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Plumstead Chalk Mines - notes

November 1, 2019, 3:34 am
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Notes on Plumstead Chalk Mines
by Harry Pearman.

The extensive chalk mines to the west of Wickham Lane, Plumstead were dug in the 19th and early 20th centuries to support brick and tile making operations.  Eventually the land was built over and in the 1940s and 1950s began to show signs of great instability resulting in many collapses and one death.  In 1955 the London County Council enacted legislation to permit it to locate mines and fill them with fly ash.  The mines are largely undocumented but plans and a brief history appeared in the Chelsea Speleological Society Records vol. 6. Caves and Tunnels in Kent in 1969
While sorting through a bundle old papers in the Pengelly Trust Library I came across a record of the company accounts for the brick making enterprises.  These have been abstracted and supplemented with a commentary by someone who simply signed himself ‘Fred’ on 11 November 1977. I believe that Fred was in fact carrying out genealogical research and looking for traces of relatives who might have worked in the mines. The notes give a glimpse of the chequered history of the enterprises and raise the hope that similar files might exist at the Public Records Office for businesses associated with other underground workings in Kent. They comprise an annotated abstract from records at the Public Recod Office. The article then goes on to give detailed notes on other sites.

The South Metropolitan Brick and Lime Company Ltd. 
The South Metropolitan Brick and Building Estate Company Ltd. 
The Wickham Brickworks Ltd., Wickham Lane Brickworks, Wickham, Kent (nowSE2)
The Wickham and Greenhithe Brickworks Ltd.

Details include mainly company information but also descriptions of sites and equipment. Please see the Kent Underground Research Group Newsletter for December 1998

This article appeared in the GIHS Newsletter of February 1999

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Blackwall Point Power Station

November 1, 2019, 3:43 am
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Blackwall Point Power Station

Some notes on this power station which stood on the east side of the Greenwich Peninsula - 'The Jetty' - which is now a gardening project - was built for the power station which stood alongside it.

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Dear Editor
I understand from a previous issue that all the records relating to the Blackwall Point Power station had been destroyed.  I presumed that this meant that not too much was known about the power station and therefore I decided to have a look at the literature.  I could only find a few mentions of Blackwall Point and I have attempted to put some words on these facts .
Keith Doyle

Blackwall Point Power Station was equipped with three 30 mw turbo alternators supplied by the English Electric Company.  The steam conditions at the turbine stop valves were 60 psig and 850o F (454oC). Condenser cooling water was taken from the River. Steam was supplied by three coal-fired Babcock and Wilcox boilers, each of 365 klb/hr capacity and the main high pressure pipework was also manufactured by Babcock and Wilcox.

The first turbo-alternator set was commissioned in the summer of 1951, the second was due to be completed by the end of that year and the third by the spring of 1952.

Blackwall Point was originally in the London Division of the British Electricity Authority (BEA). This later became the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to avoid confusion with the other BEA  - British European Airways.  A further name change to the Central Electricity Generating Board followed and Blackwall Point power station was put into its South Thames Division.

To benefit the production of turbines and generators BEA had a policy of standardising on a selected range of turbo-alternator sizes each with associated steam conditions. 30 mw was one of these sizes and was built.  Blackwall Point was stated in the technical press to have an output of 90 mw (33mw). However in a British power station plant performance schedule published in the Electrical Review of 1st June 1962, the installed capacity of Blackwall Point was given as 100.5 mw i.e. 33.5 mw per set. Presumably the original figure of 30 mw per set was nominal.

Incidentally, in the performance review Blackwall Point was quoted as having generated for a total of 6,567 hours in 1961 with an overall thermal efficiency of 26.66 per cent.
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Keith included with his article a number of photocopies from Electrical Review with brief mentions of the power station and some of the statistics quoted above. They include a picture, in the issue of 12th July 1953, showing ‘the first of three turbo-alternators .. installed at Blackwall Point Power Station which will undergo a test run in the next few weeks.  The three 30 mw generators made by English Electric Co. will have a combined output equal to 120,000 hp and the one installed is hoped to be in operation before the winter. The second is expected to be completed by the end of the year and the final set by next spring. Over 2,000 gallons of lubricating oil has been pumped into the generators’ storage tank by the Wakefield Co. The illustration shows work in progress’.

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This article appeared in the August 1999 GIHS Newsletter.  The pictures and photocopies mentioned ahove were not reproduced at the time - and a search for them is being inaugurated!

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Letter to GIHS Newsletter August 1999

November 1, 2019, 3:57 am
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These letters appeared in the GIHS Newsletter of August 1999

From Patrick Hills
I have a photo of HMS Thunderer which  might interest you asthe last battleship built on the Thames at Bow Creek , Thames Ironworks, 1910.  Have to watch your head if you were up forward when A turret was training and your eardrums if she loosed off a couple of rounds.  Come to that the photographer might have got a good coat of soot from B turret!  I think if I’d been the skipper I’d have wanted to join the photographer when two rounds were fired to see what its like when two great shells start right over you.

From Iain Lovell
I was interested to see that my account of the Siemens Museum has aroused quite some interest.  I have received a letter from Mr.W.Ford who as you know is researching the Woolwich factory and is anxious to trace any remnants of the Obach Library. Regretfully I think that the books and documents not accounted for have probably been destroyed, which is an act of utter vandalism!

From Ted Barr
Durham Wharf - As the factory which it served was designed to run on coal, then I’m sure there is a connection between the coal and the name of the wharf.  In the 1920s coal supplies had become uncertain so a switch was made to oil. In the 1930s the then Chancellor of the Exchequer stopped an additional £1.5s 5d. on a ton of crude oil - so it was decided to revert to coal. I saw the boiler house change over. The colliers tied up at Angerstein Wharf and the Southern Railway unloaded into United Glass 13 wagons, of which there were hundreds, and shunted round to the United Glass sidings. After the new jetty was built the colliers tied up there and the Southern lost the business.

* The Charlton sandpit. Exactly as I remember it.
*  East Greenwich Gas holders. Clearly shows the flying lifts.
* Another view of the gas holders taken from the footpath fronting the naval college. The beach exactly as I remember it as a child and the generating station and jetty’.
* Inside the generating station. Is anyone doing anything about this place?
* Flash fractionating column from Harvey’s being negotiated round Westminster Bridge (?). Note the two police motorcyclist escorts - almost certainly the famous Triumph Twins. Typical of loads like these were the giant propellers from Stones, Anchor and Hope Lane. Damage to Street furniture was common and had to be rectified and charged to the perpetrators!
*The Standard in Westcombe Hill with two LGA B ‘Old Bill’ buses of 48 route which ran from the Standard to Golders Green Underground Station. The only other buses at this point were Tilling Stevens petrol electric 75s. Woolwich Ferry to South Croydon ‘Red Deer Pub’. These had a long sign written boards, one each side, with the legend ‘To and from Woolwich Arsenal’. The direction sign at the Standard was gas lit and is featured in ‘The Rise of the Gas Industry’.

John Day’s electrical exploits in Vol.2.Issue 2. remind me that there is a very early IHP electric motor in the Museum at Plumstead Road. It ran the machine tools in a small engineering works in West Greenwich about turn of the century. I donated it to the Museum and also gave them a catalogue of the firm's products.

From Larry Button (Hamilton Canada)
Last November I was in London on business and took a boat down to Greenwich. The whole area was very busy and I had a chance to visit St.Alphege’s. and Straightsmouth where my gr-gr- grandfather lived.  The people on the boat was interested in telling us about the Dome, Tidal barrier, etc. but I was more interested in the smell in the air which told me there was a soapworks nearby! When my family left East London they settled in the east end of Hamilton, Canada’s largest industrial city. They all worked at the Proctor and Gamble soap works - no mistaking that smell!
From at least 1832  - when it appears in Pigot’s Directory under the name of Boyd - my family (Button) owned a glass and china shop at 9 High Street Woolwich. I  recall this was poor, rather disreputable area, however from studying maps I gather glass making in the area was fairly important due to the considerable sand deposits. I have a card indicating that in about 1907 the Button glass business was sold to W.Weight and Co,.wholesale medical bottle dealers of Glenville Grove New Cross Deptford. .


From Robert Hamilton
I have recently come across your newsletters while searching the web for details of a serious explosion and fire at a factory which occurred in the Greenwich/Woolwich/Erith area in the early part of the century. My great grandfather and two of his sons were involved. The incident was serious and the process in the factory involved shovelling sulphur witha rubber covered  shovel. It didn’t occur during the First World War which would seem rule out the Silvertown explosion. 

From Iris Bryce
I would dearly love to see inside Enderby House - I worked in the buying office which I think must be the office building with the decorated cable and gutta percha lintels.  Enderby House was a no go area for the likes of me, even in 1941/2.  I used to stand at my office window and watch the Management and Scientific Staff go in every lunch time. I think it must have been the Staff Dining Room - I was only on the lookout for the young white coated, blonde haired lab technician hoping he would look up and see the ravishing teenager!
I did a broadcast a week or so ago on Eastern Regional radio - it was called ‘The  Regeneration of East Greenwich’.


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Siemens Museum memories

November 1, 2019, 4:21 am
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MORE OF IAIN LOVELL’S MEMORIES OF THE SIEMENS’ MUSEUM




The First Wages Book was vey simple by comparison with its modern equivalent. The only details entered were the name, trade, and rate of pay of each worker. For each week there was a column for the hours worked, and another for the payment made, with a total. None of the many deductions, bonuses etc made today applied. Although operatives theoretically worked a 60 hour week, in fact they were paid only for the hours worked if there was insufficient work for the 60 hours. Overtime was paid at the same rate as normal pay. Rates varied from about 4/ to 24/- - a week, depending on the trade of the worker, quite good pay for the time. The only trade I remember was that of "Mechanician'.

The Letter Book was the office record of every letter sent out. All letters were hand written, and there was no method of copying them, apart from making a hand written copy in the letter book.

There were a number of periodicals from around the turn of the century, many printed in German. A title I remember was "The Tramcar and Street Railway World". Another, printed in German in 1898/9, consisted entirety of advertisements for rubber products (Gummiwaren). Of these, about 25% were for rubber insulated power and communications cables. The remainder were, rather surprisingly for the time, for contraceptives. It was lavishly illustrated throughout.
Unwisely as it turned out, I brought in a slim paperback biography of Joseph Swan which had been given to me as a boy, and contained quite a lot of useful information. Dr Sutton seized on this with great enthusiasm, and wanted a copy Enquiries revealed that it was out of print. Meanwhile, he said, he had told Dr Aldington (theManaging Director) about it, and he also was very keen to borrow and read it. Although reluctant I felt it unwise to refuse to lend it. Although I clearly wrote my name and address on the title page it was never returned.

