At the end of the 17th century Greenwich and Woolwich were busy towns with a strong industrial sector in the Royal Dockyards and elsewhere plus in Greenwich itself a growing number of important institutions with national links. So, how did people get around in an age before mechanical transport. Many of them will have used the river, and otherwise they walked or rode horses along roads which developing from rough tracks. The national road network was formalised in the late 18th century.
A guide to the road system in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is ‘Paterson’s Roads’. Daniel Pattison produced the first editionin 1771 as a guide to road on which the military could march. The book ran to 18 editions, the final one being published in 1828.[1]My copy is so tattered and torn that I have no idea which edition it is but I do know that it starts very grandly with “Great and Direct Roads measured from the Surrey side of London Bridge through Great Dover street” It then proceeds to describe what we would clearly recognise as today’s A2. After 4 ¼ miles it arrives at Deptford Turnpike and enters Kent. The turnpike is illustrated with a little gate. The road then crosses the river Ravensbourne, illustrated with a stone bridge. He notes – with a pointing hand – the road to Lewisham and the road of Greenwich ‘and thence to Woolwich’. The next stop is Blackheath at the Green Man[2] with another turning toto Woolwich. At Shooters Hill he notes a stop ‘at the foot of the Bull Inn’ at 8 miles from London and then next stop is in Welling. All of which will be very familiar to 21st century residents.
The A2 follows a very ancient route running from the top
of Blackheath Hill along a line from which the ground falls away towards the
river and it then climbs Shooters Hill. It is thought to have been a Celtic
trackway and then to have been taken up by the Romans and improved by them as
their London to Dover road. It was later called Watling Street. For many
Greenwich historians the route of the road from Blackheath was a cause of much
dissention and discussion with some suggesting a route through Greenwich Park.[3] It should be noted however that following the
collapse of Blackheath Hill in 2002 that a Roman Road was identified running
down the hill on a spine of chalk.[4]In
the 17th
century sections of the road were converted into turnpikes – for our section
the New Cross Turnpike.
Turnpikes were an important bit of infrastructure set up in
the early 18th century as trusts. The New Cross Trust was
established in 1718 initially for twenty one years, and they met at theGreen
Man.[5]It
was a system which removed main roads from the funding responsibility of the
local vestries and to set them up as independent trusts, funded, as far as
possible from tolls on their use – levied at toll gates through their length.[6]A plan of 1758 shows it running, more or less from pub to pub. We
all know these roads very well and if the Catherine Wheel has long gone, some
people will remember the Green Man, and the Sun- nowthe Sun in the Sands– and
we all know where the road turns off for Lewisham.[7]
The road up Shooters Hill was well known
and Dickens’ classic description in “A Tale of Two Cities’ is often quoted “thick
mud …..a steaming mist in all
the hollows, …. a clammy and intensely cold mist” as well as the imminent
threat of highwaymen. The story is of course set in 1775 but written in 1859 –
by which time the New Cross Trust had improved the road considerably.In the
period after the Napoleonic Wars the road up the hill had been considerably
levelled” they moved gravel from the steeper parts and
deposited it in hollows to smooth out the incline” with the result that for
some of the ascent of the hill the pavement on the north side is on an
embankment which represents the original slope of the hill.[8]
The New Cross Turnpike Trust was to extend
throughout a large part of Kent and enjoyed a reputation as one of the most
efficient of such trusts with very high standards of road maintenance.[9]
The other parallel main road – what we
could call ‘The Lower Road’ gets a
fairly short shrift from Paterson. Rotherhithe is not even listed in his index,
and the road starts at the same Deptford Turnpike as the Dover Road. From there is goes to the Ship Tavern[10] and
then ‘or on to Woolwich’ which is indexed as ‘Crown and Anchor. The road did however become a turnpike by an
Act of Parliament in 1818. This was set
up as a separate Trust since it did not initiallyconnect to any of the New
Cross Trust’s roads, but it was however administered as part of their remit.
Eltham was effectively bypassed – as it is now – reached only by
a Eltham Hill – a side road from the New Cross Trust’s turnpike predecessor to
the A20.[11] For all our modern communications the main
road layout has hardly changed.
Woolwich was less connected until military necessity forced
improvements. Until the mid-18th century
the Lower Road was seen as impassable and the town was only reached by a narrow
lane from Woolwich Common along the line of what is now Woolwich New Road, then
‘Cholic Lane’. An Act of Parliament of 1765 placed it under the New Cross
Turnpike Trust and itwasthenconnected to the Plumstead Road.[12]
These were the main roads in and out of our area – of course the main means of transport was the river.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Paterson
[2]
The Green Man was on the site of what is now Grey Ladies Gardens. It was an
important coach stop and used as a meeting place for many official bodies. It was demolished in the early 1970s.
[3] The arguments are outlined by Somerville, ‘The Roads and Streets of Greenwich’ Trans Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarians Vol. IX 2 1980
[4]https://www.newcivilengineer.com/chalk-mine-collapse-shuts-down-london-arterial-road/717531.articl
[5] Landergan. At the sign of the Green Man. Bygone Kent.10/10
[6]www.turnpikes.org.uk
[7] Elliston-Erwood. Miscellaneous notes on some Kent roads. Arch Cant. LXX 1857
[8]http://e-shootershill.co.uk/
[9]Chislehurst Society. Web site
[10] The Ship, bombed in the Second World War, was on the site now occupied by the Cutty Sark in its dry dock
[11] Paterson.
[12] Survey of London. Woolwich
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