Majendie. Explosives expert

 

A couple of weeks ago I did an article about a 19^th century explosion in a Greenwich fireworks factory on the site where Tunnel Avenue is now. I also talked about the work of Government explosives inspector. Vivian Majaenie.

 

I’ve found loads and loads of reports of explosions in local factories - some are really horrific with many casualties  but usually the information about them is available because of the detailed research done by Majendie and his team –which was then reported in the press..

 

In 1887  there was another accident at the Robson and Dyern firework factory.  As I said in the earlier article they had a house and offices on the site which is now the chip shop in Woolwich Road and there was a footpath which went back into the works and consisted of lots of little wooden  huts with tarred roofs spaced out in a field.  Inside the hut  was a wooden floor covered with oil cloth with the portion near the door covered with a thin sheet lead and a work bench which ran round the interior of the building.  

 

One of the regulations was that explosives had to be handled in small buildings with only one or two people working in each. These workers were required to wear special woolen clothing. and were forbidden to have any pockets.

 

The ‘fireworks’ they made were not just for fun.  A major part of their work was making the distress flares which every ship needed to carry.

 

On 11^th June 1887  Catherine Allman was at work in one of the isolated huts at Robson’s. With her were an older woman, Mary Masters, and also Anne Lake and Elizabeth Millman, the forewoman.    Most of these women lived locally in a small community in Blackwall Lane –many of whom were Irish immigrants. Catherine was a lodger with the Mahoney family whose daughter, Mary, had died in an explosion at the works five years previously.

 

Mrs. Millman had already made an explosive preparation for green star Roman candles in another shed. She had brought it in to be dampened with methylated spirits and made into stars in copper moulds. These candles were used as signals on the South Western Railway Steamers from Southampton and the chemicals used were an unusual mixture.  Mary Masters was filling ‘lights’ with layers of different coloured ‘composition’.   Anne Lake was filling small paper cones with ‘red fire composition’. Catherine Allman was pressing bright stars for ‘Very Signal Cartridges’ to be used as part of a large order for the Jubilee Naval Review.  

 

The explosion, when it came, was ‘like the firing of a pistol’.

 

It took a great deal of detective work on the part of the Government Inspectorate to work out exactly what had happened. First they examined the shed in which the work had been carried out. It was not structurally damaged but the windows were broken and the tar had melted from the roof.  Inside everything was scorched.  They then visited the women in hospital and asked where the explosion had come from. They carefully noted down what each said and then tried to plot the right spot in the shed. They also compared the burns, which the women had suffered and worked out where each of them had been.

 

It was concluded that the problem was Mrs Millman’s green stars.  It was a very hot day and experiments in the laboratory at Woolwich were able to prove that some of the ingredients might have become unstable when warmed. In addition it was probable that she was working ‘briskly’ – unconsciously jolting the explosive.  It was shown that Mrs. Millman, a very skilled workwoman and highly praised by everybody, could not possibly have known this and no blame could be attributed to her. 

 

Catherine Allman and Mrs. Millman although badly burnt were protected by their special clothing and lived. Five years earlier Michael Mahoney had had to identify his daughter’s body but this time he was spared. Both women were well enough to give evidence at the inquest into the deaths of the other two, Anne Lake and M ary Masters.  Once again the cause of death was ‘exhaustion following burns’.

 

Majendie’s annual reports to the government on explosives and explosions list every conceivable related incident in the British Isles. His reports are models of clarity and common sense. Six years later he referred to the accident at East Greenwich in his report on an explosion at the huge Brock factory in South Norwood.  Brock’s was an old established fireworks business originating in the 17^th century and which  lasted until recently when it was finally sold to a Chinese company and the British works closed down. They had works on several sites and the South Norwood one had been set up to provide displays at Crystal Palace.

 

In this accident George Nurse was doing work ‘not considered dangerous’.  He was shifting ‘stars’ from one box to another when something caused them to ignite. The only cause for the explosion seemed to be the sun's rays, which were ‘pouring in at the door’.   Mr. Brock talked about the advice he had receivcd from the Government Inspectors in the Royal Arsenal.  Majendie and his team ‘were very stringent’ but were quite unable to account for the cause of the explosion.

 

Captain  I. Thompson, was an inspector under the Explosives Act, who worked under Colonel Majendie. He had thoroughly examined the scene of the accident and as far as he and Colonel Majendie could see, everything was satisfactory. Some experiments had been carried out, to determine whether it was likely that the explosion was caused when emptying crimson stars from one box to another. He reported that every chlorate mixture containing sulphur was liable to spontaneous ignition – including the amber, purple, and green stars.  Thus with a high temperature, the spontaneous combustion and ignition took place in the box containing the stars.  ‘They had been there since the occasion of the Royal Wedding, during which period the weather had been hotter than at any time since the Jubilee year’.

 

Majendie lived at 23 Victoria Way and I have yet to find out where that building was - it must have been one of the large houses to the south of Wellington Gardens. Thanks to Pauline at Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust  who has found that when he died he was living at a house called Springfield with the address of Charlton Road . It was on the corner with Charlton Church Lane where the Springfield flats now are –obviously named after the house. There was great difficulty in building there because of the steep slope and the spring.

 

Majendie’s unusual name came from his background  of a Hugonaught family  – the great grandson of the original immigrant.  He was knighted in 1895 following a career which included acts of great personal bravery. Ian has told me about how he has met explosives experts and members of bomb disposal units in his research at the Royal Arsenal and how Majendie is very much remembered and h0w much of his work still relevant today.

Why don’t we put a plaque up to him??

Railway ambition - how Greenwich Railway hoped to reach the coast

 

Recently I’ve written some articles about the setting up of the Greenwich Railway - how it was built and some of the background.  We know that our local railway with its great brick viaduct was the first in London and that it has stood for over 190 years. It was built by the London and Greenwich railway company  and obviously they are now long gone.  In fact they had a very short existence but they had a lot of big ideas – and I thought it might be worth looking at them.

In the 1820s an enormous number of railway projects were proposed around the country – and some were for railways in South London and Kent.  A major concern was to get a railway through to the coast and the Greenwich Railway company had plans for this. I am very much relying here on the late Ron Thomas’s amazing and meticulous history of the London and Greenwich Railway, published in 1986.

We  all know - or think we know - some early railway history . For years horses had pulled wagons along railed paths or plateways.  Once steam locomotives became available public railway services became more of a possibility.  There were many proposals.  and in 1824 one was for a railway from London to Dover . It was called the Kentish Railway and Ron Thomas’s described it in the first pages of his book.

