Death by gunpowder at Dyer and Robson's East Greenwich Firework Factory

 I used to have a friend who lived in the strangely named Majendie Road in Plumstead and I had always assumed it was called after some long forgotten Victorian battlefield.   But, no, it was named for Col. Vivian Majendie, Chief Inspector of Explosives.

 In 1874 a barge loaded with explosives had blown up on the Regent’s Canal near the Zoo. As a result of this accident an Explosives Inspectorate was set up with Majendie in charge.   He had previously been Assistant Superintendent of the Royal Laboratory in Woolwich and he brought all the expertise of that Institution with him to his new job.  He used Woolwich personnel and Woolwich equipment to carry out experiments into the causes of the explosions which he investigated and listed it in meticulous detail in his Annual Reports.

 Majendie lived at 23 Victoria Road in Charlton.  This is now, obviously, Victoria Way but it could not have been the house which is now 23 – that had not been built when Majendie lived there. So I think the numbering was different and he lived in one of the big houses further up but I need someone to enlighten me about the way the numbering went in the 1870s and which number was likely to be 23. Some other rather important people lived in Victorian Way then – one was Sir John Anderson, inventor and manager at the Arsenal. There is no blue plaque to him anymore than there  is one to Majendie. I one promised a man that I would try and get that done – yet another promise which I’ve broken.

 In Greenwich in the 19^th century there were several factories making various items using gunpowder and of course there were accidents, some quite shocking and usually involving the death of young wome . I can’t write about all of them here today so I’m going to pick on just one and I might do some of the others later on. But the point I wanted to make is that all of them will have been within earshot of Majendie’s home in Victoria Way.

 The accident I’m going to look at today happened at Robson’s Ammunition Works, This fronted onto the Woolwich Road – roughly opposite the entrance to Annandale Road and the site of their office was about where the chip shop is today –In the 1880s a path stretched back from the Woolwich Road to a large area of land intersected by ditches and dykes – where Tunnel Avenue and the Blackwall Tunnel Approach now run.  In this area were a number of huts in which work on the explosives was undertaken.  Thomas Robson had founded the works in 1845.   He held patents for ‘firing signals and other lights’ and the factory seems have turned out a variety of signalling devices for ships and railways many of, which were closely akin to fireworks.  They also made ‘proper’ fireworks for displays and a range of other small scale explosive devices

 Thomas Robson seems to have left the works sometime before 1880, although it still carried his name. Most probably he had retired and the business’s name was changed to ‘Dyer and Robson’.  James Dyer lived with his wife and baby daughter in Wick Cottage, which was in Woolwich Road adjacent to the works.  He was thirty years old in 1882 and was, in effect, the manager. Although the works covered a large area it employed relatively few people – eleven men, four women, and four boys.  It was the women who were to be injured and die.

 I have written about this particular accident before and I hope I’m not duplicating anything and boring people. It’s an interesting and important accident and I think we ought to know about the dangers of some past local jobs which went to unskilled young women.

 One item Robson’s made was a railway fog signal, which consisted of two small iron saucers, which enclosed a small amount of gunpowder. A large outer cup went over these with its edge ‘crimped’ to hold it closely together and the cups were then cemented and varnished.  The ‘crimping’ was done by hand using screw fly presses – an operation which carried ‘some risk’.  In fact there was at least one accidental explosion a month but owing to a ‘misunderstanding’ Mr. Dyer had not reported these accidents to the Explosives Inspectorate, as he was required to do by law. 

 Such operations were very carefully monitored and there was an iron shield, which moved between the worker and the explosives at the moment at which the pressing movement took place. There was also an arrangement to divert the flash to outside the building should an explosion take place.  Employees had to wear special shoes and fireproof clothes with no pockets in them. 

 The 20th November 1882 was Mary Mahoney’s first day at work on the presses. Although she had worked ‘on and off’ at Robson’s for six years. Emily Gilder supervised her in one of the isolated huts, No.19 shed.  It was a very small space for the two girls together plus the machinery - just six feet by five.  They sat three feet apart together with about 800 explosive signals.  The machines at which they worked were new – still on trial from the makers.

 It appears that Mary did not understand the process and was, unknown to Emily, putting the cups into the press in the wrong way.  In addition a tray of finished signals was nearby – and contained a quantity of loose spilt gunpowder. This was against regulations and Majendie was later to say that ‘very insufficient attention had been paid to cleanliness’ – indeed he was to rule that this had been the factor which made the accident so severe and probably killed Mary.

