Industrial railways in Greenwich - Angerstein. Arsenal, Glenton

 

Industrial railways in Greenwich

 As a heavily industrialised area Greenwich had its share - perhaps more than a share - of railway systems specific to particular factories and other industrial sites.  Some of these were connected to the main line railway – like the colossal network in the Royal Arsenal.  There is also a still extant industrial railway which had many extensions to factories.  There was also small independent tramway and many factories which had their own internal systems unconnected to the outside world.  There were also railways installed on a temporary basis for contractors on large sites.  Finally there were a number of locomotive manufacturers.[1]

We have already noted in the chapter on passenger railways the large interchange system beyond Plumstead station for the Royal Arsenal main line rolling stock.  There were however a number of  railways in the Arsenal. To quote Ian Bull “The Royal Arsenal Railway  ... crammed 130 miles of line into just two square miles and 70 of those miles … were the unusual gauge of 18 inches. .. In the First World War (there were) 80 narrow gauge locomotives   ….with 2,500 wagons and 22 carriages for the 24 hour per day passenger service.”[2]

A tramway had been installed in 1825 in the Arsenal store houses but this was powered by horses and remained the main system for many years. As time went on it was clear that railways were the best way of getting about on the marshy extended site –few roads were built.  Several isolated high explosive facilities were served only by rail. At first the main departments - the Royal Gun Foundry, the Royal Gun Carriage Department and the Royal Laboratories – each had their own system and did not co-operate with each other. In 1849 an agreement was made with the South Eastern Railway and an internal standard gauge railway was built with a connection to the “the hole in the wall” near Plumstead Station. This railway served jetties and proof butts. Because of constraints imposed by the Army an 18” gauge railway was then built in the Arsenal from 1873. Track was made on site and the line could go inside buildings where appropriate. It was steam hauled from the start. Passenger trains were provided to get workers quickly around the site and had  first class carriages for visitors and senior officials. By 1898 there were 30 miles of narrow gauge track and 120 miles of standard gauge track.  There was a sixteen road marshalling yard for exchange traffic.  This system was scrapped in 1922 but much of it remained in place until 1967. Some locomotives have survived and it is hoped to use them on a future system connected to Crossness Engines – where there are also other remains of the Arsenal railways displayed.[3]

After the Woolwich Dockyard close The Arsenal used the site for storage. There they had a sidings and a link through to the South Eastern Railway from just east of Woolwich Dockyard Station. This too closed in the 1960s.[4] 

There were other industrial sites in the borough of which were connected to the main line railway system - interestingly these were all at sites owned by the Government.

One site connected to the main line railway system - and mentioned in the chapter on passenger rail services- was the Government's depot at Kidbrooke which was connected to sidings at the South Eastern's Kidbrooke Station.  This had originally been built in 1918 for the Royal Army Service Corps and taken over by the Royal Air Force in 1922 as a depot. It is said that in the Second World War there were more people using Kidbrooke Station to access the depot than commuters.  There was also an internal narrow gauge system which closed in 1963.  The entire system was closed in 1967 and the depot itself closed and demolished.[5]  Some of the site was used for housing and currently a large storage unit for the National Maritime Museum is being built on the site

 

The other site with a connection to a main line railway was the Deptford Foreign Cattle Market which was on part of the site of the Deptford Dockyard which had been purchased for this use by the City of London in the early 1870s.   Foreign cattle were disembarked here for slaughter and a tramway was used from 1898 which was connected to the Royal Victualling Yard.  The victualling yard is outside my remit because it was never in the Borough of Greenwich however it is relevant here because it was connected to the London Brighton and South Coast Railway via their site at Deptford Wharf and the further connection to the Foreign Cattle Market was made through this link.  The tramway was initially worked with horses and then a locomotive. This is the locomotive, of which there are many photographs, which hauled wagons along a tramway in the centre of Grove Road. There was a locomotive depot at the entrance to the market itself.[6]

The Angerstein Railway

one of the biggest systems of industrial railway lines lies between Greenwich and Charlton on what was originally a private goods line running to river from the Blackheath tunnel. 

  ‘Angerstein’ – the name of the railway - originates with the romantic figure of John Julius Angerstein – a Russian financier with mysterious origins – maybe the son of a Russian Empress and a British banker. Immensely rich he built the Blackheath house, now called Woodlands, in 1774 and used it as his picture gallery. A century later his family owned most of the land between the river and the Dover Road and had enormous local influence. In 1850 his grandson must have seen the potential of this area – with the North Kent railway line coming in a tunnel from Blackheath and across the river the new Victoria Dock.What was needed was a wharf and a connecting railway.

