Lewisham Heritage

Sir Barnes Wallis

2012-02-01T09:57:00.001Z

Borough of Lewisham
Sir Barnes Wallis C.B.E. F.R.S., 1887-1979, Pioneer of aircraft design, lived here, 1892-1909.
Posted from London Remembers

Edwardian Lassie

2012-01-27T18:20:00.001Z

Edwardian Lassie:

If you enjoyed Lassie, then Rescued by Rover is the silent film for you! The title does rather give away the plot, but there's plenty to enjoy even without a great element of surprise. I particularly liked the distraught father's insistence upon donning a top hat before rushing out of the house, and the happy ending for all concerned - including the 'villain'.

Cecil Hepworth, director, was born in Beaufort Gardens, Lewisham. The son of a magic lanternist, he developed a film career and established studios in in Walton-on-Thames. While they churned out several films a week, this one was probably the first to include paid actors and was among Hepworth Studios' greatest successes. It even had to be re-shot twice as the original negatives wore out.

Hepworth's wife Margaret both wrote it and starred as the mother, while Hepworth played the father. Even the baby was their daughter Barbara. After all, why pay half a guinea to an actor when you could appear yourself? As for the real star of the film, Blair the dog, he was the family pet!

Posted from Caroline's Miscellany

Art that you can takeaway: Gallery delivers fun interactive project

2012-01-26T10:55:00.001Z

Art that you can takeaway: Gallery delivers fun interactive project:

Pic: Raziye Akkoc

Swing music greets you as you enter The Takeaway Shop, Amy Lord’s interactive art project. A gallery and educational space in one room, it brings together the art of bookbinding and bookmaking with the history of Deptford. Here you can make a book, have some tea and learn about what happened in an area rich with past delights and drama.

“I found loads of relics around Deptford and wanted to know where they had come from. People would tell me snippets about Deptford. They knew about the Russian Tsar living here and the author of King Kong being brought up here,” said Lord, 26, from Lewisham way.

From murder to bread riots, from the New Cross station fire in 1844 to tea and coffee merchants, Deptford’s full historical splendour is on show. But Lord’s project is not just about what she has found.

“Ideally I want people to bring photos I can copy and scan so the archive grows over time,” she explained.

With me were two freelance illustrators. Nick Marsh, 24, from Bow, got stuck in with the glue gun and some green and purple fabric. He said: “It’s a lot of fun. It gives you an excuse to play, and it’s nice to vent creativity.”

Cutting up pictures to put in his book, Richard Baker, 25, from Clapham explained why he came to the Takeaway Shop: “I moved to London about two months ago and wanted to get involved in more creative activities and meet some creative people.

“It just seemed pretty cool, to get involved and learn about the history of London.”

Funded by Arts Council England and IdeasTap, the artist’s project began to take shape in September last year: “I was seeing Deptford X [a contemporary visual arts festival from July to September] around the corner and I came to something here at number82.

“I’d been looking for a space to do a pop-up thing for a while and at the empty shops in Deptford, but no matter how many letting agents I spoke to, they said, ‘no I can’t get you in touch with the owner’.”

Originally from Newcastle, Lord moved to Lewisham a year ago having lived elsewhere in London. She studied theatre and performance design at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and has been interested in art since she was a child.

“I used to make a lot of mood-boards and things like that. My mum was generally quite crafty with me and we used to make puppets.”

The Takeaway Shop is based at number82, an independent project venue that offers exhibition space as well as development and education programmes. They also provide support for creative projects like Lord’s.

She hopes to do more workshops at schools after the project ends. It will serve up its last session on Friday, so catch it while you can.

Details:

The Takeaway Shop is open until January 27, 10.30am to 6.30pm on weekdays, 12-5pm on Saturday and Sunday.

It is open until 8pm on Friday as part of the South London Art Map tour. Email the artist at amy-lord@hotmail.com or book sessions online at www.thetakeawayshop.eventbrite.co.uk.

For more information about Lord and the project, visit www.amy-lord.com.

Posted from EastLondonlines

South London Black Music Archive

2012-01-24T10:20:00.002Z

South London Black Music Archive:

Opening tomorrow at the Peckham Space presents 'The South London Black Music Archive, an exhibition by artist Barby Asante that aims to celebrate, preserve and investigate South Londoners’ personal relationships with moments in black music history. Peckham Space will be transformed into an ‘open archive’ mapping objects which represent and explore the personal stories which comprise the fascinating history of the influence and evolution of black music in South London. Welcoming contributions from the public, this archive will include items such as books, magazines, concert tickets, posters, stories, records and CDs gathered and displayed with the reverence of museum pieces. Asante’s selected objects highlighting seminal moments in this history will share the same platform as visitors’ objects and stories depicting their own experiences through music and memorabilia [all donated items are returnable at the end of the exhibition].

One of the founding items of the South London Black Music Archive will be a ‘limited edition’ vinyl specially produced for the project as a result of the artist’s collaboration with young people from the Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT) mentoring programme. This artwork was created in association with Regeneration & Community Partnerships, Tate Modern with an exclusive record sleeve by graphic design collective Åbäke. Copies will be available from record shops across South London and at Peckham Space for the duration of the exhibition. It will feature Asante’s own take on the BBC’s ‘inheritance tracks’ for which members of LOT were asked to contribute songs that inspire them. Songs chosen include tracks by Adele, Michael Jackson, Edvard Grieg, Nigerian singer Prince Nico Mbarga, Bob Dylan and Lauryn Hill which will be represented as a soundscape alongside recordings of the young people telling the stories and explaining their selections'.

The South London Black Music Archive runs from 17 January – 24 March 2012 at Peckham Space, Camberwell College of Art, 89 Peckham High Street, London SE15 5RS (in the square by the library). Launch event 17 January 6-8pm, otherwise opening times are Tuesday-Friday 11am-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, closed Sundays, Mondays. Admission Free.

Other events include artists’ talk on 3rd February, 18.45pm at Tate Modern; Daytime Disco 10 March 2011 at the Ritzy, Windrush Square, Brixton. Further details on the website or call 020 7358 9645 / email info@peckhamspace.com

As a starting point, there's this great map 'a growing record of black music landmarks in South London from venues and record shops to street corners and radio stations'.

South London Black Music Archive Map (click to enlarge)

South London Black Music Archive Map - detail showing New Cross, Deptford etc.

South London Black Music Archive Map - list of Peckham. Brixton and Elephant places

I've got a few ideas about some things I could contribute to this exhibition, and some places to add to the map. Among places featured previously at Transpontine there's:

- St Pauls Crypt and lots of other places where Saxon Sounds played in early 1980s.
- Bob Marley and Johnny Cash in Peckham;
- Ariwa Gautrey Road studio;
- New Cross 1970s reggae shops;
- Amersham Arms and other 1960s clubs
- El Partido in Lewisham
- Dennis Bovell's Studio 80

Lots of other places too I haven't got round to writing about yet at Transpontine - the Lazerdrome in Peckham, Ram Jam in Brixton etc. Where else?

