I've been hunting around for more information about Charlton in connection with the old maps that I've got and one of the things that I've found is a map of Charlton from 1746, you can find it here.
Unfortunately it's not got the greatest amount of detail on it but there's several interesting things to see.
Where Floyd Road is there are "Lime Kilns" marked on the map. That used to be one of the things done with the chalk that they dug out of the ground from there. Lime played a bit part in the area for quite a while to come, I'll be mentioning a Lime Manor when I do the follow up to The History of Floyd Road (Part 1 - 1867), and it's interesting to see that it goes back at last that far.
There's a road that seems to follow the present course of Woolwich Road already there and it also looks like there's something running south from it that seems to follow the path of Charlton Lane too.
Anchor and Hope Lane is there, complete with the kink half way along, but it's known as "Manor Way". That's got to have something to do with it running up to Charlton Manor and I'm left wondering what then came first, the Anchor and Hope pub or the road name? Did the pub manage to get the road renamed as a bit of free advertising at some point over the next 120 years?
To the east of Charlton there's "Hanging Woods", which was apparently a haunt of highway men and other such dubious characters. It doesn't appear to have changed very much from then until the 1867 map.
If you look at the village itself you can see the original road and village green layout in front of Charlton House. The owners of the house didn't enclose the green, thus stranding the gate, until 1829.
One final interesting thing compared to the 1867 map is that up in the top right you can see the Dockyard and/or Arsenal. The later map ends in almost exactly the same place but has a curiously blank area enclosed by roads, Ordnance Survey covering up military secrets no doubt...
Anyhow it's nice to see how much you can get out of such a seemingly simple map!
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2 comments:
Have you found John Smith's 3 volume history of Charlton yet which covers a lot of your area? Sadly John died a couple of months ago.
That's a very interesting point about the later map not displaying the Arsenal. Well spotted!
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