The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 34 ..... building the barrier

Another in the collection on that new build on the water.

Now for many the Thames Barrier will be just one of those bits of river furniture, but for those who remember it being built, here  is the first of a few taken during its construction.

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

And the Barrier pictures are special, because our Theresa served in the works canteen.

Location; Charlton

Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Home Thoughts of Woolwich ....... no. 1 ….. the badge

Sometimes it is as simple as a badge, which after 40 years brings back a bit of history.

Having left Well Hall in 1969 for Manchester, I only visited the Tramshed on brief visits home, but it was a popular place for our Elizabeth.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; the badge, circa 1970s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.3 the Pie Shop

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1979.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.  

But all good things eventually come to light.  

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

The Pie Mash and Eel shop was still there in 2009, but had gone by June 2012.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich, circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lost Woolwich .......... no 3 relaxing in the allotments 1905

Now of all the places I knew in my youth I have to say Woolwich is one of those that has  undergone some of the most radical change.

So much so that big chunks of it I have difficulty recognising.

The Arsenal, Powis Street and even the old Pie and Mash shop were as familiar to me as they were to generations of people who grew up in Woolwich and are now just distant memories.

So with that in mind I have returned to images of a time before now.

This one is dated 1905.

I doubt I will ever know who these three men were or exactly what each grew on his allotments.

But it is a fine picture taken on a sunny day over a century ago

Picture; from Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, Amberley 2014

On discovering Woolwich

I have very fond memories of Woolwich.

Washing prawns, 1979

It was a place that I was quite late in visiting  which is a bit daft since we had moved to Well Hall in the spring of 1964 and the 122 and 161 ran by our house.

But during the week I was going back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern and the weekends were full with exploring Eltham.

So it will have been sometime in the summer of 1966 that I started going there.  At first it was to meetings in the evenings in the back room of a small pub at the bottom of the Woolwich New Road.  All very earnest political stuff, and then I just took in Woolwich on a regular basis, starting with the market, the Arsenal, and of course the river.

And later it was where I got the bus to to work at the bus stop facing the ferry.  I can't say it was always a comfortable place to stand at 6 in the morning but even on wet grey days the vew was one I liked.

But the busy sprawling market was always a draw.

And so here from 1978 or maybe 78 is the market on a busy day.  Sadly this is the only image to have survived umpteen moves and the odd disaster.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 1979

Walking the River ......... the scenic route

A short series taken from one day when I walked along the River.

Back then the Thames was still a place to to earn a wage and watch as ships, and barges plied the way on the water.*

Location; the Thames, Greenwich





Picture; the River in 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson



*The lost Eltham and Woolwich pictures, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20lost%20Eltham%20and%20Woolwich%20pictures

Crossing the Thames at Woolwich on the Will Crooks

This is one of the old ferries which plied the crossing taking thousands to work and not a few just to see north Woolwich.

The crossing is still one of those things I like to do although it is usually just for the pleasure of travelling across the water.

This was the Will Crooks built in 1933 and replaced thirty years later by the current fleet.

Now this is not going to be the story of the ferry, that is easily available, instead it will just be a short reflection on how much I enjoy using it.

At one time it was something you did just because it was free, and offered up the opportunity to watch a busy river at work.

No one seemed to mind that I went backwards and forwards often not even bothering to get off.

It didn’t matter that the rain might drive in across the water and that the wind could cut through even the warmest of clothes.

But I grew up, had more important things to do and only rarely even bothered to clock its existence as I waited for buses at the stop almost opposite the terminal.

And then one disastrous day travelling back from Kent and missing the M25 I realized were heading for Eltham, past our old house at Well Hall and it just made perfect sense to carry on over Shooters Hill and fall down into Woolwich and make the river crossing by the ferry.

I had forgotten the long queues but the short journey with its views across the Thames were well worth it.

I rather wish I could have done the trip on the old Will Crooks if only to have experienced crossing under steam.

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford from her book Woolwich Through Time, 2014 and from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking the Woolwich markets …….. 1914

Now I don’t usually just lift someone else’s work directly off the page, but today I am breaking that rule.

And I am breaking it because the description of the Woolwich markets back in 1914, from The Woolwich Story is so good it deserves to appear just as E.F.E. Jefferson presented it.

The book is a wonderful account of all things Woolwich, while chapter XV, vividly recreates a walk through the market on the eve of the Great War.

The account runs across 19 pages and is fascinating, both because of its description of the market but also as an insight into how we lived just over a century and a bit ago.