Posted from Transpontine

Amy Lord's Takeaway Shop

2012-01-22T16:22:00.001Z

Amy Lord's Takeaway Shop:

The Takeaway Shop is a project by Amy Lord at number82, the art space at 82 Tanners Hill in Deptford. Amy explains:
'What do you know about where you’re living, where you wake up every morning? Archives are often unruly, dusty masses of paperwork and words locked away to keep them safe. What if you learn about the most interesting bits straight away? And more importantly, be able to TAKE them AWAY with you? This will be a place for people to drop in and learn craft activities including book-binding and paper-making, and to collect real stories about the lives of the local residents, families and the history of the area. It will be a place to meet. People that come into the shop will learn how to create individual handmade books and be able to cut, paste and assemble their favourite bits of text, pictures, true stories, people and textures, to create THEIR own mini TAKE-AWAY archive.
I think it’s important to know the area you live in, it’s history, what came before it, and who lives here now. It’s the context in which you are positioning yourself, and your life'.

Amy Lord (standing) leads a book-making workshop

Essentially Amy has collated images and text relating to the history of Deptford and the surrounding area, from which people are invited to make their own selection. Materials and instructions for making your own books are provided.

The Takeway Shop runs until 27th January 2012, open from 12 noon - 5:00 pm on Sunday, 10:30am – 6:30pm weekdays (except Tuesday when it's closed), with a late night until 8 pm on Friday 27th January as part of South London Art Map tour. Workshop places are free, but you need to book in advance to be sure of getting a space at http://thetakeawayshop.eventbrite.co.uk/

The book I made
I enjoyed making a book, and was impressed by Amy's obvious knowledge. There have been a number of artist-based projects linked to aspects of Deptford's history in recent years, and sometimes they can be quite superficial appropriations. Amy has clearly put the hours in and developed quite a collection of material, much of it unfamiliar to me (and I've been studying this stuff for years). I think she is right that getting an understanding of the history of an area is a good way of orienting yourself in a place that may be new to you. That's certainly what got me started, and indeed Transpontine has been partly about sharing some of my developing understanding and learning more through interaction with commenters and other local bloggers.

One of the images used in the Takeaway Shop - Pyne Brothers drapers store in Lewisham High Road (now Lewisham Way) in 1891. This stood opposite where Lewisham Arthouse stands today (previously Deptford Library)

Detail of above photo - note the windows advertising Costumes, Mourning, Drapery and Dresses. Note too an entrance through to the New Cross Public Hall, a major public building of the time which must have been behind the store (where among other things a Grand National Christmas Fair took place in 1884)

Posted from Transpontine

Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

2012-01-19T11:18:00.000Z

Holocaust Memorial Day 2012: To remember the world's atrocities and genocides, two events are being held by Lewisham Council.

Boundaries

2012-01-19T10:28:00.001Z

Boundaries:
(Caroline's Miscellany)

This boundary post on Vesta Road, Telegraph Hill marks the historic border between Kent and Surrey. In the long years since county boundaries have been withdrawn, the post has developed a tired lean. Nonetheless, its message is still clear even if redundant.

Look more closely, and there's a smaller, stumpier boundary marker at its foot. The shorter sign reads 'Haberdashers' Company' and marks the edge of the guild's estates. The City of London Livery Company developed the area in the late nineteenth century, building houses "of a superior class" from here down to New Cross Road. Their presence remains visible locally, not only in the form of bollards but also in the Haberdashers' Aske's Schools.

Posted from Caroline's Miscellany

Thankfull Sturdee and the Deptford Connection

2012-01-19T10:20:00.004Z

The Jack-in-the-Green, Deptford

An exhibition of photographs from the Thankfull Sturdee Collection is now on display at the new Library at Deptford Lounge.
Opening hours - Monday-Friday 7am - 10pm, Saturday & Sunday 7am-7pm
Tel: 020 8314 6399

Thankfull Sturdee was born in 1852 at 209 Evelyn Street. In 1883 he married Catherine Sarah Bland when he was living at 27 Albyn Road, St. John's, London SE8. In 1903 they were living at 16 Bolden Street, not far from Albyn Road, but by 1910 they had moved to Brockley, London SE4, where they lived until his death in 1934.

In 1911 he joined the Daily Mirror as a press photographer. A keen photographer and local historian he recorded Deptford’s history in images. His negatives and two series of prints with his own notes were donated to Deptford Borough Library not long before he died. These are now held by Lewisham Local History and Archives Centre.

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/history/Pages/default.aspx

Copies have also been uploaded to Lewisham Heritage's Picasa site at https://picasaweb.google.com/lewishamheritage/ThankfullSturdeeAndTheDeptfordConnection

History Talk

2012-01-17T18:16:00.000Z

History Talk: Forest Hill Society Local History Evening

Thursday 23 February - 7.30pm – upstairs at The Hob

We’ve arranged for the fabulous Steve Grindlay to give a talk on an aspect of Forest Hill History. What Steve doesn’t know about Forest Hill isn’t worth knowing! Come and join us and learn more about this great place we live in.

Steve's talks are always popular and well presented. This is another great chance to find out more about the history of Forest Hill.

Posted from SE23.com

Catford Market cries put spin on folk album’s poem

2012-01-17T18:07:00.000Z

Catford Market cries put spin on folk album’s poem: EARLY folk songs about South London have been brought back to life.

Posted from The Mercury News

Love Over Gold mural update

2012-01-17T13:27:00.001Z

Love Over Gold mural update:

In December 2011 we contacted Lewisham Arts Service to ask for their assistance in the potential restoration of the Love Over Gold mural on Creekside. Cockpit Arts inherited the mural (originally painted in 1989) when they bought the building but had had to replace the rotting wooden doors which contained the centrepiece of the mural in October 2011 (see previous post). Brigid Howarth (Lewisham's Creative Industries Officer) responded with the suggestion of a meeting in the new year, and last week she met with artist Gary Drostle, Becky Kingham (Cockpit Arts studio manager) and Sue Lawes (representing Crossfields) at Lewisham's Civic Suite.

As the artist originally commissioned to paint the mural, Gary Drostle had asked specialist paint manufacturers, Keim, to survey it and estimate the cost of its full restoration (Keim's paints were used in the original). They came back with a figure of £10.5K – a lot of money to find! Gary advised that splitting the work needing to be done into smaller segments over a period of time – as funds became available – would ultimately cost much more, but he estimated that the cost of simply reinstating the centrepiece of the mural on the new steel doors would be around £1000, since the same expensive paints would not be required for this.

Brigid explained that funds available to her to spend on public art were a miniscule £2000, but that the landmark mural was one that the borough was very proud of, and she was prepared to commit £500 seed money to help get renovation started. Becky Kingham kindly offered to match this amount with a further £500 from Cockpit Arts. It was decided that Gary be commissioned to put back the missing part of the mural on the new doors.

Another £9.5K needs to be found through voluntary fundraising efforts on the part of Crossfields and Cockpit Arts over the next 12 months, with initial help from Brigid to put together a funding package. At a time of continued budget cuts in the most needy areas, mural restoration may come bottom of the list, but we hope that there is enough community support to back up any approaches made to those organisations (such as local developers) who may have the spare cash to commit to such a project.

The London Mural Preservation Society has also contributed some helpful ideas for fundraising which we hope to follow up in the coming months. Work will not start on the doors until the Spring, but once restored, the meaning of the Love Over Gold mural will again be apparent.

