Railway from London Bridge to Gravesend. Woolwich West
Railway from London Bridge to Gravesend
The railway continues to run eastwards
Post to the west North Charlton
Post to the east Woolwich
Post to the north North Woolwich and Woolwich Dockyard
The railway continues to run eastwards
Post to the west North Charlton
Post to the east Woolwich
Post to the north North Woolwich and Woolwich Dockyard
Post to the south Woolwich Common
Artillery Place
Opened 1804-5
1 Joseph Daniels and Co. this is on the corner with Frances Street and built in 1903–4 as a military tailors shop. They had been there since the 1850s. To the east was a long first-floor tailors’ workroom. In 1945 it became the Woolwich office of the Assistance Board. In 2011 another storey was added to turn it into flats
Cambridge House. This was one of a number of blocks of married soldiers’ quarters erected in 1910 by the Barrack Construction Department, and replaced in 1937. It was acquire by Hyde Housing Association in 1990.
Northern Gateway to Royal Artillery Barracks. This was a triumphal arch with guard rooms on either side. Built 1805-6 it was dismantled for road widening in 1968 and never re-erected
Centurion Court and Churchill Court. Originally sites of blocks of flats for married soldiers built around 1910 by the Barrack Construction Department and later developed by Fairview Homes. Now used for council tenants.
Queen Victoria Memorial Soldiers Home built 1908 and became YMCA. This is now a vacant site behind hoardings.
36-38 Gradidge & Sons, sports goods factory - particularly tennis and cricket equipment, specialising in cricket bats. They later merged with Slazengers and closed around 1950. The buildings had various commercial uses including Marksons, Piano Dealers 1972-2004. From 1980 it was offices for London and Quadrant Housing Association.
Petrol Filling Station. This was Herwin's garage from 1923. They made vehicles here including Handley Page’s first glider. Their workshop form 1955 remains at the rear.
45 The Army House pub. Long closed and demolished
48-50 Government tax office 1936. Since the 1980s this has been used by London Borough of Greenwich sponsored community projects
51 Clock over the door with the signage Tecks Tailors, who were here in the 1950s - but the shop was built for a brewer’s sales.
Belson Road
This was originally called Station Road, renamed in 1904 after Lt.Gen George Belson, RA
Freemasons Tavern. Hotel opposite the station to the south east. This was developed by Henry Rowlstone in 1851 and including adjacent housing. This site is all 1960s local authority housing
Cambridge Hotel. Developed with housing and shops in 1862 by Henry Jackson. This site is now a school playground.
Woolwich Dockyard Station. This was an original station by the South Eastern Railway on their North Kent Line and now lies between Charlton and Woolwich Arsenal stations. It opened in 1849 and was built on a former sandpit. This was Bowater’s Pits, which extended south to the current Red Barracks estate. The station itself was thus built in a cutting encased in a brick retaining wall – the wall itself being the main remaining feature of the original. Only the original west wing of station now remains since it was not rebuilt after a fire in 1960 and the vacant space remains where substantial station buildings once stood.
Borgard Road
This was originally called Station Road, renamed in 1904 after Lt.Gen Albert Borgard, RA
Wall – the walls which line the east side of the street were built to enclose the Marine Infirmary/Red Barracks. At the southern end a bricked up guard house is incorporated into the wall.
St Michaels Mission School was built in 1871 and was opened as part of a mission to the poor. The remains of the old mission adjoin the northern end of the church.
St.Michael & All Angels. This was originally an extension to an earlier iron church of 1868. It is a 19th Gothic brick church with the chancel, the oldest part, built in 1878 and funded by Richard Foster. The nave designed by, the then very elderly, William Butterfield, replaced the earlier church in 1889. The west aisle was added in 1955 but the tower was never built. There is a Great War memorial crucifix by Sir Ninian Comper at the north end. The church has been used by Pentecostal groups in the 2000s and has been put up for sale by the Church of England.
Bowling Green Row
This was named after an 18th bowling green attached to the Ship Tavern near the Dockyard Gates. The current housing dates from 1961.
Albion Hall. This was a Spiritualist Chapel present in early 20th
Cambridge Barracks Road
Housing built in the 1970s by London Borough of Greenwich on the site of the Cambridge Barracks. The entry from Francis Street follows roughly the line of what was Mason Street and some old wall remains.
Cambridge Barracks were built as Marine Barracks, of 1808. Marine Divisons had been established in connection with the Royal Dockyard during the Napoleonic Wars. Initially these barracks were in an adapted brewery to which guard houses and a parade ground had been added. Rebuilt in the 1840s under Capt William Denison, RE, they have since been described as a ‘progressive model for military accommodation’ – including service buildings, recreation facilities, health measures including new ventilation methods and separate accommodation for married sergeants, Following closure of the Royal Dockyard in 1869 they were converted to the Cambridge Barracks, named for Army Commander in Chief, the Duke of Cambridge. In 1960 the army relinquished them and the site was sold to the London Borough of Greenwich and they were demolished. .
Carr Grove
Reynolah Gardens. This was a pleasure ground laid out in the 1840s in an old chalk pit with aviaries and walks and so on attached to a pub in Samuel Street. They were closed by 1860 and remained derelict.
British Hospital for Mothers and Babies – Carr Grove is on the line of the back drive. In 1905 three young midwives decided to open a maternity home and midwifery school. They bought two houses in Woodhill and founded the Home which was seen as a new model for maternity nurses training, and which became a national standard. Derelict land in Samuel Street had been bought in 1912 for a new Hospital. Funded by the sale of the central London building of the British Lying in Hospital, with which they had merged. The new Hospital opened in 1922 and a second stage in 1929. The hospital was partly destroyed by Second World War bombing. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS and in 1951 established one of the first Premature Baby Units. In 1984, despite a long battle to keep it open, the Hospital closed. It was demolished in 1984 and has been replaced by housing.
Francis Street
The name of the street is early 19th and may relate to one of the Bowater family. However most of the present street has had different names until the mid 20th.
Chapel Street. This was the name for the northern end of the road. This took its name from the large chapel at the corner of Samuel Street
Queen Street Baptist Chapel. This was on the junction with Samuel Street (then called Queen Street) and built in 1786 with a large columned portico dominating the corner. There was a school to the rear. Demolished in 1960.
British Museum Pub. This was opposite the chapel.
Railway Bridge. This dates to 1849.
Henry Street was the name of a section of what is now Francis Street. It ran from the end of what was Chapel Street to a junction with Samuel Street to the north (aka Bowater Crescent).
Britannia Tavern. This stood at the junction between Chapel and Henry Streets. 1808-1950s. in 1835 the landlady was murdered in the bar.