The Kentish Railway’s prospectus came out in December 1824 and proposed a line from London to Dover via Deptford,  Greenwich and Woolwich and then onwards to Canterbury and Dover .  Early advertisements stressed the vast profits which could be made by using  ‘locomotive machinery’.  Henry Palmer, its engineer,. wanted the line  to start at Bricklayer’s Arms in the Old Kent Road . This route would have avoided Greenwich while passing through Lewisham, Lee  Green and Eltham . However it was also planned to add a branch somewhere near the Brookmill Water Works and that would go to Greenwich.  In 1826 a Parliamentary Committee was set up to look at the project but no more progress was made.

In an earlier article I described the first meeting of  the London and Greenwich Railway Company which was set up by George Landman and George Walter in October 1831 and these meetings, continued along with development work.  Once the construction of the Greenwich Railway became a reality their thoughts turned to how it could be extended.  In 1833 George Walter had plans to set up a London and Gravesend Railway Company, with George  Landmann as engineer, and a year later, in 1834,  he added plans to extend this to Folkestone as the New Kent Railway. –

In early 1835 it was decided to advertise this London and Gravesend Railway project . An offer was made to potential investors to send for a chart showing what was proposed and also a large print showing an intended viaduct across Greenwich Park. This was sold in local shops and was said to originate with George Smith the company’s architect. Smith, who also worked for Morden  College and for the Mercer’s Company , contributed many of  the buildings we see in Greenwich today  - but the Greenwich Park Viaduct is not one of them.  It is said that a representative of the Admiralty arranged for all copies of the print to be destroyed - presumably working on behalf of Greenwich Hospital.  It would also seem to be a good way of stoking opposition to the railway in Greenwich.

On 8^th March a meeting was held in Woolwich of ‘Gentlemen opposed to the London and Gravesend Railway’. Participants thanked lawyers who had been working on objections to this scheme. A few weeks later a public meeting was held in Woolwich to discuss the scheme. George Landmann  was present and answered many questions from the audience. Some queries  were about investments, some about the work itself in Woolwich,  land purchase and much else. Doubts about the scheme were expressed in the audience but there was not complete outright opposition .

Meanwhile support came in an article about this plan by John Herapath in his Railway Journal  “to avoid the inconvenient circuitous route, it shall be carried by means of a handsome viaduct, straight across Greenwich Park. There is some opposition ... of the viaduct’s being likely to mar the beauty of the park ... but It will obviously increase rather than detract from the picturesqueness of the scenery”. Of course, there is nothing like a railway line running through a park to make the scenery better. While some rail enthusiasts might agree , it seems many others did not.

The Parliamentary enabling bill was lost at its Second Reading having been opposed by John Angerstein, then newly elected as MP for Greenwich. He objected on the grounds that there were plenty of steamboats and why did anybody want to build a railway,  which would fail because of competition from them. Landmann arranged for experimental borings to see if a tunnel under the Park was possible and also vibration tests which were done on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. In October the company was relaunched it as the Greenwich and Gravesend Railway. They also launched plans for a London and Dover Railway which was to go to Dover via Ashford and Maidstone with a  branch to Canterbury. However it also appeared that the rival South Eastern Railway had issued a prospectus for a similar route to Dover.

 In early 1836 Professor Airey, the Astronomer Royal, said there was no problem with the railway going through the Park –the objections were from the Admiralty. The Railway  Company said that it would place niches at stated intervals  between the piers of the proposed viaduct “wherein are to be placed busts of our most celebrated bygone Admirals leaving vacant ones for the reception of future naval heroes ... the whole to be surmounted by a colossal statue of his present Majesty in full Naval costume’.  This had no effect on the views of the Admiralty although the local papers made fun with satirical comments about it.

The Greenwich and Gravesend Railway Bill had its first Parliamentary reading in February 1836 and there was the usual flood of objections.  It was decided to postpone the Second Reading which essentially threw  the bill out.  Meanwhile the Greenwich Railway directors  opposed the South Eastern Railways new Bill for as line to Dover,  but a month later the amalgamated their plans with South Eastern as the Kent Railway.  Meanwhile more opposition to the scheme was being organised in Greenwich.  Ron Thomas described in great detail subsequent events in Greenwich with the opening of the Greenwich Railway itself and questions over the fraudulent means by which shares had been raised – and I’ll get to all that in a future article.

Attempts to get a railway out of Greenwich and through to Gravesend and the coast had effectively failed. Most history books will tell you that this was because of objections to the park viaduct from the Astronomer Royal. However  Ron Thomas – with more detailed research - summed it up differently “opposition to the railway did not come from the Observatory ...but from the Admiralty and  the vicar and churchwardens of Greenwich”. 

At the same time as this project to extend the railway beyond Greenwich was going on the Greenwich Company directors were involved in another one scheme, which Ron Thomas hardly mentioned except in one short paragraph. It has most recently been described in some detail in the Ship Wrights’ Palace blog . I have included details of it in articles and in my book on the Greenwich Riverside, and it concerns the project at Upper Watergate and Payne’s Wharf.

In 1835 a group of individuals associated with the London and Greenwich Railway,, promoted an Act of Parliament for a ‘Deptford Pier’ at Upper Watergate.   We can be sure this is the correct site since the site runs from ‘the boundary wall of His Majesty’s dockyard’.  This had been preceded by a prospectus for an elaborate and extensive area of grand buildings and promise of economic regeneration. This included plans for the’ Deptford Pier Junction Railway’.

The promoters took over the wharf by compulsory purchase;  an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1836 and the site was sold to them. The idea was for passengers to go by rail to the new pier and there get a boat. This may also have included construction of the, now listed, arcading along the riverfront.  This had been attributed to Penns but is now thought to be either by George Landmann, engineer to the London and Greenwich Railway, or by Lewis Cubitt who also had Deptford interests. Plans were also made for a steam ferry service but the  project had collapsed by the early 1840s, following court cases and with debts of £25,000. It was abandoned by 1846. A new Act of Parliament allowed the pier to be demolished and new watermen’s stairs installed.

These were massive schemes and had they gone through would have made the fortunes and fame of the promoters.The Deptford Wharf scheme was to have been a huge regeneration project with  a riverside railway terminal, associated buildings and what was effectively a new port. This would have been associated with a major railway line going to Dover and other another towns in Kent, None of it happened

 

More deaths at Dyer and Robsons

 A couple of weeks ago I did an article about a 19^th century explosion in a Greenwich fireworks factory on the site where Tunnel Avenue is now. I also talked about the work of Government explosives inspector. Vivian Majaenie.