Posted from Crosswhatfields

Urban Free Festival 1992

2012-01-15T16:08:00.001Z

Urban Free Festival 1992:

'The Dewdrop Inn. Deptford. For all the old punks n freaks' is a great facebook groups with loads of photos of that pub from the 1980s and 1990s. The Dew Drop Inn was on the corner of Clifton Rise and Angus Street SE14 - sadly now converted to flats (I will do a post about it another time). As the pub faced on to Fordham Park it was the main drinking hole during the legendary Urban Free Festivals held in the park in the early 1990s, which attracted tens of thousands of people from all over London and beyond. I have taken some of the photos of the festival from the facebook group to give a flavour of it - hope nobody minds, this is priceless cultural history

I thought that the festivals ran from 1990 to 1995, but as this 1992 programme says Urban Free Festival III ('You can't kill the spirt') so maybe the first was actually in 1989.

The line up in 1992 included Back to the Planet, Brain of Morbius, The Seas, Sensor, Fat Dinosaur, Sidi Bou Said, Attila the Stockbroker, Moral Panic, The Rythmites, Levitation, Dr Phibes and the House of Wax Equations, RDF, Test Department, Co-Creators, Community Charge and many more. All this and the 'Free the Spirt Rave Big Top'.

Groups involved in organising the festival that year included South East Musicians Collective, SYLVIA (Support Your Local Venues and Independent Artsits), Conscious Collective, Dole House Crew (who squatted the Peckham dole office) and Sonic Relief with sponsors including The Dew Drop Inn, Music City, Catford TUC Centre for the Unemployed and Lewisham Council.

I believe these photos were taken by Seran Tahsin, who was not sure whether they are from 1991 to 1992. I think probably 1992, because there is a great bit of film footage from 1991 and the structures look a bit different.

I had some great times at those festivals will write some more about the later ones at some point. Any good memories or stories, leave a comment as always (and why was it the Deptford Urban Free Festival when it was plainly in New Cross?!)

Update: here's a couple of interviews with people remembering the festival (film was made by people from Deptford.TV Collective in 2007)

Posted from Transpontine

The Takeaway Shop

2012-01-12T09:28:00.001Z

The Takeaway Shop: No, I'm not talking about one of Deptford's many fried chicken takeaways; the Takeaway Shop is a project by Amy Lord which is running from 20-27 January at Number 82, the gallery at the bottom of Tanner's Hill.

Here's what she says about it:

What do you know about where you’re living, where you wake up every morning?   Archives are often unruly, dusty masses of paperwork and words locked away to keep them safe. What if you learn about the most interesting bits straight away? And more importantly, be able to TAKE them AWAY with you?  

This will be a place for people to drop in and learn craft activities including book-binding and paper-making, and to collect real stories about the lives of the local residents, families and the history of the area. It will be a place to meet.   People that come into the shop will learn how to create individual handmade books and be able to cut, paste and assemble their favourite bits of text, pictures, true stories, people and textures, to create THEIR own mini TAKE-AWAY archive.  

I think it’s important to know the area you live in, it’s history, what came before it, and who lives here now. It’s the context in which you are positioning yourself, and your life.  

82 Tanner’s Hill, Deptford SE8 4PN 
http://www.amy-lord.com/the-takeaway-shop/

20th – 27th January 2012  
(Closed 24th)
10:30am – 6:30pm weekdays, 12 – 5pm Sat & Sun

Late night Friday 27th January as part of South London Art Map tour (until 8pm)   
PLEASE EMAIL TO BOOK A SLOT [amy-lord at hotmail dot com]

Posted from The Deptford Dame

Deptford Copperas

2012-01-06T13:28:00.001Z

Deptford Copperas:

Copperas Street is a topographical reminder of one element in Deptford's industrial past. Copperas manufacture began here in the seventeenth century and continued until 1828. Although now largely forgotten, the industry was once a highly significant one.

Copperas, or iron vitriol, is a ferrous sulphate. It was made from iron pyrites stone: not the shiny, 'fool's gold' form but heavy, dull black pebbles found in London clay and on Kent beaches. Once manufactured, Deptford copperas was used to make black and red dyes. (Other possible uses included production of sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol, dye fixative, ink and gunpowder manufacture. It even became an ingredient of various patent medicines)

Sir Nicholas Crispe - whose main trade activities were in West Africa, and included the slave trade -established copperas manufacture in Deptford, off Church Street. The works had their own dock on Deptford Creek. An account given to the Royal Society in 1678 described the copperas bed as 'about an hundred feet long, fifteen feet broad at the top, and twelve feet deep, shelving all the way to the bottom.' The bed had clay and chalk at the bottom, with a wooden trough in the middle which led to a cistern. The iron pyrites stones were laid about two feet deep, then left to ripen for five or six years in the sun and rain before they began to produce a liquor of sufficient strength. New stones would be laid on top every four years to refresh the bed.

The liquor ran into a cistern which could hold seven hundred tons. The cistern was built from chalk-caulked oak boards; further boards sub-divided it to prevent leakage. Its liquid was pumped to a lead boiler some eight feet square where it was boiled with scrap iron for a week - thanks to improvements brought in by Crispe. Prior to his innovations, the process had taken about 20 days. This was expensive, as the fuel for this process was Newcastle coal.

Once sufficiently concentrated, the liquid was left in a cooler for a further two weeks for the crystals to form. Deptford's cooler was unusual in being made of tarras, a form of cement, rather than the more usual lead. It was twenty feet by nine feet, and five feet deep. The copperas would form five inches thick on the bottom and sides.

The copperas works are not simply a forgotten piece of local history or a byway of industrial history. Rather, researcher Tim Allen argues that they force us to reappraise the origins of the Industrial Revolution. Well before the development of the coal and steel industries in the north, these chemical works in London and on the Kent coast required capital investment and a long manufacturing process, and produced large returns. Copperas also contributed to many other industries, and was arguably a vital forebear of the modern chemical industry.

Image: Iron(II) sulfate [copperas], from Wikimedia Commons.

Posted from Caroline's Miscellany

A death in the marshes

2012-01-03T11:38:00.002Z

A death in the marshes:

A tragic story from 1877:

'At daybreak on Saturday morning a boy employed to frighten crows from a cornfield discovered the body of a gentleman up to the waist in water in the marshes forming a portion of Woolwich Arsenal, The body was subsequently identified as that of Mr David Darling, a pensioned officer from the Royal Arsenal, of 7 Amersham Grove, New Cross. The deceased was last seen alive at the grave of his wife in Plumstead Churchyard, and it is conjectured that in walking through the marshes he was overtaken by the darkness and got into a bog from which he was unable to extricate himself' ('Lost in a Bog', The Times, 5 March 1877)

The elements of Kent marshes, a churchyard and a frightened boy put me in mind of a story written not long before, albeit set further out in North Kent (believed to be based on the marshes around Cooling, beyond Gravesend):

'Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard... and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861)

Posted from Transpontine

History of Albury Street. Final Part.

2012-01-03T11:32:00.001Z

History of Albury Street. Final Part.:

History of Albury Street. Part 8

No. 37.
Old buildings in the neighbourhood with a romantic past such as Deptford’s are invariably associated with well known historical figures. It is reputed that Admiral Benbow lived at No. 20 Union Street, north side (Now number 37) and that Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton spent some time at No. 19 (now number 34) the house built by Reyalls and Pearce.

