All you ever wanted to know about how we got our power across Greenwich and Woolwich

 I am a great admirer of Mary Mills and her work which over the years has revealed the industrial archaeology of where I grew up.

Entitled “Power Generation Sites in Greenwich and Woolwich”* it is her most recent book and explores all aspects of how power was supplied across the borough and beyond.

Here can be found descriptions of the many and varied sources of power from wind, water and tidal mills along with coal, gas and electrical power.

And includes “'Woolwich's 'Secret City' - the Royal Arsenal - along with the oldest power station, as we would understand it, in the world, the largest installation for town gas storage ever and one of the first to generate power from domestic waste. 

This is a non-technical work aimed at the general reader and all those interested in how our world today developed”.

Starting in the Middle Ages the book moves through to the 21st century with the Optic Cloak at the Greenwich Energy Centre on the Peninsula and the innovative South East London Community Energy which “is a non-for-profit social enterprise. Formed by residents of Greenwich and Lewisham who want to play an active role in shaping the energy future of South East London …. taking action to combat climate change through generating renewable energy and tackle fuel poverty”.

It is one of those books which you can walk, with the locations of each site clearly outlined and speculation on those that have long gone as to what they might have looked like.  To this she has added plenty of old and contemporary images of the sites, supported by maps, and is fully referenced.

Amongst the images are the iconic Woolwich Tramshed fondly remembered by generations as the go to place for entertainment and the stunning cover to the story of Deptford Power Station.

And as an Eltham lad I couldn’t miss out our own Gas Works on a corner of Eltham Green and the failed attempt to build an earlier works behind Eltham High Street.

Added to which there is the intriguing suggestion of mills at Mottingham Lane, and at Horn Park Farm and “a mill or a series of mills at Lee in the Kidbrooke Parish area”.

All of which is fascinating and come with heaps of pictures of gasholders which I have to confess are another of those objects that fascinate me but are now very much an endangered “species”.

“Power Generation Sites in Greenwich and Woolwich” is priced at £15 and is available from Amazon and is the sixth publication by the author.**

Location Greenwich & Woolwich

Pictures; cover & illustration of Deptford Power Station from the book,and memories of a different use for the Tramshed, the badge circa 1970s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Power Generation Sites in Greenwich and Woolwich by Dr MARY, 2026,  2026ISBN 979-81992-4195-3

**Greenwich Peninsula Greenwich Marsh A History of a Heartland, The Greenwich Riverside Upper Watergate to Angerstein, The Industries of Deptford Creek, The Early East London Gas Industry and George Livesey, A Biography

That food factory ……. the River ……. and a conversation

Just when I spent my dinner times gazing out over the River talking about music, the chance of over time and pretty much everything is lost.

I think it will be the summer of 1970 and the location was Glenville’s the food factory down by the Blackwall Tunnel.

It could have been the year before or the year after.

Glenville’s made a variety of things from custard powder, and sachets of flavoured water you left in the freezer, to their specialty which was turning powdered milk into granules.

Of all the jobs this was the most unpleasant given that I was tasked with filling large bags of the milk granules as they shot out of a pipe.

It didn’t help that the regulating tap didn’t work very well so you used your hand to stem the flow just long enough to get a bag underneath, and that it came out very hot from being blown through a set of stainless-steel tubes.

Added to which the sweet-smelling stuff stuck to your overalls and worse still your face which on very hot days was prone to mix with your perspiration to form rivulets of milky sweat.

Nor was that all because while we were paid a basic wage there was a bonus for the amount that was produced, and there was the flaw, because on wet and damp days the granulated milk clogged the tubes and production ceased.

At other times I worked in the dispatch area on the ground floor at the end of a long conveyor belt which disappeared into the roof and on to another few floors.

Loading the boxes of assorted “stuff” was never the problem only that they came down at a ferocious pace, and if not unloaded quickly enough would cause a long jam, which the pressure of more from on high meant that sometimes the boxes burst open showering us in clouds of custard or blancmange powder.

All of which meant that breaks and dinner times took on a special place in the day.

And it will have been on one of those that I met up with a South African.

He was the first South African I had met, and I was fascinated by him.  He was a few years older than me, and he had already traveled thousands of miles across two continents, while I had just got the bus from Eltham.

Over half a century later I can’t remember what we talked about other than that song America by Simon and Garfunkel, which chronicles the journey across the US by two young lovers.

We shared the magic of their journey and each of us in our different ways conjured the trip from Saginaw, in Michigan via Pittsburgh to New Jersey.

And now all those years later I have no idea what he looked like or our other companions, and our dinner time conversations are lost.

But listening to America brings back my time in Glenville’s from the smell of the various products being made, along with that of the River to that carefree and optimistic take on life which at 20 I shared with Kathy and her lover.

I still have that optimistic take but long ago lost Glenville's, and despite frequent visits to the area its exact location remains elusive.

So I await a photo, an address or a memory from someone who like me passed a batch of his early 20s at the food factory by the River.

Location; Glenville’s, Greenwich

Pictures; by the River, 1970s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Passing the bridges ………

It will have been in 1979, and I guess it was sometime in the summer and on a whim, I took a trip on the River.