In the course of research we also came across a number of bizarre anecdotes. Werner Siemens, in his autobiographical notes, described how he was arrested and imprisoned for acting as a second in a duel (socially this was considered a perfectly respectable, indeed honourable activity, but in law was treated as complicity in murder). The conditions were not too harsh, for he was allowed to conduct experiments on electro-deposition of gold in prison. The governor took a keen interest in this, and saw the potential for making money. Without his permission, he campaigned for Siemens' early release, with the intention of acquiring his apparatus and laboratory notes when they were abandoned in the prison. Siemens was put in the strange position of campaigning for his own continued detention until he could get his work removed. In this he was successful, and set up the electro plating business on his release.

We also learned that the first floodlit football match in history was played on Clapham Common in the l880's. There was an arc lamp behind each goal, one powered by a Bunsen battery, the other by a steam powered Siemens W40 magneto electric machine.

Another anecdote, which particularly intrigued Dr Sutton, was that of the Implacable. Soon after the invention of the incandescent electric lamp, the government decided to commission a new warship. Siemens Brothers saw the opportunity to sell electric lighting, and a salesman was invited to the Admiralty, where he demonstrated several bulbs to a group of senior naval officers, including Admiral Fisher. At the end of the demonstration he was asked what would happen if the bulb were broken by enemy bombardment. Surely fragments of the white hot filament would detonate any explosives if they came into contact? The salesman replied that as soon as the carbon filament met the air it would instantly vaporise harmlessly. He added that in that respect it would be far safer than gas or oil lighting, since there was no question of fuel escaping and igniting. Then, at a pre~arranged signal, a sailor entered the room carrying a tea tray, on which was a pile of gun cotton, liberally garnished with gunpowder, and a hammer. As the officers all moved away till their backs were to the walls of the room, the salesman was invited to hold a lit bulb six inches above the explosive mixture and shatter it with the hammer. This he did with no apparent sign of fear, and there was no explosion. After a tense silence of about twenty seconds, Admiral Fisher said, quietly but resolutely, "we shall have this lighting aboard the Implacable".

This article appeared in the August 1999 GIHS Newsletter
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Molassine

November 1, 2019, 4:51 am
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Molassine


The Molassine Factory stood on the Greenwich Peninsula until the early 1980s. John Needs has sent us some information about the works.


First he refers to ‘A History of the United Molasses Co Ltd.’ by W.A.Meneight (1977 Seel House Press Ltd).   This describes how Molassine was created in 1900 to exploit a secret formula for animal fed. The formula had been brought to Britain by Arthur Stein ‘a mid European probably hailing from one of the Balkan States’. At first the feed was made up by Henry Tate but in 1908 they began work in Greenwich.  The molasses was bought locally from Silvertown and Plaistow refineries and the company built the first steel tanks for molasses bought from Danks, Steam Boiler Manufacturers, between 1910-1914.  Their main product was a molasses based feed for horses - this consisted of sphagnum moss mixed with both beet and cane molasses and a ‘soupcon of maganesium calcum carbonate’. In the First World War this feed was considered antiseptic and soldiers used it as a plaster for wounds.

In the 1930s 3,000 tons of molasses escaped and ‘made its ponderous but inexorable way into the neighbouring Tunnel Avenue’  to run down through the gully between the tram lines - thus effectively gumming up the trams.  After this incident Molassine replaced all its cast iron valves with cast steel.  
Customers were supplied by road tankers and from 1959 had its own fleet.   At the same time they agreed with Shell to store hydrocarbon fuel oils for south eastern distribution and nine more tanks were built on site to a total water capacity of 21,000 tons.  This resulted in the formation in 1968 of Blackwall Gases Ltd. to store Shell propane and butane liquid gases.   Molassine also acquired Primrose Wharf, a dry storage and transport company - mostly coffee plus a bonded warehouse for safety matches.

John then adds some of his own notes and memories:

Original registration as a company was on 5th February 1907 as The Molassine Company (1907) Ltd.  The name was changed  on 5th June 1908 to The Molassine Company Ltd. and it was changed again on 25th May 1978 to Tate and Lyle Feeds Ltd.

Albert Stein was the inventor of the animal feed known as Molassine Meal - he was last heard of  in Praha, Prague, in 1939. Efforts to trace him after the war in Europe were not successful.

Although techniques and machinery changed over the years the cattle feed remained a simple mixture of molasses and sphagnum moss (peat), the skill was in the mixing of these two very different raw materials. In the last few years of manufacture at Greenwich, before closure in 1981, a number of variations were created to maintain a shrinking market. In particular a horse food called ‘Main Ring’.  Sales of Molassine Meal fell as farms grew larger and the use of molasses as a direct ingredient became more usual and manageable by the farmers,

There was a story of an export of Molassine Meal to Canada in the early company days which fermented when it became wet, heated up and caused considerable damage to the ship. Shipping companies then banned the product from extended voyages which restricted many export opportunities,
1980s photo of where the Molassine works had been

The dog food business of Molassine was based on a hard pink biscuit called VIMS,. It was made from ordinary flour with additions of aniseed and colouring. The advertising slogan was ‘Dogs Love Vims’ and some older pet food shops still display the black and yellow adverts - they were permanently affixed to shop windows in the form of a top and side pelmet. Only removal of the whole glass window could remove the advert. Black and white Norman Wisdom films of the 1960s contain Vims dogs food adverts - sometimes as part of a plot.

Other dog  food products were STIMO, a collection of broken biscuits in a variety of  colours, but predominately pink from the Vims production and also a larger white biscuit called  PET BISCUITS.  These later biscuits were to be produced for few years in the 1970s with limited success despite considerable advertising featuring Petula Clark, Another product in the 1930s to 1960s was a fertiliser for the gardener. - RITO -  based on the rougher pieces of sphagnum moss not suitable for animal feed, a few basic chemicals and yard sweepings.


The whole history of Molassine appears to be involved with Tate and Lyle.What goes around, comes around!

Between 1900 and about 1908 Henry Tate manufactured Molassine Meal on behalf of the Company. Molasses was purchased from both Henry Tate and Abraham Lyle both before and after 1921 - the year in which they joined forces to become Tate and Lyle Ltd. As molasses became a world commodity purchases were made from United Molasses Company and this company was eventually acquired by Tate and Lyle. In 1971 Molassine was acquired on behalf of United Molasses by its parent company, Tate and Lyle Ltd. In 1981 the animal feed business at Greenwich was closed and sold to a company called RUMENCO Ltd. at Burton on Trent. They continued to manufacture Molassine Meal and MainRing under those trade names at their Burton factory, having taken the machinery from Greenwich.


In about 1990 Rumenco Ltd. was  acquired on behalf of United Molasses by its pent company Tate and Lyle Ltd. Manufacturer of Molassine Meal and Main ring continued although that of Molassine Meal is of a very low annual tonnage. The site at Greenwich which had been partly converted to a chemical storage area of UNALO (a United Molassine company) initially continued there but is now part of the Hays Chemical Company and not part of Tate and Lyle Group.

Much of the original area is now occupied by Amylum for storage, both liquids and dry goods. Amylum is now part of Tate and  Lyle Group. Tate and Lyle (in its various guises) has therefore been associated with the manufacture of Molassine Meal for almost all this century - only between 1981 and 1990 did it not have a major influence on production. The site at Greenwich continued to have Tate and Lyle occupancy. Other occupants of the the Amylum Site included Monks Glass Custard Powder and Williams Steel Stockholders.


This article appeared in the GIHS Newsletter for October 1999.
They were on the site known as 'Morden Wharf'  

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Siemens Museum - another episode

November 1, 2019, 9:50 am
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ANOTHER  EPISODE IN IAIN LOVELL’S DESCRIPTION OF


THE SETTING UP OF THE SIEMENS MUSEUM



During the progress of the project tensions soon began to appear. John Arnold became increasingly impatient with Dr.Sutton's detachment and inability to see the need for keeping to schedules. Sutton's reminiscences of his childhood and early career, while interesting, wasted precious time at the all too short meetings. I remember that on one occasion a map of the Woolwich Works from the 1880s was produced. In one department it showed 'winwoms'. Dr Sutton described how as a boy if he asked his father what he was doing and his father felt it was too complicated to explain, would say "I am making a winwom for a duck's foot." He had assumed it was a nonsense word. He asked Brian and me to look into this, but was persuaded that this could be left till after the meeting. Later we did make some attempt to find out what the word meant but we were not successful

Terry restored the Master Clock to working order, and, running it off large dry cells, set it to make two torch bulbs flash in different parts of the room at thirty second intervals. John found this particularly irritating, and we agreed with Terry to disconnect the batteries.

At another meeting I mentioned in passing that, putting together two of the notices from the Science Museum exhibition, it appeared that William Siemens had been buried in Westminster Abbey eight months before his death. Dr Sutton was particularly intrigued with this, telephoning the museum there and then, and speaking to various people, including the organiser. At least twenty minutes were spent on this exercise He was told that none of the visitors during the six months of the display had commented on this John Arnold was fairly abrasive to me afterwards for raising a point which led to such a waste of precious time, but we remained on good terms. On another occasion Dr Sutton left the room to go to the lavatory but failed to re appear. Eventually we checked the car park to discover that he had driven away, presumably forgetting that he was at a meeting.

One constant bone of contention was the decision of what to display, on which Dr Sutton constantly changed his mind John Arnold had plan and elevation drawings of 'each display cabinet, on which he stuck scale drawings of each exhibit, which were constantly being repositioned. On one occasion when Dr Sutton wanted to introduce some new exhibits, John pointed out there was not room to accommodate them The display cabinets were already under construction and it was far to late to change them or build more. Dr Sutton then suggested that we use some trestle tables, which were stored in the basement. John was aghast saying 'but we can't use those dirty' old tables amongst our beautiful walnut display cabinets'. Dr Sutton then suggested getting Thunder & Lightning to scrub the tables. He was eventually persuaded to drop the trestle table idea.

John Arnold became increasingly worried and tense as the deadline approached, though always good humoured. He said on several occasions "This place is really mad. Even the radiators are half way up the wall", a reference to the unusual positioning of the radiators. A lot depended on the success of the exhibition; a fiasco would jeopardise his chances of future contracts, and a fiasco attended by a member of the Royal Family would be even more damaging.

Things were not helped by the deterioration of Terry Card's attitude. Initially, when he was rather awed to be reporting directly to a director, his work was excellent. Later, as he realised that there was no firm control, his timekeeping became poor and his workmanship sloppy. This put Brian Rispoli and myself in a very difficult position; we had no authority over him, and he treated our attempts to pressure him with amusement. Dr Sutton would not respond to even the broadest of hints from us. We did win a wordy battle over the Soot Writer which here-varnished with varnish unevenly mixed with gold size, resulting in a patchy ginger effect. He eventually agreed to strip and re-varnish the instrument properly.  Fortunately Brian and I remained on good terms throughout.

