Thamesmead
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Post to the north Thamesmead pumping station
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.
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,
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.
Thamesmere
Leisure Centre a handsome building of 1986 in dark brick, incorporating
a swimming-pool;
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.
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.
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