Cardwell Primary School. This was originally St.Michael’s School built in the 1860s. The school closed in 1963 and was demolished a few years later. A new school was built in 1873 by the Great London Council Architect’s Department and called Cardwell Cottages School. A nursery was added later and it is now Cardwell Primary School. On the Francis Street frontage is new entrance and wall by Architype.
School keeper’s house at Cardwell School is the only surviving building of the original school.
St Mary's Development Area. This dates from 1950 and was the first comprehensive development area undertaken London. Eight such areas went forward but this is the only one which was carried out by the Borough Council and not by the London County Council. Housing erected 1952 -1965 did however follow the L.C.C. in mixing maisonettes and tower blocks while ignoring traditional road layouts.
71-177, 179-285, 287-393 Tower blocks – these are fourteen stories and designed by Norman and Dawborn as part of the St.Mary’s Estate from 1956. 138 ft towers with piled foundations and reinforced concrete frames. They are butterfly plan to maximise light. Opened by Princess Margaret in 1961. Refurbished by London Borough of Greenwich in 2004-7.
395-497 Tower block which copies the earlier ones was built in 1965
Manor Road was the original name for the southern end of Francis Street and it was the drive to Bowater House.
Bowater House. This was on the high ground on the east side of the street, called Mount Pleasant. It was built by Edward Bowater in the 1730s after he inherited the estate. The origins of the house are obscure and there was an earlier house on the site which may have been 16th. It was purchased, with the rest of the estate, in 1856 by the Admiralty.
Red Barracks Gatehouse. The Gateway dates from 1859 and has lion's heads in the piers. A stretch of perimeter walls of the 1850s have survived, with railings and including a brick sentry box.
Cambridge Barracks Gateway. This remains on the edge of the new housing estate. It is a rusticated stone structure, massive and classical, linked to gatehouses with Doric porticos on either side –one of which was a guard house and one an officers’ library – and have had various community uses since redevelopment of the site.. Inside the arch is a wrought iron lamp holder, and behind are two 18th cannon.
Bowater Farm. This was on the corner with Artillery Place and was also New or North Farm.
61 Admiral. The name of this mid 19th century pub recalls the naval origins of the Red Barracks. It has been replaced by flats.
23 Navy and Army. The pub was built in 1849; the name recalls the naval origins of the Red Barracks. It is now shut.
6 built in 1907 for Watney, Combe & Reid as beer, wine and spirit stores.
4 This was built in 1903–4 is for Craig and Davies, military bootmakers,
3–7 shops built in 1904–5. The Ogilby coat of arms, a lion between two crescents, is over a first-floor window. Ogilby was a landowner who had bought part of the Bowater estate properties from John Long
1 King's Arms. Opened in 1806 by entrepreneur John Long as barracks were built in the adjacent areas. At other times it has also been called the Artillery Hotel, the Barrack Tavern, Long’s Hotel and Jack’s Canteen. It had two entrances, to exploit the corner site. It was rebuilt in 1935–6 for Watneys and was bombed by the IRA in 1974.
Glenalvon Way
This runs along the edge of what was Long’s Pit. The ridge of the east side of the pit survives along the road.
Gorman Road
This is the old access road to the rear of the Cambridge Barracks, provided with local authority housing, and renamed, after demolition of the military site. In 1815 an infirmary had been built on what is now the north side of the road.
Green Hill
The Rotunda. This was originally built in 1814 as a tent in St.James Park as the centre-piece of a number of marquees erected by John Nash. It was part of a celebration in Carlton House gardens for the allied sovereigns about Napoleon's exile to Elba. It was Re-used in 1815 to celebrate England's victory at Waterloo and then erected in Woolwich in 1819. In 1822 Nash was asked to make it permanent so He kept the tent canvas and cords around a central support, cast in the Royal Arsenal, and then built an outer shell of yellow brick supporting a copper roof surmounted by a cupola. In a 1975 restoration the original canvas and lead roof were replaced. Inside was a free public Museum of Artillery which displayed the history of the gun from 1320 onwards - 14th wrought iron ordnance; cast iron ordnance 1450; early rifled ordnance; early breech-loaders; Great War and Second World War ordnance. Outside was an 1848 guided missile launcher. On display was the spoiled casting of the Moorfields gun which following an explosion led to the move of the foundry to Woolwich and the birth of the Arsenal. When Firepower opened on the Arsenal site in 2001 it was closed to the public and housed an army boxing centre.
Railway gun. This large howitzer is the sole survivor of five such guns made in 1917-19; it is mounted on a proof carriage of 1886, on a section of railway track and stood outside the Rotunda. These guns were the largest pieces of ordnance ever to enter British land service. Railway-mounted guns were still in use for coastal defence in the last war. It was sent to Larkhill in 2008 and since then has gone to Utrecht.
Army Medical Reserve Store. This was built south of the Rotunda in 1902. Other buildings around the Rotunda included training workshops for the Ordnance College and other sheds. By the 1930s this was the Military College of Science – but none of this survived the Second World War. Later buildings included storage huts, a rifle range and dog kennels. After the war it was used by REME. This area was redeveloped for the 16th Air Defence Regiment and this became known as the Napier lines. Around this area grew up assault courses and other training facilities. In 2011 this included stabling for the Kings Troop which is heated by horse dung, and includes a riding school and pharmacy and a forge.
Observatory. The Royal Artillery Institution was a scientific society set up in 1838. They built an observatory as part of a global survey of 1840. This was too small and it was greatly extended and eventually a centre was set up nearer the barracks – but was destroyed in Second World War bombing. The older premises were also extended and became known as the Magnetic Office. Most of it was later demolished and the rest was converted to housing and a MOD police station. Nearby were two cannon of 1859 in a defensive emplacement, and two large coast guns of 1896 and 1902.
Green Hill Barracks. Terraces of married quarters built in the 1920s.
Congreve Lines. These are on the north side of the road. They were 19th gun sheds since replace with garages and in 2008 an Army Medical Centre and a welfare and childcare facility
Hawkins Terrace
An old footpath now accessing council properties and garages.
Heathwood Gardens
10 British Orthodox Church Secretariat
Hill Reach
Built in 1804 and called Hill Street until 1937
Greenhill Court. This was the Artillery Garrison School built in 1855. This was the First army school for children of soldiers. It included some provision for other use – assemblies, balls and so on and also provided educational facilities for adult illiterates. It has four large corner blocks, connected by lower ranges with the north range having the main entrance. There are two enclosed squares with, on the west square the iron framework of a former play shed building – which survives as a pergola. The site was converted into flats by Parkview Properties in 1989.
Repository Wall. Along The south side of the road is a continuous brick wall. It was built in 1807 to provide security for the Repository.
4 Village Blacksmith. This was originally a beershop called the Soldier’s Rest built in 1842 and rebuilt in 1902. Closed in the 1990s.