Location; Woolwich in 1914

Pictures; Woolwich market in the early, 20th century, from Woolwich Through Time is at Woolwich, Kristina Bedford, 2014

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 pages 156-7

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.10 the ferry or the tunnel?

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the late ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Travelling on LCC tram number 1622 with memories of the Old Kent Road and Well Hall

Now I missed travelling on a tram by just a matter of years, but had I been born a little earlier I might well have been on this one that rattled its way up from the Old Kent Road to Westminster.

And just possibly also taken the 44 and 46 which connected Eltham with Woolwich.

According to family legend I was actually there at New Cross when the last London tram took its last journey in the summer of 1952 but until yesterday I never thought I would come close to one.

Now I know I could visit the London Transport Museum where there is a fine 1910 tram from West Ham Tramways Corporation, but my number 40 which was the one my dad would have used is even closer to home.

It is in the collection of CRICH TRAMWAY VILLAGE just south of Matlock which is no distance for me but I accept is a long way from south east London.

But your loss is our gain and I have planned my visit.

In the meantime I have settled for a picture of LCC number 1622 which plied route 40 from New Cross.

It comes from my old friend Andy Robertson who has been recording the changes to the twin cities of Manchester and Salford and decided to take an afternoon off and visit the museum.

And there is plenty else to see from a Blackpool tram complete with its destination board announcing a Tour of the Illuminations to the Red Lion Hotel which was once in Stoke on Trent and facing demolition was rescued by the museum rebuilt and happily once again serves up a pint.

In his collection of pictures from the day is the sign on a Leeds tram informing passengers that “Spitting is Forbidden” which made sense in an age before antibiotics and the dangers from a range of infectious diseases was all too common.

It is I think Andy's favourite  while for me it will always be the number 40

Which just leaves me to mention Trams in Eltham by John Kennett** and The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins which includes a chapter on that last tram at New Cross.

Picture; trams at the Crich Tramway Village, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 

* Crich Tramway Village, http://www.tramway.co.uk/

** Trams in Eltham  by John Kennett, Eltham Society, http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/publications.php

*** The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins, http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/019.pdf

The not so dusty records of Woolwich ……..

Now for many years those of my friends who share my love of Eltham, Woolwich and Plumstead have sung the praises of the two volumes of “Records of  the Woolwich District”. *

 Down an alley from Woolwich High Street, 2013

And equally for years I have made a note to buy the two books, but something always came up and I got side-tracked.

But not now, because last month I took the plunge, ordered both and have not regretted it since.

The title may seem dull and off putting, but there is everything here from the Roman Road over Shooters Hill, the Norman invaders who stole Charlton, and more than a bit on the ancient buildings of Eltham, along with a snapshot of the place in 1881.

Added to which there is heaps about Woolwich, so I reckon there is a bit for everyone.

The Book, 2015

And a careful read will reveal how historians like Eltham’s own Mr. Gregory have plundered the records for stories, and I no doubt will join them.

The records were compiled by W.T. Vincent and published in 1890 and owed their existence to years of sifting through the records at several museums.

Plaisted's Wine House, 2013

Of which the highlight was the discovery of a sealed package with the title of “Dockyards of England-Southeast District” which had come out of the collection of George III, including an exact plan of Woolwich in 1748, a plan of “the Foundry from 1715”, plans of the dockyard from 1774 and a plan “of the 2-gun batteries and bomb-battery in 1737”.

And the rest as they are a riveting section in volume one revealing so much about the history of Woolwich with snippets about the other parts of the old borough peppered through volume two to make this a fascinating read, which can be dipped into or be used as the basis for more research.

Leaving me to ponder just where I will start, while reflecting on how popular such histories were at the the end of the 19th century.

My bookshelves are full of books written during the 1880s into the early decades of the the next century.

Some are slightly turgid, but most are extremely interesting, particularly those written about areas which were just decades earlier small rural communities.

Woolwich Free Ferry, 1905

And I suspect that is why they were written. 

Two of my favourite historians admit that they were motivated by a desire to record a way of life which was fast disappearing.

Both included descriptions by men and women who had been born in the early part of the 19th century who in turn drew on memories of conversations with parents and grandparents which went back to the years just after George III lost the American colonies, and in some cases even further back.

I am not sure that Mr. Vincent does this, but his meticulous use of old records make his book one to read.