This episode appeared in GIHS Newsletter for October 1999



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John Penn and Sons

November 1, 2019, 10:04 am
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John Penn and Sons
by Peter Trigg


Started by John Penn senior about 1800 this firm originally made such things as cranes and treadmills. The treadmill was at that time a common source of power (often using convict labour) but was soon to be supplanted by steam and hydraulic power which were developed rapidly,. The first marine engine was built in the 1820s but by 1857 the firm was World famous -  having several ships named after them - in this field. On the death of his father in 1843 John Penn Jnr. took over and was responsible for many important developments. In association with Francis Pettit Smith he solved in 1858 the problem of excessive wear of the stem and shearing on screw vessels by the use of lignum vitae. This material is still used on smaller vessels, its introduction enabled the widespread use of the propeller and was the result of a long series of experiments which involved pressures as high as 8000 psi. Engines were built at Blackheath Hill and boilers at Deptford, transport of large engines to the river was by teams of horses on traction engines and must have posed a considerable problem. As well as supplying locally built ships there was a healthy export market to countries who lacked the expertise to build their own engines and boilers. John Penn perfected the compact oscillating engine, several of these were in use on the river Danube until 1981 only being taken out of use because of their high fuel consumption, at least one survives in use on the River Elbe. 

The Penn family were well known in public life in the Blackheath area and John Penn was the first president of the West Kent Microscopical Society in 1861. The firm amalgamated with the Thames Ironworks in 1899 subsequently building several of the early dreadnought battleships. Shortly before the demise of the firm in 1912 such products as motor vehicles, electric cranes and electrical equipment were introduced in an attempt to stay in business after the decline of the shipbuilding trade. John Penn & Sons we regarded as being the finest marine engine builders in the World and the name is commemorated by John Penn Street and by the Penn and Widow Smith Almshouses in South Street.


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Letters fromOctober 1999

November 1, 2019, 10:14 am
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Letters from GIHS Newsletter October 1999
The two foreground cranes are the ones
mentioned as submitted for listing


From Listings Branch, Department for Culture Media and Sport, PLANNING (LISTED BUILDINGS ACT). TWO CRANES ON LOVELLS WHARF, SE10.   We are seeking advice from English Heritage. Shortly after we have received their recommendation we should be able to notify you of the Secretary of State’s decision on whether the structures are to be listed.

From Ted Barr
Angerstein Works -  I have been trying to arrange a visit to this derelict site in Siebert Road and have been let down on several occasions.

Silvertown Explosion - Pat O’Driscoll has suggested a book ‘ With Disastrous Consequences - London Disasters 1830-1917 by Wendy Neale  (ISBN 1 874312 00 1).

Greenwich Park Branch  of LCDR - for Philip Binns info. there is a good description and pictures in ‘Holborn Viaduct to Lewisham’ by Vic and Keith Smith of Middleton Press, pub 1990 and still in print.

Redpath Brown (or is it Redpath Dorman?) - Very recently the Guardian newspaper had a picture of Sydney Harbour Bridge with caption ‘Built by Cleveland’.  Of course this is incorrect, it was built by Dorman Long & Co. of Middlesborough.  It brings to mind that many years ago as one went northwards along Horn Lane, passing the oil installations on the right, and along the western side of Angerstein sidings, there was a notice on the left hand side ‘Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co.’ From memory the site appeared to adjoin or be part of Redpath's premises. In these days of take-overs, buy-outs and name changes I wonder if there is a common factor in any of all this?  Does anyone know?

The name ‘Bellot Street’ and the Bellot Memorial by the Naval College. Rightly or wrongly I’ve always been under the impression that little seems to be known about this. I recently came across an account of Bellot in a book now nearly 100 years old - this says that the obelisk is ‘in memory of the brave young Frenchman Bellot, an officer in the French Navy, who had permission to join the English Expedition, that went out in search of Sir John Franklin.  He endeared himself by his pluck and presence of mind to his English companions and on a second expedition was overtaken by a storm while making a perilous journey with two comrades across the ice, and was blown through an opening and drowned’.

From Howard Murphy (via  GIHS web site)
I am interested in any information concerned with clipper ships, owners,
captains, crew or anything related to them ie, trades that were involved. All information will be appreciated.  Do  you know how to get crew lists for the Taeping, 1869-1895 owned by  Captain Alexander Rodger and the Ariel,1865-1872 Shaw,Lother,Maxton & Co. were her owners?

From Eileen West
I am sending you some information about the Coalite Company.  I think the Coalite plant was on the Greenwich Peninsula where the branch railway line crossed Riverway. The signal box was still there when I went down to Bugsby’s Hole to see the Queen come up the river to open the Flood Barrier.  I can also remember the building of of the Coalite Plant (on license) in 1929.   My father told me a lot about petrol being produced from coal - is this what they were doing at the nearby chemical plant?  It must have been of good quality since they supplied the RAF and Fleet Air Arm,etc.
ea
Coalite  plant, East Greenwich

From Margaret Chapman
I was reading Mary Mills’ interesting book ‘Greenwich Marsh’ and was plased to find on page 66 mention of my great uncle, Tom London, was was murdered in Mombasa, while working for Telcon, There is a bit of a story attached to this but I am still hunting for information.  I hope that someone researching Telcon might find some records of him. I have the name of Cable and Wireless - are they the same?

From Elliot Einzig Porter (via GIHS web site)
I have seen one of your newsletters and enjoyed it very much.  I am working on undersea cable history for a book and I was wondering if  your group has produced anything so far on Telegraph and Construction Maintenance Co. at Enderby's Wharf, the India Gutta Percha Telegraph Works at Silvertown, the GPO Submarine Cable Depot, or the Siemens Brothers Works in West Woolwich?  Are there walking tours of any of this area?
Berkeley, California

From Ian Sharpe
Barratt East London are soon to have an American unveiling of the 1st Settlers Monument at Blackwall by the Ambassador on Sept 23rd.  We in the community in Tower Hamlets did a lot of work on this and were responsible for enlightening them on the local Historic significance, I myself was given a verbal promise that I would be invited on behalf of our Group.  Such an important occasion must have Community representation. Perhaps you can help too with community representation for this most important historic event.

From Neil Rhind,
Blackheath Station was exactly 150 years old on July 30 1999 so we encouraged the current railway company  to unveil a plaque.  It is the oldest operational railway station unaltered or re-built still in use.  I had a  big article in the July issue of Blackheath Guide and a spread in Mercury for July 22 or thereabouts.  Blackheath Preservation Trust has now  taken over the Blackheath Fire Station (Brigade House, Brigade Street) - not, alas, to restore it as a fire brigade station but as quality offices. 





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More memories of a ROFapprentice

November 1, 2019, 10:40 am
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More memories of a ROFapprentice
by John Day


Some of the jobs required entry to the Danger Buildings. These were a series of wooden huts of relatively light construction surrounded by high earth banks and joined by wooden walkways a couple of feet from the ground. These walkways were known as a “clean” area whereas off the walkways was the “dirty” area. Access could only be attained through the dirty/clean building where all smoking, snuff taking and metal articles had to be left and one had to put on special nailless overshoes as one stepped one foot at a time over the  barrier from dirty to clean. One step off the “clean” walkway, one became “dirty” and was not allowed back. During my time there was an explosion in one building, the walls embedded themselves in the earth banks and the roof fell back to the floor. Unfortunately there were some deaths.

My next move was to the mechanical test house for a month. There was little for an apprentice to do here apart from watching slinging ropes and chains being tested for load bearing, odd samples of metal being broken and tested for hardness on a Vickers diamond machine - we were only allowed to watch not to be involved. After one had finished ones homework there was a drawerfull of western magazines. One day, an apprentice (who shall remain nameless) had an idea to brighten things up. In the middle of the wide roadway between the Test House and the Power Station was a toilet built from corrugated iron and flushed, continually, by a stream running underneath into a sewer emptying into the river. First thing every morning the toilet was full of newspaper readers, so the apprentice had the idea of making a paper boat, putting some paraffin soaked cotton waste in it and floating it, alight, in the stream. Irate men and corrugated iron in contact gave a good illustration of pandemonium.

At the end of the month I moved to the erecting bay of the Main Machine Shop, where I spent most of my time building Mk.1 Dragons. These were gun towing tractors that held a gun crew of six , powered by a 4 ½ litre Meadows engine driving through a Wilson preselector gearbox to a front axle having two steering clutches. They were full - track vehicles with a top speed, unloaded, of about 30 m.p.h. Holes in the hull were drilled with air powered drills having four cylinders in V formation, they were quite heavy and to get faster drilling it was the practice to slip a plank into a rope loop, tied to a convenient point , and to lean on the other end giving a leverage of around 4 to 1 on the drill. Owen Stott, a large Welshman, was the ganger  and he took the finished Dragons out on test with an apprentice as mate. Between the Danger buildings and Plumstead Road was a tank testing area with built - up single figure gradients and crossed by a railway line. Owen’s joy was to spot a rabbit and chase it full speed over the testing ground, one soon learnt to hang on tight when this happened. Owen gave me another lesson I have never forgotten. The Meadows engine had a ducted radiator at the rear that included an oil cooler. One leaked and I was given the job of replacing it. After the new cooler was installed I was running the engine to see the cooler was not leaking and concentrating very near the unguarded  fan. Owen saw the danger and tossed a scrumpled sheet of newspaper into the fan. This produced a white explosive blur and I shot out over the three foot high hull side in one bound. You won’t find me near an unguarded fan again.

Another job in the erecting bay was using a hammer and chisel to cut flat surfaces on the sides of the cast iron pintle mountings of 6 inch coast defence guns for the addition of the , then, new - fangled predictor gear. There was also the scraping of the flat surfaces on the saddles of 2 pounder anti - tank guns, a nice little gun that was too  weak for it’s intended work.

A lightweight tank was interesting in having two A.E.C. bus engines on their sides under the floor and as much of the interior  as possible made in light alloy. Securing armour plate to magnesium alloy framework with red - hot rivets was worth watching; it took three men, one to hold the rivet gun, one to hold the rivet snap and one with a lump of sacking to put out the fire! All the joints had to have at least two right angles, since a lead bullet would squirt through one right angle joint. That’s why tank armour is all one piece or welded together without joints.

Pattern making made a change from dealing with metal. My mentor was Tom Hammet, a craftsman of the old school with only a few years to go before retirement. He had three ex - Arsenal interests, making string musical instruments, playing his homemade double bass in a local orchestra and being a Methodist lay preacher. To Tom, Picture Post was utter pornography. He had the honest pride in his craftsmanship, once he made a small mistake in 2 inch diameter core box, some eight inches long, cutting too deep less than a sixteenth of an inch, over an area of about a square inch. Although he was on piecework, he neatly cut out the offending area and inserted a new piece even matching the grain, though it would have several coats of paint and varnish over it.