38 In 1874 a Soldiers’ Home and Mission Hall was built with a library, reading rooms, classrooms and a hall. This provided a service throughout the period and in the Great War. In the 1920s it became part of the Slazenger’s works and then Marksons’s Pianos. The site was redeveloped from 1967 and it was then demolished
39 Wellesley Pub. Rebuilt in 1938 and demolished for housing 2007. In the meantime it has been the Pillars of Truth Ministries
Electricity junction box on the corner of Pellipar Road. This has shows the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich coat of arms.
Kingsman Street
The northern end was Coleman Street from the 1780s until 1904. The southern end was King Street.
Railway Tavern. This stood on the corner with Belson Road in the early 1850s.
Kinveachy Gardens
The name comes from Kinveachy Forest, Invernesshire, once owned by the Maryon - Wilson family
79-83 bomb site caused by a V2 in 1945 when a rocket broke-up over Charlton
Little Heath
The Road was built by the Army Ordnance Board in 1802 to avoid the road over the Woolwich Common and its adjacent gunnery range. Its big red brick houses were built between 1890 and 1910.
40 Sheltered Housing. Built by Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich in 1956
93 The Woodman. The site of a beer house since the late eighteenth century and marking the boundary of Charlton. It is now a shop
74 the building has operated as a business premises – General Apothecaries, and also as an outlet for United Dairies.
Maryon Park
This square only covers the western portion of the park. The area was originally part of Hanging Wood and it is named after the local landowners – the Maryon Wilson family. Under the Metropolitan 'Open Spaces' Act, twelve acres of exhausted sand workings were given by Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson Bt. to the London County Council in 1889. The area was levelled, grassed over and opened as a park in 1890. Over the next thirty years more land and old workings were added by the L.C.C. Lodge. During the initial layout workers found the foundations of a kiln which used for burning bricks. There was also a deep well used by the brick makers in the area where the lodge now stands,
North pit – This lay north of the railway line and the tunnel, and south of the Woolwich Road. It now forms the northern part of Maryon Park.
East pit - This lay south and east of the railway line and Mount Street Tunnel. It now forms the eastern part of Maryon Park
The Mount. It is said this was once the site of a semaphore station relaying message to Shooters Hill. It was rented in 1838 by a Mr. Cox for ‘cultivation and recreation’. He built a summer house for entertaining his friends. It was also used by the Admiralty for adjusting ships compasses. It is here, in the film Blow Up, that the photographs of the shooting are taken and where David Hemmings returns to find a body among rustling trees.
Maryon Road
Maryon Road originally ran only from Little Heath to Woodland Terrace, the northern section being Mount Street. The road now includes Mount Street and then turns sharply east alongside the railway as far as Wood Hill.
St Thomas School. This was a National School built in 1854 fronting onto what was then Sand Street – now an area in side Morris Walk Estate. It was built in an old sandpit itself in what was then Mount Street. The school failed an inspection by the London County Council following 1902 legislation and was subsequently modernised and in 1932 became a junior girls and infants school. In the Second World War it was an emergency school for non-evacuees. In 1940 it was bombed and later burnt down in an unrelated accident. It was subsequently demolished
St.Thomas. This was designed by Joseph Gwilt. It was consecrated in 1850. A Byzantine basilica in brick and stone with four small corner towers. In 1982 it was changed with a youth centre in the nave and a floor inserted above. At ground level sliding doors lead to a separate a functional hall. The first Rector was Revd.Abraham de la Mare, uncle of the poet. St.Thomas' church was name after its main funder - Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson 6th Bart. It is also now used by the British Orthodox Church.
Churchyard has many 19th century and later tombs and gravestones. Where almost 4000 inhabitants have been buried. It closed in 1933.
217 St.Thomas's Hall. Built in 1956 and given in 1981 to New Charlton Community Association.
Admiralty Compass Observatory. This was built on Maryon Wilson land in 1844 to replace an observatory previously on Cox’s Mount in Maryon Park and which was used by the Admiralty for adjusting ships compasses. The observatory itself was an octagonal wooden building with conditions attached that nothing could be built close to it. It contained three pedestals, one with a magnetic transit instrument, one with a magnetic collimator, and one for testing other compasses. Another building, nearer the road was provided for offices and a house for the compass examiner, James Brunton. In 1870 it was moved to Deptford. Observatory cottage was subsequently rented out.
80 Rectory for St. Thomas’s Church acquired in 1888. Now in use as a guest house. Maps show a property on the footprint of this house considerably earlier than its neighbours. They also show a long garden with appears to be an octagonal building at the end. Interestingly it appears that this building is at the end of a footpath – now Hawkins Terrace – from Little Heath
Maryon Wilson Park
This square contains the eastern section of the park only.
Animal house. A small enclosure with several small buildings, one of which is used for keeping small mammals and birds.
Morris Walk
Housing Estate by London County Council. Built in 1965. The flats are a factory construction, made in Norwich. It was the first estate to be built using the prefabricated Larsun and Neilson industrialised system with Taylor-Woodrow Anglian components – which was used extensively thereafter. The outside of the building are finished with Norfolk flint and it is said that the industrialised system is embraced here as an aesthetic as well as being a building method. Problems developed and the estate was refurbished in 1984, and a decision to demolish made in 2006. Now demolished,
Parish Wharf Lane
Housing designed by Architype to Walter Segal designs, as a self build co-op using timber construction. The site was at one time the parish yard.
Pett Street
This was once called Ann Street
Woolwich Adventure Playground on the site of rail sidings used for Dockyard rail stock
Rail line into the Dockyard – this is now used as a pedestrian underpass
Railway
Mount Street Tunnel. This passed under Maryon Park and emerges under what is now Maryon Road, but which was Mount Street. It is 121 yards long and is unusual in that the tunnel profile changes. The eastern portal includes a stone string course and a peaked parapet. Around the arch ring is decorative brickwork and there are massive wing walls. The western portal is plainer. The parapet is much the same, but the arch is lower and with plain rings.
Dockyard Tunnel. This passes under Samuel Street and Francis Street and emerges the western end of Woolwich Dockyard Station. It is 121 yards long and has a decorative parapet and plain arch at its west end, like that at Mount Street Tunnel. The eastern portal is completely plain.
Coleman Street Tunnel. This runs from the east end of Woolwich Dockyard station under Kingsman Street. Its portals have a stone string course and a peaked parapet with plain arch rings. A buttress has been built against it on the down platform and it is 89 yards long.
George IV Tunnel. This passes under Rectory Place. It has plain portals and the parapet has been rebuilt with a contrasting band of brick. The tunnel is 238 yards long
Woolwich Dockyard Station. A pair of refuge sidings were positioned on the ‘’up’’ and ‘’down’’ sides, to the east and west of the platforms. The sidings were removed at electrification
Signal box. This controlled the sidings, and was at the east end of the ‘’up’’ platform.
