So, this week I’m back with the 1851 civic procession around the Greenwich boundary – a walk which I have been describing here, with the third episode a couple of weeks ago. It is about a formal group of parish dignitaries and schoolchildren walking round the Greenwich Parish boundary – these walks were a regular feature at the time and reported on in detail in the local press. In some places the boundary has changed since the 1850s and so in the last episode I left them in an area which is now in Lewisham, over on the west bank of the Ravensbourne river – actually in the middle of the railway lines coming out of Lewisham Station and going to London Bridge and Nunhead. Today the Greenwich Lewisham boundary does not cross the Ravensbourne and so this episode will begin at those railway lines and, hopefully, get to where the current boundary is between Greenwich and Lewisham.
On the 1860s Ordinance Survey map the
boundary is shown at the exact centre of where the railway lines coming out of
Lewisham Station diverge - with the line to Nunhead curving up on the temporary
military style bridge built in 1957. I
have been following the boundary from Greenwich via Deptford Bridge going
generally southwards but at this point it took an abrupt eastward turn. The line crosses the railway line coming out
of Lewisham Station and then appears to follow what on the map look like field
boundaries until it reaches the river. The report does not explain how the
procession crossed the railway, and I can’t imagine that they could possibly
have been walking about over the rails.
The newspaper report of the walk also doesn’t
say how they got back across the Ravensbourne river. Which is odd. On the 1860s OS map the
boundary appears to cross at a point where there was a weir - part of the
elaborate water management works for the Armoury Mill. Shown on the up- stream side
of the weir are three separate streams and down-stream was a large mill
pond. There appears to be no sign of this
today and the river now runs uninterrupted from Lewisham past the site of the old
millpond and weir. This was once an
elaborate complex of water management and, I am advised, must have been very
expensive to build.
Today the site of the weir where the
old Greenwich boundary crossed the river seems to have been at the riverside end
of Conington Road. The Docklands Light Railway now runs along the river bank
and the site between it and the road is fenced off as a small square site with
no buildings on it but it is apparently part of the modern ‘silk mills’ complex. When this site was rebuilt – or when the
railway was built – was there any investigation of this weir, pond and mill
working area? The Archaeology Data Service tells me there were ‘desk tops’ of
the Silk Mill itself and some other parts of the area but no apparent mention
of the river or the mill and its expensive water management structures.
As for the history of mill here – it is a most important site
which I covered in my book on Deptford Creek and three previous articles here. Much
of the material came from Sylvia McCartney and John West’s book “The Lewisham
Silk Mills.
Drastically summarised I said: “There had been a mill on the site
since ‘time immemorial’ and it is probably one of the eleven mills in the
Doomsday Book for Lewisham. In 1299 'Toddlesmill'
here was said to be a corn mill but by 1355 it was used for grinding metal. It
became ‘the Armoury Mill under Henry VIII doing the heavier and rougher work
for the Greenwich based Royal Armoury – making famous and unbelievably
expensive armour for courtiers. Under
Elizabeth the workshops and mill were kept at work and in good order and this
continued under James I. However, under the
Commonwealth in 1649 the Greenwich workshops were left to decay and it is thought
that much of its equipment was removed by those locals who thought they might
have a use for it.
In the 1750s it was taken over by a miller who produced bayonets,
and other items of military use and through a succession of owners this
continued and, later, guns were made here. In the early 19th century
it was suggested that it could become a purpose-built small arms factory to
make guns and armaments for the Government. The old mill was demolished and a
new factory was built – and this must have been when this expensive water
management system was installed. It
turned out however that there were problems with the volume of water in the
Ravensbourne. It was realised that the
site would not be able to cope with the amount of power needed for production
and eventually it was decided to use a site at Enfield Lock where the fall of
water was better.
In 1819 the Armoury Mill, with its equipment and workforce, moved
to Enfield and the Lewisham site was auctioned off. It included a house, a
warehouse, lodges, eight houses and many acres of land. The mill itself was a two story weather
boarded building with a slate roof.