The foreman, Mr. Law, had just visited the two girls and left to go onto the next shed.  He was standing about three yards outside when he was knocked over by the force of a series of explosions.   He struggled upright and went back to find that Emily had got out – she had either been blown out or jumped. He forced his way back through smoke to where Mary was lying on the floor in among the loose powder, which was now exploding while molten lead from the finished signals fell on her. Despite being badly burnt himself Law got her out. Outside she said ‘Oh, Mr.Law’ as he tried to pull off her burning serge dress, until he collapsed himself.

 

Mary was very badly burnt on her back, arms, legs and face. She was taken just across the road to the Workhouse Infirmary – where the Greenwich Centre is today. She told the Doctor about the accident ‘Oh, Doctor, I was pressing of those fog signals when it went off … I think I must have pressed it on the side’. It seems that at first it was hoped she would live, although, later, the Doctor said he had no hope from the first. A first she did well but then infections set in and she died four days later ‘of exhaustion’. Majendie felt she must have had a ‘delicate constitution’.

 

She was twenty-four years old, and lived with her parents in Marsh Lane – today’s Blackwall Lane.  She was the eldest of four children, all born in Greenwich, to parents, Michael and Mary, who had come from Kerry to work as labourers.  There were many Irish people lived in the area at the top of Marsh Lane around what, until recently, has been the Ship and Billet Pub.

 

As I said this is far from the first the only accident at Robson’s and the other works =all of which were investigated by Majendie.  And I would guess that hardly anybody in Charlton has ever heard of Majendie and his contribution

Woolwich Power Station - and the boy killed across the River

 

I had been thinking for some time that if I ever finish my book about George Livesey I will do the next one about Public Utilities in the Borough of Greenwich.  I think I’ve covered most of them in these articles but I’m aware of an omission.  I have never done anything about Woolwich  Power Station, monumental and efficient – so perhaps this is the time to do it.

Woolwich Power Station itself dates from around 1890 when an organisation called Woolwich District Electric Light Company  was set up to build a power station  in Woolwich -  desite plans by Ferranti’s Deptford based London Electricity Supply Company to supply Woolwich.  The shareholders were all Woolwich politicians and the message was that ownership of power should be local and that big corporations were not wanted.  I assume this is a response to the closure by the South Metropolitan Gas Company in 1888 of the two Woolwich gas companies. 

We need to keep in mind that Woolwich Metropolitan Borough Council as we understand it, only dates from 1900. One of their first acts appears to have  been the takeover and municipalisation of the erstwhile private electricity company

Woolwich Borough was an amalgamation of three district boards. One of the others was Plumstead Board who with an outstanding engineer in Frank Sumner had begun to build a state-of-the-art generating station in White Hart Road.  This was to generate power from Plumstead’s waste and included many other features which we would see today as green and outstanding . It was only the second such  generating plant to be built.  In 1900 it was still not operational and Woolwich  inherited it and opened it in 1903..

I am not clear if the street lights were converted to electricity from gas. The South Metropolitan Gas Company was making some very advantageous offers to local authorities  and the incandescent light was coming in - some of which had been taken up by Plumstead . However Woolwich politicians were not impressed with incandescent light and I suspect were busy converting everything to electricity made in Woolwich.

In-1906 Woolwich Council was presented with a report which had been commissioned from elite civil engineer Alexander Kennedy.  This is many pages long and absolutely damning about the situation with the power stations in Woolwich.  It says in great detail that the finances are unsupportable and that there is a very low customer base. I don’t entirely understand why that is but I wonder if all the huge government institutions in Woolwich were being supplied by another source,  maybe in the Arsenal.  He also infers but doesn’t say that it’s madness to try to support two power stations and gives considerable detail of how things can be changed - which on the whole point to a down grading of the Plumstead destructor and generating station.

Nevertheless Woolwich power station itself flourished.  It was built on the site which is now partly covered by the Woolwich Leisure Centre but mainly what used to be their car park. It was part of what had been Roff's Wharf on the site of some boat repair facilities in Globe Lane.

From 1912 they concentrated electricity supply from the Globe Lane works and considerate expansion took place then with a large turbine hall being added, along with a boiler house and chimneys and a cooling system which involved a tunnel under the river - does this still exist?  In the course of the work timbers from a Tudor warship were discovered.

Everything seemed to be going well but in 1920 the station was involved in an accident so bizarre that I would not have believed the story to be true that hadn’t seen official  coverage.