Signal box. This was about 360 yards to the west of the station called ‘’Woolwich Dockyard’’. It was two-storey, made of timber and to SER design. It controlled a single-track connection with the dockyard the box was removed at electrification
Branch to the dockyard. This came off the up line in a north eastern direction, going through a tunnel before reaching the site.
Red Barracks Road
The Red Barracks were built 1858-60 by William Scamp, Deputy Director, of Engineering and Architectural to the Admiralty, on the site of Bowater House. It was originally Royal Marine Infirmary on the pavilion principle after the Crimean War and was one of the first two such hospitals built in England. It was in red brick with prominent yellow brick trim. In 1869 the building passed to the army when the dockyard closed. It was converted at first to a barracks for the Army Ordnance Corps. From 1888 it was an Artillery College, becoming the Military College of Science in 1927, and 1940 - 1967, offices of the Inspectorate of Armaments and the Royal Artillery Record Office. Greenwich Council then acquired it and in the early 1970s it was demolished
Repository Road
Entrance – following demolition of the North gate in 1968 and entrance was formed on the corner with Hill Reach. A Thunderbird missile was mounted on a platform adjacent to it.
Upper Gun Park. This was north of the 1802 gun battery. Building of 1830 put up as a store and magazine. The ground in front was levelled to park guns. There were additional buildings in the 1840s and 1850s and there was also a piggery for officer’s dinners. In the 1860s there was a saluting battery to the south called the Green Hill battery – the guns have gone but there platform are still there. After 1900 timber sheds for gun carriages were added. Six stone blocks to the south were until c.1990 used for a group of mortars which are now elsewhere. The drill ground is now a car park and the hillside used as a ski slope.
Mallet's Mortar. This stands on the site of what was the guard house at Long’s Gate on the corner with Hill Reach. It was designed by Robert Mallett in 1854 for use in the Crimean War and made in the Arsenal. It was test-fired in 1858, firing a 2,3591b. Shell a distance of 2,759 yards, but was never actually used. It is one of a pair the largest mortars ever made and weighing 42 tonnes. In front of it are 91 cm shells made for it. The other Mortar is now at Fort Nelson.
Army Ordnance Corps memorial. A drinking fountain with a fountain a bronze figure. This used to be here but has been moved to Camberley.
Afghan and Zulu memorial. This pile of rough hewn stones surmounted with copper trophies used to be here but has been moved to Larkhill. Its base is still in place and visible.
Royal Military Repository
The majority of Repository Wood is in the square to the east. Both Repository Road and Green Hill go through the area.
The Royal Regiment of Artillery was originally housed in The Warren on what is now the Royal Arsenal site but moved to Woolwich Common in the 1770s. The Royal Military Repository was set up here in following a fire at the Warren in 1802 not only as a store, but as a training area also – including training in manoeuvring field guns over rough ground. Sheds and other facilities were built and the landscape systematically adapted to provide an environment in which training in the use and movement of artillery in war could be undertaken.
Congreve’s Linear Training Fortification. This ran roughly parallel to Green Hill, between it and the Rotunda. Much of this is still extant
Long Pond. This is a reservoir, probably built in the 1750s to supply the Royal Dockyard. An octagonal brick conduit house was demolished in the 1950s as was an ice house built in 1809.
Mortar Battery was built here in the early 19th, filling in a ravine. This was south of the Upper Gun Park.
Monument to Maj Gen Sir Alexander Dickson. This was originally erected in this area, but has now been taken to Larkhill
Rushgrove Street
Rushgrove House. The house which is Difficult to see behind the high brick wall, was built about 1816 by a meat contractor to the army and then called Regent Cottage. It is brick with stone cornice and parapet. Enlarged in 1839 and extended to the north in 1855 when it was taken over as a residence for the Commander of the Marine Barracks. It was then probably largely rebuilt by the Royal Engineers. The army sold it in 1986.
Garden house. A small octagonal which belonged to an earlier house on the site and may be late 18th. No doubt once it afforded views of the river.
Stables single- storey 19th building, older than Rushgrove House and may have been built in 1805 with Rushgrove Cottage.
Samuel Street
A hilly area developed from the end of the 18th and almost entirely rebuilt after Second World War damage. It skirts round what was once called Vinegar Hill.
Unity Place. One of the earliest developments in the area built in 1796. Demolished in 1979 following a public enquiry.
110 Edinburgh Castle. Built on 1796 as part of Unity Place. A stuccoed pub, its structure basically pre 1800, but its frontage is mid 19th. This is now housing
Tower blocks as part of the St.Mary’s development area. Norman and Dawbarn 1959.
Sand Street
Now under the Morris Walk Estate, this ran parallel to Maryon Road/Mount Street to the east. It was originally a footpath going to a lime kiln
Sandpit Place
Sandpit Disability Resource Centre
Woodhill
This street includes part of Kidd Street
173-175 Wood Street Home. This was the first house used by the two women who eventually set up the Home for Mothers and Babies, seeing it as a training school for District Midwives. The building was later converted to flats as Woodhill Court
Woodhill Primary School. Built by the London School Board in 1883 on the west end of Reynolah Gardens. It was designed by Edward Robson and exhibited at the Royal Academy. , The south front has patterned windows, gabled dormers, and comer turrets. There is a care takers house, a play shed for girls and infants, a bloc of 1890 for technical training and stores and a girls' drill hall of 1907. There is also a 1980 built nursery school.
Woodhill Evangelical church. An independent Baptist church. The site was originally bought in 1946 to replace the eventually demolished Queen Street Church. It was not however built until 1958 when the compensation had been sorted out. The architect was Donald Robertson and there are additional halls at the back.
Woodland Terrace
The rear of these houses was specially changed for the Blow Up film shots taken in Maryon Park.
Woodrow
64-65 Woodrow Business Centre. The site was a series of stables which in 1856 became Charles Malings’ British and Oriental Racquet Manufactory. They designed and manufactured many racquets. Slazenger’s took over the factory in 1896 having moved from Manchester. The works expanded and he had a special purpose built factory constructed. By the 1920s they were using mainly machine production methods. In the 1940s Slazenger’s went and as Textile House it was a factory for making shoulder pads. The original house used by Malings is now flats.
Sources
Aldous. Village London
Booth. Survey
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Bygone Kent
Charlton Society Walks
Church of England Properties. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London,
Field. London Place Names
Greater London Council. Home Sweet Home
Glencross. Buildings of Greenwich
Greenwich Council. Web site
Hamilton. Royal Greenwich,
London Borough of Greenwich. Local List
London Encyclopaedia
Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. Housing brochure
Meulenkamp and Wheatley. Follies
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Smith. History of Charlton
South East London Industrial Archaeology.
Spurgeon. Discovering Woolwich
Spurgeon. Discovering Greenwich and Charlton
Summerson. Georgian London
Survey of London. Woolwich
Woolwich Architecture Trail
Woolwich Rail Tunnels. Web site
For this post in particular the 2012 volume of the Survey of London has been crucial. Congratulations and thanks to Peter Guillery and his team from Edith- who wishes she could reach your standards.
Artillery Place
Opened 1804-5
1 Joseph Daniels and Co. this is on the corner with Frances Street and built in 1903–4 as a military tailors shop. They had been there since the 1850s. To the east was a long first-floor tailors’ workroom. In 1945 it became the Woolwich office of the Assistance Board. In 2011 another storey was added to turn it into flats
Cambridge House. This was one of a number of blocks of married soldiers’ quarters erected in 1910 by the Barrack Construction Department, and replaced in 1937. It was acquire by Hyde Housing Association in 1990.
Northern Gateway to Royal Artillery Barracks. This was a triumphal arch with guard rooms on either side. Built 1805-6 it was dismantled for road widening in 1968 and never re-erected
Centurion Court and Churchill Court. Originally sites of blocks of flats for married soldiers built around 1910 by the Barrack Construction Department and later developed by Fairview Homes. Now used for council tenants.
Queen Victoria Memorial Soldiers Home built 1908 and became YMCA. This is now a vacant site behind hoardings.
36-38 Gradidge & Sons, sports goods factory - particularly tennis and cricket equipment, specialising in cricket bats. They later merged with Slazengers and closed around 1950. The buildings had various commercial uses including Marksons, Piano Dealers 1972-2004. From 1980 it was offices for London and Quadrant Housing Association.
Petrol Filling Station. This was Herwin's garage from 1923. They made vehicles here including Handley Page’s first glider. Their workshop form 1955 remains at the rear.
45 The Army House pub. Long closed and demolished
48-50 Government tax office 1936. Since the 1980s this has been used by London Borough of Greenwich sponsored community projects
51 Clock over the door with the signage Tecks Tailors, who were here in the 1950s - but the shop was built for a brewer’s sales.
Belson Road
This was originally called Station Road, renamed in 1904 after Lt.Gen George Belson, RA
Freemasons Tavern. Hotel opposite the station to the south east. This was developed by Henry Rowlstone in 1851 and including adjacent housing. This site is all 1960s local authority housing
Cambridge Hotel. Developed with housing and shops in 1862 by Henry Jackson. This site is now a school playground.
Woolwich Dockyard Station. This was an original station by the South Eastern Railway on their North Kent Line and now lies between Charlton and Woolwich Arsenal stations. It opened in 1849 and was built on a former sandpit. This was Bowater’s Pits, which extended south to the current Red Barracks estate. The station itself was thus built in a cutting encased in a brick retaining wall – the wall itself being the main remaining feature of the original. Only the original west wing of station now remains since it was not rebuilt after a fire in 1960 and the vacant space remains where substantial station buildings once stood.
Borgard Road
This was originally called Station Road, renamed in 1904 after Lt.Gen Albert Borgard, RA
Wall – the walls which line the east side of the street were built to enclose the Marine Infirmary/Red Barracks. At the southern end a bricked up guard house is incorporated into the wall.
St Michaels Mission School was built in 1871 and was opened as part of a mission to the poor. The remains of the old mission adjoin the northern end of the church.
St.Michael & All Angels. This was originally an extension to an earlier iron church of 1868. It is a 19th Gothic brick church with the chancel, the oldest part, built in 1878 and funded by Richard Foster. The nave designed by, the then very elderly, William Butterfield, replaced the earlier church in 1889. The west aisle was added in 1955 but the tower was never built. There is a Great War memorial crucifix by Sir Ninian Comper at the north end. The church has been used by Pentecostal groups in the 2000s and has been put up for sale by the Church of England.
Bowling Green Row
This was named after an 18th bowling green attached to the Ship Tavern near the Dockyard Gates. The current housing dates from 1961.
Albion Hall. This was a Spiritualist Chapel present in early 20th
Cambridge Barracks Road
Housing built in the 1970s by London Borough of Greenwich on the site of the Cambridge Barracks. The entry from Francis Street follows roughly the line of what was Mason Street and some old wall remains.
Cambridge Barracks were built as Marine Barracks, of 1808. Marine Divisons had been established in connection with the Royal Dockyard during the Napoleonic Wars. Initially these barracks were in an adapted brewery to which guard houses and a parade ground had been added. Rebuilt in the 1840s under Capt William Denison, RE, they have since been described as a ‘progressive model for military accommodation’ – including service buildings, recreation facilities, health measures including new ventilation methods and separate accommodation for married sergeants, Following closure of the Royal Dockyard in 1869 they were converted to the Cambridge Barracks, named for Army Commander in Chief, the Duke of Cambridge. In 1960 the army relinquished them and the site was sold to the London Borough of Greenwich and they were demolished. .
Carr Grove
Reynolah Gardens. This was a pleasure ground laid out in the 1840s in an old chalk pit with aviaries and walks and so on attached to a pub in Samuel Street. They were closed by 1860 and remained derelict.
British Hospital for Mothers and Babies – Carr Grove is on the line of the back drive. In 1905 three young midwives decided to open a maternity home and midwifery school. They bought two houses in Woodhill and founded the Home which was seen as a new model for maternity nurses training, and which became a national standard. Derelict land in Samuel Street had been bought in 1912 for a new Hospital. Funded by the sale of the central London building of the British Lying in Hospital, with which they had merged. The new Hospital opened in 1922 and a second stage in 1929. The hospital was partly destroyed by Second World War bombing. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS and in 1951 established one of the first Premature Baby Units. In 1984, despite a long battle to keep it open, the Hospital closed. It was demolished in 1984 and has been replaced by housing.
Francis Street
The name of the street is early 19th and may relate to one of the Bowater family. However most of the present street has had different names until the mid 20th.
Chapel Street. This was the name for the northern end of the road. This took its name from the large chapel at the corner of Samuel Street
Queen Street Baptist Chapel. This was on the junction with Samuel Street (then called Queen Street) and built in 1786 with a large columned portico dominating the corner. There was a school to the rear. Demolished in 1960.
British Museum Pub. This was opposite the chapel.
Railway Bridge. This dates to 1849.
Henry Street was the name of a section of what is now Francis Street. It ran from the end of what was Chapel Street to a junction with Samuel Street to the north (aka Bowater Crescent).
Britannia Tavern. This stood at the junction between Chapel and Henry Streets. 1808-1950s. in 1835 the landlady was murdered in the bar.
Cardwell Primary School. This was originally St.Michael’s School built in the 1860s. The school closed in 1963 and was demolished a few years later. A new school was built in 1873 by the Great London Council Architect’s Department and called Cardwell Cottages School. A nursery was added later and it is now Cardwell Primary School. On the Francis Street frontage is new entrance and wall by Architype.
School keeper’s house at Cardwell School is the only surviving building of the original school.