 

I’ve found loads and loads of reports of explosions in local factories - some are really horrific with many casualties  but usually the information about them is available because of the detailed research done by Majendie and his team –which was then reported in the press..

 

In 1887  there was another accident at the Robson and Dyern firework factory.  As I said in the earlier article they had a house and offices on the site which is now the chip shop in Woolwich Road and there was a footpath which went back into the works and consisted of lots of little wooden  huts with tarred roofs spaced out in a field.  Inside the hut  was a wooden floor covered with oil cloth with the portion near the door covered with a thin sheet lead and a work bench which ran round the interior of the building.  

 

One of the regulations was that explosives had to be handled in small buildings with only one or two people working in each. These workers were required to wear special woolen clothing. and were forbidden to have any pockets.

 

The ‘fireworks’ they made were not just for fun.  A major part of their work was making the distress flares which every ship needed to carry.

 

On 11^th June 1887  Catherine Allman was at work in one of the isolated huts at Robson’s. With her were an older woman, Mary Masters, and also Anne Lake and Elizabeth Millman, the forewoman.    Most of these women lived locally in a small community in Blackwall Lane –many of whom were Irish immigrants. Catherine was a lodger with the Mahoney family whose daughter, Mary, had died in an explosion at the works five years previously.

 

Mrs. Millman had already made an explosive preparation for green star Roman candles in another shed. She had brought it in to be dampened with methylated spirits and made into stars in copper moulds. These candles were used as signals on the South Western Railway Steamers from Southampton and the chemicals used were an unusual mixture.  Mary Masters was filling ‘lights’ with layers of different coloured ‘composition’.   Anne Lake was filling small paper cones with ‘red fire composition’. Catherine Allman was pressing bright stars for ‘Very Signal Cartridges’ to be used as part of a large order for the Jubilee Naval Review.  

 

The explosion, when it came, was ‘like the firing of a pistol’.

 

It took a great deal of detective work on the part of the Government Inspectorate to work out exactly what had happened. First they examined the shed in which the work had been carried out. It was not structurally damaged but the windows were broken and the tar had melted from the roof.  Inside everything was scorched.  They then visited the women in hospital and asked where the explosion had come from. They carefully noted down what each said and then tried to plot the right spot in the shed. They also compared the burns, which the women had suffered and worked out where each of them had been.

 

It was concluded that the problem was Mrs Millman’s green stars.  It was a very hot day and experiments in the laboratory at Woolwich were able to prove that some of the ingredients might have become unstable when warmed. In addition it was probable that she was working ‘briskly’ – unconsciously jolting the explosive.  It was shown that Mrs. Millman, a very skilled workwoman and highly praised by everybody, could not possibly have known this and no blame could be attributed to her. 

 

Catherine Allman and Mrs. Millman although badly burnt were protected by their special clothing and lived. Five years earlier Michael Mahoney had had to identify his daughter’s body but this time he was spared. Both women were well enough to give evidence at the inquest into the deaths of the other two, Anne Lake and M ary Masters.  Once again the cause of death was ‘exhaustion following burns’.

 

Majendie’s annual reports to the government on explosives and explosions list every conceivable related incident in the British Isles. His reports are models of clarity and common sense. Six years later he referred to the accident at East Greenwich in his report on an explosion at the huge Brock factory in South Norwood.  Brock’s was an old established fireworks business originating in the 17^th century and which  lasted until recently when it was finally sold to a Chinese company and the British works closed down. They had works on several sites and the South Norwood one had been set up to provide displays at Crystal Palace.

 

In this accident George Nurse was doing work ‘not considered dangerous’.  He was shifting ‘stars’ from one box to another when something caused them to ignite. The only cause for the explosion seemed to be the sun's rays, which were ‘pouring in at the door’.   Mr. Brock talked about the advice he had receivcd from the Government Inspectors in the Royal Arsenal.  Majendie and his team ‘were very stringent’ but were quite unable to account for the cause of the explosion.

 

Captain  I. Thompson, was an inspector under the Explosives Act, who worked under Colonel Majendie. He had thoroughly examined the scene of the accident and as far as he and Colonel Majendie could see, everything was satisfactory. Some experiments had been carried out, to determine whether it was likely that the explosion was caused when emptying crimson stars from one box to another. He reported that every chlorate mixture containing sulphur was liable to spontaneous ignition – including the amber, purple, and green stars.  Thus with a high temperature, the spontaneous combustion and ignition took place in the box containing the stars.  ‘They had been there since the occasion of the Royal Wedding, during which period the weather had been hotter than at any time since the Jubilee year’.

 

Majendie lived at 23 Victoria Way and I have yet to find out where that building was - it must have been one of the large houses to the south of Wellington Gardens. Thanks to Pauline at Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust  who has found that when he died he was living at a house called Springfield with the address of Charlton Road . It was on the corner with Charlton Church Lane where the Springfield flats now are –obviously named after the house. There was great difficulty in building there because of the steep slope and the spring.

 

Majendie’s unusual name came from his background  of a Hugonaught family  – the great grandson of the original immigrant.  He was knighted in 1895 following a career which included acts of great personal bravery. Ian has told me about how he has met explosives experts and members of bomb disposal units in his research at the Royal Arsenal and how Majendie is very much remembered and h0w much of his work still relevant today.

Why don’t we put a plaque up to him??

WILLIAMS THE PIRATE - BLACKWALL GIBBETS

 

Pieter Van der Merwe wrote about Gibbets on the Greenwich riverside and mentioned that on one of these was the body of Williams the Pirate. 

The report of Williams trial is complex but in essence he had been convicted at a specially convened Admiralty Court for “running away with the ship Buxton Snow, late Captain Beard, bound from Bristol to the Island of Malemba Angola in Africa, and selling the Ship; and also the Murder of the said Captain Beard, by cutting his Throat with an Axe”. 

It should also be noted that the Court heard that there were several other such offences for which he was going to be be tried, but to save time and money it was thought not worth proceeding with them, as he was going to be hung anyway

Appleby Engineers in Greenwich

An earlier article I did – working down the west bank of the Peninsula – was about the Bessemer works on what is now the Hanson’s site – Victoria Wharf. A lot of things about it are very unclear.  However we know that Appleby Brothers – engineers and engine builders - were on the site from  1878. 