Now if you were born and grew up in southeast London paying to travel the Thames was a rare event, reserved for impressing a girlfriend.

On this day I will have been home from Manchester which had already been my adopted city for a decade, so reckon that pleasure cruise would have been a way of reuniting with my city.

Or it may have just been an excuse to try out a new camera.

Either way I used up two films, and still have the negatives which sat in the cellar for 40 years before I brought them out of the shadows.

 Looking at the direction of some of the images I will have taken the trip upriver from Greenwich past the Tower and on to Westminster.

Back then I didn’t record the exact destinations or who was with me, but it was a rewarding day and I still have heaps of pictures of that grimy London, which the tourists see but never bother “snapping”.

I did and many of those warehouses have now vanished or been converted into swish riverside apartments.

The waterfront has been “cleaned up” and new properties stand where once cranes unloaded diverse cargoes from pretty much everywhere.

Added to which since I sat on the benches of that boat new bridges cross the River and stepping back from the water are shedloads of gleaming glass and steel tower blocks.

All of that said these images instantly bring back that smell of the Thames and the noise of the river traffic.

And now it’s a full 45 years since the journey which has gone in a blink.

Location; The River

Pictures; wot I saw on a trip along the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Memories of that other Thames ……

 I don’t know if cargo ships still berth along my bit of the River at Greenwich.

But someone will know, and I hope will tell me.

I left London in 1969 and while I still came home for holidays my visits to this bit of where I grew up became less and less.

But back in the late 1970s I did wander the water with a camera and recorded what I saw.

To some they will be dismal, and grimy but they were my part of London.

What strikes me about the berthed ship is how deep the inside compared to the men.

It’s a silly observation given that the hold had to store heaps of things, but it reminds me of just how different the Thames at Greenwich was five decades ago.

The image is one that sat as a collection of negatives in our cellar for 40 odd years, and only recently has come out of the shadows as I digitalize those pictures.

And Peter from Greenwich added "Good evening Andrew, I always enjoy your pictures of the grimy industrial part of my hometown. 

The coaster on the mud at Lovells was one of the first of a type designed with elevating wheelhouses and masts ets to work upstream on the Rhine and other European rivers. The depth of the hold would have probably been around 4 metres".

Location; The River Thames

Pictures; waiting to load, the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

  

When the Woolwich Ferry saved me from a telling off .......... 132 years of crossing the River

You can never have enough pictures of the Woolwich Ferry, and so it proved again yesterday when I posted a picture of one of the old ferries.

1905

Now I say the old ferries, but the James Newman, John Burns and Ernest Bevan were the newcomers, going into service in 1963.

Before them there was the The Squire which started ferrying passengers and things in 1923, followed by the Will Crooks, and The John Benn seven years later.  

They replaced the Gordan, the Duncan and the Hutton, the first of which began chugging across the river in 1889.

And before that, the Royal Arsenal operated their own ferry service in 1810, followed by various commercial venture.

Nor I suspect was the Royal Arsenal the first, because given the need, there must have been  plenty of enterprising people who saw a potential money making enterprise.

2012

So with all those in mind, and in honour of the Ben Woollacot and the Dame Vera Lynn which are the two new ferries which entered service in 2019, here  is another ferry story which features some of those ferries dating back to 1905.

Anyone who was born or grew up in Eltham, will have used them at sometime, and for me crossing the river by the free ferry has always been magic.

It might not take long but in the short time while on board the trip offers up spectacular views, and of course that distinctive smell that you only get from big powerful rivers.

I have never lost my love of the Woolwich Ferry, so much, that a few years ago on missing the M25 on our way north from Kent, I seized the opportunity to make the river crossing at Woolwich.

2021

Now I could have owned up straight away and blamed my map reading, but instead as you do I turned it into an adventure, confident that Tina would also fall for the magic of  the ferry.

The journey from Well Hall up to Shooters Hill was pleasant, the fall down into Woolwich quite spectacular and the river crossing something else.

Of course those of us who have used it all our lives can be a tad dismissive of the journey.

You often have to wait a long time to get on, the trip across is short and often accompanied by gust of cold river wind, but it can still be pretty good.

On the day we made thee crossing, the sun was hot, the water almost blue, and we were set up for the long drive north.

2021

But then even for that short journey the Thames didn't disappoint us.

I do miss the cranes and barges, and the busy doings of a working river.

And before I slip into romantic tosh about a bustling living water way it is as well to remember it was dirty, noisy and for those who made a livelihood beside the river it was hard dangerous work and the rewards were not always that good.

2012

But it was my river.

Location; Woolwich, London

Picture;  the Woolwich Ferry, 1905 courtesy of TuckDB, http://tuckdb.org/postcards, the ferry in 2012, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Dame Vera Lynn courtesy of Gary Luttman and Paula Nottle

When you knew you were home …….travels with a ferry

Enough said.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; the ferry, Woolwich, 2012, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lovell's Wharf, a ton of milk powder and the Cutty Sark

I don’t usually do memories, but this picture by Barry Lilburn of Lovell’’s Wharf from 1981 brought a shed load of memories back.