St Mary's Development Area. This dates from 1950 and was the first comprehensive development area undertaken London. Eight such areas went forward but this is the only one which was carried out by the Borough Council and not by the London County Council. Housing erected 1952 -1965 did however follow the L.C.C. in mixing maisonettes and tower blocks while ignoring traditional road layouts.
71-177, 179-285, 287-393 Tower blocks – these are fourteen stories and designed by Norman and Dawborn as part of the St.Mary’s Estate from 1956. 138 ft towers with piled foundations and reinforced concrete frames. They are butterfly plan to maximise light. Opened by Princess Margaret in 1961. Refurbished by London Borough of Greenwich in 2004-7.
395-497 Tower block which copies the earlier ones was built in 1965
Manor Road was the original name for the southern end of Francis Street and it was the drive to Bowater House.
Bowater House. This was on the high ground on the east side of the street, called Mount Pleasant. It was built by Edward Bowater in the 1730s after he inherited the estate. The origins of the house are obscure and there was an earlier house on the site which may have been 16th. It was purchased, with the rest of the estate, in 1856 by the Admiralty.
Red Barracks Gatehouse. The Gateway dates from 1859 and has lion's heads in the piers. A stretch of perimeter walls of the 1850s have survived, with railings and including a brick sentry box.
Cambridge Barracks Gateway. This remains on the edge of the new housing estate. It is a rusticated stone structure, massive and classical, linked to gatehouses with Doric porticos on either side –one of which was a guard house and one an officers’ library – and have had various community uses since redevelopment of the site.. Inside the arch is a wrought iron lamp holder, and behind are two 18th cannon.
Bowater Farm. This was on the corner with Artillery Place and was also New or North Farm.
61 Admiral. The name of this mid 19th century pub recalls the naval origins of the Red Barracks. It has been replaced by flats.
23 Navy and Army. The pub was built in 1849; the name recalls the naval origins of the Red Barracks. It is now shut.
6 built in 1907 for Watney, Combe & Reid as beer, wine and spirit stores.
4 This was built in 1903–4 is for Craig and Davies, military bootmakers,
3–7 shops built in 1904–5. The Ogilby coat of arms, a lion between two crescents, is over a first-floor window. Ogilby was a landowner who had bought part of the Bowater estate properties from John Long
1 King's Arms. Opened in 1806 by entrepreneur John Long as barracks were built in the adjacent areas. At other times it has also been called the Artillery Hotel, the Barrack Tavern, Long’s Hotel and Jack’s Canteen. It had two entrances, to exploit the corner site. It was rebuilt in 1935–6 for Watneys and was bombed by the IRA in 1974.
Glenalvon Way
This runs along the edge of what was Long’s Pit. The ridge of the east side of the pit survives along the road.
Gorman Road
This is the old access road to the rear of the Cambridge Barracks, provided with local authority housing, and renamed, after demolition of the military site. In 1815 an infirmary had been built on what is now the north side of the road.
Green Hill
The Rotunda. This was originally built in 1814 as a tent in St.James Park as the centre-piece of a number of marquees erected by John Nash. It was part of a celebration in Carlton House gardens for the allied sovereigns about Napoleon's exile to Elba. It was Re-used in 1815 to celebrate England's victory at Waterloo and then erected in Woolwich in 1819. In 1822 Nash was asked to make it permanent so He kept the tent canvas and cords around a central support, cast in the Royal Arsenal, and then built an outer shell of yellow brick supporting a copper roof surmounted by a cupola. In a 1975 restoration the original canvas and lead roof were replaced. Inside was a free public Museum of Artillery which displayed the history of the gun from 1320 onwards - 14th wrought iron ordnance; cast iron ordnance 1450; early rifled ordnance; early breech-loaders; Great War and Second World War ordnance. Outside was an 1848 guided missile launcher. On display was the spoiled casting of the Moorfields gun which following an explosion led to the move of the foundry to Woolwich and the birth of the Arsenal. When Firepower opened on the Arsenal site in 2001 it was closed to the public and housed an army boxing centre.
Railway gun. This large howitzer is the sole survivor of five such guns made in 1917-19; it is mounted on a proof carriage of 1886, on a section of railway track and stood outside the Rotunda. These guns were the largest pieces of ordnance ever to enter British land service. Railway-mounted guns were still in use for coastal defence in the last war. It was sent to Larkhill in 2008 and since then has gone to Utrecht.
Army Medical Reserve Store. This was built south of the Rotunda in 1902. Other buildings around the Rotunda included training workshops for the Ordnance College and other sheds. By the 1930s this was the Military College of Science – but none of this survived the Second World War. Later buildings included storage huts, a rifle range and dog kennels. After the war it was used by REME. This area was redeveloped for the 16th Air Defence Regiment and this became known as the Napier lines. Around this area grew up assault courses and other training facilities. In 2011 this included stabling for the Kings Troop which is heated by horse dung, and includes a riding school and pharmacy and a forge.
Observatory. The Royal Artillery Institution was a scientific society set up in 1838. They built an observatory as part of a global survey of 1840. This was too small and it was greatly extended and eventually a centre was set up nearer the barracks – but was destroyed in Second World War bombing. The older premises were also extended and became known as the Magnetic Office. Most of it was later demolished and the rest was converted to housing and a MOD police station. Nearby were two cannon of 1859 in a defensive emplacement, and two large coast guns of 1896 and 1902.
Green Hill Barracks. Terraces of married quarters built in the 1920s.
Congreve Lines. These are on the north side of the road. They were 19th gun sheds since replace with garages and in 2008 an Army Medical Centre and a welfare and childcare facility
Hawkins Terrace
An old footpath now accessing council properties and garages.
Heathwood Gardens
10 British Orthodox Church Secretariat
Hill Reach
Built in 1804 and called Hill Street until 1937
Greenhill Court. This was the Artillery Garrison School built in 1855. This was the First army school for children of soldiers. It included some provision for other use – assemblies, balls and so on and also provided educational facilities for adult illiterates. It has four large corner blocks, connected by lower ranges with the north range having the main entrance. There are two enclosed squares with, on the west square the iron framework of a former play shed building – which survives as a pergola. The site was converted into flats by Parkview Properties in 1989.
Repository Wall. Along The south side of the road is a continuous brick wall. It was built in 1807 to provide security for the Repository.
4 Village Blacksmith. This was originally a beershop called the Soldier’s Rest built in 1842 and rebuilt in 1902. Closed in the 1990s.
38 In 1874 a Soldiers’ Home and Mission Hall was built with a library, reading rooms, classrooms and a hall. This provided a service throughout the period and in the Great War. In the 1920s it became part of the Slazenger’s works and then Marksons’s Pianos. The site was redeveloped from 1967 and it was then demolished
39 Wellesley Pub. Rebuilt in 1938 and demolished for housing 2007. In the meantime it has been the Pillars of Truth Ministries
Electricity junction box on the corner of Pellipar Road. This has shows the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich coat of arms.