No. 34.
It is unlikely that Admiral John Benbow who died in 1702 ever lived in Union Street. He leased Sayes Court in 1696 for 3 years from John Evelyn, but does not appear to have been there much. His son, John Benbow the Traveller, who died in Deptford in 1708 and in great poverty, might possibly have lived in Union Street. No evidence has been seen to prove or disprove that Lord Nelson stayed there. It is of greater significance that from the first, Union Street was inhabited by men connected with the Royal Navel Dockyard. Lucas’s will mentions houses occupied or in the possession of five sea captains and three shipwrights. Union Street must have been with these people, the most affluent in the parish, in mind. As the mortgage made with John Loving, the block maker, suggests, it was these people who provided some of the capital needed by Lucas. The rate books which go back to 1730 on the south side, and to 1750 on the north side of the street, show that this link with the dockyard was maintained until it closed in 1869. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there are signs that the occupants of some of the houses were of a lower social order. For instances No. 24 Union Street on the north side in 1851, was in multiple occupation, the heads of the three families being a labourer and two sawyers. But even then fourteen occupiers of thirty-two houses were craftsmen employed in the Royal Naval Dock Yard or were master mariners. Perhaps the most striking thing at that time was the number of private schools or academies flourishing in the street, which seem to have occupied no less than four houses.

Albury St, North side still mostly intact.

The last vacant site in Union Street was filled in 1838 when No.7 on the north side was built. Already, No. 21 on the same side had been pulled down and replaced by a pair of houses first rated in 1829, but by-and-large, Union Street remained intact until the end of the nineteenth century. In the last quarter of the century Lucas’s own house on the south east corner and No.2 on the south side were demolished and replaced by a single building facing the High Street, and the public house (King of Prussia) was rebuilt. In 1882, Union Street was renamed as a part of Creek Road and in 1898, became Albury Street loosing its anomalous numbering. The final re-naming of the street was necessitated by the re-aligning of Creek Road to join, at its west end, Evelyn Street, thereby at last obscuring the field pattern shown in the map of 1623, cutting off the north east corner of James Browne’s land. But even up the time of the Great War, Albury Street remained very much as Lucas left it. But by 1921, the south side had been broken and two large gaps appeared in the terrace in the middle and at the west end.

Since the Second World War these gaps have been made wider and recently they coalesced leaving just four houses of the original twenty-three. The north side has been luckier. A few houses at each end of the terrace on this side have be altered or rebuilt and since demolished, but a sizable number of the houses remain These houses are among the few survivors in the whole of London from the first two decades of the eighteenth century and although the gaps in their ranks are to be regretted, the four houses on the south side of the street and the longer series on the north must be seen as one of the most important treasures architecturally and historically among domestic buildings in London.

My thanks A Quiney for allowing me to reproduce his thesis on Union/Albury Street.

Posted from Old Deptford History

New war memorial plaques unveiled at Hither Green

2011-12-18T19:05:00.000Z

New war memorial plaques unveiled at Hither Green: A SET of war memorial plaques to replace ones which were stolen for scrap earlier this year have been officially unveiled.

Creekside conservation area proposals

2011-12-12T10:16:00.001Z

Creekside conservation area proposals: Lewisham Council has now made more information available online about its proposals to create a new conservation area covering Creekside and the Crossfields estate.

The character appraisal document is certainly worth a read if you have any interest in the history of Deptford, there's quite a lot of research gone into this and it explains some of the history of Deptford Creek and its many wharves, as well as the development of the Crossfields estate which is considered a fine example of London County Council's early social housing estates and marks the start of the redevelopment of inner city slum areas.

The council is holding a public consultation event next year at the Creekside Centre, on 7 January 2012 from 11am-3pm if you want to find out more about the implications this move would have for the area.

There's also an online survey with about four questions with yes/no answer options which are fine for those of you whose responses are cut and dried. If you want to contribute something a bit more useful there's also a box at the end for any other comments, or of course you can write direct to the planning conservation office, the contact details for which are on the council's website.

Naturally the creation of a conservation area should in theory offer protection against the loss of Creekside's unique character - although some commenters have already raised the issue of lack of enforcement on our other main conservation area, Deptford High Street.

On the High Street we are seeing a creeping erosion of the characteristics that make it worthy of protection, and enforcement by the council seems to be sorely lacking. Landlords are ripping out old windows and shopfronts with impunity, whacking in their replacement frames and solid security shutters without even bothering to wait for planning permission to be granted. And when planning applications are rejected, as in the case of Paddy Power's alterations to the former Deptford Arms, the council does not seem to be willing or able to enforce its own decisions.

With proposed changes afoot, such as Workspace's plans for the Faircharm Estate and rumours that Railtrack wants to replace our landmark lifting bridge (which no longer lifts but still acts as a landmark) it is unsurprising that the council is looking at ways to protect Creekside.

However the existence of the Creekside 'village' development and the fact that the other side of the Creek is in Greenwich borough does raise several questions such as: is it too little too late? and what (if any) implications would it have for plans by Greenwich to redevelop the other side of the Creek?

Lewisham Natureman Mural

2011-12-07T09:47:00.000Z

Lewisham Natureman Mural:

I love this mural which popped up recently at the end of Cressingham road (SE13), by the railway bridge. Intriguingly it says underneath 'To the legend of the Lewisham Natureman'. Anyone know what that refers to? Nice little detail, there's a Lewisham crown logo at the bottom with a daisy growing out of it.

At his Wildcornerz site local artist and psychogeographer Jack Thurgar refers to 'The mysterious city explorer, specimen collector and shaman Solomon Wild... Both online and in real space i look for any trace of him. He is thought to be connected in some way to a strange old legend of 'The Lewisham Natureman', thought to have its roots in South East London's local graffiti scene. The Lewisham Natureman has never been seen and is only represented by a small carving, that can be found [normally hidden] in the wastelands, train sidings and rivers of the borough. This has given way to the belief that this character is not human at all but actually a spirit of the wild; a contemporary Green Man or Hern the Hunter, wandering in the wild, no-mans lands of south london. Some say Solomon is studying / hunting this legend, others say they are the same character'.

I suspect that Solomon Wild and the Lewisham Natureman are alter-egos springing from the artist's mythopoetic imagination (or shamanic journeying if you prefer), rather like Southwark's John Constable/John Crow. But that's all good. There's loads of interesting stuff at that Wildcornerz site, including films of wandering up the River Quaggy and this piece filmed on last June's Summer Solstice in wasteland off Baring Road, SE12:

The Lost Figures of Lewisham

2011-11-29T18:29:00.000Z

The Lost Figures of Lewisham:

On Robert Elms' BBC London radio show last week there was some discussion of the 'lost figures of Lewisham'. Back in the 1980s there was a clock in Lewisham shopping centre featuring these figures, which apparently were revealed on the hour.

The figures represented 'Characters of South East London' and were designed by the artist Sam Smith (1909-1983). Not sure exactly when the clock was removed, but on the radio show a couple of people came forward and revealed that they had independently salvaged a couple of the figures - if more can be found maybe there can be a reunion in the shopping centre!

Robert Elms' show is one of those threatened by cuts to BBC local radio. I can't imagine any other radio show running an item like the above, but the point is not just about keeping Robert's show going. The issue is whether BBC London is going to have any meaningful London content at all. Cheap generic shows are no substitute for programmes knowledgeably informed by what is happening in London, its history and its present - and reflecting the fact that London is not just Westminster and the City but places like Lewisham and New Cross.

