I suppose I think I had better get back to doing the next episode of the walk around the Greenwich boundary. If I don’t do it soon it will take them nearly a year to get right round - which is really not reasonable! One of the reasons that I have delayed it is because the next stretch looks to be quite difficult. I left the earlier section I described at the gates of what is now Rectory Field sports ground in Charlton Road and the boundary then crosses Charlton Road as it starts to go down the hill towards the river. That area is now all nice neat streets laid out in a proper order with twentieth century houses. In 1851 the walk went downhill through country house estates.
Perhaps I should also explain - if there are any new readers – that over the past year every few weeks i’ve done another episode of a walk which went round the Greenwich= Parish boundary in 1851. In the 19th century these walks were undertaken quite often by the parish officials who went in procession with various local bigwigs, parish choir boys, and a number of children from local schools - including the workhouse school, as well as the other, mainly boys, local schools. The boundary is clearly not completely straight - to put it mildly - and has changed over the centuries. It includes a walk through industrial premises on the bank of Deptford Creek while a boat went up the middle of the stream on the actually boundary. Also the boundary went through lots of private premises including some people’s houses where the procession would march straight through! So. where I left it last time was in Charlton Road after a fairly easy stretch walking down the side of Rectory Field.
The newspaper report of the walk says that next to Rectory Field entrance in Charlton Road was ‘Asses Milk House’. Today that is known as ‘Poplar Cottage’; one of the oldest buildings in the area dating from around 1700 and the last Charlton example of the wooden houses which once proliferated in the area. Some years ago it was done up by the Blackheath Preservation Trust and is now painted bright pink. The 1860s OS map shows the boundary line and marks where boundary stones could be found. It marks one here but there is now no sign of it.
The newspaper report which we’ve been following says that it is thence ‘to the Duchess of Buckinghamshire’s brewhouse’. Now clearly there’s no sign of this and on the other side of the road are a few houses between Wyncliffe Road and the boundary of Our Lady of Grace Church. In 1851 it was the site of Eastcombe Manor which is where the Duchess of Buckinghamshire was living. The OS map shows a big house facing the road with a semi circular garden in front of it. The boundary ran down its west side to extensive grounds to the rear. It is important to the layout of both the estate and the boundary to realise that the land falls away quite steeply from Charlton Rd down towards the Woolwich Road.
I should quickly say that several histories of the area say there were two Eastcombe Manor houses. the other later and posher on the site which is now Sheringham School. I can see no sign of this building on any available map and what is on the 1860s OS makes sense in terms of the newspaper report narrative of the procession, and which only mentions one buiding.
So, The Duchess of Buckinghamshire - and we need to be clear about the difference between our aristocratic ‘Buckingham’ and ‘Buckinghamshire’. This lady was Eleanor Agnes the widow of Robert Hobart, Duke of Buckinghamshire and a major politician. She was believed to have been engaged as a young woman to William Pitt himself. The procession went through her grounds and I hope she looked out of the window and enjoyed watching them come past -she had only a few months to live and died in the October.
The newspaper report of the procession’s walk through her grounds can clearly be followed on the 1860s Ordnance Survey map. It begins by saying that they crossed the road to the ‘Duchesses’ brew house’ - and this is clearly visible on the map as a small building facing onto Charlton Road – I assume that this is some sort of functional outbuilding from her house – but it has crossed my mind that it could have been a pub – or perhaps not. The procession then went diagonally through the corner window of a laundry. This is, I assume, is the Duchesses’ laundry and a report of an 1889 walk makes it clear that they went into the building and then out through the window - and that should have been something to see! The OS map marks a boundary stone, which is also mentioned in the newspaper report. So far so good.
The area covered by the Eastcombe Manor house fronting on Charlton Road, and its grounds is now covered with early 20th century housing which bears no relation to the layout of the estate. Following the Duchess’s death the estate passed through a number of hands and in the 1880s there were attempts to sell the house and it’s grounds. It was eventually acquired by the Norwich Union Insurance Society, and got consent for housing from the London County Council around 1900 and was laid out accordingly. The house was demolished in 1904.
The boundary line appears to go down the right hand – west - side of the Duchesses’ grounds. There is a print of the house looking up the hill towards its rear, across the gardens. It is easy to see how a boundary line could run down the hillside on the east side of the house. The newspaper report says that the line goes to ‘a boundary stone on the lawn near a yew tree’ near where there used to be a pond, and this stone too is marked on the map. The next stone is described as being ‘beneath an apple tree on the edge of the lawn’. The line then goes through an iron archway, passes a greenhouse and then exits through a gate in the fence.
The whole area is now early 20th century houses and the only way down the hill is on Wyndcliffe Road. My guess is that this boundary line follows the eastern edge of Our Lady of Grace Church and the school which stands behind it, and also goes roughly down the backs of the houses in Wyndcliffe Road. This road was built and named by the housing developer with a made up word apparently meaning ‘steep downhill road face’.
I wonder what happened to all those boundary stones – and there were a lot more to come. Are any of them still somewhere down that boundary line; perhaps built into garden walls or just lying about unnoticed. Apparently one house near the route has a stone built into its doorstep.
The gate out of the Duchess’s garden must have been roughly where Highcombe Road runs east West and which the boundary has to cross. Today it goes into the site of the allotments where we once grew some amazing beans and lambs lettuce.
The boundary continues down to the Woolwich Road, going straight down the hill and eventually following a long curve – it must once have been a footpath. Compare the 1860s Ordnance map with the satellite view on your laptop above the area and you can see only too clearly how it follows a downhill route between properties with a modern road system superimposed. I also think that is very interesting that on the satellite view you can see that there is a line of mature trees going along the ends of the gardens in Wyndcliff Road, which seem to back on to the boundary. I’m sure it’s accidental, but it says something about the relative stability of the area.
Having left the Duchess’s gardens the path turns to the north and the report tells us that we must ‘stick close to the hedge on the left hand side of the next two fields’. At the end of the second field was another boundary stone beside an elm tree on which a cross had been carved in 1835. I guess – and this is all guesses anyway as I try to match the newspaper report to the map and the aerial photograph ... .. and I guess that this elm tree was somewhere near what is now the junction of Wyndcliff Road with Eversley Road. The procession continued to reach another boundary stone also marked on the map and the report says there are three trees - two oaks and an elm – with crosses carved on them.
The newspaper report gives no more detail but just says that the procession continued on this route until it reached Woolwich Road. This is a pity since it is very interesting area but it is quite difficult to be clear where the path went. On the 1860 map the path can be seen gradually curving round and following the line of Victoria Way and getting ever closer to it. Past the railway it straightens as it nears the Woolwich Road.
Before reaching the railway a sand pit is marked on later maps. There is no bridge marked by which to cross the railway – did they just stumble across the lines? In 1851 this stretch of railway was only two years old. It came from the Blackheath tunnel on a curving route to Charlton Station across what had been fields of Combe Farm in Westcombe Hill. The link through to Greenwich was still some years away.
On the other side of the railway a sawmill is marked. This is an interesting area and one I think I should come back to. I had thought that this might be the last episode but it’s clearly going to run on and on and next time we will see the procession go towards the River
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