Appleby’s??   Who in Greenwich has ever heard of Appleby’s? Steam engine enthusiasts and some others will know about the Penn works in Blackheath Hill, and perhaps some other works in the Deptford area – but Appleby’s??    It turns out they were quite a big company and that they had several works in different parts of the country.  I know about all sorts of things which they made – but what was actually made in Greenwich has been very very elusive

A picture of the works shows a big important looking riverside building – There’s an impressive frontage, with a house at one end. Six rows of workshops and six big chimneys all smoking away.  There is some sort of overhead conveyor system, storage areas, big cranes and a barge being unloaded. so   they must have done something there!  I wonder if Applebys built that factory for themselves – or is it what the Bessemer family built before them on the site?

Applebys began at the Renishaw Ironworks near Sheffield in 1782.  Charles Appleby had worked
as an engineer in Russia and when he returned set up a works with his brother Thomas – hence Appleby Brothers – at Emerson Street in Southwark.  One account says they opened the Greenwich works in 1866 – and another says that in 1886 they broke the link with Renishaw and opened the Greenwich works – twenty years later! However Morden College confirmed a lease to them in 1879 and implies they had been there since 1874. More to the point Kentish Mercury reported in August 1878 that "The Bessemer Steel and Ordnance Works.... have been purchased by Messrs. Appleby Brothers.  Great activity”.

The Mercury described how the works was converted for general engineering by a hundred men. The pulled down the converter chimney, and the ‘massive foundation that carried the rolling mill’. The sheds were enclosed in an area ‘upwards of an acre ‘and a range workshops built for the foundry, boiler shop, turnery and erecting shop.

So – what did they make there? Again we are confused. Appleby advertised that at Greenwich they made Mining and Pumping Machinery, Engines, Boilers and Dredging plant, Cranes and Travellers, Bridges, Roofs and Railway Plant.  Trouble is it has proved very difficult to pin much of this down

A couple of years ago we were passed an email from a museum in Australia. This was the Goulburn Historic Waterworks Museum and they wanted information about the manufacturers of their principle exhibit – a Appleby beam engine, the only remaining complete and working engine of four delivered to Australia in 1883.  That date means that this impressive engine could have been made in Greenwich and the original Australian researcher thought it was.  However looking at the museum’s web site it seems they are saying very little about the origins of their engine at all.  John Steeds (and thank you to him) who has been researching Applebys for years thinks it was contracted out to a firm in Derby.  However it does give a good idea of the sort of installations Appleby were capable of. http://www.goulburnwaterworks.com.au/

Something we do have a contemporary reference for is the Greenwich Steam Ferry.  I wrote about this in a previous article for weekender back in February.  This ran from Wood Wharf (where the Sail Loft is now) and was a generally amazing installation.  An 1888 article in the journal ‘Engineering’ definitely says that the engines for the ferry boats were made by Appleby at their Greenwich works – so that is something. 

There are some other Appleby engines around if you know where to look.  There is one at an obscure museum in an obscure village in Norfolk – Forncett St.Mary.  There is a nice picture of it on their web site https://www.forncettsteammuseum.con.uk/  .  The museum thinks it was made at the Jessup Works in Leicester, although the date of 1897 means it could have been made in Greenwich. This engine was originally sold to Crosse and Blackwell and then moved to the Sarsons vine

gar works in Southwark.   

There is another engine which is now at Crossness Engines  in Abbey Wood. Peter Griffiths tells me this came from the Crosse and Blackwell factory at North Woolwich, from where it went to Sarsons and from there to Nestles HQ in Switzerland, and then back to – er - Peckham Bus Garage.  Crossness have it now and tell me that it was made in Greenwich.  You can go and see it there on their next open day. http://www.crossness.org.uk/

Crossness also have a record of a contract for well pumps, donkey pumps and sluice valves from Appleby in 1879

I do have one very solid article about Applebys in Greenwich. This is a report of a presentation dinner at the Crown and Sceptre - I don’t know the date but I guess its early 1880s.  This was to give a ‘very beautiful timepiece’ to two employees who were leaving to start their own business –Messrs Connes and Calvert.  The presentation was by Charles James Appleby, a third generation Appleby who effectively then ran the firm – he said that he had known the two employees for 20 years. Mr. Connes however said that he was the ‘first man to be employed at the firm some 30 years ago’  - and if he was talking about the Greenwich works the date of the dinner would have been in 1916 – by which time Charles James Appleby was long dead, so something doesn’t (again) a make a lot of sense. Perhaps they had moved to Greenwich from another Appleby works.

Anyway the after the dinner  they toasted ‘The firm of Messrs Appleby’, ‘The staff and the Employees’, ‘The Visitors’ and ‘The new firm of Connes and Calvert’.  Then there was some excellent singing and

‘the proceedings terminated with the National Anthem’.

From 1866 they had a branch in Leicester under Joseph Jessup and later in the 1890s they became Appleby & Jessup – but seem to have been taken over by Crayford based Vickers & Maxim.   I am very confused about when they actually left Greenwich.   They produced a catalogue with all sorts of pumps, engines and devices – but what was made in Greenwich?  In later years – under Vickers – they made all sorts of cranes and transporters but these are said to have been made in Leicester. From May 1910 they were Appleby Crane and Transporter Co.Ltd. and I was once told that the Temperley Transporter at South Met. Gas’s Ordinance Wharf came from them – I have a picture of it all crumpled up and wrecked after a storm.

Applebys were an important engineering firm who made many innovative structures around the 

Warrior - the ultimate warship and Greenwich

Greenwich for tourists is best known for the Cutty Sark, the preserved sailing ship sitting in its riverside dry dock. Almost noone will be aware that there were once considerable plans to bring another historic ship to Greenwich, or rather to Thamesmead, as a feature for the new town. This ship was ten years older than Cutty Sark, and unlike her, built locally - and very, very different indeed. 

Coincidentally, I was also watching on TV the episode of Dan Snow's series on the Royal Navy called 'How the navy forged the modern world. Much of it focused on a ship which Dan described as the 'embodiment of the industrial revolution'. As he talked I became more and more aware how much about the construction of the ship had connections to Greenwich. 

I must admit here that it is taking a lot of nerve for me to write about a historic ship, so near the National Maritime Museum - where they know all about these things. But this ship was also about industrial innovation and Thameside expertise. 

Today if you go to Portsmouth Harbour Station, just off the train, you are very aware of a big old ship just across the harbour. This ship was the cutting edge of mid-nineteenth century ship building design. To quote from its website "The fastest, largest and most powerful warship in the world ... a lasting influence on naval architecture and design ...the ultimate deterrent . Had my house on the hillside in Westcombe Park had existed in 1859 I could have looked out of my bedroom window and seen on the other side of the river a massive ship taking shape. It was built on Bow Creek - on the east bank, technically in what became Canning Town. (I once met a man who used to go down to Portsmouth and harass them to change 'built in London' on the signs to 'built in Essex). 