There is a Save BBC Local Radio day of action on December 1st, including a 6 pm protest at Broadcasting House.

(photos courtesy of Robert Elms' facebook page, posted by listeners)

English Heritage say Convoys Wharf development fails to grasp the site’s “historic significance”

2011-11-28T15:48:00.000Z

English Heritage say Convoys Wharf development fails to grasp the site’s “historic significance”:

Convoys Wharf on the Thames pic: Denna Jones

The development of Convoys Wharf has come under pressure from English Heritage who have criticised plans for failing to take into account the site’s history, adding to concerns held by local residents and Lewisham council.

The 40-acre site in Deptford is the subject of a multi-billion pound regeneration planning application that would transform the area into a complex of high-rise apartment blocks and offices.

But English Heritage conservation feels that the plans, currently under public consultation, ignore the area’s historic features.

In a letter to Lewisham council earlier this month, English Heritage said they were “particularly disappointed that the opportunity to re-engage with the site’s outstanding historic significance has not been grasped.”

They say the importance of the remaining features of the wharf, including the large basin that connects the river and a Victorian warehouse, are sidelined, and that the history of the former Royal Dockyard, built by Henry VII, was not considered in the creative process.

The letter goes on to criticise the “rectilinear, grid-like planning” as well as proposals to include three towers of over thirty storeys, which would obscure the panoramic view from Greenwich Park.

A spokesperson from English Heritage told EastLondonLines: “The form and scale as currently proposed in this application fails to take account of the context and location. The current approach does not offer a legible link with the river and the former activity of the site.

“We believe the development should have a relationship with the local scale of Deptford and Greenwich and not to the metropolitan scale of, for example, the City or Canary Wharf”

These concerns are shared by Lewisham Council’s planning department. In a letter seen by EastLondonLines to Hong Kong-based owners Hutchison Whampoa, the head of planning says that the plans are “not, by a long way, a sufficient response to the history of the site and associated areas of historical significance.”

As previously reported by EastLondonLines, residents have also complained over the lack of affordable housing provided for in the plans.

In the past Lewisham Council have declined to comment as a formal decision is yet to be made on the application. However, this official discontent is likely to bolster the case of local residents and historians who feel that there has been inadequate public involvement in deciding the future of the wharf.

William Richards, owner of the Master Shipwright’s house in Deptford which borders the development, told EastLondonLines that the main problem is that designers are disconnected from the context and history of the site.

Although he disagrees with the current proposal, he believes there is the potential for a modern development to reflect Deptford’s historical assets.

He said: “It is not too late to progress. With good architects and a new process of design, the owners can still produce a more relevant and still profitable scheme by engaging with the historic assets on the site and using the energy of local initiatives to create a really special new quarter for Deptford and London, of which everybody can be proud.”

A petition launched by local blog ‘Deptford Is…’ in opposition to the plans has gathered more than 200 signatures, while over 150 objections have been lodged to the council against the application.

Hutchison Whampoa were contacted but declined to comment.

Additional reporting by Michael Pooler

John Betjeman and Lewisham Town Hall

2011-11-24T11:50:00.000Z

John Betjeman and Lewisham Town Hall:

The current Lewisham Town Hall in Catford (above) was built in the late 1960s to replace an older building on the same site. The older Lewisham Town Hall, designed in a Gothic Revival style by the architect George Elkington, was built in 1875 and was a grand affair:
The Town Hall was joined in 1887 by Saint Laurence's Church (to the left of the Town Hall in the following picture).

It actually ceased to be the Town Hall in 1932, when a new Town Hall building was officially opened by the Duke of York (Times, 23 June 1932). That building, which still stands as the Broadway Theatre, was designed to complement the old Town Hall, hence some of its gothic details.

The old Town Hall and the Church were both demolished in 1968, the former despite a campaign to save it that involved, among others, the poet John Betjeman:

'At the age of 13, William Norton, the son of a police sergeant and a Post Office worker, wrote to John Betjeman warning him of the impending destruction of Lewisham’s Victorian Gothic town hall. In no time Betjeman put William on to the recently founded Victorian Society, urged him to organise a petition, wrote him several long letters alerting him to other fine churches in Lewisham and Catford and then turned up at the town hall to be photographed with the boy. Despite all this, Lewisham town hall was demolished. It was still 1961, after all. England still slept. Betjeman at the same time was vainly battling to save the Euston Arch and the great glass rotunda of the Coal Exchange. Who else would have turned aside from those gruelling national campaigns to help an obscure schoolboy in one of London’s dimmest quarters to try and save a grimy town hall by George Elkington (no, I hadn’t heard of him either — his town hall in Bermondsey has been demolished too)? [Ferdinant Mount, Review of Betjeman: The Bonus of Laughter by Bevis Hillier, Spectator, 13 Novemeber 2004).

Betjeman spoke of the campaign in a television interview, and is pictured below with William Norton outside the Town Hall:

Wonder what William Norton did when he grew up? If you're out there Willliam, it would be interesting to hear your memories of that time.

Two First World War Stories

While researching this post, I came across two local stories from the First World War, both rather sad and involving women workers in or around Lewisham Town Hall:

'Woman Omnibus Conductor Killed: Louisa Rushen, aged 22, a woman omnibus conductor, employed on one of the South London services, in walking round the front of her omnibus on Sunday night near the Lewisham Town Hall, was knocked down by a passing motor-car. Miss Rushen, whose home was at Fort Cottages, Westerham, Kent, died in the Miller Hospital’ (Times, 25 January 1916)

'German’s Daughter Sentenced: At Greenwich Police Court yesterday Emma Ada Clements, 23, clerk, was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment without hard labour for stealing a small sum of money from a cloak-room at Lewisham Town Hall, where she was employed as a temporary clerk. It was stated that her real names was Klemm, and that she was the daughter of an unnaturalized German, and that she had twice, when applying for work in Government departments, stated that her parents were British-born' (Times 29 November 1917).

Europe's archived trove of rare Great War documents goes online

2011-11-18T09:41:00.000Z

Europe's archived trove of rare Great War documents goes online:

Libraries across Europe are collaborating to make 400,000 documents available to the public

Remembrance Sunday will be marked for the first time today without the presence of a surviving serviceman from the Great War. Claude Choules, who served in the navy, died in May, aged 110.

Living witnesses to the war may no longer be with us, but British archives still hold a wealth of original documentation from those years and, although much of it is in danger of crumbling away, the range of testimony held by the British Library helps to broaden understanding of the war.

In an unprecedented effort to make this material available to the widest possible public, the library is to join forces with 12 European partners – including national libraries in Rome, Berlin, Paris and Copenhagen – to put key documents and images on the internet. The new three-year project, Remembering the First World War, will be finished in time for the ceremonies to mark the centenary of the outbreak of war in 2014.

More than 400,000 first world war source materials, many of them rare and highly fragile due to the deterioration of the paper on which they are printed, will be freely available online for the first time. Those interested in finding out more about the conflict will no longer have to apply to see documents in person in the reading rooms of Europe.

"It is particularly important that this project includes organisations that were involved in different sides of the conflict," said Jamie Andrews from the British Library, who is leading the British project.

"We feel this is a special and important collaboration. There is a lot of surprising material here, including the letters and postcards of German prisoners of war.