There was a water wheel and all the necessary equipment to manage the
water which ran the mill. The area
surrounding the building was encircled by a ‘venerable brick wall - stout and
high’. Two iron cannon stood in front of the massive gate posts and they are
now in front of the Manor House at Lee.
After the mill was sold it was leased to a silk throwster – that
is someone who turns raw silk into usable thread. However soon the actual work done here was on ‘drawing’
gold and silver into wire and it became one of the main manufacturers of gold
and silver lace thread in the country. Only water power was used and was said
to be especially suitable for this work because of its regular action.
In 1881 the mill was described as a “structure which could be mistaken for paper mill – ‘it is in pleasant grounds with approaches of water some acres an extent in front of it, with a stream which drives the middle wheel’. It had probably been much like this when our civic procession passed through there in the 1850s - so why didn’t they mention it in the newspaper reports? One reason was maybe because it was a high security site with the precious metals used in making metallic threads.
The report says that having crossed
the Ravensbourne they came to ‘another stone, a boundary marker there since
1847’ and that the route then went ‘to a stone in the hedge of the mill
premises’. They ‘entered the said premises by passing through the hedge’ then ‘kept
to the right hand under the said hedge’ until ‘we reached the mill-stream where
there is a cross.’ This seems a lot more
complicated than what we can see if we follow the boundary line on the map. Did the procession really ‘pass through a
hole in the hedge’? Now that would have been quite something to see! It can’t have done the hedge much good! What sort of hedge was it? Who owned it, and did they mind?
They continue that they went ‘diagonally
through the mill and out by the gates’. Once
more this doesn’t really reflect what is on the 1860s map which shows the
boundary as a straight line from the weir at the river going into the road. The procession going diagonally through the
mill would again have been something to see!
They must have had special permission.
Next the procession ‘took the centre
of the road until we enter the Lewisham Road’. At this
point at last they were where the old boundary merged with the current borough
boundary and continues with it in a confusing way - as we will see. The route
continues into Morden Hill until it reaches the junction with Lewisham Road.
Reaching Lewisham Road the report says
‘where we have a stone sunk in the centre, between the two roads’. Well clearly that is there anymore and I
wonder what has happened to all these stone boundary markers over the
years! Have all of them ended up in
contractor’s skips – or are some still hidden unidentified in obscure corners?
The report continues ‘ then turning to
the left’ – that is turning into Lewisham Road going back towards Greenwich .
Then ‘we take the centre of the road to the entrance of what were formerly
Loat's Pits’. I am far from clear where exactly this entrance was. Contemporary
maps show a variety of turnings off Lewisham Road going into the pits but which
is the actual entrance? I have a vague feeling that I've seen a photograph of
an entrance with gates to the pits and if anyone can enlighten me I would be
grateful. I suspect it is the turning
which later became Lethbridge Road.
Loat’s Pits was the area to the west
of Lewisham Road which is currently under redevelopment as the Heathside Estate. It was previously known as Heathside and Lethbridge
with local authority flats built in what was clearly an old pit. Until recently you could walk down Sparta
Street but it is now blocked by a wall very near its junction with Lewisham
Road. In the past you could get into the estate and see the cliff wall of the
pit behind the flats. By the 1850s when the boundary procession passéd through the
area Loat’s Pits had been closed for some time and I suspect were mothballed
waiting for a buyer. Mary Loat had been bankrupted some 20 years earlier in the
1830s. I don't know the origins of the Loat family or their ownership of the
site but it had been operated by them as a source of chalk for making ‘whiting’. This was processed at a factory in Nine Elms,
Vauxhall. Mary had been married to
Thomas Fentiman who seems to have been a building supplies merchant in
Greenwich - among many other things. He
was also a partner of a Lancelot Loat and they were subcontractors for a number
of public buildings in London and elsewhere. Most importantly the Loats had
lime kilns on the Lewisham site - and the products were marketed through the
Vauxhall factory.
The next section of the boundary will hopefully
take us up onto Blackheath itself and I’m afraid it is likely to be a bit
confusing working out exactly how this procession of local dignitaries actually
got there.
Thanks to Burt Reynolds of Watermill Hoppers for
advice on the weir and mill pond
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