 John Angerstein planned a railway in 1851 to run on his own land from a junction with the North Kent Railway to a riverside wharf.   Built on private land there was no need for an Act of Parliament except for a bridge which would be needed to cross the Turnpike Road. It opened in 1852 and was immediately leased to the South Eastern Railway whose successors managed it, bought it and run it ever since. It runs on an embankment parallel with Tudor Lombard Wall and has remained entirely a goods line. It was electrified with an overhead scheme 1959-1976.[7]

 On successive maps the line appears with up to fourteen branches fanning out to various works including Angerstein Wharf itself. In the 1980s two massive bridges were built to take the line across newly built Bugsby’s Way. In the 21^st century it handles mainly aggregate arriving at what is now said to be the only railhead left on the river.[8]

 To see the Angerstein line close up – from Westcombe Park Station take a footpath which runs to a bridge across the 102M tunnel approach motorway. At the far side on an embankment is a tiny isolated level crossing which can have hardly changed since the line opened in the 1850s.  At least eight locomotives use this stretch of line every day – and very occasionally a party of train spotters will arrive on the only passenger trains which have ever used the line.

 

Angerstein Wharf. This was managed by the South Eastern Railway from 1852. They bought it outright in 1898. From 1901 as the south Eastern and Chatham railway electrification was under consideration. In 1875 maps show a network of six lines reaching the Riverside along with some buildings. This expanded year by year and to a whole network of lines. There was am early proposal for a power station here when electrification was first considered but the scheme was eventually dropped.[9] The development of Angerstein Wharf has been described as “a catalyst for the area’s development .... laying an important role in the transportation of many different types of goods including sand, ballast, coal and oil, over 165 years continuous operation”[10].,

 

Once Angerstein Wharf was no longer used by the railway for general wharfage and transhipment it was leased by Thames Metal around 1854. They operated a scrap yard on from which scrap metal was exported to Bilbao having arrived here from Hither Green Sidings via the Dartford Loop.[11]  

 The wharf is now still in use by the aggregates industry and 2.5m tonnes of marine aggregates for road and construction use are imported here annually. Specially-designed ships dredge licensed areas of sea beds around Britain for sand and gravel then, once at the dock, a series of scoops and conveyor belts extract the produce onshore, where it is graded.  It was taken over by Day Aggregates in 1993. They were originally Day & Sons Ltd a coal delivery company set up during the Second World War and now,  based in Brentford, they have depots all over the UK. Their Charlton address is now Lombard Wall – slightly to the east of the Angerstein site since the whole riverside here is taken up,  Also here are Aggregates Industies, based at Bardon Hill in Leicestershire and at Bardon quarry. Their products are brought down to Angerstein wharf by rail. Nearby are Murphy Aggregates who since the earlu 1950s have sourced sea-dredged aggregates using the company-owned dredger and wharf facility at Charlton.

 Also on site at Angerstein are Cemex. They operate a marine construction aggregate and an associated cement facility at Angerstein Wharf. Cemex originated in 1906 in Mexico and now operate worldwide. They have operated in the UK since the 1940s on many different locations here.  And finally there is Tarmac, said to be of the largest ‘marine aggregate terminals’ in Europe. Tarmac is major building materials and Construction Company, and is here sited on Murphy’s Wharf providing storage for aggregates for road coating materials. [12]

 In addition to the Wharf, at the point at which the railway leaves the public system is the Angerstein Triangle which was the site of the  The South Eastern Railway’s signal works , This is the area of an old chalk pit between the mouth of the Blackheath Tunnel and the junction with the line to Charlton.  It closed in the 1980s and the site is now the police car pound.

 From around 1900 sidings spread out from the main Angerstein line to a developing industrial area between the riverside and the Woolwich Road.

 Redpath Brown – Riverside Steel Works. 1903 This was an Edinburgh based structural steel company who moved to a hitherto unused site south of what was then Riverway in 1903. 

In 1929 the Company merged with Dorman Long and later a site with that name was added to the Greenwich works. The works was nationalised with the rest of the steel industry and was known as 'Riverside Steel Works' as part of the British Steel Corporation. [13]  The site is listed as having a link to the Angerstein line and having its own internal sidings. A short list of locomotives is given.[14] There is no sign of this rail link on Ordnance maps and the line is shown as going past the steel works into the gas works – although a detailed line arrangement is shown after nationalisation it still shows no link to the Angerstein Line. The works closed in the 1980s and for a while was a police riot training ground. It is now under the Memorial Park and part of the Millennium Village. The changed layout and arrangement of flats make it extremely difficult to work out where this factory was.

 

East Greenwich Gas Works. 1903 This very large gas works took up the northern part of the Greenwich Peninsula, along with associated chemical works and tar processing plant. It had a large and complex internal rail system. The works was connected to the Angerstein Line but this is not shown on 1890s maps and it seems likely the connection was made in 1903.[15] The line ran across the marsh on an embankment on the later boundary of the Redpath Brown works. It crossed what was then Marsh Lane, later Riverway, a few yards west of the Pilot Inn, on a bridge on which was a signal cabin.  Today West Parkside runs slightly to the west of this embankment.  The embankment and bridge remained in place long after the gas works had closed and in the 1990s was used by lorries accessing the building site which became the Millennium Dome.  It was then demolished.  Anecdotally it seems likely that the gas works made little use of this rail link since all coal was delivered by collier vessels and by products often left by road.  It seems only to have been used for occasional oil and tar carrying rolling stock.[16]

 

London County Council, Central Tram Repair Depot.  1911 This was on the Woolwich Road accessed from Felltram Way.[17] It was connected to the Angerstein line from 1911.  The buildings were later used by Airfix and then demolished. The site is now largely car parking as part of a trading estate. [18]

 

William Christie & Co. Ltd (later Christie & Vesey Ltd).  1912 This firm were large timber importers and creosoters who bought a 16 acre siding site adjoining Angerstein Wharf from the South Eastern Railway here in 1912 and remained for the next fifty years. They had four riverside berths from the railway and a junction with the Angerstein line slightly north of what became the tram depot. In the 1920s they improved the wharf front to take vessels of 5000 tons.[19] It is described as  “one of the finest ferro-concrete piers of its type on the Thames”....“equipped on the most up-to-date lines” It  handled “over 30,000 tons of sleepers and 30,000 tons of timber, deals and telegraph poles”[20] as well as “coke, sand, slates, tiles, fullers earth” . The 1953 OS map also shows “an internal narrow gauge tramway.[21] Christie and Vesey was a Scottish firm based in Falkirk with depots around the country – including in Kent at Paddock Wood.  They eventually became part of the Wickes Group.[22] The site is now in other use but the concrete jetty is still in place parallel to the shore. The foundations and deck remain substantially as built .. with redundant cranes and davits still in situ.[23] A new jetty now stretches into the river.  Although there is now no rail facility on site some rails appear to remain from the junction with the Angerstein line itself.

 

G.A.Harvey Greenwich Metal Works,. 1913.  This large metal works fronted onto the Woolwich Road – the current site of Charlton Fire Station and a large surrounding area. Holmwood Villas led to their entrance some of which remains in place although ruinous. They moved here from Lewisham and made a large range of metal objects from huge fractionating towers[24] to perforated metals of all sorts. Their catalogues show hundreds of different types of perforations which they could supply. Various buildings were connected to a rail system which was itself connected to the Angerstein Line.

 

United Glass. This large glass works was sited here from 1919 on the site of an existing bottle works. There was an internal rail system and a connection from the Angerstein line. The works closed in 1966 and the site is now warehousing.[25]  The works also used Durham Wharf built in the early 20^th for transhipment of coal and sand .  There are rails embedded in the wharf and the jetty approaches which are the last remains of the formerly extensive sidings in the area.[26]

 

Anglo-American Oil. Had a licence granted in 1912 to store 100,000 gallons of oil on the site. They were based on the north side of Aldeburgh Street and extended to the Thames. The company shipped lamp oil branded as "Royal Daylight" from America to the United Kingdom. Standard Oil Trust owned Rockefeller in the USA. In the UK they used the brand name of Pratts. In 1935 they became the Esso Petroleum Co Ltd.  They were on this site alongside the Angerstein railway with a riverside wharf from at least the 1890s until the 1960s. Although there is no obvious rail link to the site there are photographs of tankers , marked  ‘Esso’ on the line .

 

• Renwick Wilton's 1969

 A mile or so from the Angerstein Railway there was a small private line going from some pits to the river – the Glenton Sand and Gravel Railway.

 
Lewis Glenton  was a sand and building supplies merchant who in later years became a developer of much of the area of Blackheath and Charlton. He had a lease on the pit which now contains The Valley - the ground of Charlton Athletic Football Club and there  he is excavated chalk and sand. In  1840 he was given permission to run a narrow gauge railway from the pits to the river across the turnpike road - now Woolwich Road. The line ran from what is now the athletic ground down Ransome Road and under a low and specially built bridge carrying the south eastern railway. It then crosses WoolwIch Road and continues through a trading estate and into what was the British Ropes factory and then on to the river. [27]This line is very easily traced. The line was later taken over bad used by the British Ropes Company, later Bridon.  A considerable amount of rail of the line still remains inside the Bridon Works site and Bridon were always careful to maintain the access point with the river and to keep it clear.[28]

 

In addition to these independent railways and works connected to them, there were a number of factories with internal rail systems unconnected to the outside world. These included:

 British Ropes – later Bridon – in Anchor and Hope Lane. As noted anode they used the line and rails of the defunct Glenton Railway to access their riverside wharf. When built in 1925 they had also had an independent rail system throughout the works but which was out of use by the 1960s.[29]

 Greenwich Power station . Built by the London County Council in 1902  electric  locomotives were originally used to convey coal  l from the jetty to the main building.  This was abandoned in the 1920s[30]; it is understood that tracks remain on the Jetty.

 Plumstead Destructor.  Sited in White Hart Road this refuse destructor works was built originally by Plumstead  Board of Works.   In 1931 locomotives were supplied to the site by the Metropolitan Borough up of Woolwich .  Up it is not clear if these were used on not .[31]

 Taylor Woodrow Charlton station., This was a depot handling sections of prefabricated buildings it was closed in 1965 but had previously ran a small an engine called William

Tunnel Refineries.  This was in Blackwall Lane on the Greenwich Peninsula and processed sugar and glucose. They briefly used a narrow gauge tramway from their wharf to the boilers. [32]

 

In addition to these there were many works which used small powered vehicles of various sorts – in some ways the forerunners of the since ubiquitous forklift.

 

There were other railway systems in the Borough.  Some of these the contract as railway is used on building sites they are not strictly industrial and clearly only temporary.  A includes:  Pearson’s on the  Blackwall tunnel. Eltham Middle Park Estate, Mowlem for Well Hall Housing and  Webster’s work on the Southern Outfall Sewer

 

A number of works in the borough made the locomotives for these works and we will return to them later.

 

 

 

 

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[1] Waywell and Jux.  The industrial railways and locomotives of the County of London.  This chapter is heavily dependent on this work and I am extremely grateful to its authors

[2] This quotation from Ian Bull appears in a railway preservation chat room web site. I would however like to thank Ian for a great deal information about these railways and the Arsenal generally. To try and put this in some perspective Ian gives two hour long lectures as an introduction to the railways of the Arsenal. https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/royal-arsenal-railway-preservation.31562/

[3] This account is a summary of a lecture given by Ian Bull to Greenwich Industrial History Society and reported in their blog.  Reference is also made to Smithers. The Royal Arsenal Railways and Waywell and Jux.  The industrial railways and locomotives of the County of London

[4] Waywell & Jux.  I have never seen reference to the huge double wooden gates – several storeys high – which were set into the brickwork on the north side of the wall east of Plumstead Station.

[5] Waywell & Jux

[6] Waywell &Jux

[7] Mitchell & Smith. Charing Cross to Dartford

[8] This account comes from my own notes on the line which appeared in https://greenwichpeninsulahistory.wordpress.com/angerstein-wharf/angerstein-railway/.  There have been several articles on the line – some of which are referenced in the link above.  The line has also been the destination of a number of spotters’ trips – the only passenger transport which has ever used it!

[9] Angelfire. web site

[10] Charlton Riverside Draft Employment & Heritage Study. J.Hulme for London Borough of Greenwich.

[11] Young. Angerstein Wharf and Railway

[12] Charlton Riverside Study

[13] Thanks to Andrew Turner for this information. His father, Arthur Turner, has written about the company’s role in Scotland and Andrew has provided notes for lectures and walks based on additional researches.

[14] Waywell and Jux

[15] Millichip. East  Greenwich Gasworks

[16] Brian Sturt, in conversation.

[17] A.L.Coventry Fell was the Chief Officer of the London County Council Tramways

[18] Oakley. London County Council Tramways.

[19] Smith. History of Charlton

[20] Southern Railway Magazine 1925

[21] Waywell & Jux

[22] Timber Trades Journal. Wickes Company Reports

[23] Charlton Riverside Study

[24] See a short film ‘Dodging the Column’ made in the 1940s showing a column being taken from Harvey’s to Grangemouth Refinery. (YouTube)

[25] Waywell & Jux

[26] Charlton Riverside Study

[27] John Smith. History of Charlton

[28] Information John Yeardley. Ex-Bridon Manager.

[29] Waywell &n Jux; Info John Yeardley  and Andrew Turner. With thanks

[30] Waywell & Jux

[31] Waywell & Jux

[32] Waywell & Jux