"Our German partners will also be releasing material about British soldiers held over there, as well as a lot of the fairly crude forms of propaganda that Britain dropped by balloon behind enemy lines."

The digital collection will include books, newspapers, trench journals, maps, music sheets, children's literature, photographs, posters, pamphlets, propaganda leaflets, art, religious works, medals and coins.

Sir Andrew Motion, the former poet laureate, is backing the launch of the scheme this weekend. "This is a tremendously important project that will transform access to Europe's shared cultural heritage in the run up to the anniversary of the war's outbreak in 2014," he said.

For Andrews and his team, one of the highlights is the insight offered into levels of censorship across the theatre of war. For instance, more than 130,000 Indian soldiers served on the western front with the wounded being treated in British hospitals. An office was set up at Boulogne under Captain EB Howell to censor all "Indian mails" going in and out of France.

The library's collection includes many letters that came under his scrutiny and which provide vivid testimony of how the Indian soldiers viewed the war, France and Britain.

The letters also reveal how their authors sought to evade the censor's pen; a lull in shelling, for example, is described with the phrase "the rain has stopped".

Vanessa Thorpe

What the experts are saying: Tom Turner, landscape architect

2011-11-14T11:22:00.000Z

What the experts are saying: Tom Turner, landscape architect: Eminent landscape architect, academic and writer, currently working at the University of Greenwich, Tom Turner, was moved to post about Convoy's Wharf on his blog Gardenvisit.com. He gave us permission to reproduce his article here.

John Evelyn's garden at Sayes Court and the Convoys Wharf Urban Landscape masterplan

Steen Eiler Rasmussen concluded the second edition of his brilliant book London: the Unique City with these prophetic words: ‘Thus the foolish mistakes of other countries are imported everywhere, and at the end of a few years all cities will be equally ugly and equally devoid of individuality. This is the bitter END’.

So what would he think of the Hutchison Whampoa Master Plan for Convoys Wharf? He would detest it, utterly.

The architects are Aedas, who claim that ‘We provide international expertise with innate knowledge and understanding of local cultures’. Evidently, this expertise does not extend to the local culture of Deptford – unless they think it is the same as the culture of London/England/Europe or the World.

The planning consultants, let it be recorded, are bptw. Their website promises ‘responsible architecture executed with imagination’. Maybe the firm can do this. Maybe the client’s brief made it impossible at Convoys Wharf. Or maybe what the project required was a firm of Urban Landscape Designers, rather than a firm which sees its main business as architecture.

The architecture makes one yearn for the imaginative approach one sees in Dubai. The spatial pattern resembles that of the Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke, the planting design is what Chris Baines calls ‘a green desert with lollipops’. I am not an admirer of the scheme – and I much regret that John Evelyn’s design for Sayes Court has been cast into what Leon Trotsky called ‘the dustbin of history’.

It is a quotation which gives us a lead into the origins of the Convoys Wharf design. In days gone by it might have graced a Parisian banlieue (like Sarcelles), a suburb of East Berlin – or even Moscow itself.

With specific regard to the Sayes Court Garden, we should remember that (1) Evelyn, beyond doubt, was the greatest English garden theorist of the seventeenth century (2) Evelyn played a key role in introducing Baroque ideas on garden design to London (3) the Convoys Wharf site would never have come into public ownership were it not for the generosity of John Evelyn (4) Sayes Court was very nearly the first property to be saved by the National Trust.

THEREFORE the Convoys Wharf site demands a context-sensitive urban landscape design.

New Cross Fire Book Launch

2011-11-08T14:22:00.000Z

New Cross Fire Book Launch:

Earlier this year there was a series of events to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1981 New Cross Fire, when 13 young black people died in a fire at a birthday party (for background information see this earlier post).

Back in January there was a major commemorative evening at the Albany in Deptford, a church service, and the unveiling of a plaque at the scene of the fire (439 New Cross Road), attended by several hundered people.

Later this month, there's a launch coming up of the book The New Cross Massacre Story: interviews with John La Rose. The book was first published in 1984 by the Alliance of the Black Parents Movement, Black Youth Movement and Race Today Collective. John La Rose was the Chair of the New Cross Massacre Action Committee, which mobilised the black community in the aftermath of the fire. The reprint by New Beacon Books and the George Padmore Institute contains a new prologue by Linton Kwesi Johnson and an epilogue by Gus John that explore the significance of the period, the event and subsequent developments. LKJ is among those who still believe that the fire was caused by a racist attack (a view some of the victims' families now dispute) - he writes:

'The most significant date in the history of the black experience in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century is the year 1981. It began inauspiciously in the early hours of 18 January with a racist arson attack on a sixteenth birthday part in south-east London, which resulted in the deaths of thirteen young black people and twenty-six revellers suffering serious injuries. The response of the police, aided and abetted by sections of the media, with the implicit approval of the government, was to use their power to deny justice to the survivors of the fire, the bereaved and the dead. The shock, sorrow and outrage felt by black people throughout the country found expression in concrete political action. On 2nd March, some six weeks after the fire, the New Cross Massacre Action Committee, chaired by the late John La Rose, mobilised 20,000 people for a march through the streets of London. That Black People’s Day of Action was an unprecedented demonstration of black political power. It was a wake up call for the authorities, a watershed moment that signalled a paradigm shift in race relations in the UK. Moreover, with the Day of Action came a leap in Black British consciousness of the power to bring about change...

The New Cross area, in particular the London borough of Lewisham, was notorious as a hotbed of National Front activism and racist arson attacks. In 1977, the Moonshot, a black youth and community centre, was fire-bombed. That year Lewisham also witnessed street battles between National Front supporters on the one hand and anti-racists from the Anti-Nazi League, supported by black youths, on the other. In 1978, the Albany Theatre in Deptford was fire-bombed in a suspected racist attack, as was the Lewisham Way Centre in 1980. The New Cross fire was, therefore, not an isolated act of barbarism, but the latest and most devastating in a history of racist terror.

There were two inquests into the New Cross fire, both of which returned open verdicts. If the first, held with indecent haste just three months after the fire, was a travesty of justice where crucial evidence was suppressed by the coroner, then the second inquest, held in 2004, was a farce, as no new evidence was produced. However, on both occasions the police failed to convince the jury that the fire was the result of ‘black on black’ violence... '

Th book launch takes place on Thursday 17 November at 6.30pm, George Padmore Institute, 76 Stroud Green Road, London N4 3EN. The New Cross Massacre Story is available from New Beacon Books price £5.99; [£7.00 including p&p].

Heart of Deptford: a site of collaborative genius

2011-11-08T14:19:00.000Z

Heart of Deptford: a site of collaborative genius: Developer Hutchison Whampoa have boldly declared their thorough disregard for the nation's maritime history in their proposals for the site of the former King's Yard at Deptford. Even before archaeology has begun on the John Rennie works to the basin
Hutchison Whampoa's recently submitted master plan to Lewisham Council shows their intention to destroy the opportunity of reintegrating the listed Olympia building with the area of the dockyard's great basin, also preventing the river related building from even being seen from the river.