On the 29^th of November 1920 Maurice Pettit, aged 15, an apprentice bricklayer, had left his home in Wickham Way and made his way to the Woolwich foot tunnel, and  having  walked through it got on a bus where a seat had been saved on the upper deck.  It was 5 minutes past 7 am.

 In Woolwich Power Station William Cottle, the shift engineer was getting ready to set up extra capacity for the morning’s work load. He had been instructed to start No. 4 set and in about ten minutes had a speed of 3, 00 revolutions a minute and the governor had control of the speed.  He was then told to lower it but instead the set started to race. He tried to deal with this and there were several things he could do. At first he expected the seed to decrease but it still increased. He tried to close the valve but he was then hit by flying metal and remembered nothing after that. It should have shut off automatically, but it didn’t.  Later ‘experts ‘said the governor for one reason or another failed to carry out its proper functions with the result that the alternator burst and the set had been  reduced to scrap iron. One of the pieces, of the now demols4hed machine struck the steam rotor of the next largest set and debris flew everywhere.”

Over in North Woolwich  Maurice walked  up  the stairs of the bus, and went to the front where his friend had saved his seat.  He started to unbutton his coat and then he fell down. On the bus there was shaking and terrible confusion, and an explosion seemed to come from the other side of the  water’.  Maurice was lying on the floor in the gangway and a piece of metal was beside him . He had a large wound in his back and a fracture of the spine . He had died very quickly..

In the power station itself same other workers were injured— William Cottle. Plumstead. The driver the machine with minor injuries to the head; William Henry Stiff, charge hand, Charlton  with injuries to head and legs; and Robert Dally, Bow with injuries to head and face.. Dally was removed to Plumctead Infirmary, and was there detained.

I have been unable to find a report of this accident other than the inquest report in the local newspaper. Woolwich Council a month later awarded less than “£100 to Maurice's family in respect of loss of his income but without admitting liability.  There was very considerable damage to the power station building as well as the machinery yet there is no report of this to the electricity committee  in the local papers. Sadly of course the Minutes of the Committee are inaccessible in the Greenwich archive. Let’s hope it was insured

The earliest buildings on the site were replaced in 1924–28 and new machinery installed. The engine-house elongated and re-equipped – the work overseen by G. W. Keats, the Council’s Electrical Engineer. The Council continued to take a proudly progressive role in promoting the use of domestic electricity.  In  1930 Globe Lane was closed and the reinforced-concrete lattice-framed coaling jetty that still stand line was built to designs by John Sutcliffe, Borough Engineer.  Later the irregular river walls were re-laid and straightened.

It was further expanded in the 1930s and was the only power station in the country built by direct labour. It had art deco decoration as befitted a town centre building with three fluted chimneys as a local landmark. It was notably efficient and  from 1934 was a ‘selected’ station under the Central Electricity Board, its supply linked into the National Grid. It was not fully brought into use until 1948, when, following nationalisation, the British Electricity Authority ran the station.

 There were more changes in 1952–7.  Given the town centre location, an architectural effort was made. Vertical ‘special brick’ strips in glazed-panel walls added a loosely Art Deco veneer, and extensions of the older buildings to the south onto Market Hill gave the complex coherence from the High Street. Perimeter walls and railings went up only in the early 1960s.  The three chimneys  which rose 263ft were a local landmark, fluted ‘for balance and dignity’ There were further slum clearances east of the power station making room for a huge coal yard that extended up to the Arsenal.

But Woolwich Power Station soon came to be outmoded. In 1978 Generation stopped in 1978 and it was demolished the following year. The first chimney was demolished by hand in 1988.  The remaining two by explosives in 1979. The site of the main power station building then became the Waterfront Leisure Centre car park; part of the coaling jetty remains but in 2020 the car park was sold to Berkeley homes and it became part of the Royal Arsenal development.

And – what about the destructor station in Plumstead. Throughout its  existence it has been used as a depot and most lately by Crossrail.  Its listed buildings are the major remains of Woolwich electricity generating.  That and the long jetty on the riverside.

 

 

Ferries

 

You may have noticed that with these articles I try to keep the subjects varied by changing every week -but that I have a number of themes which I’ve been working through.  I thought perhaps I ought to add a series on River crossings.  I also want to do things which give some idea of the time scale and history of industry and its structures in Greenwich and Woolwich.

Last week I did an article on the sea wall as a very ancient piece of civil engineering infrastructure but then I thought that perhaps river crossings were even more ancient than that and so perhaps they were something I should look at early on.

