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.