Location; the old Borough of Woolwich

Pictures, down an alley from Woolwich High Street, 2013, from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick, cover of volume 11, 2015 and the Woolwich Free Ferry, Tuck & Sons, 1905, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

*“Records of the Woolwich District”,  W.T .Vincent, 1890, and republished 2015 by FamLoc Books

Walking Woolwich and Eltham in 1948 .... no 1

Now I am back with my copy of the Official Guide to Woolwich which was published by the council.

It includes Eltham and Plumstead, and was the “Fifth Edition”.

I have no idea when it was issued but looking at the images and some of the listings we must be sometime between 1948 and the early years of the next decade.

And over the next two days I shall concentrate on some of the images from the book and leave it at that.

The observant will clock that many of the pictures are attributed to Wells of Woolwich, while in the second post the motorbikes in the picture were for “Export”, which in the cash strapped immediate post war years was a vital way of earning money.

So that is it, and I shall continue till I run out of pictures.

Location; The Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, circa 1948

Pictures; Well Hall,  from The Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, circa 1948, and the Woolwich coat of Arms, courtesy of  Gary Luttmanm2021

On walking along Academy Road out of Woolwich in 1906

Just occasionally I slide into nostalgia and this 1906 postcard of the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich does it for me.

Now given that I was born in 1949 and first saw the Academy in the summer of 1965 it is not in a strict sense a trip down memory lane.

But more of that later.

This was one of a series of six cards marketed by Raphael Tuck and Sons in 1906 under the title of Woolwich.

I suppose what strikes you first is the close similarity between this image and what you can see now.  True, I doubt any one today would be able to stroll so easily across Academy Road and the military have long since gone.

But otherwise early on a Sunday morning in late September it might just be possible to get close to what we see here.

And I rather think that is what I remember on warm summers evening on the way back from Woolwich to Well Hall.

Best still was when you walked it at a slow and even pace fully appreciating the buildings to your left and the open spaces stretching east down to Hornfair Park.

Now I don’t think I passed that many people in the entire length of the walk from Woolwich up to Shooters Hill and then down along Well Hall Road.

All of which allowed you to wander in your own thoughts and more than once to ponder on an unmade piece of pathway which naively I thought might be Roman.

Take the same journey on one of those evenings heavy with the promise of a thunderstorm and you might well be rewarded by the magnificent sight of lightening streaking across the sky over Shooters Hill followed by the roll of thunder.

But this is so much indulgent tosh, so I will leave you with a second Tuck postcard dated a year earlier from the set entitled Woolwich Town and City.

The company issued two of the same scene one like this which had been tinted in colour and a monochrome copy.  I rather prefer the grey and black card but this coloured one has the advantage of a message on the back and unusually the sender added her address in Plumstead.

But it is the message itself which draws you in.  HP of 34 Charlotte Street sent the card on July 27 1905 with the news "that Mr Coventry died last Tuesday afternoon, was buried on Saturday.”  And with that classic understatement added “Mrs Clarke and her mother came to tea on Monday all quite well.”

Such are the rewards and insights of reading old postcards

Pictures; The Royal Military Academy, from the series Woolwich, 1906 and the Royal Military Academy from the series Woolwich Town and City 1905 issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of TuckDB http://tuckdb.org/history

A sightseeing trip to Woolwich and those old wooden prison hulks with their chained convicts

Now I had completely forgotten about those old 18th century prison hulks moored at Woolwich and also of the excellent little book by Mr Reg Rigden*

The Floating Prisons of Woolwich and Deptford, describes in detail those three festering and rotting former warships.  I long ago lost my copy and so was over the moon when my friend Jean sent me her copy.

They were one of those short term measures used to solve the prison crisis in between sending convicts to America and later Australia.

And as so often happens they became tourist attractions with enterprising businessmen offering up river tours which provided glimpses of the chained men in the hulks or at work on the nearby shore.

So numerous did these excursions become that eventually they had to be ordered to stop.

I suppose it is easy to see why so many found such river trips a fascinating part of any visit to London.

“By 1777 there were over 220 felons at work in Woolwich, each chained by the leg.”*

Nor did the resumption of transporting convicted criminals across the world in 1787 spell the end of our prison hulks.

They had become part of the prison system and would continue well into the middle of the 19th century with the last Woolwich ship being burned in 1857.

There had been three such ships moored at Woolwich.

These were the Warrior, Jusitia and Defence which originally under "contract to a private individual, Duncan Campbell who looked after the convicts and was paid by the Government”* who in the 1780s had paid £32 a year for each convict which was later reduced to £26.

