors came to Greenwich by boat – as many still do. In the past they mainly seem to have gone to the nearest pub – and that wasn’t far away at all.  There were two pubs at the top of Garden Stairs and many, many others nearby.

I am grateful to the author of the ‘Dover Kent’ Series of descriptions of pubs (http://www.dover-kent.com/) for great deal of information about the pubs at Garden Stairs. He has analysed the mysterious early 18^th century drawings of Greenwich which were published as ‘Greenwich Revealed’ by Julian Watson and Neil Rhind.  He has reproduced the section of the drawings which shows the riverfront and the two public houses - the buildings which were in Brewhouse Lane.

There are various prints by Thomas Rowlandson from the early 19^th century showing people apparently arriving in Greenwich by boat. In one of Rowlandson’s drawings the people climbing the stairs, the spectators and others are behaving in a respectable and decent manner. The other print shows them in a range of rather different activities – but, please note, that all these passengers seem to be heading for the pub. 

The Salutation Tavern – whose sign is shown in various drawings, stood at the top of Garden Stairs, in Fisher's Lane. Although the address was 1 Garden Stairs. The sign is faintly visible on the sketches of buiding and very clear in the Rowlandson drawings. It was eventually demolished when Greenwich Pier was built – but seems to have been rebuilt itself at around the same time. They advertise  ‘an ordinary’ " which was a public dinner, which one could attend on payment.

On the other  side of the stairs was the Peter Boat Tavern.  A ‘peter boat’ was a fishing vessel. Like the "Salutation" the "Peter Boat" can be traced back to the 17th-century.

Before Greenwich Pier was built these stairs were used by ferry services. The history of Greenwich ferries is one of prolonged aggravation of various sorts and, I will save all that for another article. Cross river ferry services operated from various places along the Riverside – we have already noted them at various sites in the part of Greenwich west of the Creek and in central Greenwich the cross river ferry had moved to the end of the Horseferry Road in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  Garden Stairs appears to have taken mainly services coming down river from London – then as now, only today they use Greenwich Pier.

In 1818 - PASSAGE BOAT to and from LONDON and GREENWICH, 6d. each . ..... these boats, affording superior accommodation and shelter, start, hourly, from Tower Stairs to Greenwich, and from Garden Stairs, Greenwich, to Tower Stairs, every day’

Fast forward to 1927  ‘JOHN WOOD and CO., wishes to inform their Friends and the Public in General, that their BOATS continue going every hour to and from, Garden Stairs, Greenwich, to the Tower Stairs, London .... by their punctuality and good conduct, they will have a continuance of the same’

I am riveted to find a newspaper report of 1894 about a proposed ‘Free Ferry’ between Greenwich and Millwall. Both the Great Eastern Railway Company and the Greenwich Pier Company, were involved and ‘the committee recommended the site at the east end Greenwich Pier, and failing that the one on the west Garden-stairs...... the Vestry should appoint a deputation to wait upon the London County Council’. The Woolwich Free Ferry had opened in 1889- but in the end Greenwich got its foot tunnel’.

There were also public and sporting events centered on Garden Stairs:

In 1829 THE SALUTATION SAILING CLUB ..... on Wednesday next ... skiffs and square-sterned wherries, for a Silver Cup and other prizes   ...  to start from off Garden-stairs ....there will be five boats ....the prizes are four Cups, and various money

And in 1830 GREENWICH CORONATION REGATTA   .....The entire front of the town of Greenwich, river, and its banks, were crowded with spectators ..... the double attraction of the Peterboat sailing-match, and the annual contest among the young Greenwich watermen ....   for a new Wherry. .... rowed for in live heats ...... blue, pink, green, and orange, accordingly took their respective stations ... at the conclusion of an arduous struggle ...... the two first men took their stations below Garden-stairs, and were started down with the tide  ...... Green .......... maintained the lead throughout and on arriving at the prize wherry, which was stationed at the Hospital, he leaped into her amid enthusiastic cheering

Garden Stairs, were rebuilt in the mid 19th century as a much larger flight in stone on the built-up river wall at the west end of Greenwich Pier, where they still exist today.