Piecework was a system of payment whereby each job came with a card bearing the price that that job would earn. That price was set by the “pricefixer” who was supposed to know exactly how long a job should take, thereby began a number of arguments. There was a minimum wage that a man was expected to at least equal by adding the prices of the jobs he had done during the week. If he consistently did not, there was a fair chance of his “getting his cards”. A reasonably skilled man could exceed the minimum and he could be paid for all the work he had done up to a set limit. This limit was, I think, about one and a half times the standard wage. A good man could exceed this and Saturday mornings would see men shuffling the cards to get as near the maximum as possible and leaving the remaining cards for following weeks. This caused problems if a man left, as he probably had several weeks work done and the cards for it that had not been counted. Apprentices were not on piecework, though occasionally one of the more senior, on a repetitive job, would go on to earn a little more money. If a man had an apprentice, adjustments were made for either instructing time or money earned for him by the apprentice. Most of the time it probably balanced out.


This appeared in the GIHS newsletter in October 1999

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Deptford Creek flooding

November 1, 2019, 10:52 am
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CRISTOPHER PHILPOTT’S

STUDY OF DEPTFORD CREEK 



Evidence for post medieval flooding up to the 19th century in Deptford has been found in several excavations and evaluations in the vicinity. In 1514 the Thames was said to have flooded Church Marsh three times within the last eight years.  A breach in the riverwall at Crooked Acre in Stowage Marsh was caused by a flood of water from the land side in 1576. Flooding by the Thames in 1625 threatened the East India Company's gunpowder store, and in December 1626 broke open the gates of the Company's dock. Floods penetrated as far as Upper Deptford in 1651 and 1671.  The flood of 1824 came down the Ravensbourne and swept away many houses and warehouses on each side of Deptford Bridge, and also the Tide Mill.

The effort to protect the marshlands from the rising waters of the Thames and the Creek required frequent repairs to the river embankments in the sixteenth century, overseen by the Sewer Commissioners.  Often the owners were required to pile and plank their river walls, and level up the ground behind. According to William Lambard in 1576, the River Ravensbourne 'slippeth by this Towne into the Thamyse, carying continuall matter of a great Shelfe with it'.  Shoals of alluvium accumu lated in the Creek and the Sewer Commissioners ordered their removal.  In 1597 these were causing the river to shift its course off the Slaughterhouse and Walnuttree Acre.

In the sixteenth century river walls and wharves were established along the waterfront at about 3.5mOD and successively heightened. In the seventeenth century wharves along the Thames were increased in height to counteract the effects of the high tide. Between 1627 and 1636 Christopher Brown repaired the river walls in Deptford Strand at the expense of the royal household, in order to protect the pastures used to graze the king's cattle. From the late seventeenth century onwards a dock and a wharf at Half Lanch Wharf, on the West Side of the Creek - on the site of the waste depot - served the Copperas works and other adjacent industries.  A lease of land just downstream of this in 1759 forbade any development of the river wall or the land behind it.  Almost the whole length of both banks of the Creek was still lined with earthen embankments in the 1770s.

There were osier beds in several places along the Creek between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.  There is evidence for them near the tide mill - on the site of the Skill Centre - in 1576; south across the Creek in 1588; near the Slaughterhouse and also in unspecified locations in 1608, around the peninsula on the east side of the Creek mouth and on the west bank in 1777; and surviving into the 1840s adjacent to the tide mill. The early modern Creek was sufficiently friend ly to wildlife to contain otters - one was shot here in 1684.

At the north end of Deptford Green the Skinners Place property was leased to Lord Howard of Effingham, Admiral of England, in the late sixteenth century, and this appears to be the origin of the Lord High Admiral's official residence on the Green in the seventeenth century.  It had two wharves with yards, several gardens enclosed with a brick wall, a barn and a stable, and a number, of houses held by sub-tenants.  The main house was rebuilt shortly before 1568. This building later became the Gun Tavern and in 1807 it was converted into dwellings and warehouses owned by Messrs Gordon, Biddulph and Stanley, anchorsmiths.  The property later passed to the General Steam Navigation Company.

The economy of Deptford was given its first great boost by Henry VIll's decision to found a royal Dockyard there for the construc tion of his ships.  Lambard wrote that "This towne was of none estimation at all until King Henrie the eight advised (for the better preservation of the Royall fleete) to erect a storehouse, and to create certaine officers there".  The Dock yard was built up around the nucleus of a storehouse for naval supplies built in 1513.

In 1517 the old pond at Deptford Strand was probably adapted as a basin to house several of the king's ships. Other moorings were used for the royal ships. In 1521 the John the Baptist and the Barbara lay together in Deptford Creek, and the Great Nicholas at the east end of Deptford Strand.  The Dockyard continued to expand throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, employing ever greater numbers of men, but was outstripped by other naval dockyards from the eighteenth century onwards because the silting of the Thames formed shoals in front of it  Nevertheless it was enlarged in 1765, 1780 and 1796. The Dockyard was closed for ship construc tion in 1830, although it continued to be used for ship-breaking,and it recommenced ship building in 1844.  Further extensions were proposed in the 1850s but the Dockyard finally closed in 1869. The ground was sold as the site for the Foreign Cattle Market and was redeveloped as the Pepys Estate in 1961. Its area lay some distance to the west of Deptford Strand.


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Blackheath Station 150 years

November 1, 2019, 11:39 am
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BLACKHEATH STATION

              CELEBRATING 150 YEARS.




In the July  1999 Blackheath Guide Neil Rhind published a two page article on Blackheath Station -  here are some of the highlights:

July 30th this year is an important date in our community because on that exact date in 1849 Blackheath Railway station opened for passenger traffic for the first time.  ....  In 1844 the London Chatham & North Kent Railway published a prospectus ... to reach Lewisham,  Blackheath and beyond. Work started in August 1845 but was constantly delayed. Tunnelling to Charlton under Morden College did not begin until September 1847.

The line was planned to be hidden in the natural valley of the Upper Kid Brook. The line ran through two large estates. -  that of Thomas Brandram of the Cedars, Lee and of John Cator at Blackheath Park and private bridges had to be built so that these estates were not split. As a result of this Blackheath is one of the few districts where the advent of the railway did not split the community. The much-promised service finally came into operation in July 1849. Trains ran every half-hour from London Bridge to Woolwich and hourly to Erith and then to Gravesend and Strood, from 7 3am to 10.30pm.  Tickets cost 5p (lst class) 3.5p (2nd class) and 2.5p (3rd class) and  an annual season ticket was £14 first class and just over £11 second.

Neil goes on to talk about the service and then describes the station which was built by a local architect, George Smith - who designed many other local buildings.  This station has, unusually survived as one of the oldest operational stations in the country not to have been rebuilt or moved. Of two original gateways one survives and is still used. The first passengers had to go down to platform level to buy tickets - the ticket office at street level was built in 1879. 

The original construction depot was to the south of the station and the land was later sold - to become Independents Road together with the, now renamed, Railway Tavern.
Inevitably life and work on the station did not run smoothly and Neil devotes much of the rest of his article to describing the many problems which beset the staff and passengers. An early irate gent described the staff as ‘larking blackguards’. Later, in 1879, and a meeting of season ticket holders protested at the worst mismanagement’  - Blackheath actually had the highest number of first class season ticket holders of any station owned by the Company,

A residential station master was appointed in 1850 and stayed in post for the next fifty years - although he had been presented with a silver salver by passengers at the end of the first ten!

W.H.Smith opened a newspaper kiosk in 1863 and sidings were built in 1879 - this is now the site of the car park and housing beyond it.  In the 1880s a flower shop, tobacconist  and coal office were added.

In the early 1980s  local people began to be concerned about the state of disrepair into which the station had fallen and it was rescued by the Blackheath Preservation Trust and repainted in its original colours,. Neil comments that all of that careful work has been lost with privatisation.

This article first appeared in the October 1999 GIHS Newsletter
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FINDING THE BULLI

November 1, 2019, 11:43 am
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FINDING THE BULLI


It was with a great deal of excitement that I found recently, while looking under ‘Erith’ on the internet a ship, a real ship, built on the site of the Dome.

I had known for a long time that there had been ship building on the Greenwich Peninsula and known a bit about the company that built the dry dock (the remains of which have recently been scrunched by NMEC) but I had come to believe that probably no ships of any size had been built there.  The dry dock itself stood slightly to the west of the Dome and was used in its latter days as a reservoir by the gas works. A capstan from it is to be in the new Museum in Docklands. The company concerned was called Stockwell and Lewis and the dock had been built around 1871 (see my article in the latest Bygone Kent).  So, there is was, on the Tasmanian Government Parks’ Department web site at http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/historic/shipw/bulli.html - they had made the very easy mistake of mis-spelling the ship builders as ‘Stackwell and Lewis’.

So, Bulli lies at the northern end of West Cove in the Bass Strait in 16 metres of water. She is said to be remarkably intact and stands 5 meters off the shore. Her bow has collapsed but two thirds of her hull is intact up to the upper deck. Her bridge and engine room are still there, as are the rudder and the stern.  She is seen as a specialist site for leisure diving.

I think this is a very exciting find. I know of no other Peninsula built boats - other than sailing barge Orinoco - which are still with us.  Other short articles on Bulli should appear soon in Bygone Kent and the new GLIAS Newsletter - what I really need is more information.  I have a had great deal of help already and would like to thank Mike Nash in Tasmania who has been more than helpful - and Chris Grabhame who has been trying to ‘grab’ images across the air waves and David McGeorge and Pat O’Driscoll who have both tried very hard to get more details out of the archives.  So far no luck - but we will keep on trying.

Mary Mills

This article first appeared in the October 1999 edition of the GIHS Newsletter


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Deptford shipbuilding

November 1, 2019, 1:20 pm
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Deptford shipbuilding



Sir Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hind was lodged in a specially constructed brick dock in Deptford on his return from his circumnavigation voyage in l581. This was almost certainly on the Dockyard site although some writers have maintained it was in an inlet off the Creek. Benjamin Wright's map of the Thames estuary in 1606 and a contemporary Dutch map both show Captain Dracke's ship to the north of Ditford approximately on the Dockyard site.  Philipott stated the skeleton of the ship was near the Mast Pond. Drake's ship was a tourist attraction for some decades before it fell to pieces in the 1660s. The remains of the ship, complete with its stone-shot ballast, may have been disturbed during the digging of a new dock in the Dockyard in 1667.  An excavation at Deptford Wharf in 1977, designed to find the remains of the ship and its dock, found evidence of seventeenth-century shipbuilding in the form of tar and wood-shavings.

To the north of the Dockyard a naval victualling supply depot developed at the Red House in the seventeenth century  This continued to expand, despite a series of disastrous fires in 1639, 1739, 1749, 1755, 1758 and 1761, and it succeeded Tower Hill as the main victualling yard of the Navy in 1785  It was enlarged in 1833 and renamed as the Royal Victualling Yard in 1858.

