Thames Tributary Earl Sluice - Deptford
Thames Tributary Earl Sluice
Earl Sluice continues parallel with Plough Way to the pumping station in Chilton Grove. It would have emerged into the Thames slightly down river of the South Dock entrance near George’s Stairs.
TQ 3675378037
Amazing area of Deptford with the remains of John Evelyn's estate and some of the Royal Dockyard. It includes part of the Grand Surrey Canal and a great deal of river and canalside industry. Interesting housing developments
Post to the west South Bermondsey
Post to the south Deptford
Post to the east Millwall and Deptford Riverside
Post to the north Greenland Dock
Blackhorse Road
Old road named after the pub. It ran parallel to the Grand Surrey Canal. Industries grew up along the canal bank using Blackhorse Road behind. Mooring rings remained at the side of the road where there had once been the edge of the canal.
Neptune Chemical Works. 1864, owned by A.J.Dickinson FRS, FSC, manufacturing chemist. They distilled tar, anthracene, and made super phosphate, Phenol, ammonia, naphtha, paraffin.
R.Jenkins, Polythene Paper and Jute Products
Wickens Peace & Co.Ltd manure and super phosphate,
Phoenix Chemical worksWhiting and asphalt works
Ida Wharf later called Ocean Wharf was used by Frederick Braby, in 1859. They made galvanised iron and zinc. Deliveries from Birmingham by canal. Braby were to become a major industry in the field in Glasgow and elsewhere.
Chilton Street
Earl Pumping Station. The Earl Sluice was turned into the Earl Main Sewer in the 1820s – Thames Water
Deptford Park
Deptford Park. This was built on Land on the south side of the canal called Blackhorse Fields. It was part of the Evelyn family estates and covered. 17 acres. On the 1813 Horwood Plan the park appears to cover roughly the same area, albeit a slightly different shape, as the “Evelyn Pond” – a large stretch of water with what appears to be watercourses running under the canal connected to another piece of water, off limits of the plan. There was a windmill, which was burnt down in 1854. The Park was opened Whit-Monday 1897 by Dr. Collison chairman of London County Council in its Jubilee year. The land cost £36,000 and some of the land was given by the Evelyn family while the rest was money from London County Council, Greenwich Board of Works, and private subscriptions. It is a very simple recreation ground which originally cost £7,500 to lie out. There was a children’s playground and outdoor gymnasium. There are plane trees around all four sides and some of the edges are sloping in a way that would be needed if it were to contain water...
Deptford Wharf
Deptford Wharf housing development. Completed 1992, has a classical layout and is in Docklands post-modernist style. It was built on the site of railway sidings and docks.
Deptford Wharf was the area to the north of, and at one time part of, Dudman’s Dock. It was bought by the Brighton and South Coast Railway Company in 1850. It was then owned by Southern Railway and then British Rail. It closed in 1970. It was mainly used for the transhipment of coal around the railway network. Site of Hydraulic Pumping Station. There was a basin and landing quay plus warehousing. It was connected by a railway line from New Cross.
Lower Wet Dock - Dudman's Dock-Grove Street Yard... Built by Sir John Winter 1604. Called after Dudman & Co when it became the site of their shipbuilding Yard, They had 2 double docks and 5 slips, 1783-1812. Dudman was in partnership with the Ipswich based shipbuilder, Barnard and they set up a major business here. Building a series of large vessels including for the East India Company and the Navy. Later other shipbuilders had the site - Ditchburn from 1836, with a fire in 1838. Gordon & Co ship builders, were also there.
Circumsphere. This is a sculpture on a dolphin in the river off Deptford Wharf which depicts Drake’s voyage around the world. By Chris Marshall 1998.
Deptford Wharf Railway Line
The Deptford Wharf branch was a freight line, carrying mainly coal, from riverside wharves to the Croydon Railway at New Cross Gate and the South London Line at Peckham from 1849 to 1963. It was also called the Thames Junction Branch. FromTrundley’s Road it ran on a low embankment –which had been built using mud from dock excavations. This embankment survives alongside Rainsborough Way. From 1899 a line ran down Grove Street to the Foreign Cattle Market. It was closed in 1964.