Of course, a lot of big ships were built on the Thames in those days - Brunel's Great Eastern launched a bit upriver only the previous year. Keep in mind that then London River was at the heart of world ship building. Vessels had been built at the mouth of Bow Creek since the Vikings but a modern shipyard had been developed from the 1830s. The company had been re-structured as Thames Ironworks in 1857 by Peter Rolt, a timber merchant and MP for Greenwich. The yard had a workforce of over 4,000 and has been described as 'by far the most innovative, successful and enduring iron shipbuilding site on the River'. 

The Admiralty had been slowly coming round to the idea of building ships from iron when it became known that the French were to build an iron clad. They issued a design specification for a new warship 'a frigate of 36 guns cased with wrought iron plates'. The result was 'the greatest single development in the history of warship design'. As the ship was built, over in Bow Creek, she would have easily been seen from Greenwich - but our contribution to her was much more than that. 

The ship was not just 'modern' in the use of iron, but, despite the masts and sails, there were steam engines from John Penn and Sons. Several leading firms in marine steam engine manufacture with 'accumulated experience at the highest levels of competence' were in what is now south east London. Penn's works was on what we know as the Wickes site on Blackheath Hill. His contract for the engines for the new ship was worth £74,409. 

The Dan Snow TV programme gives a tour of the engines now on the ship -although I am afraid they are specially built replicas. Also replicas are her Armstrong breech loading rifled guns of a revolutionary design. I do not know if they were made at the Armstrong works at Elswick or, here, in the Royal Arsenal. Certainly some of the work was done was in the Royal Carriage Department at Woolwich. I would guess many of the other items among the fixture, fittings and instrumentation were made locally. Perhaps someone has written all this up from the records and will write in and correct me on all this. 

The ship survived eventually as an 'oil fuel hulk' at Pembroke Dock. In 1967 the South East London Mercury reported that the National Maritime Museum and the Duke of Edinburgh were part of a scheme for restoration and a new home for the vessel in the new town of Thamesmead. This never happened; the ship was restored in Hartlepool and then taken 'home' to Portsmouth where a visit is a very, very worthwhile experience. (Did I tell you I had dinner on board once?) 

What I think I want to say is that in Portsmouth Harbour is this amazing cutting edge vessel built with the skills and expertise of Thameside workers - many of them from Greenwich and Woolwich. I am not sure we give them any credit for it, or in any way celebrate their contribution. It is all very well to talk about Greenwich and the Navy - but somehow not about the skills, ingenuity and technological expertise to provide the hardware which made their achievements possible. Warrior.

 Go to Portsmouth, visit what was a technological marvel in the 1860s and remember her origins on the Thames. Sources - I don't set myself up to be an expert or even particularly knowledgeable about naval ships their history and construction. Books I have used for reference have been Tony Arnold's 'Iron shipbuilding on the Thames' and John Wells’ ‘‘The Immortal Warrior' and quotations are from them. Warrior's own website is http://www.hmswarrior.org Williams the Pirate –

The Gasworks War memorial on the Peninsula

 

The memorial to the dead in the Great War from the East Greenwich Gas Works Dr Mary Mills Greenwich Society members will no doubt welcome the news that a number of buildings and structures throughout Greenwich are being considered for local and indeed national listing. I had considered writing some details about some of them in our area – but that can wait. 

One structure which has been nationally listed is on the Peninsula - the memorial to the dead in the Great War from the East Greenwich Gas Works. A ceremony to commemorate the dead, and this listing, was held by Historic England along with Christ Church and Saint Mary Magdalen School on 6th of November. Young people from the school spoke about the relevance of the memorial to them and Rev. Margaret Cave addressed us. 

There is quite a history to the memorial and how it came to be situated in John Harrison way. The Gas Works was of course heavily involved in all sorts of ways in the Great War. I have a copy of a very detailed booklet which was produced by the Company in 1920 which describes it. This covers all sorts of subjects including the conversion of much of their chemical manufacturing capacity to the production of weapons. 

There is also a dramatic and tragic story to be told about the company’s fleet of collier ships many of which were torpedoed and their crews drowned as they brought coal to the Gas Works from the Durham coal field. Some months ago I wrote an article for the Greenwich Weekender about the role of women who undertook the most strenuous work in the production of coal gas while the men were away at war. 

We must remember that the South Metropolitan Gas Company which owned the East Greenwich Gas Works was a very large undertaking with several other large works. This memorial in East Greenwich is only one of several. There is, for instance, a window in Southwark Cathedral which the company donated as a memorial to gas worker servicemen. 

I should also mention that there were some civilian awards during the war – one of these was an OBE to Frederick Innis who saved the gas supply to South London when East Greenwich No 2 gas holder was ruptured by the Silvertown explosion in 1917. 

The memorial which now stands in John Harrison way was originally installed in 1926 at a ceremony which included the Mayor of Greenwich accompanied by the South Metropolitan Gas Works choir and its military band. It was installed in a little garden near the entrance to the Gas Works in Grenfell Street - about half way down what is now Millennium Way. 

When the gas works closed only one employee was left to look after the site - Key Murch, who some of you may remember. She worked in one of the Portacabins in Millennium Way and when the site was passed English Partnerships she became their site manager. She always said she wanted to save something from the Gas Works and she managed to salvage the war memorial and it was moved to John Harrison Way when the park was laid out it. Sadly Kaye died before the Millennium Exhibition opened and so she never saw the memorial in its current setting. I suppose I am very glad for her sake that there is now such a lot of interest in it – at the time, when the site was cleared for the Dome and the exhibition - any interest in the gas works or any past industry on the site, was considered a heresy and Kay had a real struggle to get the memorial saved – and we should all be so glad that she did it.

 The memorial has now been listed by Historic England working with the school. The students, from year 9, carried out a survey of the memorial using learning resources developed by Historic England and the War Memorial's Trust and a Great War trail of Charlton Cemetery was developed for them to follow. They spent time learning about the Great War and its the effect on people who lived locally and also researched the memorial online. Their photos and notes were part of the basis for listing the memorial. 

I also thought I should mention Rob Powell’s new book about the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich’s Maze Hill War Memorial which lists the names of the fallen to whom it was dedicated. I used to talk to one of the Town Hall staff, Dave, who was researching the memorial and I remember being intrigued by his story that the names of the fallen were not inscribed on the memorial but locked up inside it on a scroll. He has also had discovered that it was very unclear who owned the memorial; if it was on land owned by Greenwich Park or by the Council. I hope this is all been sorted out now and please buy Rob's new book – co-sponsored by the Greenwich Society - which has all the names along with some wonderful photographs including of course one of the Gas Works memorial. More info at www.greenwich.co.uk/rollofhonour/

BLACKWALL POINT POWER STATION AND ITS SUB STATIONS

If you walk down the Riverside path on the Greenwich Peninsula between the Millennium Village and the Dome, you go past a jetty -in fact it is now called ’The Jetty’ and there’s a new restaurant on it and a gardening project.

 If I can advertise myself a bit I ought to say that I’ve just written a little booklet about some of the things which happened on the surrounding site. The jetty was built in the 1940s for a power station - Blackwall Point power station - which once stood here. 

However the nasty accident I wanted to talk about was at an earlier establishment on the site, also called Blackwall Point power station. At the start of the 19th century a mill had been built here and later the mill and the rest of the surrounding area were used for a very large chemical works. In 1897 the owner of the chemical works died and the site was put up for sale. Part of it was acquired by the Blackheath and Greenwich District Electric Light Company limited. They had a Parliamentary order which gave them powers to supply electricity in Greenwich and Blackheath. 

In fact although they could supply alternating current in Blackheath, Charlton, Kidbrooke, Lewisham and Eltham, they could only supply direct current to Greenwich. They also did a deal with a local tram company to supply electricity to run the trams. To facilitate this they built a number of sub stations around the area – one of these substations still exists in Blackheath Park at the back of Blackheath Concert Halls. 

The new power station was built on the Greenwich Riverside and was designed and erected under the supervision of Mr. Reginald P. Wilson, a consultant on electrical engineering construction. The subsoil on which it was built was not good and it appeared that soap works refuse had been dumped there, so the whole of the NEW power station was built on piles made of pinewood. The buildings are described as substantial but the lack of money meant they were not “interesting from an architectural point of view” except that the engine room said to be faced with white glazed bricks. 

Coal was unloaded from barges and came from North East England. A jetty – a predecessor to the current jetty - was built of timber and concrete and had rails on which the trucks of coal could be moved about. The electrical and control equipment was supplied by local firm Johnson and Phillips whose factory was in Victoria Way, Charlton. There was also a large and prominent chimney the height of which was considered ‘excessive’ by a local commentator. 

The company's electrical engineer was John Archibald Constable, described at his death in 1933 as a pioneer of the electrical engineering industry. In 1906 he was living at 8 The Circus in Greenwich. 

The company also built a number of sub stations round the area in order to facilitate supply. One of these was at the rear of Blackheath concert halls – where it papers to still stand. It is at the Lea Road end of Blackheath Park on the south side of the road within the curtilage of the concert hall. It is marked on historic maps as ‘electricity substation’ and appears from the early 20th century. I have to thank Neil Rhind however for identifying the building and for passing this information on to me. I am not sure if Neil thinks that the whole building is original – and perhaps this article will encourage him to tell us more. I am not sure when it stopped being used, and what its current function is. I guess it is some sort of store. Again it would be nice if someone told us. It is however an impressive building, larger than most such sub stations and with a decorative grill over the door. 

Now what about the others? I think I am going to encourage readers to write in and tell us if they know or remember anything about them. Electrical substations are a neglected part of industrial archaeology and indeed the built environment generally. They are ubiquitous, on many streets, yet we hardly notice them. Has someone somewhere studied, them noted their typology. Written learned articles? If not we can at least try to identify those built for the Blackwall Point power station around 1900. 

There were two, the location of which I have been unable to trace. One in Westcombe Hill and one in Crooms Hill. If they were anything like the one in Blackheath Park they were much bigger than is normal in a substation of a more or less two storey height. The one in Crooms Hill is said to have been even larger because it was hoped that it could also supply South East Metropolitan Tramway with power. On old maps there are several substations necessary marked on earlier maps, it doesn't mean they weren’t there. They also not necessarily on the road itself- I am very aware of a current substation at the back of houses in Westcombe Hill more of less fronting onto Invicta Road – but it could have been described as 'Westcombe Hill' and replaced something earlier and larger. So – let's see who knows what, and can we trace 

Greenwich Industrial History and the Heritage Centre

 

These past few weeks us Greenwich industrial historians have been running round in circles what with the gasholders campaign and Enderbys. Personally I’ve also done a couple of booklets and I have a big backlog of articles, including this one, to write 

In the middle of all this is came then news that the heritage centre in Woolwich is to close. Hopefully by the time this article is published we all know a lot more about this but at the moment it’s been a real mystery tour. 

Many people will remember that the local history department used to be at Woodlands in Mycenae roads and that around 2000 it was merged with the Plumstead museum and moved as the heritage centre for a site in Woolwich arsenal. A few years later this was swept up into the Greenwich Heritage Trust which was based at Charlton House. In the last couple of days it is emerged that the Arsenal site is to close and the archives moved. 

At the moment we know no more than that. I am writing the rest of this article in the hope it is not overtaken by events by the time it is published, In this context I thought I should write something about Greenwich. 

The Heritage Centre in Woolwich has become very focused, and quite rightly, on the history to east of the borough . There’s been a lot about the Royal Artillery and about the Great War. Meanwhile in Greenwich itself the Borough Hall has suddenly become vacant. This hall was once part of Greenwich’s Town Hall - the buildings of which including the tower in Greenwich High Road were sold in the 1970s after Greenwich had been merged with Woolwich. Some of us began to think that the Borough Hall would make it very good history centre for Greenwich 

People will say that Greenwich is overstuffed with museums but the National Maritime Museum is, well national, as is the Royal Observatory, and the Fan Museum. None of them are about Greenwich Up until 1889 Greenwich was an important town in Kent and from 1889 a Metropolitan Borough. It had its own Council and its own way of doing things. In 1939 it built its groundbreaking modernist Town Hall. 

In the early 1960s it became part of the London Borough and the civic centre moved to Woolwich Greenwich had had a civic centre, a shopping centre and a busy industrial sector. It was very much a town where small industries and workshops proliferated which turned out small and innovative items. There was also a lively Riverside industry - fishing lasted into the 19th century, many small firms providing services to the river – lighterage, dredging and so on - and there has always been small boat and barge building businesses. 

We should perhaps remember that quite sizeable vessels were still being built on the Greenwich Riverside into the 1980s. Its highly skilled population also worked in engineering and communications technology. We had the first suburban railway and the first centralized power station and so much more As I write this we don’t know what will happen to Greenwich heritage centre and there is no reason why it should continued to focus on Woolwich.

 I am aware there that there are also calls to give a thought to the past of Plumstead and Charlton and what about Eltham? We need something that tells the world about Greenwich – this busy Kentish town with a history of innovation

The Thames Pathway - Walk it as you would a country path, till they are sick to the guts”

 

My copy of ‘Nairn’s London’ is falling to bits. When I bought it in 1966 (price 8/6d) it was the brave new world but now its a historical document. One of the reasons it’s so tatty is Nairn’s description of the Riverside path “unknown and unnamed .. the best Thamesside walk in London” I guess it was originally just a walk along the river wall - and we have no idea how old that is . 

In 1867 the Court of Queen’s Bench heard that it was there at the time of Norman Conquest and for all they knew it was Roman. The public have walked it ever since but now no longer on the river edge because of need for a cycle path and ‘health and safety’. 

The oldest pictures which I know of which show people on the path are two of the 17th century gunpowder works (on the site of Enderbys). In them people are taking the dog for a walk, sketching, chatting .. or just, well, walking. 

Last year the Enderby Group did a footfall survey on the path – and things haven’t really changed, except for the bicycles. Nairn describes the path starting at the Blackwall Tunnel’s ‘pretty art nouveau gatehouse’ down a passage alongside the Delta Metal Company “which zigs and it zags and it doesn’t give up and eventually comes out at the river”. I remember that passage well . When I worked at Delta Metal in 1970 the path there was modernised and paved, but totally isolated from the rest. 

He talks about the path taking “exciting forms...between walls ... under cranes ...nipping round the back of a boatyard’. Much of that stretch was straightened out in the 1980s. “A continuous flirtation with the slow moving river choked with working boats”. (if only!) 

The right of way on this whole stretch was taken to the Court of Queens Bench by Greenwich Vestry in 1867 in a case against the shipbuilders, Maudslay Son and Field who had blocked the path. They were on the site we now call Bay Wharf where they built CThey were on the site we now call Bay Wharf where they built Cutty Sark’s two sisters, Hallowe'en and Blackadder. The case had huge public support with the gallery crowded with local people shouting and clapping. Mr. Soames whose soap works was on the site of the later sugar refinery said that companies would go out of business if the public could walk along the riverside past them. The Court and Lord Chief Justice Cockburn didn’t agree and declared in favour of the right of way. It is the same stretch which Greenwich Council went to court in the 1990s when the then occupants blocked it and the right of way was declared again.

 North of this in 1868 Lewis and Stockwell Shipbuilders built a large a dry dock (where the hotel is now) and this interrupted the river path. I don't know how this was resolved by the Vestry who thought it was ‘not a good idea to give up these old rights in a hurry’ but thought new employment opportunities were important. (Nothing changes, it really doesn’t). 

When the Gas Works was built in the 1890s the riverside path was closed right round its site. Following an enquiry in the House of Lords Ordinance Draw Dock was built by the gas company as compensation. 

I hope Greenwich residents visit the draw dock which is still a right of way despite scary notices from the people in the Dome and the hotel. 

As for Nairn he got to the “final exciting stretch past Greenwich Power station and another good Riverside pub , The Yacht”. Then he says “God preserve it from the prettifiers” and, in a footnote “’They’ are trying to close. Walking it as you would a country path., till they are sick to the guts”

 

East Greenwich Gas holder , Our poor doomed holder

 

I thought it was about time I wrote something about our poor doomed East Greenwich Gas holder. The campaign to try and stop demolition of the holder has had much greater public supports than we expected and this note is to say ‘thank you’ to everybody who signed the petition. 

We had meetings with gas company officials – many with Councillors and Council officials and we are very grateful for their support. So – with all this effort why is it still going to come down? Partly because Ofgem, the regulatory body, has called for all holders, apart from a very few which are listed, to come down. There have been several attempts to get our East Greenwich holder listed since the 1990s, all of which have been turned down. 

Gas company officials now tell us that it has to come down because of the Silvertown tunnel. However the tunnel won’t actually run under the holder, but it will go very near it and there seem to conflicting reports about how much of a problem that is. 

It is worth saying, again, that the East Greenwich gas holder is an important structure – technically it is the second holder built to and developing the revolutionary ‘cylindrical shell principle’ which is very simple and very strong setting ‘a new bench-mark in gas holder design’. When it was built, holding over 8,000,000 cubic feet of gas, it was the biggest holder in the world -described at the time as ‘a mountain of iron against the sky’. 

It is designed to be very plain – foreshadowing ideas which culminated in the modern movement. It is also of course a dramatic feature in the landscape and from the river and one of the few remaining features of a Greenwich we are fast losing. Gas holders all over the country are being demolished while the many local campaigns and concerns are ignored - and this is something which cannot be right.

EAST GREENWICH GAS HOLDER - NEARLY GONE

 

The East Greenwich gas holder is now almost completely demolished -although, as I write it still looks intact. The procedure is remorseless and unforgiving. 

They are all going. Our very large gasholder is the second in a series described as a ‘new benchmark for gas holder design’. with guide frames designed on a radical ‘cylindrical shell principle’ of George Livesey. It is very plain because it was recommended such structures should not carry historicist design references. More than 180 feet tall and holding 8m cubic feet of gas it was an ‘iron mountain against the sky’ and the largest holder in the world. Water from the underlying marsh ‘caused widespread mischief ‘, so the tank was built slightly raised, and it was the first holder to have four lifts. Demolition has revealed an internal wooden structure. 

Production of town gas ended here in 1976, and the holder was decommissioned in 2013. Applications to list dated from the 1990s - later explored via Freedom of Information by the campaign group. In 2000 a study for English Heritage provided a benchmark for holders in London. Subsequently OFGEM required the demolition of all holders, except those nationally listed, to safeguard consumers against future costs. The issuing of a Certificate of Immunity against listing meant that the Council could not prevent demolition and also prevented consideration of local input. It emerged that the Silvertown Tunnel would pass close by and that the adjacent site of the second East Greenwich holder, demolished in the 1980s, might be used by TfL. 

We have had meetings with Southern Gas Networks, Greenwich Planners and councillors and has had two site visits. A detailed survey is being carried out by AOC Archaeology Group. SGN are commissioning an artwork and more details of this will be available soon. This has been a very brief resume. There are a number of more detailed articles elsewhere and a booklet is planned. A very sad outcome for a major icon of Greenwich’s industrial history.