Hutchison Whampoa have completely disregarded English Heritage guidelines on Maritime and Naval Buildings (2011) that marks out works by John Rennie for a high grade of protection and describes sites such as the basin, basin slipways, basin slipway covers and caisson gate infrastructure, all works by eminent Georgian and early Victorian engineers, as "sites of collaborative genius." The developer's design team have also ignored English Heritage London Area Committee comments from 2003 and 2005 requesting that the Olympia building be viewable for the river. Hutchison Whampoa have dispensed with the Richard Rogers proposal which was to make a public plaza on the site of the basin.
The basin is where the Mary Rose was harboured in 1517.

Deptford is the first of the royal naval dockyards to have a wet dock or basin. This technology was exported to the outlying dockyards such as Chatham c.1650. Under the administration of Sir George Carteret, Deptford's skilled workmen and naval dockyard officers built the wet dock at Chatham.

The basin is also where John Evelyn carried out the first diving bell experiments,

where Cook hoisted the pennant on board the Endeavour in 1768,

where Bentham built the dry dock in 1802 with Edward Holl,

where in 1814 John Rennie rebuilt the basin entrance with the latest technology of a caisson gate,

where Capt. Sir William Denison built the slipways to the basin

and George Baker &Sons built the slipway covers (Olympia Building)

and George Biddel Airey tested the effects of ships magnetism on navigation instruments.

where in WWI and WWII supplies were sent out to troops stationed across the world.

thanks to War Relics Forum for use of the image

The basin is the heart of the dockyard, the dockyard is the heart of Deptford. It is most likely the reason that Henry VIII established the dockyard here in 1513 as the basin provided shelter for his ships from the tides and dangers of the river.

Hutchison Whampoa would rather you didn't even know it was there. The proposed buildings cut right across this most important of London's maritime heritage assets. If you don't like the l

ook and the sound of this attempt to erase the nation's maritime history and would prefer to see Deptford's history treated with more respect then you can write to Lewisham Planning emma.talbot@lewisham.gov.uk malcolm.woods@english-heritage .org.uk and mark.stevenson@english-heritage.org.uk and visit the blog deptfordis.org.uk to sign the petition for a better future for Deptford, for London and for the nation's maritime history.

Notes on visit to Deptford Dockyard

2011-11-07T09:28:00.000Z

Notes on visit to Deptford Dockyard: Deptford Dockyard Excavations – Notes of site visit Saturday 8 Oct 2011

On 8 October 2011, I was able to join a site visit to see some of the archaeological excavations that Museum of London Archaeology have been undertaking since August at Convoys Wharf. I was accompanying Ann Coats, the Secretary of the Naval Dockyards Society. With a party of local people, we were conducted round by Duncan Hawkins of the consultant archaeologists CgMs. The site has been cleared of most standing buildings and there was a large mound of excavated soil which will be filled back into the excavations, and a not quite so large pile of crushed concrete from the ground slabs and modern building foundations that had overlain them. The excavations we saw open were very impressive.

At the southeast edge of the site, trenches had been dug at the inner end of the Great Dock, which was rebuilt at some time before 1808. One trench had extended right across the dock while some pits were more localised, but all had been filled in again. We learnt that the masonry walls in this part of the dry dock had been truncated for the foundations of a large cold store to a depth of 4 metres below ground. This is most disappointing, considering the almost intact masonry walls found in the 2010 evaluation trench at the river end of the dock. The intervening length, including the location of the gates that (unusually for such a date) divided this dock into two, is under a standing warehouse so may not be explored for some time.

North west of that, the site of the Storehouse, part Tudor and part early eighteenth century and scheduled as an Ancient Monument, had been almost completely laid bare, excavated down to natural soil (mostly gravel) beneath the basement floors, but leaving the structures upstanding. The result was an expanse of more than 1 1/2 acres of red brick walls, all truncated to about 1 metre below ground level in the mid 20th century. Some silt-filled depressions marked the sites of earlier small creeks.

Beyond there, near the riverside, two slipways rebuilt in the19th century had been excavated, revealing yellow stock brick walls and planked floors of reused ships' timbers. In No. 5 Slip, the walls had a brick facing backed by lime concrete, and brick counterforts projecting behind. The stumps of the posts for the wooden roof could be seen. The local researcher Chris Mazeika has found this slipway was rebuilt circa 1855. Following disuse as slipways, presumably after the Dockyard closed in 1869, level timber floors had been inserted for other use, for which the supporting timber piles remained.

A large trench had exposed a section of the wall of the Dockyard Basin, about midway along its eastern side. Its nineteenth-century rebuilding was revealed as a substantial stock-brick wall, as I had expected. Chris Mazeika has found that the engineer John Rennie was involved in this from 1814 onwards. The wall had been truncated about 2 metres below ground, at which level it was perhaps 1.2 metres thick. The depth of the Basin and its walls will be proved by further digging. Behind the 19th-century basin wall, the tie-back timbers of earlier basin walls had been found and taken away for dendro dating. Descriptions in earlier archaeological appraisals, based on very limited evaluation trenches, had suggested a 'lining', in poor condition, which is not borne out, but this excavation well demonstrated the considerable truncation of the remains, at a level that matched the underside of a reinforced-concrete foundation beam from a recent warehouse.

The area of the entrance to the Basin has yet to be excavated. We must await news shortly of whether walls survive to near ground level there, as at the entrance to the Great Dock, although I fear the destructive warehouse extended over the site of Rennie's caisson gate of 1814.

We visited the interior of the 'Olympia' building, the grade-2-listed 1840s shipbuilding shed where the evaluation in 2010 of Slipways 2 and 3 had found them largely intact (now backfilled).
We finished on the site of Sayes Court, where recent excavations (now backfilled) had revealed the foundations of the post-mediaeval manor house. The 'archaeological update' issued by the intending developer, Hutchison Whampoa, following the 2010 evaluation had implied they no longer existed.

These large-scale excavations have revealed much more than the restricted evaluation trenches had previously done. They ought to dispel the impression given in the 2010 'archaeological update' that the archaeological remains were limited. There is some further info. on the MOLA website at http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/News/ConvoysWharf.htm

We may note that the Scheme of Archaeological Resource Management, which has been agreed between Hutchison Whampoa, English Heritage and the London Borough of Lewisham, contains sensible measures to protect the archaeology of this exceptional site – I have copied an extract from Section 7.0, entitled 'Preliminary advice on avoiding archaeological impacts through design' :-

7.1.1 It is proposed that the position and extent of the archaeological remains will be fixed through supplementary evaluation (following appropriate Scheduled Monument Consent), followed by mapping/surveying to both archaeological and engineering standards.
7.1.2 As the supplementary evaluation proceeds the significance of the archaeological remains encountered should be kept under review by the LBL, EH, consultant and clients representative.
7.1.3 Where significant archaeological remains have been identified on the preliminary evaluation or are identified in the supplementary evaluation, a design review will then be undertaken of the proposed development layout and design. Preservation in situ will be achieved by the reuse of modern foundations, or by utilising areas of partial archaeological absence (through truncation) for new foundation locations.
7.1.4 Where isolated (or highly fragmentary) and low value archaeological remains are identified there may be arguments for preserving such remains by record rather than in situ. Such preservation by record will be agreed in advance between the LBL, EH, consultant and clients representative.
7.1.5 Where archaeological remains are identified to be wholly absent, a review of the supplementary evaluation results will be implemented and the need for further archaeological mitigation or otherwise agreed between the LBL, EH, consultant and clients representative.
7.1.6 The objective will be to use historic assets to inform the design process and preserve in situ the archaeological remains.
7.1.7 At this stage a number of measures to avoid archaeological impacts can be identified.