Dragoon Road
Was previously Junction Road
Victoria Wharf - Name outlined in bricks on the wall. Buildings now in use as a trading estate.
Evelyn Street
Blackhorse Bridge over the Grand Surrey Canal. An iron plate Girder Bridge with brick abutments, iron parapets with brick piers, cast iron lamp standards.
Grand Surrey Canal. After passing under Blackhorse Bridge to the east the canal took a ninety degree turn towards the docks
Oak Villas and Clare Villas
St.Luke a ragstone Gothic church of 1872, with a stumpy tower. The interior has been partitioned for community use leaving only a small area around the old chancel for the church. By T. H. Watson. Ragstone, central tower, apsed chancel to the road. Remodelling by Maguire & Murray planned.
Gibraltar Tollgate at junction of Lower Road and Evelyn Street
51 House built on the site of a gas board installation which, until c.2000 had a metal plaque on it advising you to ring the South Eastern Gas Board on New Cross 6000. Behind it was the site of a gas holder which was a subsidiary holder station for The Surrey Consumers, Rotherhithe works was always short of space.
New Baltic Wharf. on the canal
195 Blackhorse Pub and ‘venue’.
Fire Station, Queen Anne style red brick building of 1903;
192 Evelyn house, probably of the 1830s.
Windmill pub – long gone but stood on the corner of what was then Windmill Lane, also gone.
Deptford Park Primary School in an old school board building
Foreshore
Rum warehouses in two long terraces. 1780s. each terrace ends with a pavilion with fanlights. One was the superintendent's house, and one the administration offices. Each warehouse had timber pillars along the ground floor. They were built by the Navy to standards of incombustible construction which only the Navy could afford. Now housing.
Pepys Library. Bronze tablet honour of Drake
Stables, probably contemporary. [
Queen’s Stairs and Gate. Also called Drake’s Steps. A nearby plaque commemorates the knighting of Sir Francis Drake by Elizabeth I on the 'Golden Hind in 1581 after his round the world voyage.
Piers. Two piers, there are also old hoists and cannon.
Grinstead Road
Frontage of offices for canal side works, including Braby’s.
Grove Street
Disused laundry 1900 yellow brick
170 Methodist New Connection chapel, 1857, Victoria Chapel, later Victoria Hall. Demolished 2009
Gateway into the Dockyard. 1788, two ornamental white stone arches plus an iron lamp holder. On the arches are ox skulls, garlands, and intertwined anchors. There is also a gas cigarette lighting point.
Bollards made out of real 18th cannon
Turnpike property mark. 1855 for “Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and Deptford, Turnpike Roads.”
Rail Line. Famously the rail connection from Deptford Wharf to the Dockyard ran down Grove Street itself.
Metal gateway at Convoys’ entrance to the dockyard site. This is the point at which the rail line entered the dockyard. This entrance dates from 1993.
Dockyard entrance. This entrance was opened in the 19th, probably c1871. Two square brick gate piers topped by balls. Bricked up in 1993.
Scott House. A.G Scott and Co Ltd. Paper bag factory converted to flats
The Grove Club, Built as part of the Pepys Estate by the LCC
Riverside Youth Club. Built as part of the Pepys Estate by the LCC
177 Hoang bar was the Victoria
Evelyn Early Years Centre
88 Princess of Wales A pub of 1883 with lots of decorative touches. Closed down
Oxestalls Road
An extension of what was Hoopwick Street, taking it up and over the line of the Grand Surrey Canal to Grove Street.
Pepys Estate
Deptford Castle, the site is under the estate and the dockyard site. It was built in 1060s and ruined by 1190s
Housing. This estate was built by the London County Council 1961-69, and extended c1980. It incorporates Georgian buildings remaining from the Royal Dockyard
Aragon Tower. 29 storeys and now privately owned as a fund raiser for regenerating the rest of the estate.
Victualling yard. The Pepys Estate is built on the site of what became the Victualling Yard. Naval warehouses had been built up-of the main dockyard. This site was called the Red House by the early 17th, and in 1742 it became the Navy Victualling Yard. The name was changed to Royal Victoria Victualling Yard after Queen Victoria's visit in 1858. It basically produced supplies for navy ships - clothing, rum, meat and manufactured things like biscuits, chocolate, and mustard. . John Rennie designed the mill machinery. It was near London so the Navy could buy in the open market and transport easily. Here in 1810 Palmer’s suspended railway replaced an earlier tramway. It closed in 1961, - out-lasting the Dockyard itself.
Colonnade Building. consisting of two terraces linked by a front colonnade of 19 Doric columns. 1788
Terrace symmetrical composition of seven houses; with a pediment at the centre and end. 1780s.
Plough Way
Portland stone pier which was a pair of boundary stone of 1819, linked by a low brick wall sloping down to a similar pier to the left. The right-hand pier is inscribed SPD (St Paul’s Deptford) 1819 and SMRH (Mary Rotherhithe) 1819, also 1877 and 1886 - the date when the boundary was ratified. The stone was relocated here 1988 from a position of former bridge nearby over the Earl Sluice, which formed the actual parish boundary and was in fact the boundary between Kent and Surrey before 1889
Canal office building. South of Greenland Dock next to what was the canal barge lock
St George's or Plough Stairs. An old river access point; although the stairs have been refurbished. At low tide timbers said to be from a 17th slipway are exposed. There is also a concrete covered outlet for the Earl Sluice, which is now culverted.
Rainsborough Avenue
Remains of Deptford Wharf branch line. An embankment runs alongside the flats going over what was the site of the east and west ponds. There was a goods station east of the canal.
River from Rotherhithe.
Several stone boundary marks showing the 1855 line of Bermondsey/Rotherhithe/Deptford turnpike. Another one set at St.Paul's Deptford and St.Mary's Rotherhithe. Boundary between Kent and Surrey.
Sayes Gardens,
Sayes Court Park. The only remaining part of the grounds of Evelyn’s Sayes Court. The park occupies only a small area in the western part of the former grounds.
Mulberry tree. Thus is said to be from a cutting of a mulberry tree dating from Evelyn's time.
Gates at the entrance from Sayes Court Street designed by Annalisa Colombara and installed 1997.
Sayes Court was the manor house of Deptford, and it dated back at least to the 12th. The diarist, John Evelyn, lived there from 1652 to 1694, his wife having inherited it, and he partly rebuilt it. Peter the Great of Russia was his tenant for several months in 1698, while studying shipbuilding at Deptford Dockyard, and the damage he and his entourage did to the property during his stay is notorious. The house was demolished and rebuilt in 1729, becoming a workhouse and then almshouses, and part of the site was laid out as a recreation ground in 1878. Most of the grounds were absorbed into the Dockyard in 1927. The building was finally demolished c1930; and its site, opposite the end of Czar Street, is now within the Dockyard.
Windmill Lane
Windmill Lane ran from Evelyn Street to Grove Street crossing the canal at Windmill Bridge. It left Evelyn Street roughly opposite Scawen Street and came to Grove by the main dockyard entrance. The Line became a walkway system going through the flats across the canal
Alexander Louis Dussek. Manufacture of paint and Chemical colours, in 1893. Made Phenol 1885 Jewitt 'King of the firewood trade' SIRE alongside Windmill Bridge in the 1890s.
Sources
Booth. The Streets of London
Bygone Kent
Caroline’s Miscellany. Web site
Cinema Treasures, Night Club
Closed Pubs. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Deptford Dame. Web site
East London Line. Clive’s Underground Lines.
East London Line. Wikipedia Web site
Field. Place names of London
GLIAS Newsletter
GLIAS- walk
Kent Rail. Web site
Lewisham Local History Society. Newsletter
Lewisham Local History Society. Transactions,
Lewisham Local History Society. Byway leaflets
London Borough of Lewisham. Web site
New Cross Gate Station. Wikipedia Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Port of London Magazine
Pub History. Web site.
South Eastern Railway. Wikipedia Web site
Spurgeon. Deptford and Lewisham,
Steele. Turning the Tide
Thames Basin Archaeology of Industry Group. Report
Transpontine. Web site
UK Housing Wiki. Web site
Earl Sluice continues parallel with Plough Way to the pumping station in Chilton Grove. It would have emerged into the Thames slightly down river of the South Dock entrance near George’s Stairs.
TQ 3675378037
Amazing area of Deptford with the remains of John Evelyn's estate and some of the Royal Dockyard. It includes part of the Grand Surrey Canal and a great deal of river and canalside industry. Interesting housing developments
Post to the west South Bermondsey
Post to the south Deptford
Post to the east Millwall and Deptford Riverside
Post to the north Greenland Dock
Blackhorse Road
Old road named after the pub. It ran parallel to the Grand Surrey Canal. Industries grew up along the canal bank using Blackhorse Road behind. Mooring rings remained at the side of the road where there had once been the edge of the canal.
Neptune Chemical Works. 1864, owned by A.J.Dickinson FRS, FSC, manufacturing chemist. They distilled tar, anthracene, and made super phosphate, Phenol, ammonia, naphtha, paraffin.
R.Jenkins, Polythene Paper and Jute Products
Wickens Peace & Co.Ltd manure and super phosphate,
Phoenix Chemical worksWhiting and asphalt works
Ida Wharf later called Ocean Wharf was used by Frederick Braby, in 1859. They made galvanised iron and zinc. Deliveries from Birmingham by canal. Braby were to become a major industry in the field in Glasgow and elsewhere.
Chilton Street
Earl Pumping Station. The Earl Sluice was turned into the Earl Main Sewer in the 1820s – Thames Water
Deptford Park
Deptford Park. This was built on Land on the south side of the canal called Blackhorse Fields. It was part of the Evelyn family estates and covered. 17 acres. On the 1813 Horwood Plan the park appears to cover roughly the same area, albeit a slightly different shape, as the “Evelyn Pond” – a large stretch of water with what appears to be watercourses running under the canal connected to another piece of water, off limits of the plan. There was a windmill, which was burnt down in 1854. The Park was opened Whit-Monday 1897 by Dr. Collison chairman of London County Council in its Jubilee year. The land cost £36,000 and some of the land was given by the Evelyn family while the rest was money from London County Council, Greenwich Board of Works, and private subscriptions. It is a very simple recreation ground which originally cost £7,500 to lie out. There was a children’s playground and outdoor gymnasium. There are plane trees around all four sides and some of the edges are sloping in a way that would be needed if it were to contain water...
Deptford Wharf
Deptford Wharf housing development. Completed 1992, has a classical layout and is in Docklands post-modernist style. It was built on the site of railway sidings and docks.
Deptford Wharf was the area to the north of, and at one time part of, Dudman’s Dock. It was bought by the Brighton and South Coast Railway Company in 1850. It was then owned by Southern Railway and then British Rail. It closed in 1970. It was mainly used for the transhipment of coal around the railway network. Site of Hydraulic Pumping Station. There was a basin and landing quay plus warehousing. It was connected by a railway line from New Cross.
Lower Wet Dock - Dudman's Dock-Grove Street Yard... Built by Sir John Winter 1604. Called after Dudman & Co when it became the site of their shipbuilding Yard, They had 2 double docks and 5 slips, 1783-1812. Dudman was in partnership with the Ipswich based shipbuilder, Barnard and they set up a major business here. Building a series of large vessels including for the East India Company and the Navy. Later other shipbuilders had the site - Ditchburn from 1836, with a fire in 1838. Gordon & Co ship builders, were also there.
Circumsphere. This is a sculpture on a dolphin in the river off Deptford Wharf which depicts Drake’s voyage around the world. By Chris Marshall 1998.
Deptford Wharf Railway Line
The Deptford Wharf branch was a freight line, carrying mainly coal, from riverside wharves to the Croydon Railway at New Cross Gate and the South London Line at Peckham from 1849 to 1963. It was also called the Thames Junction Branch. FromTrundley’s Road it ran on a low embankment –which had been built using mud from dock excavations. This embankment survives alongside Rainsborough Way. From 1899 a line ran down Grove Street to the Foreign Cattle Market. It was closed in 1964.
Dragoon Road
Was previously Junction Road
Victoria Wharf - Name outlined in bricks on the wall. Buildings now in use as a trading estate.
Evelyn Street
Blackhorse Bridge over the Grand Surrey Canal. An iron plate Girder Bridge with brick abutments, iron parapets with brick piers, cast iron lamp standards.
Grand Surrey Canal. After passing under Blackhorse Bridge to the east the canal took a ninety degree turn towards the docks
Oak Villas and Clare Villas
St.Luke a ragstone Gothic church of 1872, with a stumpy tower. The interior has been partitioned for community use leaving only a small area around the old chancel for the church. By T. H. Watson. Ragstone, central tower, apsed chancel to the road. Remodelling by Maguire & Murray planned.
Gibraltar Tollgate at junction of Lower Road and Evelyn Street
51 House built on the site of a gas board installation which, until c.2000 had a metal plaque on it advising you to ring the South Eastern Gas Board on New Cross 6000. Behind it was the site of a gas holder which was a subsidiary holder station for The Surrey Consumers, Rotherhithe works was always short of space.
New Baltic Wharf. on the canal
195 Blackhorse Pub and ‘venue’.
Fire Station, Queen Anne style red brick building of 1903;
192 Evelyn house, probably of the 1830s.
Windmill pub – long gone but stood on the corner of what was then Windmill Lane, also gone.
Deptford Park Primary School in an old school board building
Foreshore
Rum warehouses in two long terraces. 1780s. each terrace ends with a pavilion with fanlights. One was the superintendent's house, and one the administration offices. Each warehouse had timber pillars along the ground floor. They were built by the Navy to standards of incombustible construction which only the Navy could afford. Now housing.
Pepys Library. Bronze tablet honour of Drake
Stables, probably contemporary. [
Queen’s Stairs and Gate. Also called Drake’s Steps. A nearby plaque commemorates the knighting of Sir Francis Drake by Elizabeth I on the 'Golden Hind in 1581 after his round the world voyage.
Piers. Two piers, there are also old hoists and cannon.
Grinstead Road
Frontage of offices for canal side works, including Braby’s.
Grove Street
Disused laundry 1900 yellow brick
170 Methodist New Connection chapel, 1857, Victoria Chapel, later Victoria Hall. Demolished 2009
Gateway into the Dockyard. 1788, two ornamental white stone arches plus an iron lamp holder. On the arches are ox skulls, garlands, and intertwined anchors. There is also a gas cigarette lighting point.
Bollards made out of real 18th cannon
Turnpike property mark. 1855 for “Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and Deptford, Turnpike Roads.”
Rail Line. Famously the rail connection from Deptford Wharf to the Dockyard ran down Grove Street itself.
Metal gateway at Convoys’ entrance to the dockyard site. This is the point at which the rail line entered the dockyard. This entrance dates from 1993.
Dockyard entrance. This entrance was opened in the 19th, probably c1871. Two square brick gate piers topped by balls. Bricked up in 1993.
Scott House. A.G Scott and Co Ltd. Paper bag factory converted to flats
The Grove Club, Built as part of the Pepys Estate by the LCC
Riverside Youth Club. Built as part of the Pepys Estate by the LCC
177 Hoang bar was the Victoria
Evelyn Early Years Centre
88 Princess of Wales A pub of 1883 with lots of decorative touches. Closed down
Oxestalls Road
An extension of what was Hoopwick Street, taking it up and over the line of the Grand Surrey Canal to Grove Street.
Pepys Estate
Deptford Castle, the site is under the estate and the dockyard site. It was built in 1060s and ruined by 1190s
Housing. This estate was built by the London County Council 1961-69, and extended c1980. It incorporates Georgian buildings remaining from the Royal Dockyard
Aragon Tower. 29 storeys and now privately owned as a fund raiser for regenerating the rest of the estate.
Victualling yard. The Pepys Estate is built on the site of what became the Victualling Yard. Naval warehouses had been built up-of the main dockyard. This site was called the Red House by the early 17th, and in 1742 it became the Navy Victualling Yard. The name was changed to Royal Victoria Victualling Yard after Queen Victoria's visit in 1858. It basically produced supplies for navy ships - clothing, rum, meat and manufactured things like biscuits, chocolate, and mustard. . John Rennie designed the mill machinery. It was near London so the Navy could buy in the open market and transport easily. Here in 1810 Palmer’s suspended railway replaced an earlier tramway. It closed in 1961, - out-lasting the Dockyard itself.