The East India Company was formed in 1600 and ran its first voyages to the far east from Deptford. The first Company fleet in l601 was commanded by Sir Thomas Lancaster, a Deptford dock owner. At first it borrowed facilities from the Royal Dockyard to lay its cannon and other stores on the wharf. In 1607 the Company leased the Stone Wharf at the end of Watergate Street in Deptford Strand from the Bridge House estate, and built a timber dock in Deptford the following year.  The lease was extendedin 1610.  The Company was building ships at Deptford in 1609

In 1614 the Company leased other Bridge House lands at Church Marsh, on the west part of the Power Station site at the north end of the study area. This followed a protracted series of negotiation with the Mayor and Common Council of London in 1613, and included the sublease of land held by the Sheffield family. There it built a dry dock and slipways for shipbuilding, and various other structures for storage and manufacture of its ships' supplies. These included an iron foundry to make anchors and chains; a spinning house to make cordage; a slaughterhouse for the killing, salting and pickling of pork and beef; storehouses for timber and canvas; and an isolated powder house to store its gunpowder on the east side. On the west side was the house of William Burrell, its shipbuilder. Several of these buildings and two docks are shown on the plan of 1623.  In the decade 1610 to 1620 the Company built over 30 ships at Deptford, employing a workforce of 500 men. The dockyard here built the larger ships, while the oher Company yard at Blackwall undertook repairs.   However, there was little activity at Deptfordafter l626 and only a few small pinnaces were built up to 1640.
The Company withdrew from its leases in Deptford in 1643, but it continued to have some of its ships built there until the early nineteenth century, contracted out to private dockyards. In 1726 it was leasing part of the Victualling Yard buildings for storage.

The East India Company yard was the origin of the dockyard which operated on this site until the mid-nineteenth century under a succession of shipbuilders, and underwent several phases of expansion of its facilities. Several detailed plans and leases of this property are to be found in the Bridge House Estate archives. The Company leased it to John Tailor before 1636. In 1649 and 1652-3 it was held on lease by Peter Pett, together with some areas of marshland and upland. A view of c.1660 shows a dock and two slipways on the site. In 1692, when it was leased to Robert Castell, it was called the Merchants' Yard and had a dry dock and two slipways, a crane, and various sheds and saw-pits. Free access was to be allowed for carts along Anchor Smith Alley from Deptford Green. The Castell family had been building naval ships in Deptford since the 1660s. The dockyard was leased to Edward. Popley in 1713, to Titus West in 1738, Thomas West in 1759 and 1774, and Joseph Hales in 1776. In each of these leases the Wests agreed to undertake repairs and improvements.  In 1788, when the lease was taken by William Barnard, the dockyard consisted of a dry dock and three slipways, yards, crane-houses, saw pits, carpenters' shops, a rigging house, a pitch house, warehouses and gardens.

Christopher Philipotts

this article was in GIHS Newsletter for January 2000

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Redpath Brown buildings on the Dome site

November 1, 2019, 1:24 pm
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REDPATH BROWN BUILDINGS ON THE DOME SITE - 
by Andrew Turner


During November, the buildings in the Riverside Industrial Estate (River Way) were demolished in connection with the Millennium Exhibition. While most were modern, the two large warehouses (units 17-19) were constructed around the existing steel framework and roof trusses of the Redpath Brown sheds formerly occupying the site. These sheds were originally built in the 1920s or 1930s  and were used for the storage of erection equipment. The framework appeared to be little changed from that recorded in the 1950's, and in particular, the beams for the travelling cranes were still very much in evidence.

By early December, the only remaining former industrial building in the River Way area was the Greenwich Yacht Club, originally  Redpath Brown's canteen.

This note was published in GIHS Newsletter January 2000 



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Letters from January 2000

November 2, 2019, 12:38 am
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Letters from January 2000



From Philip Binns
I am told that, at the 11th October meeting organised by the Greenwich Waterfront Community Forum to discuss the future of Lovell’s Wharf, it was said that John Prescott had done the journey by boat from Greenwich to the Dome and was not impressed at what he saw on the Greenwich bank.
The understanding is that he is trying to get Morden College and their developers to the hotel/apartments application - pro tem - and that he has asked English Partnerships or, or whatever that regeneration agency is called these days, to come up with a development framework for the whole of the industrial area from the east Greenwich Power Station to the west side of the Peninsula.
This initiative is to be welcomed but there had to be concern that the strategy is not being extended further downstream from the Millennium Village site, for which English Partnerships are already responsible, to the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, where again English Partnerships are the key players.
It is also essential that comprehensive grass roots consultation with existing land users, residents, and local amenity groups is built into the development framework from the very beginning. English Partnership’s track record in this respect has, in the past, left much to be desired and now is the opportunity for English Partnerships and Greenwich Council to show that they value a true consultation process and do not just pay lip service to it.

From  Alf Allen
I am researching my family history but I live in Southampton and don’t know Greenwich very well.  I have discovered that my ancestors were Lightermen on the Thames and several generations have lived at Greenwich.
The 1881 Census shows my great grandfather, William George Allen, living at 3 Crooms Hill with his family of 10 children (4 of his sons became Lightermen). My grandfather (his second son) was also the licensee of the ‘Sun’ public house at Wood Wharf. I would-be interested to learn the exact location of that pub and some of its history, if possible.
Another query is that many Allen families are shown on Census returns (1851 onwards) as living in Bridge Place and Bridge Street. I’m curious to know if these are two different roads, or are they one and the same? 

From Iris Bryce
I thought you might be interested to hear that I was invited to Broadcasting House to take part in the BBC Radio Four programme Book Club.  The book discussed was ‘Longitude’ and the author, Dave Sobell, was very interesting.  I run a readers group in my village and took five members to the BBC.  As the broadcast was not recorded until late afternoon there was time for a visit to Greenwich to see Harrison’s clocks at Flamsteed House - everyone was VERY impressed and I hope their reactions will be part of the broadcast.


From Howard Bloch
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has information about the glass bottle manufacturer Moore and Nettlefold which had a factory in North Woolwich during the late nineteenth century and moved to Charlton in about 1908.  I have come across a number of accounts in the local news-papers of fights between the German and Lithuanian employees. 

From Doreen Abraham
We have  particular interest in the rope and cable companies. My great  great grand parents moved from Camberwell to East Greenwich around 1858-60. The family had followed work from Limehouse in the early 1800s to Chatham around 1840. Great grandfather came back to Limehouse around 1855 and then to Camberwell and finally to Greenwich. Their address in the 1861 census is 2 Enderby Cottages. We gave searched map after map to locate the cottage but cannot find them.


From David Cufley
I became interested in Brickmaking and thought of the 'Brickmakers' index to help family historians. Once it grew and took over part of my life the information requested of it extended the database and now I get questions in daily - today’s questions  were about Arlesey brickworks and the GOODWINs and the other about the HUNTERs of Cumberland.
Which brings me to the point. I have done articles on the Woolwich, Plumstead and East Wickham brickfields but I was recently asked about a brickmaker in Ordnance Place, Woolwich in 1853 which I assume meant he worked at Charles Gates Brickfield or with Robert Jolly. Has anyone done any research on brickfields in the Arsenal or Woolwich Common military areas? Where there brickfields here? I know Chatham dockyard had its own brickfield on St Mary's Island so wondered if Woolwich might have the same.  

From Ian Sharpe
The American Ambassador with Barratt staff unveiled the Virginia Settlers Monument at Blackwall on Thursday 23rd September.  We are going to have our own ceremony soon and invite the Governor of Virginia, and Dale (Newport's descendent). Someone will have to pay their Hotel bills though!

From Pat O’Driscoll
I went to the National Maritime Museum to see if I could find details of the Bulli which you mentioned in the last edition of the Newsletter. (wrecked off Tasmania, but in built in Greenwich),. No trace at all in Lloyds Register although she should be there. The Mercantile Navy list for 1875 states: Bulli. Official Number 64409 Registered at Sydney, New South Wales, 1873, built East Greenwich 1872 Iron constriction, dimensions, 180 ft zx 23.2 ft x 15.9 ft. Nett tons 334, gross tons 496. She  was screwdriven and had a 100 hp engine. Owner Bulli Coal Mining Company, Sydney, New South Wales.  By the 1877/78 Volume she had acquired the identifying code flag signal WNGR
I checked in Lloyds list under Casualties for June July and August 1877 but found no retrace. Had she been in Lloyds Register there would have been more details of her engine and also the month in which she was launched. A opt as this would've made it easier to check the Kentish mercury. At the end of earlier volumes of the MBN List . they mentions losses of vessels in the previous year,but I could find no mention of the Bulli, probably because there was apparently some chance of salvaging her. Otherwise I would have found the date of her stranding.

From Karen Day
My family lived in East Greenwich for many years during the 1700s and 1800s - and took their living from the river.
Recently I was surprised to discover that my family were originally boat builders situated at Crowley’s Wharf.  Their name was ‘Hoskins’ but unfortunately there appears to be no record of this little firm anywhere - except a brief mention in the directories of Pigot’s (1827-1839) However in the baptism registers for St.Alphege I have found a Samuel Hoskins, boat builder, baptising his son Workman in 1777 and a Workman Hoskins boat builder (my 4 x great-grandfather) baptising his sons in 1799.
Greenwich Local History could only tell mention they think ‘Hoskins Street was named after this firm as it was originally Bennett Street and ran down to Crowley’s Wharf.
My father David Alan Hoskins, was amazed at my discovery and felt very proud because he makes the most beautiful model boats. There is one of his in the window of the Greenwich Model Shop under the name of David Alan. 

From Andrew Turner
During the early 1980s, Trafalgar House acquired some of the constructional divisions of British Steel and integrated them into the Cleveland Bridge Group. These included the works formerly belonging to Dorman Long (Bridge and Engineering) and Redpath Brown. By then, operations at the former Redpath Brown and Dorman Long sites at East Greenwich had ceased. So the present day Cleveland Bridge Company can claim descent from the builders of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but a connection between Cleveland Bridge and Greenwich is less obvious.

From Mrs. Ward
I have for many years  been researching the life of my Huguenot ancestors and Anne Roper (Ardouin) 1861-1888 who died at Waverley House, Humber Road, Greenwich. Her father, Alfred Ardouin, 1822-1906 lived there with his housekeeper, Margaret Harris, and his niece, Anne Ardouin, until 1894.  Alfred Ardouin was a Master Barge Builder at Anchor and Hope Wharf, Charlton. I believe the Anchor and Hope Pub is still there. 

From Alan Merryweather
From a memorial about Albert Frederick Bolton. ‘When Prince Charles was born, he made a wooden model of a steam engine for a present, for he was a skilled metal and woodworker. Albert loved to demonstrate to anyone interested, his accurate, working, scale model of a Merryweather fire engine complete with extending ladders. He said he had had a lot of difficulty over the hosepipes and eventually hit on the idea of white cylindrical shoelaces.
His model won him first prize at an exhibition of Hoover employees' work - an upright washing machine which were then just coming on to the market. that would have been c.1950?


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Royal Arsenal Woolwich - update December 1999

November 2, 2019, 1:04 am
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ROYAL ARSENAL WOOLWICH - UP DATE 
The view at December 1999

 by Jack Vaughan

The physical state of the above may be observed from three vantage points external to the site:

Point One - Walk from Beresford Square down Warren Lane and turn in at the Warren Gate. Entry to the site is not possible but the general layout may be discerned albeit that it resembles a vast bomb site left over from World War II.

This is the result of:
a.A general massacre by the owners , English Partnerships, carried out with tacit Council approval. This work to provide services for future use, drains, electric supplies, etc.  has resulted in theneedless loss of fine buildings and all the contents thereof. This means that there has been a wholesale disappearance of Arsenal artefacts both from inside the buildings andexternally. Fine structural ironwork, railway lines and associated control gear, cranes, hydraulic hoists and even an ancient fossil bed have been spirited away. Enquiries as to the fate of these items are met with evasion.
b. Archaeological exploration, while welcome, has also contributed,especially on the sites of the Royal Laboratories (1696) and of Dial Square (1717). The two portions of the former are still standing but in woeful condition, as is the front block of Dial Square including the sundial added in 1764.

BUILDINGS VISIBLE FROM THIS POINT


The straight road running east from this gate is Wellington Avenue. 

On its right side
1. Royal Laboratory Pavilion (1696)
2. Royal Brass Foundry (front of 1716)
3. Dial Square Front Block (rear of 1717)
4. New Carriage Store (1728)
Later Main machine shop of the Royal Carriage Department.

On its left side
1. Tower Place (1716)
2. New Laboratory Square
3. Paper Cartridge Factory. (1810)
Later Metallurgy Branch of the DQA.
4. Gun Mounting Shop (1887)
5. Central Office (1905) The only surviving Edwardian building and under threat.
6. Statue of the 1st Duke of Wellington. (on a clear day!)

Note:
No.2. on the Right is listed Grade I
No.1. on the left is listed Grade II star
Nos.1, 3 & 4 in the right are listed Grade II
Nos. 2 & 6  on the left are listed Grade II
Nos. 3, 4 & 5 on the left are not listed but may be retained.

Point Two
At  Beresford Square, behind the former Main Gate (Grade II but now divorced from the main site. 1825 & 1891). The general site destruction is equally visible from here and need not be elaborated on.

BUILDINGS VISIBLE

Behind the railings there is a plate showing some of the buildings.

To the left
1. The Main Guard House (1758)
2. Side view of the Royal Brass Foundry(1716)

Straight ahead
3. Front view of Dial Square block (1717)

To the Right
4. Verbruggen’s House (1772)
5. The Officers’ Quarters (birthplace of the Royal Artillery) (1720)
All have Grade II listing

Point Three
From Beresford Square walk east towards Plumstead, turning left at Marshgate Path which leads to the ‘East Gate’ end of the site.

BUILDINGS VISIBLE
At the start of Marshgate Path
1. Middle (or Second Gate) 19th century
2. Middlegate House (1808). Built for the storekeeper and later HQ of the Inspector of Naval Ordnance. Now occupied by the Council’s Leisure Services Department.

From the East Gate
3. Rear of Armstrong Gun Factory (1856)
4. Gate (two storeys) of Rifled Shell Factory (1896)
5. Distant view of the Grand Storehouses, on the river side (1806)

Listed buildings not visible from any of the three points given are the two Riverside Guard Houses and front view of the Armstrong Gun Factory.

This external perambulation gives glimpses of most of the buildings but emanates absolutely no atmosphere or nostalgic feelings for ex-Arsenal habitues or relatives of same.

Loss of artefacts as outlined and removal of the many guns, shells, etc. by the Tower Armouries shows a disregard for local feelings that is quite unforgiveable.  Some of the remaining buildings are subject to vandalism, shattered windows, etc.

Apprecation of the importance of industrial artefacts, both on the part of the owner, and the Borough Council is zero, and we must continue to criticiseat every opportunity in the faint hope that enlightenment will come.



This piece dates from the January 2000 Newsletter.  Jack Vaughan was the first GIHS Chair and  already in his 90s when he wrote this. He had worked in the Arsenal for most of his career.  Jack was devoted to trying to preserve Woolwich's industrial heritage from developers and Government Agencies who he saw as vandals - but who of course would be unable to understand  his point of view, writing him off as an awkward old curmurgeon.
In working through the print copies of the GIHS Newsletter I will one day include a long printed dicussion which Jack had with David MacCullom, then Greenwich's Director of Regeneration.  Jack spared no one - for instance, also as yet unreproduced here, is Jack on the Greenwich Society! 

However many of the issues raised here - both about the Arsenal and other developments - could well do with discussion now, twenty years later. 

Ray Fordham is still collecting and recovering Arsenal history - but, to quote him "Well, Jack! Jack's Jack, isn't he?'
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Extra Everything and Everything extraordinary - North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens

November 2, 2019, 1:33 am
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EXTRA EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING 
EXTRAORDINARY.
A HISTORY OF THE NORTH WOOLWICH PLEASURE GARDENS 

by Howard Bloch


Up until 1963 Woolwich extended across the river to the area now known as North Woolwich.  When Greenwich Industrial History Society was set up we decided to take in this area and work to the historic boundaries of the area.  Both Newham Local History Society and Howard Bloch, the author of the following article have sent us interesting material on the industries of the area - and these will follow in due course. First, the scene is set by this article which describes what was in the mid-nineteenth century our nearest local pleasure resort - but one set up by the industrialists who hoped to exploit the area in more than one way.....

Before the railway reached North Woolwich in 1847 the area was largely marshland where cattle were grazed and fattened for market and by the river front a few houses, a public house and a ferry which carried passengers across the river to Woolwich.

During the 1840s a large piece of land along the river bank including 34 acres at North Woolwich owned by the Westminster Abbey estates was purchased by the North Woolwich Land Company, a syndicate whose principal shareholders included George Bidder, Samuel Morton Peto and the Kennard family. In 1846 the Stratford and Thames Junction Railway, also promoted by Bidder, opened its line from Stratford to Canning Town. In the following year this was extended to North Woolwich where with a steam ferry boat service to Woolwich it was hoped to provide the main route to the City from south of the river.

With the opening of the South Eastern Railway from Greenwich to Woolwich on 50th July 1849 the North Woolwich line lost a major portion of its traffic. In order to compensate for this loss Bidder, who had by this time sold the North Woolwich line to the Eastern Counties Railway; proposed to the Company on 15th August that North Woolwich should be developed as a residential area and that people might be encouraged to build houses there by the offer of annual season tickets entitling them to travel between London and North Woolwich at reduced fares Ist class £2.l0s. 2nd class £l.5s. As an additional inducement to residents and visitors the proprietor of the Pavilion Hotel proposed in October 1850 to spend £150 on laying out gardens, if the Eastern Counties Railway would agree to contribute £250. Although his request was refused, he nevertheless laid out the garden and built a new wing to the Hotel. These he was able to use to advantage during 1851 to attract visitors who had come to London to see the Great Exhibition. Among them a party of workmen and their wives fromNorwich who were treated to a dinner in the Hotel on 11th July 1851 by their M.P Samuel Morton Peto.
After a successful season in 1851 the Pavilion Hotel and the gardens were opened in 1852 as the Royal Pavilion Gardens. 

A description written in 1853 indicates that they had many of the usual features found at the other London pleasure gardens. 'The gardens are most luxuriant abounding in flowers and plants of the choicest kind and in a high state of cultivation The magnificent esplanade, beautiful walks, bowling green, maze, rosary and a variety of natural attractions which alone would repay a visit'.

During the summer season thousands of 'respectable visitors travelled there by railway and steamboat to enjoy a day out and a programme of entertainment's such as those advertised on 12th September 1855. During the 1850s many of these would also have seen some of the leading music hall stars of the day perform there including Sam Cowell, E.W. Mackney and J.W. Sharpe. From 1852 the aeronaut Henry Coxwell was engaged to make balloon ascents and perform aerial feats. After he left North Woolwich in 1859 to become aeronaut at the Crystal Palace, balloon ascents became a less frequent part of the programme. Instead, freelance aeronauts were hired to make ascents at special events.
Since most of the traffic on the North Woolwich line consisted of visitors to the gardens during the summer the Eastern Counties Railway was eager to encourage their promotion. In November 1854 they agreed to an arrangement with the North Woolwich Gardens Company under which they would divide the receipts from visitors, pay one-third of their advertising costs, build a new ballroom and be represented on their board of management.

This decision was criticised a year later when a Committee of Investigation examined the Company's financial affairs. In its report it drew attention to the low profits from the North Woolwich line and the unnecessary expenditure of £1,500 on a ballroom which had been built on land not owned by the Company.

The Eastern Counties Railway's interest in the gardens waned as a result of the large amount of new traffic which was generated by the opening of the Victoria Dock in 1855 and the movement to the area of a number of 'noxious'industries. These, in addition to the 'stink' from the pollutedThames were soon to make North Woolwich an extremely unpleasant place to visit

This piece appeared in the January 2000 GIHS Newsletter 

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Trinity House

November 2, 2019, 1:47 am
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TRINITY HOUSE
by Peter Gurnett


Trinity House’ is often mentioned in  books about the river and the estuary - but rarely explained.In April this year Peter Gurnett gave a talk to the Docklands History Group on Trinity House and we reproduce it here (with permission and our thanks to them).  We would stress, however, that this is not the text of Peter’s talk but the notes taken by the minutes secretary at the DHG meeting. Peter has however seen this script and approved publication.



Peter Gurnett's depth of knowledge and passion for his subject was amply demonstrated in his talk on Trinity House and Deptford Strond. 

Peter explained that 'there are three bodies responsible for safe navigation around our islands:

·  Trinity House responsible for lighthouses, light vessels, buoys and beacons around the coast of England, Wales, the Channel Islands, and Gibraltar. Until recently it was also the principal Pilotage Authority for the LWL, with responsibilities for London (including River Pilots) and forty other districts, including such ports as Milford Haven and Falmouth.  Trinity House is now only responsible for deep-sea pilotage.

·  The Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses. General Lighthouse Authority for Scotland and the Isle of Man

·  The Irish Lights Commissioners who are the general Lighthouse Authority for the whole of Ireland 

In addition separate Trinity Houses operate at Hull, Newcastle and Dover

Around 1511, Thomas Spert, who spelt his name Spertt, founded the Corporation of Trinity House at Deptford Strond, and its existing Hall with Almshouses behind St. Nicholas' Church  Spert is generally agreed to be the true founder of the Corporation of Trinity House, as we know it today, during the early years of Henry VIII’s reign, when Spert was serving as the sailing master of the ill-fated "Mary Rose' from 1511 to late 1513.   In 1514 the "Great Harry", (“Henri Grace a Dieu"), was built at Woolwich and Spert was transferred to her as Sailing Master. Henry's largest ship, she was around 1000 tons, compared with the 600 ton "Mary' Rose". 

The year 1514 was also generally thought to be that when Trinity House was granted its 'Charter of Incorporation', by Henry VIII.  An earlier Charter petition found carries Henry's signature on it, and as it dates from the early part of 1513, it may be one of the earliest documents outside of Henry's personal correspondence containing his signature.  In 1513, Henry had set up the famous Royal Dockyard at Deptford, near St Nicholas’ Church.
Various Acts have given Trinity House powers to make laws, ordinances and statues in controlling the passage of shipping round the English coast, with legal powers to levy charges and enforce them for the services provided, and levy fines for non-payment. It also assumed responsibility for the charitable protection of its less fortunate members. The Almshouses of Deptford were built probably earlier in the 15th century to cater for the needs of old and decayed members  The motto of the Corporation is Trintas In Unitate ,which roughly translates as “All one under the Holy Trinity”.

Around 1520, the Admiralty and Navy Board were formed and held their meetings at Deptford. This probably had some bearing on the appointment of Spert in 1524, as 'Clerk Controller of the King's Ships'. Thus he became an administrator and his deputy Thomas Jermyn took over as Master of the "Henri Grace a Dieu", presumably to leave Spert free to carry out his full time duties of Clerk which would have involved provisioning, manning and paying the crews of ships  He held this position until July 1540, when it passed to John Bartelot. The post was later renamed 'Secretary of the Navy'. In November 1529 Thomas Spert was knighted at York Place by Henry VIII. He died in 1541 and was buried in St.Dunstan’s Church at Stepney.

Trinity House Charter was renewed by Mary I in 1553, and Elizabeth I in 1558. An Act was passed in 1566, concerning the placing of sea-marks by Trinity House at dangerous parts of the coast to ensure the safety of ships and mariners. In 1573 they were granted a seal and a Coat of Arms. In 1594, Elizabeth granted Trinity House by Act, the rights on the river Thames of all lastage (duty paid for the right to dispose, stow and tally goods on ship’s ballastage, beaconage and buoyage and setting up of channel navigation markers, which were also dutiable). These provided a steady and lucrative 
income for the next 300 years.

In 1604, James I further revised the Charter to include the rights granted by Elizabeth in 1594.  The new Charter was primarily concerned with the governing of the Corporation, which now divided into 31 Elder Brothers, the group from which all executives are elected, and an unspecified number of Younger Brothers.  All Elder Brothers must have been Commanders or Masters for a period of not less than four years, to ensure that experience would be added to all decisions made by the Corporation. Trinity House was given the exclusive rights to licence all pilots on the Thames. Existing and successive Acts now gave Trinity House the charge in respect of laying buoys and erecting beacons for safe navigation. Ships of the Royal Navy to be built or purchased were laid down to their design, accepted or rejected on their certificates  Provisions, cordage, ordnance and ammunition for Royal and Merchant Ships all passed through their control. They were responsible for pressing crews in time of war, both Masters and Seamen, and had the right to appoint Consuls in certain foreign countries e.g. Leghorn and Genoa. They acted as hydrographers for the navy and all the limits and boundaries of seas and channels were referred to them. In the early 1600's, an additional meeting house was acquired at Ratcliffe near Limehouse. Ratcliffe and Wapping were busy maritime centres then, and provided crews for ships on many famous voyages of discovery. In 1618, the final move to the new headquarters at Ratcliffe from Deptford took place

By the early 17th century relations between Trinity House and the Admiralty became very close.  Trinity House had now effectively become the civil arm of the Navy. The first purpose built lighthouses were two in Caister, Norfolk, in 1620 by a private owner and later passed to Trinity House. In 1638 Trinity House raised wrecks from the Thames and  helped suppress pirates around the coasts.  Around 1650 they leased part of a building in Stepney and about this time St Dunstan's took over from St. Nicholas' Church at Deptford as the Trinity House Church   In 1650 Samuel Pepys was appointed clerk of the Acts to the Navy (Board), a similar position to that held by Spert earlier.  He attended St. Olave's Church, in nearby Hart Street which was later to supersede both St. Dunstan's and St. Nicholas' Churches, to become the Trinity' House Church. During the Commonwealth Trinity House was dispossessed of all rights and their activities were carried out by an appointed committee.

In 1660, Charles II was back on the throne, and a new Charter restored the status quo, with Trinity House acquiring a new headquarters building at Water Lane, near the Tower.  He appointed General George Monke and Edward Montagu as Master and Deputy Master.  In 1661, Edward Montagu, the first Earl of Sandwich, and Lord High Admiral, was elected Master of Trinity House and his cousin,  Pepys, along with most of his colleagues, were elected Younger Brothers. In 1666 the Great Fire of London, burnt down the Water Lane headquarters building. A large number of Trinity House records and old documents were lost. Trinity House moved its headquarters to temporary accommodation in Whitehorse Lane in Stepney, not far from St. Dunstan's Church.

In 1671, Samuel Pepys was elected an Elder Brother.  Sir Richard Brown, who lived at Sayes Court,  gave land for projected new almshouses in Church Street at Deptford.  In 1672, Sir Richard resigned as clerk to the Privy Council's special committee, a position he had held since 1661, and was elected Master of Trinity House.

A mathematical school was founded at Christ's Hospital by Charles II, and examination of the boys was entrusted to Trinity House Brethren, to produce new navigators and ships' masters etc. In 1673 John Evelyn was sworn in as a Younger Brother of Trinity House, and Pepys was appointed Secretary of the Navy. Pepys himself became Master of Trinity House in 1676, and immediately reorganised it into a more efficient body, and took the lead in the Commons against removal of Trinity House's right to licence Thames Watermen  Trinity House were empowered to inspect vessels and exact any fines they thought to be due.

Pepys was elected Master of Trinity House for the second time in 1685, as the King's nominee. In 1691, Captain Henry Mudd,  then Deputy Master, died and was buried in St. Dunstan's Church. He left a gift of land in Mile End, as a site for more  almshouses. In 1694, a Commission comprising the Master, Warden and Elder Brothers of Trinity House and including Evelyn, as treasurer, and Christopher Wren as architect, had been appointed to build and establish Greenwich Hospital.   The Hospital was granted a lighthouse at the North Foreland to augment funds. Samuel Pepys died at Clapham in 1703, aged 70, and was buried in St. Olave's Church in Hart Street.  In 1714, the headquarters of Trinity House in Water Lane was burnt down and a new one built. More early records and documents were lost, as was the flag taken from the Spaniards by Sir Francis Drake during the Armada. The first effective lightship was built by David Avery on the Thames at the Nore in 1732 under licence from Trinity House.

The second half of the 18th century saw Trinity House appointed to examine the competency of Ships Masters to grant and navigate ships of his Majesty's Navy  In 1774, both sets of almshouses in Deptford were in use, at the Stowage and at Church Street. The headquarters building in Water Lane had been very badly reconstructed and in 1790 required costly repairs. As it was considered to be cramped and inconvenient a move to the new site on Tower Hill was mooted.   Building commenced on the new headquarters in 1793, to the design of Trinity' House Surveyor Samuel Wyatt at an estimated cost of £12,000.  The building was completed in 1798, at a cost of around £26,000 after considerable amendment to the interior had been insisted upon by the Trinity House Court.

The last Court meeting was held at Water Lane in 1796. On the threat of a French invasion in 1803, Trinity House undertook the defence of the Thames. They raised and equipped a body of men sufficient to man ten frigates.  In 1804, the Trinity House workshops at Blackwall had been set up to repair and maintain buoys, sea marks and light vessels etc. This became the principal repair depot until quite recently, when it was closed down and its work transferred to Harwich.

In 1837, the Duke of Wellington was elected Master at the Hall at Deptford. Prince Albert, the Prince Consort took over as Master after Wellington’s death and was in fact the last Master to be elected at Deptford, in 1853.  Since then, the elections have always been held at Tower Hill, and the commemoration service in the nearby church of St. Olave's, in Hart Street.

Latterly, Trinity' House has effectively been split into two bodies. The Corporation itself deals with all charitable work, with a separate body called 'The Lighthouse Service' dealing with aids to navigation, and having the right to levy charges under governmental control. Financial restraints have lately caused considerable reductions in staffing and premises used. Lighthouses


This article appeared in the January 2000 GIHS Newsletter
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Reviews and snippets from August 1999

November 2, 2019, 2:14 am
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BOOK REVIEWS AND SNIPPETS FROM AUGUST 1999

Many of the books reviewed below were self published  - and some authors have died, moved or run out of stock. So, most contacts of how they can be obtained have been removed.  Sorry.  Comments, where necessary in [ square brackets and italics].

GREENWICH  AUTHOR WRITES ABOUT SYDENHAM!

GIHS Member, Darrell Spurgeon has just published his latest guidebook - ‘Discover Sydenham and Catford’ (we can’t have this Darrell!). 
PS. Its a very good read about a very interesting area.

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GLIAS NEWSLETTER .Congratulations to the new look under a new editor, Robert Mason!  The June 1999 edition contains an article on ‘More about Deptford Gas Works’ and a contribution from Bob Carr - ‘Thames Sold Off and Name Changed’. This refers to the MV Thames, one of the ships which took sewage sludge from Crossness to dump in the Black Deep,and which is now redundant.  Thames was the flagship and is now, says Bob, the Anastasios IV registered at São Tomé e Principe near Libreville in West Africa.  She left London to be refitted in Greece on 28th April.

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LOVELL’S WHARF - a very short booklet on the site and its background can be made available at cost. Please contact marymillsmmmmm@aol.com

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LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. (no less) contained an article by Iain Sinclair  - ‘All Change. This Train is cancelled’ - about how to get to the Dome. Iain Sinclair is a novelist known for his descriptions of east London - and he has not missed out on  Greenwich and the history of the peninsula ‘the inhabitants of the peninsula were feral inbreeds comfortable with the maggoty underside of history .... ammunition manufacturers, the skull hammering intoxification of the South Metropolitan (later East Greenwich) Gas Works .... the Molochs in workers cottages and burrows.. mutated as they came to terms with the by products of the gas industry; the tar; the sulphate of ammonia; the trains; the phenol; the never ending noise (grinding thumping whistling, clanking),. Smells that have mixed and mingled for generations in increasingly complex chemical combinations gift unwary tourists with stomach-churning hallucinations, flashbacks to ancient horrors, dizzying premonitions of catastrophe....’. (blimey!)

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ELTHAM SOCIETY MAY 1999 NEWSLETTER Contains many articles about life in Eltham - including a history of Eltham and District Motor Cycle Club - the Chairman of which was a test rider for Matchless.

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BYGONE KENT.   Vol. 20 No.6. contains an article ‘The First Greenwich Gas Works. How it fell down’ together with a letter from Brian Sturt (‘the GLIAS gasman’)  filling in some of the gaps in the first instalment of this series on Greenwich’s early gas works which had been in No.5.  Vol.20 No.7. contains ‘Greenwich Railway Gas Works’.

----------------------------

WOOLWICH ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY NEWSLETTER for June featured an article ‘ Our trip on the Jubilee Line’ which could, quite honestly, be enough to out you off it for ever and ever. 2 ½ hours underground and then told to walk back along the track! Oh - it was a special practice for an emergency (still, rather them than me).

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BOOKS ON GREENWICH INDUSTRY

** Mary Mills. Greenwich Marsh. The 300 Years Before the Dome. [sorry, I sold out years ago, happy to send digitised]

** Jess Steele. Deptford Creek. Surviving Regeneration. From Deptford Forum Publishing. 

** Rita Rhodes. An Arsenal for Labour.  £12 from Holyoake Press, Co-operative Union, Holyoake House, Hanover Street, Manchester, M60 0AS.

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English Partnership's Greenwich Peninsula News has fluttered through the letterbox as I write. On page 2 is the plan for the Greenwich Pavilion ‘a dramatic eye catching steel and glass structure .... it will house a dedicated exhibition about development of the Dome, the history of Greenwich and the Peninsula. ....!
[whatever happened to the Greenwich Pavilion?? Is it still round the back of the Dome?]



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Requests for information
.. are there still two concrete anchor posts on Shooters Hill for a vast great, but never built, bridge  over the Thames?
....is there an old railway tunnel under the Woolwich Road in Charlton, where mushrooms are grown?
.....if the Westcombe Park Station tunnel is replaced by a bridge - do we press for iron work there to be retained

------------------------------------

A MIRACLE - when Ted Barr posted off the letter reproduced on pp 5-6 he enclosed copies of the picture postcards mentioned.Sadly, when it arrived the envelope was empty - with a note that it had been ‘damagfed by machinery’. (on the front was proudly emblazened the fact that Leeds is now a fully automated Post Office’.  Time went by. Then 6 weeks later Woodlands Local History Library received an envelope from the Northern Rock Insurance Office in Newcastle.  Inside it, with a compliments slip, were Ted’s post cards

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DO GO - to Christ Church Forum to see, in the foyer, the old clock miraculously restored by our Chair, Jack Vaughan. The original hands can now be seen from the street. There was an ‘opening’ ceremony in June - with the Deputy Mayor.
[No, don't go - the Forum threw it out a couple of years ago]


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The annual summary of the Greater London Archaeology  Advisory Service contains details of work on the following sites of interest in Greenwich:
Greenwich Reach. The Stowage: Evaluation. Roman finds and alluvial deposits. A Saxon ditch, a mediaeval ditch and alluvial deposits, post mediaeval Trinity House almshouses, waterfront structures associated with the East India Company, shipbuilding dockyard including timber revetments, two slipways and subs containing shipbuilding debris and pottery wastes.
Greenwich Marsh land between A102M/Bugsby’s Way. Evaluation. Alluvial sequence overlain by Neolithic/bronze age peat overlain by further alluvial deposits.
Warrren Lane. Site investigation. Post Mediaeval dumping and levelling deposits.
Thames Foreshore at Arsenal. Watching brief. Peat horizon and post medieval modern foreshore artifacts


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Reviews and snippets October 1999

November 2, 2019, 3:12 am
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Reviews and snippets October 1999

Many of the books reviewed below were self published  - and some authors have died, moved or run out of stock. So, most contacts of how they can be obtained have been removed.  Sorry.  Comments, where necessary in [ square brackets and italics].


Meridian - gives news of the restoration of the ice house at Manor Park (actually in  Lewisham, but never mind - and, being in Meridian, it’s only mentioned because of the effect on property prices!).  They point out that the ice house was used by the Baring, banking family, who lived at Manor House, and dates from the 1830s. It has four tunnel-vaulted chambers and an egg shaped ice well for ice taken from the estate’s pond. [Meridian ws a 'lifestyle' MAGAZINE distributed throughout Greenwich monthly ].

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Gunpowder Mills Study Group Newsletter- contains reference to GIHS member Peter Jenkins discovery of the closing date of the gunpowder depot which once stood on the Greenwich Peninsula.  Peter has looked at documents in the Public Record Office and come up with a number of references : - February 13 1771 an order that lighters besent to carry building materials from Greenwich Magazine to Woolwich..... April 16th 1771 a report tht the Magazine and Proof House ‘are entirely down’ and lists the remains left, 24/25th April 1771 - a report that all the Greenwich Magazine will be taken down, 4th May 1773,  a report about repairs to river banks on the site.  [This group, too, has gone out of business]

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Bygone Kent.  Vol. 20 No.8 contains another article about Gas in Greenwich by Mary Mills. This one is ‘Consumer Complaints and Gas in Greenwich’ and Vol.20 No.9. contains yet another article by Mary Mills but this one is about the Blackwall Point Dry Dock.  [now a different publisher - nowhttp://bygonekent.org.uk/]

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South East London Mercuryran a piece on 22nd September on the unveiling of a plaque to authoor, Italo Svevo, in Charlton Church Lane. It describes how in 1897 he had become a partner in his father-in-laws Triest based paint company.  He negotiated a contract for anti-corrosive paint with the Admmiralty and came to Chatlton to set up a factory in Anchor and Hope Lane - hence the plaque.  Further information and a picture can be found at http://www.veneziani.it/azienda/primati.html - which is actually the web site of the Italian paint company. This describes how ‘Veneziani fonda la prima fabbrica di antivegetativa all’estera Charlton in Inghilterra. A lavori vengono diretti dal genero del fondatore, Ettore Schmitzm, in arte Italo Svevo’. 

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Journal of the Ordnance Society. Vol. 11 1999. Contains an article by Mary Mills on ‘Alexander Theophilus Blakeley’ - the founder of the Ordnance works on Greenwich Peninsula.  Another article is by GIHS contributor John Day on ‘The Steam Gun’ . This article covers the subject of steam driven guns and in particular the work of Jacob Perkins. 
---------------------------------

North West Kent Family History Society  NewsletterVol.8. No.8 September 1999. Contains an article by David Cufley on the history of Avery Hill - the location of their Autumn Conference. The article details the history of the estate and notes its ownership by John North, the Chilean nitrates magnate. 
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Ha'penny Hatch-  this is to be a new footbridge across Deptford Creek alongside the railway line — recreating the old Ha’penny Hatch bridge which originally accompanied the railway there.  Creekside are congratulating Simon Bailey who is getting the project underway, The money to build the bridge is now available and Greenwich Engineering Services are the project managers. Hopefully the bridge will be built this year.

--------------------------------

Hoy Stairs - A boaters and boating group is being set up to  implement new access from the creek at Hoy Stairs. Fairview Homes, who are developing the site, are supportive of this project but need to get the necessary legal permissions.

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COMING SOON!
GREENWICH: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY  by Barbara Ludlow and  Julian Watson, 
Over 200 photographs illustrating aspects of live in the 20th Century in Greenwich

-----------------------------------



COMING   SOON  ........

There have been a number of press reports about local activities around the Labour Party centenary in 2000.  In Greenwich there are plans for an exhibition about 100 years of local Labour and a small committee has been set up with representation from the three local Constituency Labour Parties. 

 --------------------------- 

Age Exchange - long established in Blackheath Village is currently working on ‘On The River’.  They also have a River Bank project  ‘ for older Londoners memories of the working river’.  There is  a film club and tea dances are held once a month 
----------------------------

The Millennium Community Play is going on from strength to strength with the award of a grant of £12,000 from the Time to Celebrate Fund. 
---------------------------

The TIPP Reminiscence and drama project run from Rothbury Hall and concentrating on the Greenwich Peninsula is also well under way. An evening was held recently at which slide shows and readings were given of the work already done.  

--------------------------------- 

Deptford Power Station Jetty - despite an enormous amount of discussion, feasibility studies and so on nothing seems to have been decided. . Perhaps we all need reminding about how important that power station was in the world wide history of science and technology.  A good start can be made by reading ‘Cradle of Power’ a booklet brought out by CEGB to mark the closure of the power station in 1993.  It is becoming a very difficult little booklet to get hold of but, we can reveal,  that through some strange quirk of fate the Richard Garrett Long Shop Museum in Leinston, Norfolk has boxes and boxes and boxes of it - so many in fact that they are giving them away free to anyone who will take them - so, every one in Deptford - get up there with a couple of lorries! 
[apparently - for reasons best known to CEGB all the copies had been given to the Nuclear Power Station at Sizewell]

Cradle of Power  So - what does Cradle of Power have to say about Deptford?  ‘It was 100 years ago that a young man of 23 had the vision of building a power station to supply London with electricity on a scale unheard of anywhere in the world ... an idea ridiculed by eminent engineers as flying in the face of scientific disaster... Yet the Deptford power station which Ferranti designed was eventually to be hailed as the forerunner of today’s great stations.... a story of men prepared to risk reputation and fortune in a venture where calamity seemed to dog every step.....  the story of a century of change ... yet from those pioneering days of the ‘new’ electricity to modern times, the Deptford Stations have provided London with power .. Deptford .. The cradle of modern power.

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AIA visit to the Royal Arsenal.  Two coach loads of eager Industrial Archaeologists from all over Britain visited Woolwich Arsenal as part of their Annual Conference.  GIHS Chair, Jack Vaughan,  met the party at the Arsenal gates.   With English Heritage's Paul Calvocoresci  giving the commentary on the other coach, we lurched round the site in the care of Paul Dyer, of English Partnerships.  For those who haven’t seen the Arsenal site recently - there is quite literally no topsoil!   It is understood that some very interesting archaeological remains have come to light  - but that didn’t help as we bounced from mud slides to  heaps of earth. 

Later, the party  had a coach trip round Woolwich and went to Avery Hill for lunch where they were able to view the Winter Gardens.  They all seemed to enjoy themselves!  [Despite having booked the visit with the University at Avery Hill, the Winter Gardens were locked wjen we got there!]

Earlier in the Conference members had heard papers which included, Peter Guillery on the Royal Brass Foundry, Paul Calvocoresci on Woolwich Arsenal,  Tim Allen on the Copperas Industry, Brian Strong on Three Mills, Malcolm Tucker on Gas Holders - it is hoped that at least some of these will make the contents of their papers available to GIHS members

A booklet was produced for the Conference by David Eve - the Kent Sites and Monuments Officer who members may remember came to speak to GIHS last year.  This lists IA sites in Kent, although sadly excludes Kentish London 

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The Stanley works at New Eltham closed earlier this year.  It had originally been sited at South Norwood where there are considerable remains of the founder, Mr. Stanley, in the form of the Stanley Halls and clock tower as well as the original factory buildings.  It is understood that a book about Stanley is in preparation under the sponsorship of the Norwood Society and as part of this project the New Eltham works was photographed before closure by the author.







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