All of which promises more stories focusing on the awful conditions on board and some tales of desperate escapes.

So more later, alternatively you could just read Mr Rigden’s excellent book

Picture; cover from The Floating Prisons of Woolwich and Deptford

*The Floating Prisons of Woolwich and Deptford, Reg Rigden, 1976 London Borough of Greenwich

In search of an adventure out of Peckham ............. foot tunnels and a strange find

Now the thing about adventures is that there should be no rules, no preplanning and just an optimistic expectation that it will all turn out alright and along the way you will have some fun.

Woolwich Foot Tunnel, 1916

That said it is always best to go with someone to share the fun and when you are just ten years old it makes for a bit more safety.

After that it’s all pretty much how it turns out.

And the day we found the foot tunnel was just one of those. Now I know there are two, starting with the one at Greenwich which was finished in 1902 and the Woolwich one completed a decade later.

But it would be years before I came across Woolwich and anyway Greenwich had so much else to offer, which is how we had come across  the tunnel in the first place.

It had started with the usual exploration of the big park starting with the views from General Wolf’s statute across London and the debate about whether to take the windy path beside the Observatory or  just run down the steep hill.

That done it was a short hop and a skip to the Cutty Sark.

But the Cutty Sark cost to get in and so as you do we wandered to the river and there was the entrance to the tunnel.

None of us knew what to expect, but it was open, it was free and that spiral staircase was just an invitation not to be turned down.

Today at 73 I doubt that I would have set off along the white tiled tunnel but 63 years ago here was the adventure.

Looking down to the foot tunnel, 1977

We were not sure where it would take us, or  how long it would take but there was something quite compelling about making the journey.

It was partly the way the tunnel stretched off into the distance with no end in sight, with just the long line of lights in the ceiling and the gentle incline of the pathway which slopped ever downwards.

On that first foray we encountered just one person, whose footsteps we heard heading towards us long before we saw them.

But we did find a toy duelling pistol.  It had lost some of the bits to make it work and its plastic butt was only half intact but here was a prize which could not be ignored.

So it came home with us.

Who carried it on that long walk back from the park through Deptford and past New Cross Gate I can’t remember, or for that matter why it finished up in Lausanne Road, where it stayed as a trophy of that adventure.

I wish I still had it but it went when we left Peckham along with those adventures.

Picture; Woolwich Foot Tunnel circa 1916, courtesy of Kristina Bedford from  Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2014, Amberley Publishing, and Looking down to the foot tunnel, Greenwich 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons

Bell Water Gate, 1977 a little bit of that lost Woolwich

Bell Water Gate, 1977

Its official I have joined that legion of grumpy old people who lament the passing of the places I knew as a youngster.

Now I could blame my friend Jean who has dug out and sent me a shed load of photographs of Eltham, Woolwich Blackheath and Shooters Hill from the 1970s.

But that would be unfair as she did what I asked.

The fault lies not with Jean but with me and that lingering sense of nostalgia that hangs about me from time to time.

Some of the pictures reveal changes that can only be for the best but others; well I am not so sure.

Take for Instance Bell Water Gate in Woolwich beside the Leisure Centre.

It sweeps off towards the car park and is neat and clean and allows a panoramic view across the river.

But I rather like it as it was, a little shabby and run down and a reminder of an older Woolwich.

That said I know Jean will smile indulgently and point out that I don’t have to live there, and I have to admit that we used to enjoy going to the Leisure Centre when my lads were younger and then gazing across the Thames.

So perhaps it’s best that I just accept my elevation to that grey, crinkly band of old fogies and reflect that all things change.

Picture; Bell Water Gate, 1977, Jean Gammons

That theatre in Woolwich I wished I could have visited ...... the Royal Artillery Theatre

Now I must confess I did not know of the Royal Artillery Theatre which was opposite the Royal Artillery Barracks.

Cinderella, 1949

But as it closed eight years before I began visiting Woolwich I am not surprised that its existence passed me by.

It opened in 1863 as the Royal Artillery Recreation Rooms and was a conversion from a multipurpose hall which underwent further alterations and a name change, and reopened in 1905 after a fire which had destroyed the interior.

It was my old friend Tricia who told me about the theatre and introduced me to its history via that wonderful theatre site, Arthur Lloyd.co.uk which I had completely forgotten about.

The site tells the story of our theatres and music halls over the last few centuries and is well worth a visit.

I consulted it over some of the other theatres in Woolwich and also in Manchester and If memory serves me supplied some information about one of our local play houses.