Kingsman Street
The northern end was Coleman Street from the 1780s until 1904. The southern end was King Street.
Railway Tavern. This stood on the corner with Belson Road in the early 1850s.
Kinveachy Gardens
The name comes from Kinveachy Forest, Invernesshire, once owned by the Maryon - Wilson family
79-83 bomb site caused by a V2 in 1945 when a rocket broke-up over Charlton
Little Heath
The Road was built by the Army Ordnance Board in 1802 to avoid the road over the Woolwich Common and its adjacent gunnery range. Its big red brick houses were built between 1890 and 1910.
40 Sheltered Housing. Built by Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich in 1956
93 The Woodman. The site of a beer house since the late eighteenth century and marking the boundary of Charlton. It is now a shop
74 the building has operated as a business premises – General Apothecaries, and also as an outlet for United Dairies.
Maryon Park
This square only covers the western portion of the park. The area was originally part of Hanging Wood and it is named after the local landowners – the Maryon Wilson family. Under the Metropolitan 'Open Spaces' Act, twelve acres of exhausted sand workings were given by Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson Bt. to the London County Council in 1889. The area was levelled, grassed over and opened as a park in 1890. Over the next thirty years more land and old workings were added by the L.C.C. Lodge. During the initial layout workers found the foundations of a kiln which used for burning bricks. There was also a deep well used by the brick makers in the area where the lodge now stands,
North pit – This lay north of the railway line and the tunnel, and south of the Woolwich Road. It now forms the northern part of Maryon Park.
East pit - This lay south and east of the railway line and Mount Street Tunnel. It now forms the eastern part of Maryon Park
The Mount. It is said this was once the site of a semaphore station relaying message to Shooters Hill. It was rented in 1838 by a Mr. Cox for ‘cultivation and recreation’. He built a summer house for entertaining his friends. It was also used by the Admiralty for adjusting ships compasses. It is here, in the film Blow Up, that the photographs of the shooting are taken and where David Hemmings returns to find a body among rustling trees.
Maryon Road
Maryon Road originally ran only from Little Heath to Woodland Terrace, the northern section being Mount Street. The road now includes Mount Street and then turns sharply east alongside the railway as far as Wood Hill.
St Thomas School. This was a National School built in 1854 fronting onto what was then Sand Street – now an area in side Morris Walk Estate. It was built in an old sandpit itself in what was then Mount Street. The school failed an inspection by the London County Council following 1902 legislation and was subsequently modernised and in 1932 became a junior girls and infants school. In the Second World War it was an emergency school for non-evacuees. In 1940 it was bombed and later burnt down in an unrelated accident. It was subsequently demolished
St.Thomas. This was designed by Joseph Gwilt. It was consecrated in 1850. A Byzantine basilica in brick and stone with four small corner towers. In 1982 it was changed with a youth centre in the nave and a floor inserted above. At ground level sliding doors lead to a separate a functional hall. The first Rector was Revd.Abraham de la Mare, uncle of the poet. St.Thomas' church was name after its main funder - Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson 6th Bart. It is also now used by the British Orthodox Church.
Churchyard has many 19th century and later tombs and gravestones. Where almost 4000 inhabitants have been buried. It closed in 1933.
217 St.Thomas's Hall. Built in 1956 and given in 1981 to New Charlton Community Association.
Admiralty Compass Observatory. This was built on Maryon Wilson land in 1844 to replace an observatory previously on Cox’s Mount in Maryon Park and which was used by the Admiralty for adjusting ships compasses. The observatory itself was an octagonal wooden building with conditions attached that nothing could be built close to it. It contained three pedestals, one with a magnetic transit instrument, one with a magnetic collimator, and one for testing other compasses. Another building, nearer the road was provided for offices and a house for the compass examiner, James Brunton. In 1870 it was moved to Deptford. Observatory cottage was subsequently rented out.
80 Rectory for St. Thomas’s Church acquired in 1888. Now in use as a guest house. Maps show a property on the footprint of this house considerably earlier than its neighbours. They also show a long garden with appears to be an octagonal building at the end. Interestingly it appears that this building is at the end of a footpath – now Hawkins Terrace – from Little Heath
Maryon Wilson Park
This square contains the eastern section of the park only.
Animal house. A small enclosure with several small buildings, one of which is used for keeping small mammals and birds.
Morris Walk
Housing Estate by London County Council. Built in 1965. The flats are a factory construction, made in Norwich. It was the first estate to be built using the prefabricated Larsun and Neilson industrialised system with Taylor-Woodrow Anglian components – which was used extensively thereafter. The outside of the building are finished with Norfolk flint and it is said that the industrialised system is embraced here as an aesthetic as well as being a building method. Problems developed and the estate was refurbished in 1984, and a decision to demolish made in 2006. Now demolished,
Parish Wharf Lane
Housing designed by Architype to Walter Segal designs, as a self build co-op using timber construction. The site was at one time the parish yard.
Pett Street
This was once called Ann Street
Woolwich Adventure Playground on the site of rail sidings used for Dockyard rail stock
Rail line into the Dockyard – this is now used as a pedestrian underpass
Railway
Mount Street Tunnel. This passed under Maryon Park and emerges under what is now Maryon Road, but which was Mount Street. It is 121 yards long and is unusual in that the tunnel profile changes. The eastern portal includes a stone string course and a peaked parapet. Around the arch ring is decorative brickwork and there are massive wing walls. The western portal is plainer. The parapet is much the same, but the arch is lower and with plain rings.
Dockyard Tunnel. This passes under Samuel Street and Francis Street and emerges the western end of Woolwich Dockyard Station. It is 121 yards long and has a decorative parapet and plain arch at its west end, like that at Mount Street Tunnel. The eastern portal is completely plain.
Coleman Street Tunnel. This runs from the east end of Woolwich Dockyard station under Kingsman Street. Its portals have a stone string course and a peaked parapet with plain arch rings. A buttress has been built against it on the down platform and it is 89 yards long.
George IV Tunnel. This passes under Rectory Place. It has plain portals and the parapet has been rebuilt with a contrasting band of brick. The tunnel is 238 yards long
Woolwich Dockyard Station. A pair of refuge sidings were positioned on the ‘’up’’ and ‘’down’’ sides, to the east and west of the platforms. The sidings were removed at electrification
Signal box. This controlled the sidings, and was at the east end of the ‘’up’’ platform.
Signal box. This was about 360 yards to the west of the station called ‘’Woolwich Dockyard’’. It was two-storey, made of timber and to SER design. It controlled a single-track connection with the dockyard the box was removed at electrification
Branch to the dockyard. This came off the up line in a north eastern direction, going through a tunnel before reaching the site.
Red Barracks Road
The Red Barracks were built 1858-60 by William Scamp, Deputy Director, of Engineering and Architectural to the Admiralty, on the site of Bowater House. It was originally Royal Marine Infirmary on the pavilion principle after the Crimean War and was one of the first two such hospitals built in England. It was in red brick with prominent yellow brick trim. In 1869 the building passed to the army when the dockyard closed. It was converted at first to a barracks for the Army Ordnance Corps. From 1888 it was an Artillery College, becoming the Military College of Science in 1927, and 1940 - 1967, offices of the Inspectorate of Armaments and the Royal Artillery Record Office. Greenwich Council then acquired it and in the early 1970s it was demolished
Repository Road
Entrance – following demolition of the North gate in 1968 and entrance was formed on the corner with Hill Reach. A Thunderbird missile was mounted on a platform adjacent to it.
Upper Gun Park. This was north of the 1802 gun battery. Building of 1830 put up as a store and magazine. The ground in front was levelled to park guns. There were additional buildings in the 1840s and 1850s and there was also a piggery for officer’s dinners. In the 1860s there was a saluting battery to the south called the Green Hill battery – the guns have gone but there platform are still there. After 1900 timber sheds for gun carriages were added. Six stone blocks to the south were until c.1990 used for a group of mortars which are now elsewhere. The drill ground is now a car park and the hillside used as a ski slope.
Mallet's Mortar. This stands on the site of what was the guard house at Long’s Gate on the corner with Hill Reach. It was designed by Robert Mallett in 1854 for use in the Crimean War and made in the Arsenal. It was test-fired in 1858, firing a 2,3591b. Shell a distance of 2,759 yards, but was never actually used. It is one of a pair the largest mortars ever made and weighing 42 tonnes. In front of it are 91 cm shells made for it. The other Mortar is now at Fort Nelson.
Army Ordnance Corps memorial. A drinking fountain with a fountain a bronze figure. This used to be here but has been moved to Camberley.
Afghan and Zulu memorial. This pile of rough hewn stones surmounted with copper trophies used to be here but has been moved to Larkhill. Its base is still in place and visible.
Royal Military Repository
The majority of Repository Wood is in the square to the east. Both Repository Road and Green Hill go through the area.
The Royal Regiment of Artillery was originally housed in The Warren on what is now the Royal Arsenal site but moved to Woolwich Common in the 1770s. The Royal Military Repository was set up here in following a fire at the Warren in 1802 not only as a store, but as a training area also – including training in manoeuvring field guns over rough ground. Sheds and other facilities were built and the landscape systematically adapted to provide an environment in which training in the use and movement of artillery in war could be undertaken.
Congreve’s Linear Training Fortification. This ran roughly parallel to Green Hill, between it and the Rotunda. Much of this is still extant
Long Pond. This is a reservoir, probably built in the 1750s to supply the Royal Dockyard. An octagonal brick conduit house was demolished in the 1950s as was an ice house built in 1809.
Mortar Battery was built here in the early 19th, filling in a ravine. This was south of the Upper Gun Park.
Monument to Maj Gen Sir Alexander Dickson. This was originally erected in this area, but has now been taken to Larkhill
Rushgrove Street
Rushgrove House. The house which is Difficult to see behind the high brick wall, was built about 1816 by a meat contractor to the army and then called Regent Cottage. It is brick with stone cornice and parapet. Enlarged in 1839 and extended to the north in 1855 when it was taken over as a residence for the Commander of the Marine Barracks. It was then probably largely rebuilt by the Royal Engineers. The army sold it in 1986.
Garden house. A small octagonal which belonged to an earlier house on the site and may be late 18th. No doubt once it afforded views of the river.
Stables single- storey 19th building, older than Rushgrove House and may have been built in 1805 with Rushgrove Cottage.
Samuel Street
A hilly area developed from the end of the 18th and almost entirely rebuilt after Second World War damage. It skirts round what was once called Vinegar Hill.
Unity Place. One of the earliest developments in the area built in 1796. Demolished in 1979 following a public enquiry.
110 Edinburgh Castle. Built on 1796 as part of Unity Place. A stuccoed pub, its structure basically pre 1800, but its frontage is mid 19th. This is now housing
Tower blocks as part of the St.Mary’s development area. Norman and Dawbarn 1959.
Sand Street
Now under the Morris Walk Estate, this ran parallel to Maryon Road/Mount Street to the east. It was originally a footpath going to a lime kiln
Sandpit Place
Sandpit Disability Resource Centre
Woodhill
This street includes part of Kidd Street
173-175 Wood Street Home. This was the first house used by the two women who eventually set up the Home for Mothers and Babies, seeing it as a training school for District Midwives. The building was later converted to flats as Woodhill Court
Woodhill Primary School. Built by the London School Board in 1883 on the west end of Reynolah Gardens. It was designed by Edward Robson and exhibited at the Royal Academy. , The south front has patterned windows, gabled dormers, and comer turrets. There is a care takers house, a play shed for girls and infants, a bloc of 1890 for technical training and stores and a girls' drill hall of 1907. There is also a 1980 built nursery school.
Woodhill Evangelical church. An independent Baptist church. The site was originally bought in 1946 to replace the eventually demolished Queen Street Church. It was not however built until 1958 when the compensation had been sorted out. The architect was Donald Robertson and there are additional halls at the back.
Woodland Terrace
The rear of these houses was specially changed for the Blow Up film shots taken in Maryon Park.
Woodrow
64-65 Woodrow Business Centre. The site was a series of stables which in 1856 became Charles Malings’ British and Oriental Racquet Manufactory. They designed and manufactured many racquets. Slazenger’s took over the factory in 1896 having moved from Manchester. The works expanded and he had a special purpose built factory constructed. By the 1920s they were using mainly machine production methods. In the 1940s Slazenger’s went and as Textile House it was a factory for making shoulder pads. The original house used by Malings is now flats.
Sources
Aldous. Village London
Booth. Survey
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Bygone Kent
Charlton Society Walks
Church of England Properties. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London,
Field. London Place Names
Greater London Council. Home Sweet Home
Glencross. Buildings of Greenwich
Greenwich Council. Web site
Hamilton. Royal Greenwich,
London Borough of Greenwich. Local List
London Encyclopaedia
Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. Housing brochure
Meulenkamp and Wheatley. Follies
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Smith. History of Charlton
South East London Industrial Archaeology.
Spurgeon. Discovering Woolwich
Spurgeon. Discovering Greenwich and Charlton
Summerson. Georgian London
Survey of London. Woolwich
Woolwich Architecture Trail
Woolwich Rail Tunnels. Web site
For this post in particular the 2012 volume of the Survey of London has been crucial. Congratulations and thanks to Peter Guillery and his team from Edith- who wishes she could reach your standards.
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