Gas holder demolition of EG1

 

The East Greenwich gas holder is being demolished.  It was the largest holder in the world when it was built with revolutionary engineering. It remains a dramatic feature in the landscape and an icon for the area. But despite great public support to keep it or adapt it to another use - it’s going. Like all the other holders where local people asked for demolition to be halted and another solution found, the procedure is remorseless and unforgiving.  They are all going

 The East Greenwich holder is the second in the series which Malcolm Tucker has described as the ‘Livesey holders’.   It was built for the South Metropolitan Gas Company as part of their new modern gasworks on the Greenwich Penninsula in the 1880s. South Metropolitan had originally been based in the Old Kent Road as a relatively small company dating from the late 1820s. In 1839 Thomas Livesey had been appointed as manager and he was determined to make the then insignificant South Metropolitan Company ‘take the lead’ in the London gas industry.  He died in 1871 and was replaced by his eldest son. George Livesey, clever and unconventional, was to become the dominant figure in the late 19th century gas industry with an involvement in almost every possible issue, often against the wishes of his Board. This included changing the basis of profit and price management in the industry as well as labour relations and much technology.  He was also a national figure in the temperance movement. 

 George Livesey had been responsible for a series of gas holders at the Old Kent Road from 1865, each one embodying new ideas.  There was considerable interest in the trade press and among other engineers on the development of gas holder design in this period.  In 1881 gasholder No13 was put into use.  This had been designed by Livesey on what Malcolm Tucker has described as the ‘revolutionary cylindrical shell principle’.  It was of an unprecedented 5.5m cu ft. in capacity with three lifts making it 160 foot high. It  is also very plain with no applied decoration and has been described by Malcolm, as a ‘new benchmark for gas holder design’.  The lack of decoration was, in part, the result of recommendations made to Livesey by the American, George Warren Dresser who advised him that structures should represent what they were and not carry historic design references. That foreshadows ideas for industrial buildings in the modern movement and the holder.   Its construction costs were extraordinarily low at £8.10s per 1000 cwt.    It was also built in the knowledge that gas consumption was increasing by about 10% a year thus providing the necessary storage. This holder is now listed and will be preserved in situ in the Old Kent Road.

 From the 1870s governments were keen to see small inner-city gas works replaced by a large efficient out of town works.  In this period Livesey had negotiated takeovers of most other South London gas companies and it was then decided to build a large modern works on what is now known as Greenwich Peninsula, then Greenwich Marsh. The Marsh had been rapidly industrialising since around 1800, mainly on Riverside sites concentrated on the West Bank.  South Met acquired roughly the northernmost third of the peninsula an area then known as Blackwall Point. It was originally planned to have five holders in the south east corner of the site but eventually construction began on the pattern of No.13 Old Kent Road with the majority of work on it to be done by George’s younger brother, Frank.  Early on problems were encountered. Water from the Marsh flooded into excavations for the tank ‘causing widespread mischief all around’.  As a result the holder was built slightly raised   the rim of the tank being 4 m above ground level, surrounded by an earth mound.  It was described as an ‘iron Mountain against the sky’ and was the largest gas holder in the world

 A Second larger holder was built adjacent to it with a more revolutionary structure which caused great excitement in the professional press of the day. It suffered a major accident in the Silvertown explosion in 1917 and was eventually demolished in the 1980s to little publicity or interest of anyone except myself.  Together the two holders have been described as constituting the largest concentration of gas storage ever.

 The original number one holder remained on site increasingly isolated as industry around it closed. The gasworks itself ceased to make gas for public supply in 1976. The holder is said to have been damaged both in the 1917 explosion and again in the Second World War but most particularly in 1979 when an IRA bomb was exploded alongside.  Three bays were damaged on its western side but were repaired and the holder remained in use and was decommissioned between 2012 and 2014.

 There had been at least one attempt to get the holder listed in the 1990s and the processes surrounding this and later attempts have been explored through Freedom of Information requests by members of the campaign group.  In 2000 Malcolm Tucker was commissioned by what was then English Heritage to do a study of gas holders in London. East Greenwich was not included in his sample survey but he included a short chapter on it. This study has in many ways provides a benchmark for holders in the London area

 News began to spread of holders worldwide which, rather than being demolished, were given other uses, some extremely imaginative. A conference was held in London in 2014 where gas holders were discussed and it became clear that demolitions would follow relatively quickly. OFGEM had provided money and an instruction that all gas holders, except those listed by English Heritage, were to come down in the interests of consumer price control. Work was already underway setting up processes for demolition by site owners. In Greenwich a small group was formed to try and do what we could do to either get listing for the holder or in some way ensure that it could be used in one of the many ways undertaken elsewhere.  Greenwich council appeared neutral on the subject but issued a planning brief for the area surrounding the site of the holder. this noted that” heritage assets and environment (should be) are conserved and enhanced”

 We then learnt that the owners had applied for a Certificate of Immunity against listing. This was granted and, with the demolition of gas holders being permitted development under planning legislation, meant that the local Council could not refuse planning consent to the demolition of the holder and could only comment on the management of such demolition. The council was also required to remove the hazardous substances order. The first application for management of demolition was submitted close to Christmas 2017 and refused; the second application was submitted shortly before the 2018 council  elections in a period when councillors are not allowed to take decisions and it was then agreed on officers’ action.  We also learnt that Transport for London’s Silvertown Tunnel project would pass close by and that Southern Gas Networks were under some pressure because of this.

 The campaign group set up a petition online which quickly achieved 1545 signatures. An associated paper petition was taken door-to-door where most residents were eager to sign. Clearly, also, the urban explorers have been to the top of the holder and their website contains several dramatic pictures.

 The holder received a great deal of attention with articles in local papers and blogs.  We have had a series of meetings with the owners, Southern Gas Networks, along with Greenwich Planners and some councillors. These were all very friendly and as a result we have had two site visits. A detailed survey has been carried out by AOC Archaeology Group and this will be followed up as demolition proceeds.  SGN have agreed to commission an artwork associated with the holder and it is also possible that a booklet will accompany it.

 We are also aware of the context of other local holders, apart from those listed. There have been campaigns north of the river all of which appear to have been unsuccessful. The only exception may be the Bethnal Green holder which is apparently now in other ownership. In south London our neighbours at Bell Green got their two holders locally listed by Lewisham Council but that did not prevent demolition which is now on-going. The holder in Bromley by the Tesco store has gone and we understand St Mary‘s Cray will follow soon.

 I think future generations will be appalled that these dramatic local structures will all be gone with little attempt at adaptive reuse.