The Woolwich we have lost

My sister and her husband had warned me just how much the centre of Woolwich had changed but when you don’t go there very often it is easy to forget that places can undergo a massive transformation.

So I asked them to go out armed with an old book of Woolwich plus my pictures from the blog and record just what has happened.

This they did and here is the first of a new Woolwich series, starting with Wellington Street which I featured a few months ago with a picture postcard from 1916.*

I say 1916 but the image may date back to 1907 which shouldn’t surprise us.  Once the picture had been taken the cards could have a long shelf life, so while the one in the collection has a postmark date of 1916, another source puts the moment the photographer captured the scene a full nine years earlier.**

If it was 1907 then the Town Hall which dominates the skyline was opened the year before by Will Crook the MP for Woolwich.  The Town Hall included a public hall, central library, public baths a police and municipal offices.

And as Colin’s picture shows little apart from the Town Hall on Wellington Street has survived.  The Old Woolwich Hippodrome seen next to the Town Hall had a short life of just 23 years.

It was an impressive brick building dressed in stone and ran to three stories.   An iron canopy bearing the name of the theatre covered the steps leading up to the central entrance.

Another canopy continued along the sidewall with a sign across its face reading TWICE NIGHTLY AT 6.40 & 9.10. More signage appeared above the canopy reading WMF GRANT & CO. TWICE NIGHTLY also appears at the top of the side wall.

And in our picture the signs advertise Will Evans who according to some was one of our finest comedians and Pantomime stars and was the author of many sketches and songs.

Sadly there is little on him and nothing about his appearance at the Woolwich Hippodrome.

And as for the Woolwich Hippodrome, its life as a variety hall was just 23 years but as a cinema it fared even worse, closing in 1939 when it was demolished to make way for a new cinema which with the outbreak of war was not built until 1955.

Now I am not some crusty old lover of old buildings just because they are old but I have to say those that flanked and stood opposite the Town Hall are on a human scale which cannot be said of the tall brick and concrete slabs that have pretty much turned the street into a canyon.

But perhaps I am being too harsh, it may be that Colin’s other pictures show a better and cleaner Woolwich than the one I remember.  We shall see.

And in the meantime our Elizabeth tells me that "since we took the pictures of Woolwich, the building next to the Town Hall has been demolished. Not sure what is there now. I remember going there when it was known as Flamingos, mind you that was some time ago."

*At the Woolwich Hippodrome sometime between 1907 and 1916, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/at-woolwich-hippodrome-sometime-between.html

**Evans, Brian, Woolwich in old photographs, 1994

Picture, Wellington Street, 1907-1916, courtesy of Mark Flynn, http://www.markfynn.com/london-postcards.htm and Wellington Street from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick

A century of shopping on Powis Street in Woolwich

I am back in Woolwich this time on Powis Street separated by just over a century.

And I had forgotten how narrow the road is and how crowded it must have been when traffic including buses travelled along it.

Its transformation into a pedestrian through fare will have made shopping a lot safer but something of the buzz has been lost.

That said the place has retained the same sort of small shops which were there in 1908 when Banks and Bryan were trading from number 6 just two doors away from the Shakespeare which I remember drinking in but is now something else.

But there is a sort of continuity for  back then at number 2 was Birts & Son who were pawnbrokers and today almost on the same spot is H&T pawnbrokers who also offer “CHEQUE CASHING, CASH LOANS and PAYDAY ADVANCES.”

And along the road there is the same mix of chemists, tobacconists and clothes shops.

But there the similarity stops.

In 1908 there were lots of grocery outlets, butcher shops and hairdressers, along with a coal merchant, boot maker and umbrella manufacturer.

The list does much too high light the changing needs and fashions that have happened over the century.

Banks and Bryan were mantle manufacturers, G.H. Nickolds made and sold artificial teeth, James and John Matthews were hatters, and at number 36 the South Metropolitan Gas Company had their offices and show rooms.*

Then of course back in 1908 there are the number of horse drawn vehicles, most of which are delivery vans and wagons, with the old cab.

All a lot different from the scene captured by Colin on a Sunday morning in September of this year.

