Woolwich to New Charlton Panoramas – 1995

Woolwich to New Charlton Panoramas: Persevering with my occasional sequence of color pictures from 1995 – I feel that is the eleventh submit – with some color panoramas made in Might 1995 on a stroll from Woolwich to New Charlton.

My stroll had begun once I obtained off the practice at Woolwich Arsenal on my manner again from Dartford on Might seventh and I feel these photos had been made that afternoon as I walked from there to a different station retaining near the River Thames. However I did however return to Woolwich the next Sunday, Might 14th and a few of these photos may have been made then.

A path leads up from the roundabout at the beginning of Woolwich Church Road to Church Hill and St Mary Magdalene Church, constructed on a spur of excessive floor main out in direction of the river. Initially this floor went reasonably nearer to the Thames, however a lot of it was quarried for sand although the digging needed to cease on the church. Though the current church dates solely from 1727-39 there had been a church on this website for the reason that ninth century if not earlier and it was most likely a a lot earlier website of settlement.

The highway in entrance of the church, Church Hill, provides a splendid panoramic view of the Thames. In 1995 you possibly can nonetheless see the stays of Woolwich’s riverside business, however by the point I photographed right here once more in 2000 all had gone and the realm was empty and derilect. Now it’s stuffed with 4 tall blocks of flats and another housing.

Woolwich Dockyard was the Navy’s most necessary dockyard for a few years and ships had been constructed right here from 1512 to the Victorian period. By then it had change into too small for the brand new ships and the Royal Dockyard closed in 1869. Elements remained in industrial use and a big space was purchased by Greenwich Council within the Sixties the place they constructed the Woolwich Dockyard Property within the Seventies – half on the left of this image. I feel that is the Grade II listed Graving Dock.

Taken on the Woolwich Dockyard Property this reveals one of many previous dry docks and at a mooring within the Thames the Woolwich Ferry Ernest Bevin. You may simply see a part of the south ferry terminal within the centre of the picture.

The ferry throughout the Thames turned a free ferry run by the LCC in 1889 – two days after that they had changed the Metropolitan Board of Works who had organised and funded it. Numerous public bridges had been constructed to make crossing the river in West London simple and free and it had been determined that there should even be a free crossing in East London. The Ernest Bevin was one in all three ferries within the third technology of ships which got here into operation in 1963 and it was changed in 2019. All have been named after native figues and Bevin was elected as MP for Woolwich East in 1950.

These level blocks, near Woolwich Dockyard Station had been constructed for Greenwich Council are St Mary’s Towers, one of many extra profitable housing schemes of the late 50s and early 60s, opened by Princess Margaret in 1961. They continue to be now nonetheless in good situation and widespread.

Again to the River Thames and one other cleared space of the previous Dockyard with a view throughout the river to Tate & Lyle’s Silvertown works.

One other former dockyard space nonetheless in industrial use. I feel that is Thameside Wharf on Harrington Means. A number of the buildings right here had been as soon as a part of the Siemens Brothers Telegraph Works manufacturing facility established in 1863 and have become Thameside studios for artists round 1990.

Bugsby’s Means took its identify from this a part of the River Thames recognized from round 1830 as Bugsby’s Gap or Bugsby’s Attain which most likely obtained its identify from this as soon as “marshy space to the south of Blackwall Level the place executed criminals had been previously hung in chains.” As E.W.Inexperienced advised in 1948, ‘bug‘ was the previous British (historic Welsh) phrase for ‘spook’ or ghost, and what could possibly be a greater place to satisfy with ghouls. Bugsby’s Means was constructed throughout this marshy space by the London Borough of Greenwich in 1984.

One other image from Bugsby’s Means. The Beatle Line maybe obtained its identify from the later that means of ‘bug’, maybe from a distinct Anglo-Saxon root, at first merely that means beatle, although later coming into widespread use for a wider vary of species – together with the well-known moth discovered by Grace Hopper and colleagues within the Mark II pc at Harvard College in 1947.

Extra photos from Charlton in a later submit.

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Tags: 1995, Beatle Line Ltd, bug, Bugsby’s Means, Church Hill, dry dock, Ernest Bevin, Europe Rd, Ferry Boat, flats, Former Woolwich Dockyard Dry Docks, Frances St, Free Ferry, Graving Dock, Greenwich, Harrington Means, London, London Images, New Charlton, peter Marshall, River Thames, St Mary’s Towers, Warspite Rd, Woolwich, Woolwich Dockyard, Woolwich Dockyard Property

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