Lovell's Wharf, 1981

A full decade and a bit earlier I had regularly walked that walk, after the shift at Glenville’s the food factory by Tunnel Avenue.

I worked for the firm on and off from 1969 through to 1972, working in the dispatch area of the new factory, but more frequently in the milk plant, where we turned powdered milk into granules, which the adverts proclaimed was better in instant tea and coffee.

It was hot and heavy work and we worked the shifts, 2 till 10 and 6 till 2.
Now anyone who has done those shifts will know, both pretty much wreck your social life.

Getting to work for 6 in the morning didn’t preclude nights out in the pub but waking up in the morning after the night before could be challenging.

Walking the River, 1979

Likewise leaving work at 10 pm, limited the opportunities to meet up with friends in a pub and wiped out going to the cinema or the theatre.

All of that said, there were plenty of times when we walked the short distance in the afternoon to catch the last hour in the Cutty Sark.

I first started going to the pub in the late 1960s, usually in the summer months, when we would sit on the low concrete wall and watch as the sun set, and night fell across the river.

There was something quite magical about it, made all the more memorable watching the odd pleasure boat pass, and listen as the wash pushed the barges together making that distinctive clunking side, which accompanied the low buzz of conversation.

All a bit different form the afternoon sessions, when smart young things inhabited the place.  Some of whom I suspect had crossed from that other place to see what we did in South East London.

Looking towards Glenville's, 1979

And here I must confess to my shame we took delight in playing a very childish game of standing as close as we could to these smart young things in our milk caked overalls.

Never underestimate just how much milk powder can cling to your overalls in the course of an eight hour shift, even more so on a very hot day, when most of the time you were in front of a tap filling the milk granules into 56 lb. bags, before then emptying them into hoppers.

I suppose compared to much of the work done along this side of the river, ours might well be judged light and easy.

But it was not a job I liked, and finally there came a time when I moved on.  More recently I went back looking for the factory, but the passage of more than 40 years has wiped out much of what I knew.

And with that comes that other challenge to my memory which is, were we able to walk all the way along the River from Glenville’s to the Cutty Sark?

I think we did, but it was a long time ago.

Either way I have Barry to thank for bringing the milk plant out of my memory, for a short stroll on an indifferent day in Manchester.

Location; Lovell’s Wharf

Picture; Lovell’s Wharf, 1981, courtesy of Barry Lilburn and in 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Memories ….

It will be something like 46 years ago that I walked beside the River snapping away with a brand new camera.

I can't pretend the results were always what I wanted  and back then it was all smelly photography so the pictures I took during a brief trip home to Well Hall, had to wait until I returned to Manchester and processed them.

And the negatives have sat in the cellar for 4 decades.

But now they are out in the light of day, a reminder of what the River was like and that excursion out with the brand new camera.

Location; The River

Pictures, Walking the River, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A little bit of the River Thames in Manchester and a mystery

Now despite being away from the River for over 50 years, the Thames still exerts a powerful hold on me.

There are the  memories of long summer evenings gazing out across the water from the old Cutty Sark pub, watching the sun set, with only the occasional sound of barges banging gently together in the wake of a passing pleasure boat.

Or that biting wind from off the river, first thing in the morning which seemed to zip through the heaviest coat while waiting to board the ferry at Woolwich.

Of course, my River was the industrial one which flowed from Battersea past the posh bits and then out by Deptford, and Greenwich, to Woolwich and Erith.

The other bit was, and still is pretty much unknown to me, so I was pleased when my old friend Dave Scholes gave me a delightful little guidebook of the River from its source as far as Greenwich.

There will be scores of such books, but what I like about this one is that it is easy to read, and is illustrated with some fine line drawings.

It was written and illustrated by Montague Webb, and never wanting to reproduce other people’s work without their permission I went looking for him.

And I found him mentioned by various art dealers and came across four of his water colours on the Government Art Collection,** as well discovering his prolific output of guidebooks.

In time I will go looking for him but for now I will content myself with reproducing the cover, along with a small example of the drawings illustrating the last stretch of the river from his book.

Sadly I can’t locate the publisher and as yet a biography of Mr. Webb has yet to be revealed to me.

But I hope nether will mind me reproducing these two examples of the art work.

Location; The River Thames

Pictures; cover and last stretch of the river from his book

*Viewing the Thames, Montague Webb, 1972 Napier Publications

**Government Art Collection, https://artcollection.culture.gov.uk/person/webb-montague/

Docklands .... travelling the River with Suggs ... today on the wireless

Now this I tuned in to by accident, but by golly I am glad I did.  

It was Suggs from Madness with one of his Love Letters to London, which the sleave notes promises 

"More capers and chaos from Suggs, as he crafts another love letter and takes us on a trip around London's Docklands.

Performed by Suggs

Written by Suggs with Owen Lewis

Directed by Owen Lewis

Musical Director: Owen Parker

Producer: Richard Melvin

A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4"

Location; The River Thames

Pictures; the River, London, 1978-79, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Docklands, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sbf0