Clearly there are several different types of river crossings.  I think for the time being we can ignore the various under River tunnels as they are all 20^th century and in any case I’ve written them all up in one or other of these articles. That is - the two foot tunnels, the Blackwall and an abortive scheme in Woolwich. And - the appalling Silvertown Tunnel whatever we think about it we can’t claim that its history

I’m assuming that those Bronze Age people – the ones we read about in the various archaelogical diggings on the Peninsula -  crossed the river.  I get the impression that they paddled about in little small boats and, well, it is a big nasty dangerous river.  However we shouldn’t underestimate their initiative, their courage and skills. They wouldn’t have thought their boats were flimsy.  Even wattle and daub was cutting edge once!

For the purposes of this article I’m taking ‘ferries’ to mean boats that go across the River from one side to the other - not ones that go up or down River to other places.  Greenwich clearly has always had boats which come down from central London.  In Gravesend traditionally you had the ‘Short Ferry’ which went across to Tilbury and the ‘Long Ferry’ which went up to London. The ‘Long Ferry’ closed many, many years ago and I’m devastated to see that the Short Ferry has now closed too. I thought I’d read somewhere that it was so old that it didn’t have a charter or any founding documents and that therefore it could never ever be closed because it didn’t really exist - or something. Still, why would anyone want to go to Tilbury anyway??

We seem to have a very ambivalent view of crossing the River and suspicion  of the people that live on the other side,  I think this is probably deep in our psyche and it isn’t just about the Thames.  I remember once being at a conference where there were people from all over the country, and I complained, very briefly, that I was expected to go to an event ‘on the other side of the River’. This provoked a response from many, many people who told me later that nobody ever really crossed their local river – and some of these were the most insignificant little trickles - but clearly had a lot of local meaning.  Locally a historical reference comes from George Landmann who said that in his 1780s Woolwich childhood that people thought ‘no decent woman’ could survive more than a few months of living in Barking.

And so, I need to write about ferries. Clearly ferries are designed to take numbers of people and goods. I assume individuals used the taxi-esque services of watermen and I’m already covering them in the articles that I’ve been doing about watermen stairs.

When Greenwich Industrial History Society was first set up our Vice- chair was Hugh Lyon. Hugh was an enthusiastic historical researcher who gave me lots and lots of information about ships which were built at Greenwich. He looked at ferries and I remember him telling me that he had discovered over 30 - it might have been more - along the Greenwich and Woolwich Riverside. Unfortunately he didn’t give me the list and then he moved to Worcester and sadly died there a few years ago. So I will never know about most of the ferries which he found. But I will do the best I can.

One of the reasons I’m writing this article is so I can quickly run through what I’ve written already about ferries and say what I need to add in. I’ve written about a number of them in the Greenwich area , some in articles wrote several years ago now about the Riverside and the subsequent book based on them.

However historical information on the ferry nearest the Greenwich boundary with Lewisham has come to light relatively recently and doesn’t appear in any of the books about Thames ferries that I’m aware of.  This was at Payne’s Wharf next to Upper Watergate where research a couple of years ago by Chris and Willie at the Shipwrights Palace revealed that what had always been taken to be a warehouse built by Penn’s Engineering had in fact been built by a proposed railway company as a rail and ferry interchange, but never opened.  I’ve mentioned that in every article I’ve done about that area and may well do so again but in the context of planned extensions to the Greenwich Railway.

Moving to Deptford Creek itself - there was of course a ferry across the creek which I wrote up in an article on the Creek and my subsequent book.  I’m not sure if it’s worth mentioning again but I might do so because Hoy Stairs from which the ferry operated are still - unbelievably - in existence.

Coming along Thames Street we come to the Horse Ferry which I have mentioned briefly and well might return to.   Its steam ferry successor has had more coverage.  This ferry ran on the rails which still exist on the foreshore along with some features in the sea wall.  I’ve written about this in both my book on the Greenwich Riverside and my Weekender article which preceded it . There is however a whole lot more to say about it. The site was investigated quite thoroughly in the early 2000s by various Deptford based activists and a detailed report was published.  Around the same time the late Clive Chambers dived into the flooded engine chamber– his report was reproduced in the Greenwich Industrial History Newsletter which we did at the in those days. Subsequently the site has been the subject of an investigation by professional archaeologists who have also produced a detailed report.

The engine room of the steam ferry -  which Clive Chambers investigated - has been removed. However there are still remains on the foreshore and as far as I’m aware there is no signage on site to explain what they are.  Why not? Why don’t we tell people if features are kept? Surely we should say why things were thought to be interesting. If we don’t tell them people will guess and make up stories and they will not be looked after because no one knows what they are.  Eventually they will be removed as useless junk.  It happens all the time! 

