Well, I thought it was about time I got back to the walk going round the Greenwich Parish boundary. It’s been six weeks since the last episode. Perhaps they stopped for lunch - but six weeks would be a very, very long lunch break even for the parish officials.
This has been an account of a walk around the Greenwich Parish boundaries in 1851 following a contemporary using a newspaper report of it. These walks used to take place annually and they were more like a Procession than a walk. They had started at Garden Stairs down near Greenwich Pier and consisted of the Parish clergy and the churchwardens. This was in the days when the Parish acted as the local authority so there would be lots of officials - people who today would work for Greenwich Council. They would be accompanied by lots of school children and the church choir and various others and the procession round the Parish boundary ould take them all day. I’ve been writing it up in short stretches and I this, I think, is episode No.8. I’ve been following them from the newspaper report and also have a report of a replica walk whichw took place in 1980 and that was described with some notes from Julian Watson, who used to be the Greenwich Local History librarian, in the Greenwich Local History Society’s Journal , 2020.
I’m looking at where I they stopped last time after going round the Paragon in Blackheath. I ended up outside the Lodge at the bottom of the drive of Morden College where there is a boundary stone. One of the other things I’ve been doing in the past six weeks is trying to find out more about the remaining boundary stones. Some have gone missing, even since 1980, in the last two or three years. I’ve been trying to encourage people to think about them and wonder if there’s some way we can get them preserved. We need a bit more publicity about them so people know to that they exist and how old they are.
So, this section starts outside the lodge of Morden College and the boundary stone which is up against the wall at the end of Morden Road. Morden College is in the south east corner of Blackheath and dates from the late 17th century when Sir John Morden set up what was essentially an alms house - an old people’s home. This was for distressed ‘Turkey merchants’ - men who had put their money into trade and the ship that they had relied used had been lost at sea along with their investment. They had lost all their money and were now old and needed support. Morden College has just carried on ever since and recently it’s expanded a lot and they now have more accommodation including nursing homes. At one time I used to get asked to their garden parties and they didn’t have anyone as common as the Mayor of Greenwich to greet guests - no, we had the Lord Mayor of London him/herself and the Royal Artillery Band playing excerpts from Gilbert and Sullivan.
The newspaper report of the 1851 Parish walk says that the boundary line goes from the stone at the Morden College Lodge to another stone ‘ under the elms’ on the college premises. I think that means going straight ahead up to St. German’s Place - but after nearly 200 years am I likely to find those elms? Indeed Morden College premises are extensive and have clearly changed too. On the Ordinance Survey map for the 1860s there are a lot of dashed lines for boundaries - but none of the familiar ‘BS’ signs which are marked across Blackheath and show where there are, or were, boundary stones. So where next?
I am looking at Michael Egan’s excellent little book written in 1983 on Kidbrook which has a short chapter on boundaries – except, of course, he wrote about the Kidbrook boundary rather than the Greenwich. He included a helpful map. It’s quite clear that this is another area where many boundaries meet as shown on his map and on the Ordnance Survey. Michael Egan says that the next stone ‘is on the path towards the College in tombstone shape at about the point where the Upper Kid Brook crossed the path’. The Upper Kidbrooke was a stream and of course old boundaries often follow streams or set them as markers.
So the route goes from Morden College Lodge north on the footpath which goes alongside Morden College gardens towards St German’s Place. I don’t know about any elm trees here but the first big tree you come to is a flowering chestnut. (There is a picture of it on Google Street View showing it in flower). If you peer through the railings of Morden College gardens there is a boundary stone just a couple of yards inside which I think must be the one he means. After this I’m afraid the Kidbrook boundary goes off in a different direction to the Greenwich one which it continues to go O north up along St Germans Place.
The newspaper report of the 1851 walk says there is another stone. also within the railing, but in ‘the corner adjacent to the foot entrance gate’. This is a very difficult area to look at with lots of undergrowth and bits of broken curb stone at what appears to be a disused entrance to Morden College and there seems little chance of finding anything. It’s a pleasant enough footpath and probably not much used.
It might be worth noting here that on one of the oldest maps we have of the area, the 1697 Travers plan of Greenwich, that the Greenwich boundary then did an enormous loop east here in into what is now Morden College property. On the map it says it is ’The Brick Bridge going to Sir J Morden’s new hospital’.
Perhaps I should also briefly pick up on the road name of ‘St Germans’. Michael Egan’s book on Kidbrook has a couple of pages on the landowning Eliot family and how they became the Earls of St Germans in 1815. The 1697 Traver’s plan marks ‘Eliot’s’ somewhere near the corner where the Mordenn College Lodge is today. Their local land holdings were sold but the present Earl of St.Germans is still the Lord of the Manor here – he is aged only 20 so we can only wait and see if he ever takes an interest in Kidbrook.
The route carries on up St Germain’s Place and as the Greenwich Historical Society Journal says 'goes past Christ’s College’ and reminds us that this private boys school was founded in 1823. It continues to the corner of the slip road from Shooters Hill Road. I am very confused about the name of this slip road which is parallel to the main A2road. On historic maps it is called ‘St Germans Terrace ‘ but there is currently no road name sign I can see nor is there a name given on any of the usual maps . Very confusing. The Greenwich Historical Society say that it’s ‘on the boundary line’ and that it is ‘the old Canterbury Way’ - meaning it is the line of old Dover Road before the current A2 was installed.
The newspaper report tells us that the procession went ‘to a stone just round the corner from Shooters Hill’. That stone is there, almost right on the corner, with ‘GP’ for ‘Greenwich Parish’carved on it. At this point the boundary turns east and continues up the no-name slip. The 2020 account says ‘we pass the tea caddy houses’ and reach another stone outside ‘no 20 Shooters Hill Road’ – or, as the newspaper report says ‘a stone at the end of the terrace’. There is a stone at the base of the wall between nos.20 and 22 – and I suppose at one time this was indeed the end of the terrace . But it is not quite at the end of the slip road - it’s a small stone and very much p against the wall. It would be very easy to miss.
The procession continued going east. By now they must have been very weary and you can see their feet dragging as they get the Shooter’s Hill Road. To cheer everybody up on the other side of the road is The Sun in the Sands Pub - or rather what used to be the Sun in the Sands pub. The report in the 2020 journal says that the Parish procession used to stop here for lunch. I have no idea what the lunches were like in the 19th century - although I very much appreciate that the 1980s walk stopped further back at the Princess of Wales where and at least you can sit outside in the sunshine and look at the ducks on the pond while all you could see at the Sun in the Sands is more traffic. No lunch would be available today since I think the pub is closed and has planning permission to be converted into flats. And I’m sorry if it is closed because it’s an old pub on the main road and that’s interesting
Hungry or not the procession will have continued on up Shooters Hill roads until they get to No. 122 where tucked in against the garden wall is yet another boundary stone. This is the point at which procession crossed the Dover Road and began to go north.
In fact they crossing the road over to Trout’s Common ......................where??
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