Pictures; Powis Street, 1905, from the series Woolwich Town & City, produced by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of courtesy of TuckDB, http://tuckdb.org/ and Powis Street in 2013 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick

*Raphael Tuck and Sons Ltd who sold postcards for most of the late 19th and 20th centuries.http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/raphael-tuck-and-sons-ltd-who-sold.html 

Out on the Thames by Woolwich

I have never lost my love of the River Thames.

Even now I never feel fully at home till the train pulls out over the bridge from Charing Cross heading towards Waterloo.

As a child I played on that sandy bit of beach in front of the Tower of London, walked the foot tunnels under the river and travelled the Woolwich Ferry.

Later still I waited at the bus stop on Woolwich High Street and caught the raw winter wind coming off the Thames in the early mornings.

And only now have I owned up to lying to my mother about the incident over 54 years ago where I blamed my two friends Jimmy O’Donnel and John Cox for the disaster which led to us sinking ankle deep in river mud after an adventure that went wrong by the barges at Greenwich.

So I can never get enough of pictures of that waterway whether it be on a sunny September morning in 2013 or when the river was still a place work a century or so before.

Today it can appear a pretty empty place but back still in the 50s and early 60s it was a hive of activity, cranes and warehouses opposite the Tower, the smell of Billingsgate and at home in Woolwich the giant power station.


Location; the Thames at Woolwich, London

Pictures; the Thames today from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick and the Woolwich Free Ferry, Tuck & Sons, 1905, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Watching Woolwich and the Royal Arsenal change over the last century and a bit

I am looking at two pictures of the area in front of the old Arsenal gates which say much how about how Woolwich has changed.

The first dates from around 1905 and captures that moment when the shift has finished and the workforce is pouring out.

The second was taken by Colin on a Sunday morning in the September of 2013.

At one time the Royal Arsenal was an important part of the local economy providing work for thousands of people, but all of that is no more.

Now the extensive site is being redeveloped as a residential area, and includes The Royal Artillery Museum, and Greenwich Heritage Centre.

Location; Woolwich, London

Pictures; The Royal Arsenal, 1905, from the  series Woolwich Town & City, produced by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of courtesy of TuckDB, http://tuckdb.org/ and the same spot in 2013 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick

Woolwich on a Sunday in September

I am always fascinated by photographs which capture reflections of buildings.

Part of the appeal is the way the reflected building is distorted but also it is the multiple layering of images.

And so here we are with the Woolwich Centre on Wellington Street with the Town Hall captutred in the glass.

Picture; from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick

What a difference 40 years makes, outside the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich

Sometimes a picture takes you right back and reminds me just how things have changed in a comparatively short period of time.

So here I am at the gate of the Arsenal in the autumn of last year.

Now the redevelopment of Woolwich has passed me by and looking at the photograph taken by our Colin I have to say it is pretty unfamiliar.

I recognise the entrance and have to say that it is looking better than I remember it back in the early 1970s but the surrounding area might as well be a scene from Planet Zogg and if it weren’t for the Arsenal I would be hard pressed to tell you where it was.

Which I why Jean’s photograph of the same spot in 1977 is so valuable, allowing me not only to fix the scene as it was when I used to walk past but is another reminder of just how quickly places can change within the space of two generations.

So thank you to Jean who has unearthed a whole collection of images of Eltham and Woolwich as it was.
And of course I am not going to pass off the opportunity of showing many more of them.

Pictures; the Arsenal in September 2013, from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick and the Arsenal in 1977 courtesy of Jean Gammons

What have they done in Woolwich?

Now when you spend so much of your time crawling over the past you are apt to forget that when places change it is not all for the worse.

So when Colin and Liz went out one Sunday into Woolwich armed with a camera, and an old set of photographs I had high hopes that what they would come back with would be interesting and maybe even fun.

The quest was to match the old faded images of Wollwich from a century ago and chart the changes that have happened along with a sense of whether the changes were better or worse.

Now being a grumpy old historian I rather thought that not all had turned out for the best.

But I do have to admit that  that some of what we inherited from the early 20th century was by now grimy, unfit for purpose and quite frankly should have been demolished ages ago.

More over planners do not always get it wrong even if commercial considerations do sometimes create ugly buildings which brutalize the environment.  But not these figures.  They both intrigue me and make me smile and you can't say fairer than that.

Location; Woolwich, London

Picture; from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick