Well I thought it was about time that I did another episode of the 1851 boundary walk around Greenwich. This will be the sixth one following the walk taken from a newspaper report of a civic procession around the Greenwich boundary. They used to have these pretty regularly in the 19th century and the procession would consist of the Vicar and church wardens, some of the officers of the parish, choirboys and miscellaneous schoolchildren. I finished the last one leaving them up Blackheath Hill at the famous but sadly demolished Green Man’s Tavern. So, let’s see where they went after that.
I am a bit embarrassed to learn that unbeknown to me Julian Watson wrote up a general article about these church warden’s walks around the Borough boundary in the 2020 edition of Greenwich Local History Society’s Journal. This was based on report of a walk round the boundaries undertaken by members of the Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarian Society some 40 years earlier in 1980. What I think is very interesting about what this 1980 walk dead was that they noted some of the remaining boundary stones set up over the centuries. I’ve been commenting in my earlier episodes of this that the 1851 walk report mentions many boundary markers which appear to have gone. I think it’s very worth while asking where they’ve all gone - they can’t all be in some contractor’s skips!
So we begin at the much missed Green Man pub up at the top of Blackheath Hill – on the site which is now Alison Close. The newspaper report doesn’t say if they had a break there but I guess it was the best place to do that before they set off to cross Blackheath. From outside the Green Man they had go left. I have pointed out before that this is a useless instruction because where ‘left’ is depends on which way you are facing. If they were facing the Green Man ‘left’ is going up the main road onto Blackheath; but if they were facing towards the road ‘left’ would be in the long grass around the top of Point Hill.
Happily - and looking towards Point Hill - at last I think I have found a boundary stone! This is in the long grass on the roadside just past the turning to Point Hill, opposite the end of Dartmouth Row. At least I think it’s a boundary stone and not a bollard but I can’t see anything written on it. The 1851 report says there is a stone there ‘not having any date or mark thereon’. So perhaps I have found a boundary stone at last!! The 1860s map marks a boundary stone in exactly the right place too. However in Julian’s article about 1980 it says they found two boundary stones opposite the Green Man. The map marks a milestone nearby – there is no sign of it now but maybe that was the other stone they found in 1980.
The 1850s walk report next says there is a stone ‘south east of Chocolate Pond’. So the procession had reached the top of Hyde Vale and today as you turn into thre road from the A2 there is a little bit of grass and then a tiny wood before you get to where the old conduit is in the wall. I think that little wood is the where Chocolate Pond was. I am told that the late Neil Rhind said it was the biggest pond on Blackheath but to be perfectly honest it doesn’t look to me like there’s enough space there for a pond bigger than those which are on Blackheath now. The name of Chocolate Pond was nothing to do with the colour of the water but to do with the Chocolate House which stood in that area. I assume was a pub although there seems to be the idea that it sold hot chocolate - but I guess clientele in that area would in far more interested in alcohol that hot chocolate! So that was the pub pond.
On various maps a boundary stone or a post are marked in this area but on the other side of Hyde Vale and out in what is open heath. In his article about the 1980 walk Julian says that they saw a boundary stone at the top of Hyde Vale. Users of Google Street View will know you can look at pictures from past years and some years there is something there and sometimes not. Could some one tell me exactly where the stone was they saw in 1980. Also I would be grateful if someone would explain to me what is in the little railed enclosure by the footpath before you get to the houses at the top of Hyde Vale?? It appears to date from about 2014.
In the 1851 newspaper report they say the next boundry stone is at ‘Montague Corner’. I can’t find any reference to any such street name but I think that must be what is now Chesterfield Walk. There is actually a stone behind a fence on the corner of Chesterfield Walk and Crooms Hill so I assume that’s it. However in Julian’s account of the 1980 walk there is a photograph of a stone which looks a bit larger. It is shown standing in an open space nowhere near a fence or a road but it’s possible to work out where it is from the view of the houses in West Grove in the distance so perhaps it is tghe same stone which has been moved.
The 1851 report says next that there is one on the right hand side of the Dover Road ‘near the pit’ and another ‘placed nearby by the New Cross Turnpike Trust’. What what the pit might be is unknown to me but on the 1860s OS map there is an indication of a shallow part of the heath - which is now all flat of course - round the back of where the tea hut is now. 3 boundary stones are marked on the map.
This long walk-up the main road looking for boundary stones, which may or may not exist, is not the most interesting of activities on this boundary walk. Going back to a similar procession in 1827 there was some drama. When the walk reached Blackheath there were very many people who hads come to watch. Among them was a group of 30 or 40 young men and I guess they were bored. One of them, Benjamin Brooks, approached another young man - Charles Frederick Biggs - seized him by the wrist and demanded money. Some of his friends came up and said they ‘needed a shilling’. Two of them seized hold of Charles Biggs and Benjamin Brooks told them ‘to bump him to death’. Charles then said he had no money himself but he would go to get some from his father - and that he would try to make a collection ‘from the ladies that would be there’. He said later that he only said this in order to get away from them. And then as they were walking with him they met his father and Benjamin and his friends all ran away.
Charles father was Benjamin Biggs who was that time Surveyor of Morden College and who lived in Black Heath. He is the man who designed and built the houses on Ballast Quay. He took the case to court where the magistrate said that no one had a right to demand money from people perambulating the parish and Benjamin Brooks was sent to prison. I hope this wasn’t just a prank between groups of lads who all knew each other well and that Mr.Biggs wasn’t over reacting.
Meanwhile the processon across Blackheath continued and looked at more missing boundary stones. There was said to be another at the end of the pit and that certainly isn’t there now any more than the other two aren’t there. Then it says the route crosses the road ‘going from Vanburgh Fielda towards Lee’. I reckon that is today’s Prince Charles Road and that means that the boundary stone must have been roughly where the roundabout in the middle of the A 2 is now. I would have thought the roundabout would have been a good place to put unwanted and unused boundary stones. There certainly a number of square objects on it which could be anything but they’re not stones. The roundabout was effectively scoured of anything of any interest before the 2012 Olympics as part of a tidying up. One of the things they removed was an interesting old preserved junction box from Greenwich’s first electricity supply. For some reason also they seem to have cut a lot of trees down – and removed the attractive planting you can see on the earliest Google Street view. So I guess no boundary stoner would have stood a chanc!
The next boundary stone was said to be about 120 yards down from St. Germans Place. The route then turns south but I'll look at that in the next issue I do of this
I'm sorry if this has all been about the way you can find so few of these marker stones. I don’t know why they are completely removed. I understand that roads need widening and perhaps the stones need to be moved but surely they could be put back somewhere nearby. Readers of my earlier articles on this will have noted that I found not a single boundary stone between the Greenwich riverside where we started and all the way down the Creek. A friend has said to me that ‘it's a real scandal that these stones have vanished in the last hundred years or so’ .Quite
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