Thamesmead

 This post is not finished and not been checked or edited

Post to the north Thamesmead pumping station

Post to the east  Thamesmead

Post to the south Thamesmead and Abbey Wood

Post to the west Tripcock Ness

Bentham Way
Galleons Reach Health Centre. building by Derek Stow of 1986, basically in vernacular style but with high-tech features and striking use of red. Behind the car park is a section of high brick wall remaining from an old Arsenal firing range
St.Paul’s Ecumenical Church. By Hinton Brown Langstone, 1976-8, for use by several denominations. , Roman Catholic and Anglican /Free Church. 
Hawksmoor Youth Club, two storeys, , 1976-7 by the G.L.C., several primary schools
Waterfield Secondary School.GLC 1876

Booth Close

Birchmere
Lake with marginal vegetation.  Built in the 1980s.  There is a breeding population of water birds. Anglers and fish.

Butts Wood
Butts Wood with Canal going through it. A delightful small area of birch woodland, fringed by Butts Canal.  
Tump 54 surrounded by a brick wall, and a moat now forming part of the canal. To the west is a high ridge, with fine views on all sides

Butts Canal
Green corridor which runs between the central area and the edge of Moorings

Carlyle Road
Central traffic route
Baptist Church, 1975-7 by K. C. Whiter Partners, 
Thamesmead Boiler House. Built c1970, it supplies heating and hot water to large parts of Thamesmead, and is one of the largest community heating systems in the country. It is a striking building with its six tall boiler chimneys.

Central Way
Linton Mead School.  building of 1986, 
Watermead School .By I.L.E.A. for the G.L.C., Education Architect Peter Jones, phase one completed 1977. Intended for 1,450 children. A steel-framed, mostly one-storeyed building with the image of a sleek and glossy high tech factory.

Eastern Way
1972: Foster Associates' warehouse for Modern Art Glass, 

Hammond Way

Harrow Manor Way:
London County Council housing 1968
The main offices of Thamesmead Town, includes an Information Centre. Flanking the entrance are two French guns of 1808 brought from Chatham Dockyard. By the car park at the rear there are a number of old guns some Spanish, Swedish, and French, as well as anchors and mooring bollards, mostly discovered during clearance work around the old Arsenal canal in Thamesmead West; they are mainly 18th and 19th century, but there are two culverins of 1650 & 1690.

Joyce Dawson Way
14 Cutty Sark

Lakeside
The new town starts abruptly. 1967-72. This was the first part to be built. The urban ideal is expressed at once by the spine block which runs alongside the road, and what remains in the mind are the contrasts between this instant linear townscape, the tower blocks, and the breathtaking sweep of Southmere, the largest of the five lakes. The spine block is of pale concrete slabs, relieved by wooden window-frames. Five storeys high, garaging at ground level, a central pedestrian route above. Front doors open into it from either side. The 266 dwellings range from small flats to three-bed roomed maisonettes, and this variety is reflected in the lively, well-proportioned elevations, with their change of heights, and boxed-out and stepped-back balconies. The design would seem to vindicate the decision to use an industrialized building system, until one learns that this block proved after all too complicated and costly for the Balency system adopted for the first stages elsewhere. The other disappointment is that the variety of the exterior is one of aesthetics, not of use. The spine block does not incorporate the different activities that one might expect in a traditional urban street. The end result, however cleverly designed, is simply high-density council housing. The deck admittedly has the advantage of leading directly to the local with only vestiges traceable of the original design with spine blocks.

Moorings
The third phase to be built of 1,418 dwellings, consultant architects Gollins, Melvin, Ward & Partners, 1972-7. Here the concept of the linear spine has been considerably simplified. It still functions as a tall barrier block between the traffic route and the lower housing behind, but is interrupted by the lesser roads, so that the deck becomes merely access for the upper flats instead of a continuous route towards the town centre. The plainer details betray the effect of cost-yardstick planning, while the curious arrangement of projecting living rooms squeezed in on the side away from the road reflects the top end of a density range of 70-140 h.r.a. Then still required. The spine block is constructed of the standard precast Balency panels produced by Cubitt's site factory, but by this time the drawbacks were becoming apparent: the lengthy preparatory site engineering work and the labour available for finishing processes could not keep pace with the factory production. So the later phases of Thamesmead were developed in much smaller sections, and by 1976 the industrialized system was given up altogether. In the lower areas of Moorings, behind the spine block, the formal grid has already been abandoned in favour of more picturesque grouping, using splayed angles, around a pleasant mixture of landscaped and play areas.
Moorings Reach. This housing development of 1994 has long terraces with a steep central gable. During excavations for Slocum Close in the development, a wooden platform from the New Stone Age c3,000 BC was discovered.

Octavia Way

Owen Close

Pitfield Crescent

Saunders Way

Thameside Walk
Landscaped, created in 1981.