Colonnade Building. consisting of two terraces linked by a front colonnade of 19 Doric columns. 1788
Terrace symmetrical composition of seven houses; with a pediment at the centre and end. 1780s.
Plough Way
Portland stone pier which was a pair of boundary stone of 1819, linked by a low brick wall sloping down to a similar pier to the left. The right-hand pier is inscribed SPD (St Paul’s Deptford) 1819 and SMRH (Mary Rotherhithe) 1819, also 1877 and 1886 - the date when the boundary was ratified. The stone was relocated here 1988 from a position of former bridge nearby over the Earl Sluice, which formed the actual parish boundary and was in fact the boundary between Kent and Surrey before 1889
Canal office building. South of Greenland Dock next to what was the canal barge lock
St George's or Plough Stairs. An old river access point; although the stairs have been refurbished. At low tide timbers said to be from a 17th slipway are exposed. There is also a concrete covered outlet for the Earl Sluice, which is now culverted.
Rainsborough Avenue
Remains of Deptford Wharf branch line. An embankment runs alongside the flats going over what was the site of the east and west ponds. There was a goods station east of the canal.
River from Rotherhithe.
Several stone boundary marks showing the 1855 line of Bermondsey/Rotherhithe/Deptford turnpike. Another one set at St.Paul's Deptford and St.Mary's Rotherhithe. Boundary between Kent and Surrey.
Sayes Gardens,
Sayes Court Park. The only remaining part of the grounds of Evelyn’s Sayes Court. The park occupies only a small area in the western part of the former grounds.
Mulberry tree. Thus is said to be from a cutting of a mulberry tree dating from Evelyn's time.
Gates at the entrance from Sayes Court Street designed by Annalisa Colombara and installed 1997.
Sayes Court was the manor house of Deptford, and it dated back at least to the 12th. The diarist, John Evelyn, lived there from 1652 to 1694, his wife having inherited it, and he partly rebuilt it. Peter the Great of Russia was his tenant for several months in 1698, while studying shipbuilding at Deptford Dockyard, and the damage he and his entourage did to the property during his stay is notorious. The house was demolished and rebuilt in 1729, becoming a workhouse and then almshouses, and part of the site was laid out as a recreation ground in 1878. Most of the grounds were absorbed into the Dockyard in 1927. The building was finally demolished c1930; and its site, opposite the end of Czar Street, is now within the Dockyard.
Windmill Lane
Windmill Lane ran from Evelyn Street to Grove Street crossing the canal at Windmill Bridge. It left Evelyn Street roughly opposite Scawen Street and came to Grove by the main dockyard entrance. The Line became a walkway system going through the flats across the canal
Alexander Louis Dussek. Manufacture of paint and Chemical colours, in 1893. Made Phenol 1885 Jewitt 'King of the firewood trade' SIRE alongside Windmill Bridge in the 1890s.
Sources
Booth. The Streets of London
Bygone Kent
Caroline’s Miscellany. Web site
Cinema Treasures, Night Club
Closed Pubs. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Deptford Dame. Web site
East London Line. Clive’s Underground Lines.
East London Line. Wikipedia Web site
Field. Place names of London
GLIAS Newsletter
GLIAS- walk
Kent Rail. Web site
Lewisham Local History Society. Newsletter
Lewisham Local History Society. Transactions,
Lewisham Local History Society. Byway leaflets
London Borough of Lewisham. Web site
New Cross Gate Station. Wikipedia Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Port of London Magazine
Pub History. Web site.
South Eastern Railway. Wikipedia Web site
Spurgeon. Deptford and Lewisham,
Steele. Turning the Tide
Thames Basin Archaeology of Industry Group. Report
Transpontine. Web site
UK Housing Wiki. Web site
Comments
I lived on one side of the railway wall and my aunts and Nanny Goddard lived on the other side of the wall.
Very strange thing to do. Thanks
I spent many happy hours in No 22,
and share your interest in the "wall" I have photographs which may interest you.
Ron King mail@ronaldking.plus.com
mail@ronaldking.plus.com