This post has not been edited, checked or finished
Co-op Woods owned by Royal
Arsenal Co-operative Society. First outdoor school there in 1907, London County
Council. Became campsite. Site of building depot for the estate, which was all,
made on site, bricks, and all. Chalk mine under the site. Social services
building was the work canteen, entrance to mine at the back,
Gardens of big properties
to the east of the road have become part of the Abbey Grove
St.Benet, R.C. 1909
by F. Coyle.
Abbey Road
500 The Harrow.
Typical locals pub
Abbey Wood
Named for nearby Lesnes
Abbey and associated woods, which belonged to it.
Abbey Wood Road
St.Michael and
All Angels, 1908, Blomfield & Son.
Palanga House,
129-131 Rose Lea Villas,
Commonwealth Way
Co-op Estate.
Congress Road
Coop estate,
RACS bought Bostall Farm in
1899, characteristic names
Harrow Manor Way
Barge Pole. Unprepossessing exterior and a well
looked after interior and an expanding range of
real ales.
Hurst Farm Estate
Hurst Farm,
Hurst Woods
West of New Road
Chalk Pit,
Hurst Woods Pond
Fossil beds. Rich in
fossils it is the Blackheath Beds. National importance and SSSI
Pine Pond,
Knee Hill
woodland plus an ornamental
pond.
Greenwich and
Bexley Hospice on site
of Shornells, which had been built by architect of Woolwich Library, Henry
Church. In 1914 it became a convalescent home for officers and bought by Royal
Arsenal Co-operative Society as Jubilee Memorial 1918. Education and rest home.
Second phase of hospice 2003.
Bostall House
Belvedere Private Clinic
was The Cottage
Deneholes. three deneholes were examined 1906- 1908. The result was inconclusive. Each hole yielded six chambers in the
chalk. Some bones were found but no
dateable evidence
Lesnes Abbey
Fossil Beds, Blackheath beds, Site of Special Scientific
Interest,
'Lessness' might mean 'little nose'. Marked as ‘Leesing Heath’ on Bowen's map of c.1762 and as ‘Lesness
Heath’ on the Ordnance Survey map of 1805. Named from ‘Leosne’ mid 11th,
‘Lesneis’, ‘Loisnes’ 1086 in the Domesday Book. ‘Hlosnes’ in the late-11th,
‘Lesnes’ 1194. It has been suggested that it might be from an Old English word
‘hieosn’ - 'burial mound' or 'shelter'
in a plural form ‘hleosne’, later showing association with Old English. Thus
possibly 'the burial mounds' or 'the shelters'.
It was the name of one of the medieval hundreds of Kent, the meetings of
which were held here on the heath.
Lesnes Abbey Woods, is marked Abbey Wood on the Ordnance Survey maps of
1805 and 1888 - hence also the name of the residential district of Abbey Wood -
so called from the Abbey.
Lesnes
Abbey. Founded 11th June 1178 by Richard de
Lucy as an Augustinian abbey. Henry II's Chief Justifier to Thomas a Beckett, De Lucy
had Lesnes Abbey built as penance for Beckett’s murder, although
excommunicate, and retired in 1178. He died within months and
was buried in the grounds. The Order of St Augustine possessed large parts of
Plumstead and the monks reclaimed the marshland north of the abbey and it is
thought built the first river wall here. Farms were established and the Abbey prospered. In
1283 financial control
was taken from the abbot and given to the canons because of mismanagement. King Edward I visited it, on his way to
Canterbury in 1300. In 1381 Poll Tax
rebels from Erith came here on their way to join Wat Tyler at Blackheath taking
a boat from the canons to cross the river. In the 15th they got into debt because
of over-sale of corrodies. So it was ‘Grubbed up, but already stripped of its
honour -chewing meat and sniffing
women’. In 1525 Wolsey's agent, Dr
William Burbank, took possession and closed it down and the income used to set
up Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1537 the river banks burst and 2,000 acres were flooded and not fully
reclaimed till 1563 when an Act of Parliament allowed exiled Italian theologian
and engineer Giacomo Aconzio to reclaim part of the land. Within two years he
had embanked a quarter of the land and by 1587, three quarters. By 1630 the
abbey was described as a ruin, its stones used on other buildings. In 1844 it became Abbey Farm, 350 acres,
on the site of Abbey Grange. Sir Alfred Clapham excavated the site in 1909-13, but the remains were only laid bare after the
mid 1950s. In 1930 it
was bought by the London County Council
The abbey is believed to have been built from Normandy
stone but on the outer walls are blocks of flint. These were probably came from
the river that used to flow downhill from the south. Much of it is now low walls and foundations
but the sections of the abbey are signposted and the foundations provide a useful diagram
from which to learn the
layout. The church had an aisled nave in a plan
more normally Cistercian. The bases of several shafts remain, with leaf spurs of the under curling kind called 'waterleaf,
typical of c.1180. The Lady Chapel was east of the transept and built in 1371.
Other buildings lay on the north side
of the church for drainage reasons. On the side of the cloisters was the rectangular chapter house, North of this was the
dormitory and reredorter. The refectory can be recognized by the steps up to
the pulpit and the kitchen with a serving-hatch
through the wall. The only complete feature to survive is a doorway. There was
a separate infirmary block. There are a
few 13th tiles in a transept chapel. The
ruined walls support rare plants – rue leaved saxifrage.
Medieval harbour line
identified by deep channel to the west of the ruins,
Lesnes Abbey Wood was controlled by the Augustinians and
stretched as far east as Erith. Sweet chestnut trees used to dominate the
forest and can still be found along with sessile oak. Ancient areas of
heathland and acid grassland.. It is now a habitat of Metropolitan importance. There are
dangerous caves where there have been fatalities. There are important bat sites.
LCC Park opened 1939. Flower beds and mulberry,
thyme, leaved sandwort, black mendick, wall barley, harts tongue, black
spleenwort, maidenhair spleenwort, polypody male fern. Plaque to
antiquarian, Erwood. The site
is beautiful with simple but neat ornamental gardens and the massed trees of Abbey
Wood rising on mounds to the south. The daffodils are the best in London. There are also
wild daffodils, wild anemones and bluebells, and wild service trees.
West Wood, stream running
through it
Chalk pit
Hurst Pond. Was pond of
Hurst House and called Pine Pool. Ponds were once linked by rustic bridges.
Willow Pool and Fountain Pool now silted
Memorial to William Morris
Wilton Road
31 Abbey Arms
Comments