So – on into Cutty Sark Gardens and Greenwich Pier.  There is the whole issue in this area of the traditional Potters Ferry and many subsequent attempts to set up other ferries. When I wrote up this area for the book and Weekender articles I avoided  mentioning them because it was quite clear that there was a lot of information in archives which it would be difficult for me to access.  But, more than that, there seemed to have been a whole rat’s nest of rows and aggression and trying to sort it all out was going to take time - and some of the accounts were of events so confrontational that I’m far from sure what the truth was.  However,  I will try to put something together.

Having gone along the Greenwich riverside where most of the ferries were and carrying on round the Peninsula, there is much less information about them.  In particular there is the very obscure pier at Ballast Quay which I mentioned in my Riverside book and a  whole lot more research needs to be done there.  Then, going up the west bank of the Peninsula,  at Enderby Wharf there was a little local ferry which only went out to cable ships moored in the river – so I’m not sure if it counts.

When we get round the top of the Peninsula, past the Dome to North Greenwich Pier. we have something else which was, or is, relatively recent. This was, or maybe is, a mysterious boat which went from North Greenwich over to Trinity Buoy Wharf and you had to know about it in order to get it. I’ve been told that it doesn’t run any more - but I wouldn’t bet on it.  In the 1990s and 2000s, when industry on the Peninsula was going and the current regeneration had really taken place,  I was always told that there was a sort of ferry which ran from what is now ‘The Jetty at the end of Pilot Walk  - at whar used to be at the end of Riverway. You went down there and hung about and said who you wanted to talk to –you had to ask for was Bill or Joe or someone - and they come along and take you over the River. I never had the courage to go down there and try.  I dare say there was a similar system in the Bronze Age.

After that there is riverside and ferries all the way down from Charlton to the Arsenal none of which I’ve written about or investigated. I know there were a whole lot of ferries in Woolwich including some of which have left some remains here or over in North Woolwich.  Then, of course, there is the Free Ferry which I’ve always missed out when I’ve been writing about the various free crossings which were put in place in the 1890s and 1900s. So there’s that to do. 

Better get busy on it all.  Otherwise I will start on about the names of the new ferries and how the really popular singer of the 1940s (and 1930s) was Gracie Fields. 

 

 

 

 

The Sea Wall - our oldest civil engineering structure

 

I thought this week I should get back to describing some of the permanent built infrastructure and stuff which you can see around the Borough.  Perhaps it would be a good idea to begin at the beginning

 The oldest and very much the largest structure in our Borough is the ‘sea wall’ – and it is the called the ‘sea wall’ rather than ‘river wall’ because it is protecting us from the tidal river. For those of you who object to me saying ‘sea wall’ can I point out that on, for instance, the early 19th century Metcalf plan very clearly shows the riverbank at Deptford Creek described as ‘sea wall’.

 We have no idea how old the ‘wall’ is but without it most of our urban area would be under water and/or never been built at all. The river walls must be the largest civil engineering project in the Borough – and certainly the one with the most influence on our environment.   However it needs constant vigilance and is constantly being repaired and upgraded.

At some point in the past people began to take land from the river, and they did it by building barriers along the riverside and on the wet marshlands – ‘inning’ they called it.   There have been suggestions that the Romans were responsible but what we know about is only once written records are available.  I can remember on the Peninsula when The Dome was being built some of the blokes on one of the wharves nearby claimed to have found Roman remains among the building debris.  I don’t know if what they said is true and how they knew they were Roman or what happened to the stuff they were finding.  I have never seen mention of the Romans in any report from an archaeologist.

 Records of who was responsible for flood barriers exist only from the early medieval period.  Much serious ‘inbanking‘ was done by religious orders – abbeys and monasteries - who had the money, man power and who, as corporate bodies, could to take the long view. Earthen banks or ‘walls’ were built on the riverside. Locally there are records of work done on the marshes by Lesnes Abbey at Abbey Wood but gradually the religious bodies which had maintained the marshes were replaced, by necessity, by civil authorities or their nominees.

 How the river walls were built is not certain and there must have been local variations. They may well have been nothing more than simple earth banks, perhaps first laid on hurdles with timber pieces to stabilise it as well as mixing reeds into the earth. The land behind them was divided by cross-walls and drained by ditches. These walls were often breached and there were frequent floods in the fields. Sheep were put on the reclaimed marshes to graze and in time ‘improve’ the new land.