Thamesmead
Thamesmead today bears but little resemblance to the ideal community visualized by its begetters. It was planned in 1965-6 as a new town on the riverside marshes by the G.L.C. and not directly financed by the government, although its conception owes much to new towns elsewhere. A population of 60,000 was envisaged. There was to be a proportion of private housing in order to avoid creating one of the pre-war single-class communities moreover, it should not become another commuter suburb, so industrial areas were allowed for, plus a centre close to the river with a large lake as part of the drainage of the waterlogged site. So this formed a network of five lakes and canals, which is one of the most original aspects of the master plan and one, which has remained a constant policy. This varied waterscape, gives Thamesmead its most distinctive sense of identity. The original plan, was set out when planners were aiming at emphatic contrasts between imaginatively landscaped residential areas, and tightly knit urban centres with Traffic-free streets and linear pedestrian networks. The buildings we have now are only a fragment of the original grand design. In the early 1970s there were drastic modifications. In the first two phases, is a vision of three-dimensional planning, then less flamboyant achievements of the 1970s, and then empty sites that reflect the disillusionment and stagnation of the early 1980s. The unifying feature became the network of green corridors around the waterways, incorporating footpaths and cycle ways, with community buildings spaced out along these routes. Plans for the central area were progressively simplified, and in 1978 the intricately interwoven multi-level schemes of 1967 and 1972 were abandoned and the pedestrian areas brought down to ground level among much less complex groupings of offices, shopping, and housing. Film buffs may be attracted to the area. It was here that Stanley Kubric's celebrated violent cult movie, Clockwork Orange, was made.
Waterfield School, 1977. An extensive one-storey building in a high-tech style with much use of vivid red and yellow
Thamesmere A large lake, with two prominent buildings on its banks.  There is a large population of water birds and some snakes. 
Wasteland adjacent to the lake.  This supports the Thames Terrace populations of burrowing hymenoptera.
Thamesmere Leisure Centre a handsome building of 1986 in dark brick, incorporating a swimming-pool;
Pumping Station c1976, with its spectacular group of four giant Archimedean screws, which remove excess water from the lake and canal network.
Thamesmere Extension.  Large lake, which will eventually be linked to Thamesmere. Retrace steps to the access footpath.
The Wat Tyler an attractive pub.
Shopping Centre. The centre, completed 1986, takes the form of a square, with one side occupied by an open air market. The Butts Canal runs right through the centre, with paved walks alongside. There are two foot-bridges over the canal, both with red pantiled roofs producing a pagoda-like impression. 
Tall clock tower, which is a prominent landmark; the clock and belfry are of 1762, from the Great Storehouse of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Deptford, and in 1987 were placed on top of a severely classical modern tower. The clock retained its original movement dating back to 1782. Subsequently it was found to be so irregular that the movement was disconnected from the four faces and an electrically operated self-correcting motor installed. Deptford still awaits the return of its clock.
Cannon - Opposite the tower, on the other side of the canal, is a fountain flanked by two British cannon of 1847 and 1853.
K6 type of red cast- iron telephone kiosks, imported into the area. The K6 type was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935, and incorporates rectangular panes of glass, whereas the K2 type, designed by Scott in 1927, has all panes of glass of the same size.
Tumps 55 and 56 causeways and centres where explosives were stored

Tawney Way

Thameside Walk
This is part of the Thameside Walk, which at present extends for over a kilometre between Tripcock Point in the west and Cross Ness in the east, though it does not yet reach either of these headlands. There are two parallel walkways the whole length - the low level path, alongside the river; and the high level path, on a raised bank which is part of the river flood defences. Both paths are wide and well landscaped, with special viewpoints and seating areas. Access to the west part of the Walk is by a public footpath, which starts just west of Linton Mead School and runs alongside the private road to the Thamesmere Pumping Station.
Thamesmere Pumping Station with its dramatic warning in large letters for Thames shipping - 'Warning - Thames Barrier Control Zone - obtain permission to proceed beyond this point. When amber light is flashing, navigate with extreme caution. When red light is flashing, STOP, all navigation prohibited.'
Titmuss Avenue
1 Wildfowler Pub
Section of Arsenal firing range
Twin tumps.  It consists of two banks with arms facing inward and moats round the edge with tracks over them. Explosives were stored in the heart of the tump. 
Thamesmere extension to lake has taken a bit of one of the tumps. An artificial lake, which attracts many species of wildfowl including snipes, redshanks, coots, shovelers, moorhens, mallard and tufted ducks, black-headed gulls and cormorants.

The Moorings
The local centre, 1973-6 by the G.L.C., which is more inviting than that of Lakeside. old people's centre on the r., a community room over the shops, and a pub. Brick with monopitch roofs. 

Waterfield Close
Section of high brick wall remaining from an old Arsenal firing range

Waterfield Gardens
96 dwellings, 1977-9 in the pleasant, uneventful neo-vernacular modes of the later 1970s.

Windrush
285 dwellings, 1976-80, in the pleasant, uneventful neo-vernacular modes of the later 1970s.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bromley by Bow

South Norwood

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town