The supplementary evaluation comprises the programme of excavations now in progress and others which will take place in the future. Undertaking these excavations is a significant investment on the part of the developer. The measures recommended to avoid archaeological impacts include the 'encapsulation' of remains underlying buildings wherever possible. 'The possibility should not be excluded that certain remains may be encountered that are of such quality and significance as to justify display within the context of the new development', but dependent on their suitability in terms of condition.
New basements and undercrofts should be wholly avoided except where archaeological remains are found to be absent. Other measures include the designing of pile positions to avoid remains, the raising of ground levels to provide space for services and footings and the use of existing service runs and areas of disturbed ground for the routing of services. The full recommendations are to be found at
http://www.convoyswharf.com/pdfs/Volume_2a_Technical_Appendices/2A-5-Archaeology/CW2-2A-2-5_Archaeology_Vol_II_SARM_Rev_5_Jan_2010.pdf

Malcolm Tucker
9 October 2011, rev. 26 Oct 2011

Appendix of Heritage Assests
(with thanks to Chris Mazeika

Heritage Assets of the former King’s Yard, the Royal Naval Dockyard 1513-1869, the Metropolitan Foreign Cattle Market 1871-1914, His Majesty’s Supply Reserve Depot 1914-1950 and Convoy’s Wharf 1922-2002

Officers’ Residence and Offices
Master Shipwright’s House
Dockyard Officers’ Offices
Office of the Timber Master
Office Clerk of the Survey
Offices for drawing
Model making rooms
Master Shipwright’s Repository
Master Shipwright’s office for drawing
Officers’ Gardens fountains/paths/parterres c.1774

Great Georgian Dry Dock
Stone built Head dock and timber gates c.1800
Capstan and penstock housings
Timber built Stern dock and timber gates c. 1780
Stone built entrance to dry docks c.1800
Saw pits

Storehouse Complex
Four light Tudor mullioned window with original iron work
Tudor Foundation stone and flame headed gothic arch 1513, bearing Henry VIII cypher
Undercroft Tudor Store House
Undercroft 1720 storehouse complex
Landing Place and Lookout stairs and Causeway c.1720

Slipways
Ariadne Slipway No.5 c1420-1855
Two further slipways No.4/No.1

Basin Complex
Basin Slipway Covers George Baker & Sons 1846 (Olympia Building)
Basin Slipways c.1845 Capt. Sir Willliam Denison R.E.
Basin c.1517-1814 John Rennie includes inverted stone arch, caisson gate groove, Basin entrance and river walls
Basin walls with coping stones removed
Basin gate c.1720
Capstan housings/penstocks/Saw Pits

Pepys Era Mast Pond
Mast Pond c.1650 and mast pond gates to river

Greater Mast Pond
Mast Pond c.1756
Mast Pond Canal By George Ledwell Taylor
Penstocks
Infrastructure for two swing bridges

River Wall
River wall demonstrates the final series of openings into the dockyard which are known to have been commenced as early as 1420. The openings to the dry dock, slipways, basin and mast ponds are extant. There is evidence on the foreshore of timber slipways and stone causeway.

Sayes Court House and Garden Complex
Remains of Sayes Court House
Remains of Sayes Court Alms Houses and Emigration Depot
Sayes Court Garden c.1600-1890

ps - pictures attached to Malcolm's article are on their way when I get the technology sorted out.
Mary

Lewisham Voices wiki

2009-07-27T13:19:00.003+01:00

We are developing a new wiki to enable us to add content to the Lewisham Voices project site. The new wiki is at http://lewishamvoices.wikidot.com/ and we would like any feedback as to how this compares with the current site at http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/LewishamVoices/index.htm

The old site cannot be developed or added to and the new wiki offers us an opportunity to add to the community memories that we already have. Feedback to Local.Studies@lewisham.gov.uk please.

Lewisham Local History and Archives on Facebook

2009-04-17T16:11:00.003+01:00

Lewisham Local History and Archives centre now has its own page on the social networking website Facebook. If you are a member of Facebook, follow the link below to view the page and become a fan.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Lewisham/Lewisham-Local-History-and-Archives/73593060952

The page provides another medium for communicating to users of the service about forthcoming events, post photos and content as well as making it easier for those interested in Lewisham's history to share information with one another.

Family History Online Session

2009-04-17T16:06:00.003+01:00

As part of Adult Learners Week 2009, LHA will be holding an introductory session demonstrating how to use online resources such as Ancestry.com to research family history. The session will be held in the learning centre of Lewisham Library - booking is essential. Ring 020 8314 9800 to reserve your place.

Saturday 16 May 2009
2:00-3:00pm

Lewisham Library
199-201 Lewisham High Street
SE13 6LG

020 8314 9800
Email: lewishamlibrary@lewisham.gov.uk
Website: http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/LeisureAndCulture/Libraries/OurServices/WhoWeAre/LewishamLibrary.htm

Lewisham in the Snow

2009-02-10T14:13:00.002Z

Did you take any photographs of Lewisham in the snow when it was engulfed at the start of February? If so we'd be very grateful if we could use them for our photographic archives of the borough. It doesn't matter if the images are of your street, a local park or public buildings, we are interested in a range of snow scenes across the borough. Please send images to local.studies@lewisham.gov.uk.

PLEASE NOTE: In order for us to use any images we need to be given copyright over them, so please state this when sending them to us. Thank you for your help in preserving Lewisham's photographic heritage.

Severe weather and Lewisham

2009-02-02T09:45:00.001Z

The heavy snow and severe weather has had an impact on services in Lewisham and we are unable to open all of our libraries today.

Wavelengths, Forest Hill, Torridon Road, Sydenham and Catford Libraries are all expected to open this morning until 1.00pm. All of our other libraries, including Lewisham and the Local History and Archives Centre will be closed.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and plan to resume normal service as soon as possible.

Lewisham and the Web 2.0 world

2009-01-29T15:14:00.000Z

Lewisham Heritage Team is pioneering the use of Web 2.0 technologies to help us reach out to users, and to make Lewisham's archives and historic material more widely available. As part of this we have created 2 wikis to provide information and collect contributions.

Lewisham War Memorials wiki
November 2008 saw the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, which the great majority of war memorials were created to commemorate. This wiki lists the memorials in the London Borough of Lewisham, which includes the old Metropolitan Boroughs of Lewisham and Deptford. The initial information was collected by Paul Dyer, a regional volunteer with the UK National Inventory of War Memorials, who generously donated a copy of his research. This was developed by Ann O’Brien, a volunteer at the Lewisham Local History and Archives Centre, to lay the foundations of this wiki.

Lewisham's Olympic Legacy
In September 2008 Lewisham participated in the handover of the Olympic flag from Beijing to London and we are now in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics.

Lewisham Heritage created this wiki to record the achievements of past Lewisham Olympians and sports people and to enable the community to create their own record of the London 2012 experience. As part of this we are asking local people for their memories and recollections of London 1948 - the last time London hosted the Olympics. Do you have any photographs or memorabilia, do you remember the 1948 Games - were you taken to them or did your older relatives tell you about them? You can share your memories with us and contribute to this wiki.