 The legal framework for marsh administration and maintenance of the sea wall was based on that set up for Romney Marsh. That marsh was and is protected by the Dymchurch Wall - now once again newly rebuilt.  However this ‘wall’ originated in the 13th century and has always needed professional maintenance staff.

 The lower Thames may have been embanked as early as the Saxon period. Later, because the Thames walls needed constant care commissioners were appointed to oversee the work. One early Commission was set up in 1315, known to have been a year of heavy floods, "to overlook river walls and ditches".

 Local property transactions refer to responsibilities for the river walls of the Thames and Ravensbourne from the 13th century - in 1238 a grant of marshland in East Greenwich included an obligation to maintain the walls and ditches. In 1342 and 1376 an obligation to maintain the walls were included in the Ghent Abbey's leases of their property in Greenwich and later, in 1535, by the City of London’s Bridge House for their property near Deptford Bridge. Manorial tenants who had a responsibility to repair the wall were specified in 1475 and 1481-2 and it was repaired in 1470-1 with work on fences and hedges, and this was done again in 1481-2.

 There was a series of Royal Commissions to review and repair the river banks on the south side of the Thames. The earliest known was in 1295 although there may have been similar activities for some centuries before this. Commissioners were active in Greenwich and Deptford particularly between 1378 and 1409. Breaks in the River wall were of concern and in the 14th century flooding led to a permanent loss of 60 acres of land in Lewisham and Greenwich and in 1313 and 1325 Commissioners were concerned with a break in the river wall between Bermondsey and Greenwich.

 In 1293 there was a large pond with an outlet to the Thames in the Deptford Strand area which was probably the result of a breach and it was that which eventually became the first basin of the Royal Dockyard. It is also thought that there was a break in the river wall on Greenwich Peninsula before 1600– this is the area which has been called ‘Bay Wharf; and it is where a new boat building yard has been sited.

 In 1527 there were floods in Plumstead and a ‘cross wall’ was built from the River to the village inland - enclosing and creating the marsh.  This work was paid for through a new tax - the ‘wallscot’ - which was a fund raised from the relevant landowners to pay for future flood defence systems.

 On the Greenwich Peninsula by the 15th and 16th centuries attempts had been made to reclaim and protect some of the land with sluices to draw the water away and the area made useable for farming. One main drainage outlet was Bendish Sluice which discharged into the river on the west side of the Peninsula from under the steps at Enderby Wharf and which continued to be visible until the new flats were built on site.  At the southern end of the Peninsula was Arnold's Sluice, slightly down river of Blackwall Point and probably near the Pier which the Clippers use.  There was also a nether nameless sluice west of this. Both of these are now somewhere under the Dome and the Knight Dragon estate.  The fourth, King's Sluice, was down near Horn Lane and the Ecology Centre.

 Supervision of work on the wall and ditches was often down to foreign experts - some of whom were in England to work on major schemes elsewhere - in particular work on Fen drainage in East Anglia. Work on the Plumstead Marshes was done by Jacobus Acontyus, an Italian engineer whose religion had brought him to England and in 1566 John Baptista Castillion, one of Elizabeth’s inner  household, oversaw the reclamation work on Plumstead Marsh. These ‘engineers’ of course had staff to do the actual work - like the ‘walreves’,  appointed before 1329 at Greenwich to watch over and maintain the river walls. Nearly five hundred years, later in 1800, Greenwich Marsh - the Peninsula – had a full time bailiff, with labourers working under him

 In 1546 work was done to improve the drainage of Greenwich Marsh and in the early 17th century a permanent system was set up. This was a ‘court’ was made up of landowners who levied a ‘wallscot’ rate. The minutes of the Marsh Court from 1625 are extant and can be read at the London Metropolitan Archive - although written in Secretary’s hand they are direly difficult to read.  It is perhaps also fair to say that the main subject matter concerns the growth of nettles and brambles throughout the centuries.

The river itself was managed by Commissioners from the mid 18th century; with the lower river the responsibility of the City of London and taken over by The Thames Conservancy from 1857.  Permission to open the river wall had to be got them. A local example from 1800 was William Johnson who applied to them for permission to build a causeway - some of us may remember it - which went from the end of Riverway into the River, and which was sadly removed by the New Millennium Experience Company for no apparent reason in 1998. There are also, I’m afraid, several examples of large sections of river wall being weakened as stone was stolen from it for ships and by lightermen needing ballast. There are constant complaints about their activities.