How to get there, 1949

Now never being one to just reproduce another’s research I will just direct you to the site, leaving you to wander over the old programmes, and marvel at the pictures, and draw your attention to the map from 1949 showing the streets around the theatre and the tram routes.

And that map for me has to be a bonus, given as I was born in that year and have never lost my love of the stately trams.

So thank you Tricia.

Location; Woolwich

Pictures; from for Arthur Lloyd.co.uk

* Arthur Lloyd.co.uk, http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/RoyalArtilleryTheatreWoolwich.htm

Down at the Castle in the High Street with a bit of historical magic

Now one of the best things about history is when you get to touch it.

And for me it doesn’t that matter much whether it’s a Roman coin or a glass medicine bottle from the beginning of the last century.

To touch the object and know that somewhere on it will be the fingerprints of the person who first made it and a story that will twist and turn in all directions is magic.

One of my greatest treasures is a Viking oyster shell which had lain in the mud of Jorvik for a thousand years before the archaeologists of the City of York brought it back into the day light.

Back in 1978 when it was uncovered there were so many that they were put in a wooden barrel and were on sale for 10p.

The other find was from the back of our shed where Dad had carefully placed thirty copper earth rods made for one of those very early wireless sets.

The batch dated from the 1920s, had sat in our garden shed in Well Hall for years and had been made in the Acnaconda Works, Salford which is just down the road.

All of which is an introduction to this 17th century trade token which Tricia shared with me.

Tokens like this were issued by traders in the absence of low value coinage, and was a practice which extended into the 18th century.

In Eltham the oldest dates from 1649 and bears the names of Nathaniel and Tasmin Mercer who were running the Castle, while another from 1667.

They were unearthed when the old Castle pub was demolished, and also found was one for William Crich of the Grocers’ Arms Deptford dated 1663.

Now imagine how over the moon I was when Tricia said  "I have been investigating the attached farthing tokens concerning The Castle for some time. 

I have been trying to find out who the initials belong to (NT & wife T) reading your post today I now know it to be Nathaniel & Tasmin Mercer. So I am handing it over to you to add to your blog seeing as you have done all the hard work.

The description is as follows. 17c farthing token issued by NM and wife T at the Castelle Taverne, Issue date 1649, denomination farthing, metal copper alloy, diameter 14mm."

And that is it.  A pretty neat bit of joint research.

Location, Eltham

Picture, the 1649 Castle trade token courtesy of Tricia Lesley

Along time in the story of a house in Eltham

Cliefden House in 1909

Now I am back at Cliefden House.

This grand 18th century property is still there on the High Street opposite Passey Place.

It was built sometime around 1720 with an eastern addition dating from the mid 19th century.

Together this made for a large 17 roomed house which could accommodate and it has been both a private residence, and a school and now shops and offices.

I have written about it in the past and have decided on a second visit.  Now this is mainly because I want to feature a then and now set of pictures, although strictly speaking they are both then pictures.

The first dates from 1909 and the second from 1977.

Cliefen House in 1977

In the space of that time the front garden and wall have been sacrificed to the widening of the High Street and with scant disregard for such an elegant old property Granada and Frisbys Shoes set about adding the most appalling signage to the exterior.

And we may just have caught the place on a bad year for the front walls look in need of a coat of paint.

So I suppose today we have to be pleased that the present two occupants of the downstairs shops have been a little more subdued with their signs and a fresh coat of paint has been applied.

Pictures; Cliefden House in 1909 from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm and in 1977, courtesy of Jean Gammons

Walking up the High Street on a January day in 1914

Now there are many ways of recreating a walk up the High Street on a day log ago.

One of the easiest is to use photographs from the past, another is to look up the census record and today I am going to use a street directory.

That directory is the 1914 Post Office Directory listing the names of people and businesses from Well Hall Road east along the High Street.

At which point I would usually go off and dig deep into the records to uncover something of the lives of Mrs Dobell of Sherard house, Mr Rosselli of Mr Merlwood and Mrs Yeatman of Cliefden house, but all have appeared in the blog over the years as have the their homes.

And so has the blacksmiths and the London & South Western Bank ltd.

All you have to do to find them is use the search box on the right hand side of the story.

So that just leaves me to suggest you download the list of 1914 occupants and wander up to the High Street to check out who is there now.

Location; Eltham









Pictures; list of residents and businesses from the Post Directory, 1914 and the northern side of the High Street in 2015 from collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick