This
week I thought it’s about time I got back to the next episode of the walk
around the Greenwich Parish boundary in 1851. This, if you haven’t read it
before, is a report of what used to happen quite frequently in the 19th
century - a procession round the parish boundary of all the civic dignitaries
with lots of young boys and girls from the church choir and local schools. It was about nine miles long and took all
day. So far with this 1851 walk we began
at Garden Stairs, near Greenwich Pier. We carried on to Deptford Creek and then
walked up the Creekside as far as Deptford Bridge. Then a little way up Blackheath
Road, following a stream which once ran at
the backs of the houses andmthern going south across what was then waterworks
land. Reaching the banks of the Ravensbourne
we crossed it and having ended up on the
edge of Lewisham, turned back, crossing railway lines and then back over the
Ravensbourne to the site of the Greenwich Armoury Mill, by then called the Silk Mil. The route then went up Lewisham
Road but before the end turned east up side streets and then into Blackheath
Hill and up the hill to the Green Man.
There
is a point I need to make: I must stress
that I am following a report based on the boundary as it was in 1851. The
boundary changed – and still changes - constantly over the years. This version
of the boundary does not go into Blackheath Village in the way it does today. Meanwhile,
I am very grateful to various people who
have been going out and taking pictures of any boundary stones they can find and
they are saying we need a
campaign to get boundary stones listed status - because so many of them have vanished and
some of them have gone very recently. However some of the pictures they have
taken are of stones which are not on this 1851 route. Hopefully when eventually
I finish this 1851 walk I could start looking at some of the variations which
have appeared over the years and many of those will be in the Blackheath
village area .
In
the last episode of the boundary walk I followed it across Blackheath along the
A2, Shooters Hill Road. I ought to point out that that is nt really
accurate . The actual boundary line ran slightly south of the main road and I
understand that that is supposed to have followed the Roman road – but it is so
close that its hardly worth worrying about.
The
newspaper report of the 1851 walk tells us to stop when we are about a 120
yards west of the northern end of St Germans Place. Today it means stopping a short distance before
the traffic lights from where the road from Blackheath Standard crosses
Shooters Hill Road. The
place to stop is on the south side of the road and appears to be roughly
opposite the end of Angerstein Lane on the North side. so having got there the 1851 newspaper report
says that there is a boundary stone marker but there’s no sign of it now . From
here the boundary turns abruptly south going down to what is now Prince of
Wales Road to somewhere near the bus stop – and I know that the bus stop has
recently moved and I’m not sure where to! There was oce a stone marker three too. The
boundary crosses Prince of Wales Road and continues southward till we get South
Row. East of the pond in South Row there
is actually, and almost unbelievably, a boundary
stone surrounded by a little fence!
The procession has
now arrived at Blackheath Paragon – These elegamnly designed houses are in limnked pairs behind
their own little green which we need to pass over to get to the houses
themselves. Theprocvession axtually
paseds through thrm. The Paragon
was built between 1795 and 1806, designed by archutcxtn Michael Searles for esate
owmer John Cator. Theyb were very clearly built for posh pople and room for carriages, stables, servant's
quarters and large gardens wer provird. It suffered terrubly in the Second
world war with bomb damage and and thr
restoration merant they were converted into flats.
So, Next we need to go round into the private road in front of the Paragon, where Alan reports there is now “a boundary marker close to a horse-mounting block -- and a metal post with no markings”.
In
the 1851 newspaper report they are described as by a ‘tree of the edge of the
slope in front of the Paragon dated 1792’. The report then says perhaps somewhat
alarmingly” from where we passed through number 7 now Mr Wilcox”. I don’t hope Mr Wilcox was happy with
recession passing through his home It best by then have had a considerable
number of little boys from the church choir of the various schools and no doubt
some of their friends who would tag along.
Neil
Rhind in his ‘Blackheath and its Environs’ tell us that ‘Mr.Wilcox’ was Robert Wilcoxon, a glass manufacturer. In fact he was partner with his brother in a
long established family business in Fish Street Hill making looking glasses,
wallpaper and similar items.
Having
gone through No.7 and its garden the
boundary procession went diagonally through the garden of No.6., through the
property’s stables “to a boundary stone near a pump in the garden”. I cannot
see this boundary stone marked on the on the 1860s Ordnance Survey map nor am I
entirely clear where the stables were. The resident at No.6. is not named in
the newspaper report but it was Henry Hills . Now anybody who reads my writing
stuff knows that I go on at length about Frank Hills, the ‘Deptford
Chemist’; Henry was his brother and the
owner and manager of a chemical works at Amlwch, on the northern tip of the
Isle of Angelsey. How did he manage this works while living in the Paragon at
Blackheath??
This
whole area at the rear of the Paragon, through which the boundary line went, is
difficult to follow because it is now the site of Fulthorpe Road and the
council estate – which changed the layout of the area and ignored the various
plots of the 1850s. The newspaper report says that the boundary line and the
procession having left the garden of No 6 went through another garden owned by
a nameless man to a 1792 stone where the three parishes of Greenwich, Charlton
and Lewisham meet. The pond is easy to
see on the map with a boundary stone at it on its north west corner - and this
must be somewhere just off Fulthorpe Road.
The
boundary line continues, and we must assume the procession followed it. It went
from the junction of the three parishes through some asparagus beds to another
stone and from there over ‘Mr Hobart’s stabling’on each side of which is placed
a stone in the wall.’ Neil Rhind
describes the area between The Paragonand the ailway in’Blackheath and its
Environs’ but at no point does he mention a ‘Mr. Hobart’. Or indeed of a wall
with a stone from 1841 on either side.
The
procession then went through ‘an adjoining
garden ... which there is a water course or brook’. There is no sign of
this watercourse marked on the 1860s OS map but it is almost certainly one of
the Kid Brooks which the boundary line follows for a short distance in this
area. This area is also all now under the Fulthorpe Road council blocks.
Finally we are at Morden Roadnand the report Takes us
over to the carriage entrance gate of Wooden College and that seems as good a
place to end here as anywhere. In the next episode we will pass through MordebCollege
grounds
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A
couple of weeks ago my article here was about the iron industry in the
Weald and I'm very grateful to some of
my readers who have ctaken an interest in this and who have made a commetd
one of them is from Peter who wanted to
comment of the use of Wealdem iron in the area and points out a very famous
example
the
other comment is from Richard who has some ideas about road names and so on
following what I said about Rhodes coming up from the wheeled area from Cowden
in particular to ballast key
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