 

In October 1825 a section of the wall on the Peninsula was threatening to give way. It was decided by the Marsh Court that the Commissioners should buy it and that all landowners should contribute but that the actual purchaser should be the wealthy charity, Morden College.  Reports were obtained from leading civil engineers. The younger John Rennie said that previous work – 'a wooden framing consisting of poles and land ties' together with 'several hundred tons of Kentish ragstone' - was making it worse.  The wall would have to be rebuilt. A second report from Thomas Telford said that an exposed portion of the bank and the opening of the new West India Docks had caused the problem and that there was an imminent danger of a breach. Telford was asked to do the work which consisted of a completely smooth new earth bank with a drain at the bottom of the inner slope and the whole structure to be covered in turf. 

 

Recently in 2022 there was a public protest at the removal of willows growing on the wall and a look at Greenwich planning consents over the years will find frequent references to repair and maintenance work. Every so often there are archaeologists on the foreshore, seeing what they can find before work is done.

 

The wall is our oldest piece of infrastructure – but constantly repaired and renewed so that it is also all very new. Like the River itself the wall is always with us.

 

 

Boundary walk 5 - Loat's Pit to the Green Man

 

Well I thought this week I should get back to the civic procession around the Greenwich boundary in 1853.    I've been rather putting off this next section because I found it very difficult to follow on the map. I’ve now found – thanks to help from Julian Watson – that some of the street names given in the report  are spelt wrongly  or differently and so I’m wondering if the newspaper reporter or the editor wrote it from memory or without checking it up. And – as Julian said – “the churchwardens who organised that perambulation probably exploded with rage when they read that sloppy account.

The last article on this was four or five weeks ago and I left the procession at the entrance to what was Loat’s Pit in Lewisham Road. The current Greenwich and Lewisham  boundary this is calibrated from y goes straight up Lewisham Road till it gets towards the end near Sparta Street where it goes off to the right. The boundary in the 19^th century did very much the same except that the section immediately before reaching Blackheath Hill seems to have been simplified a bit now, as we will see.

So we begin at the entrance to Loat’s Pit in Lewisham Road and as I explained in the previous article it’s very unclear exactly where the entrance was - so I’m making my first guess here.  The report says that they then went along Lewisham Road to where there was a stone and also in the past an ‘Elm Pollard’ –well clearly we can’t look for trees which died 150 years or so ago!  They then went on to the ‘first abutting house on the left’ and then all proceeded to go round to the rear. It is not really clear which house they mean  because turning left gets them somewhere different if they faced the entrance to  Loat’s Pit than if they were faced forward to walk down the road. Whatever, it seems they had ‘to take the best line ... by going through the ‘boys at the back of the houses’ –  do they mean ‘bays’ or is there some old meaning of ‘boys’ which I don’t understand?  It’s very unclear ro me how they did this – do they mean the procession with all the Civic officers,  the choir boys and the schoolchildren were all traipsing along in people’s homes and  back gardens? The Ordinance Survey map from the 1860s shows the boundary going along the Lewisham Road and nowhere near it back gardens. However I guess it went far as the corner of what is now Sparta Street - but in those days it was called ‘King’ Street.  The report doesn't actually say it went there, but there is nowhere else it could go.

The procession then ‘crossed over Birling Street’ – this completely threw me because I couldn’t find a ‘Birling Street’ anywhere on any map or any reference to it at all. It's thanks to Julian who said it’s spelt ‘Burling Street’  and he had found it marked a map – but a map I had never seen.  Burling Street was a small side road that ran from Blackheath Hill down to Sparta Street and it would have been somewhere near the area which is now called Robinscroft Mews. The Mews  is on the footprint of the old Greenwich Park Railway line – so a railway has come and gone near to where Burling Street once ran.

Next, the report says that the procession went into the back premises of a house in ‘Morden Street’. This threw me even more because Morden Street  is some distance away to the west of Lewisham Road and I couldn’t see how you could get there from the corner of Sparta Street. However, following the boundary on the Ordnance Map shows that the road adjacent to Burling Street was ‘Merton’ Street. So I guess that’s another mistake in the report!

All of these little side roads between Blackheath Hill and Lewisham Road have long since been rebuilt with blocks of flats some of which are very recent and I can’t imagine there are any remains left there now from the 1850s.

The report then says that the procession got into ‘Morden Street’ from  ‘Birling Street’ by ‘passing through No.1’. Do they seriously mean that the entire procession - school children, choir boys and all walked right the way through this unfortunate person’s house from the back door to the front door to get into the next street?  It says that this house was opposite ‘a stone marked L&GP’ and they also passed ‘through the house on which this stone stands’. So that's another house which has the dubious honour of the whole procession walking through it.

Once through the house they got to a brick wall which also had a stone which was ‘marked on each side GP’. What happened to all these stones? Are they still embedded in somebody's wall and need to be recorded? Or, more likely, did some contractor throw them all into their skip?  Someone has emailed me and told me about one up in Blackheath, which I will get to in a couple of episodes time.  There must be more and so please can I encourage people who know about them to tell me and I can include them in these stories.

Next the procession ‘crossed the garden of what were formerly Mr.Latham’s premises but now said to be the Rev.Mr.Russell’s’. Both Mr Latham and Rev. Joshua Russell were associated with what was known as the Bunyan Chapel - a Baptist Chapel in Lewisham Road, on the corner with Orchard Hill. I am not sure what this Blackheath Road or Morden/Merton Street premises was and wonder if it was perhaps the clergy house or maybe just the home of ministers working at the chapel. Next they went ‘in front of a new infant school’ – actually Blackheath Hill Ragged School – and then to a blacksmiths; and then to ‘a loft ..with ‘GP’ on the wall ... over which some of the boys are passed.’  All of these buildings were in Blackheath Hill.

From there they went up the rear of the houses in Blackheath Hill and ‘boys were passed over the garden fence into Mr Hatch's garden’. ­This was William H. Hatch at 3 Blackheath Hill. I do not know Mr Hatch's occupation but this was a substantial house plus a shop but over the years it does seem to have had a fairly brisk turnover of residents. Mr. Hatch had not been there long and a year after the procession went through the garden the house and shop were up for auction.

They then took ‘a corner of Mr Oliver's house diagonally to the centre of the steps at the front entrance’. This appears to be William Oliver who was to die, aged 37, only four months later - to be followed by his 84 year old father, George Oliver, within a year.  They appear to have been ironmongers described (by Professor Crossick) as ‘residents of wealth and standing’ and they certainly appear to be so from the large number of charitable donations for which both Olivers are listed.

They then proceeded up the ‘centre of Blackheath Hill to opposite the Green Man Tavern’ from where everything becomes much more straightforward.

The Green Man was one of the most important public houses in Greenwich but it has sadly been out of all our lives since it was demolished in the early 1970s - it had existed since at least 1629 and probably unrecorded for years before that. It was an important stop for coach traffic where horses could be changed before taking on, or having survived, the highwaymen and the ascent of Shooters Hill.   It was also used as a postal collection point.

Equally importantly the Green Man seems to have been used as a public meeting place where semi official bodies and others held their meetings. For instance it was used for many, many years for the meetings of the Walscott Committee which ran the Greenwich Peninsula before 1889. It was sometimes used by the justices and for many Vestry meetings.  As such it was more than just a local pub but a centre for many activities - for example the Royal Blackheath Golf Club had their headquarters there, Later on in the 20^th century it was a centre for many sports and there was a boxing club there;it was also used by Blackheath Harriers and a School of Ballroom Dancing. It was often used as a centre for large scale activities on the Heath.

In 1854, the bowling green at the rear of the pub was developed into what is now Dartmouth Terrace. In 1868 the pub was demolished and rebuilt with a large function room which was used as a meeting place and also for entertainments. It continued to be used by quasi official bodies and entities like the Round Table and Rotary. It had the capacity for bodies to host large dinners and similar events.

In the early 1960s the Jazzhouse Club met here. Artists who played there included ... Graham Bond ... Tubby Hayes ...  Tony Coe ... Ronnie Scott ... Manfred Mann ... Sam Kidd ... Jon Hiseman ... John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers ... Kenny Ball ... the young Rolling Stones. Paul Simon himself played an early solo concert there and a sixteen-year-old David Bowie (billed as David Jones) played his first professional gig there.

A popular attraction was an Olde Time Music Hall – started to raise money to open Greenwich Theatre. This was packed out and used to feature a lady singer who in her final song apparently and, unfortunately, every week, lost control of the buttons at the front of the blouse revealing missing underwear. I can’t imagine that happening now

All now gone. In 1970, the pub was demolished and replaced by Allison Close, a block of flats. It still seems amazing to me this very important and well used pub was closed down and not replaced.  In any case it was it was obviously just the place for the 1850s procession to get to.  The report doesn’t say if they stopped at all but it would have been a good place for a breather before the long and really rather boring stretch across Blackheath.