A talk on Gilbert's Pit

I've been meaning to post about Greenwich Industrial History Society for a while now, however life taking a turn to the busy side and the Council still letting my street descend into a rats paradise have side tracked me.

However out the blue they've emailed me with an announcement about a talk on Gilbert's Pit. The pit is in Maryon Park and I've blogged about it before. Since then I've found out some more about it and become really rather interested, so needless to say I was chuffed to get the email.

I'm very tempted to go, if you're curious as to who I am I'll be the person at the back looking really interested.

Anyway here's the mail, it also includes some other talks they are doing.

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This is to remind people that Greenwich Industrial History Society has the well-known (internationally famous) historical geologist PAUL SOWAN to speak at its next meeting on 12th May on GILBERT'S PIT.
Gilbert's Pit is an incredibly important site in Maryon Park - which we all hoped would be the recipient of restoration funds from the London Mayor's Office - but sadly it went unappreciated and lost the ballot. Here's your chance to learn more about it!

Its at the Old Bakehouse, Bennet Park, SE3 7.30. The Old Bakehouse is behind the Age Exchange Building in Blackheath Village

This is also a cry for Help - Paul would like a slide projector - does anyone have one which they could bring along to the meeting for him to use??? Please!!! I know its old tech but .........

Remember to look at the GIHS blog http://greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.com

and here are the rest of the meeting bookings we have at present. See you there!

23rd June Lorna Coventry on System Building on the Morris Walk Estate
21st July Thames Discovery Team on discoveries on the Foreshore.
15th September Mary Mills on the Hills of Greenwich and a lot of other places
20th October Duncan Hawkins on Waterfront Archaeology of Greenwich and Lewisham
17th November Edward Sargent on The Grand Surrey Canal
16th March Ken Mcgovern Pitcher’s Northfleet Dockyard (provisional booking)
13th April Diana Rimel. The Ashburnham Triangle - a Reappraisal.

The History of Floyd Road (Part 2 - 1894)

Following on from The History of Floyd Road (Part 1 - 1867) here's part 2 27 years later. This is once again using a map published by Alan Godfrey Maps and as I've said before if you're enjoying this go and buy yourself a copy either from their web site or the Heritage Centre. They're £2.25 each and they really are good. There's just so much to look at, especially if you pick up all the the three vintage maps.

Anyway, here we go, Floyd Road in 1894.

The first thing to notice is that Floyd Road still isn't on the map. There are a few houses there but the street is known as "Cedar Grove". That's now the name for the little road that comes off Floyd Road and lies between it and the railway, well almost, that's Cedar Place. There are buildings marked out along there but those along what is now Cedar Place are obviously far too new. So I wonder what was there?

The garden that was where Floyd Road will be in 1867 has now gone completely and the buildings that were on the NE corner of it now appear to have changed. The one nearest the railway is marked as being a bank which is the logo you can still see faintly painted on it's side. The newsagent on the west side of Charlton Church Lane was the Post Office back then.

The chalk and sand pits now appear to be closed down, off the scanned area of the map they're labelled "Old Sand & Chalk Pits". Note how the tramway has also been removed. However before that all went there had been substantial further excavation. The excavations have gone further south and Charlton Grove, what I imagined to be a large house has been lost. Industry remains in the area though, a disinfectant works has appeared.

Charlton Station has also changed, and not just it's name to Charlton Junction. It's now got a Coal Depot and goods handling facility to the north of the current eastbound platform with what appears to be at least two lines of track. You can see a photo showing the beginning of that area here. Those tracks lasted up to the 1960s and explain why Troughton Road has some newer houses and car parking space there now.

The Railway has also had bigger changes. Back in 1867 there was no train through to Greenwich, the Royal Navy College and/or the Observatory had been refusing permission to tunnel underneath them. However by 1894 that's changed. A new set of track cuts straight west away from the line running off to Blackheath and Westcombe Park Station has appeared.

The biggest change in the area has just got to be the amount of extra housing that has been built. Delafield Road, Sundorne Road, Priolo Road, Invarine Road and Fossdene Road were fields back in 1867, now they're there and lined with houses. Roads that were already there have gained extra housing. The entire east side of Charlton Church Lane is now full of houses right up to the village. Wellington Road used to have some substantially sized buildings on it's south side, they've now been joined by some smaller neighbours on the other side of the road. Around the new Westcombe Park Station a whole new estata with dozens of houses has sprung up.

On a personal level of history a building to the north of the railway has now been named, Lime Villa. You can read all about it here. It was the home of a Thomas Nichols who was a Lime Merchant and he moved in in the mid 1860s. The article linked to mentions the trouble he had getting local chalk/limestone, that ties in nicely with the decline in the quarries between this map and the one from 1867. I wonder if when he moved there the local quarries were already running their production down? The house, and the name he gave it, remained there until the 1960s when it was demolished and Barney Close built over it.

So there's been a lot of change in the few years between 1876 and 1894 and there's a lot more to come in the 20 years between this map and my next one from 1914.

Charlton in 1746

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!

Lewis Glenton's Tramway

A very helpful comment to my last past on the history of Floyd Road has confirmed that their used to be a railway, or a tramway as a number of documents refer to it as, running from the sandpits under where the football stadium is down to the river. The footpath under the railway on Ransom Road with it's arches is indeed the course it followed. I'm tempted to nip down there with a tape measure at some point to check it's width out, I'm not at all sure it's big enough for a standard gauge track.

The tramway was built by Lewis Glenton who got permission for it in 1840, it was certainly there in 1852 as it's referred to when giving the location for a garden in another document. That reference also confirms that the pub on the corner of Church Lane and Woolwich Road was known as the Antigallican (or Anti-Gallican, making it's anti French meaning very apparent) at that time too.

There appears to have been some legal problems building the tramway, there was a court case between Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson (whose family owned much of the land around here) and the Reverand of the parish Church and Lewis Glenton in 1840 or 1841. The Reverand might have been involved because the case refers to the tramway being built over "Glebe land", which is Church owned land that is rented out. So maybe the Church owned the land, Lewis Glenton rented it and built the tramway along it. I wonder what Sir Thomas' problem was?

Anyway thanks very much to the anonymous poster, if anyone does know anymore about the tramway please pass it on.

Here's some information that I've managed to find with a quick bit of googling....

Greenwich Industrial History Society
The National Archives

The History of Floyd Road (Part 1 - 1867)

Quite a while ago I posted an entry about my visit to Greenwich Heritage Centre and I said that I bought some maps, well I thought it would be nice to use them to try and tell some of the history of my street.

So here's a map of the local area from 1867.
As you can see Floyd Road didn't exist, where the top half of it will be appears to be a garden of some kind, possibly for the properties that are where the Chinese Takeaway is now. I'm saying that they're gardens because the layout seems to be pretty structured and organised. That's not just the normal map markings for woodland, there are other areas on the map that are woodland and they're drawn very differently with many randomly placed trees rather than the clear "avenues" that we have where Floyd Road is. You can also see what appear to be paths laid out, it must all have looked very nice.

Charlton Station is already there and there are some houses along Church Lane between it and Woolwich Road (or Greenwich and Woolwich Lower Road as it was known then). The Antigallican, as I believe it was known back then, is on the corner.

It's interesting to see that there's what appears to be a railway running from the Ballast Pits down to the river that passes under the railway. Does that explain those funny little arches that the footpath running from the eastern end of Floyd Road out to Woolwich road opposite PC World? It looks like once upon a time little trucks, and they must have been quite little given the width of the two arches, ran up and down there carrying quarried material down to the river. Could it have been a narrow gauge system with it's own little trains? I wish that I knew...

Looking a bit further afield a Church Lane runs up to the village but doesn't have any houses along it at all until you get to a couple of them opposite St. Luke's Church.

There is something marked as "Charlton Grove" about half way up Church Lane on the eastern side. There appears to be a decent size building in Woodland. A patch has been cleared in front of it and there appears to be paths or tracks sweeping around the cleared area and leading to the building. Could this be a well to do house? Opposite the entrance to Wellington Road (which is there) is a small building by the entrance to the path leading to the "house." A gatehouse?

I can imagine visitors coming up Church Lane in a horse drawn carriage. Then turn off by a gatehouse and then have woodland on both sides. After a minute or two the woods on their left open up into a landscaped garden and the large lavish house comes into view. The path takes them around the edge of the lawn before curving back into the house where a dinner party awaits.

Too imaginative? Well I do love maps and the stories that they can tell.

The area around Church Lane is mostly open and seems to have little tracks running along it like the one that seems to run away from the station, then west before heading back to the railway at the Signal Box. I think that is the most surprising impression from this map, the area's really not very built up at all, all of this will soon change.

I will say a bit more about the map itself, it's published by Alan Godfrey Maps and is a copy of the original Ordnance Survey map. As the small scanned snippet should show it goes into a huge amount of detail about the area and it's very well printed on decent quality paper. If you've got even the slightest interest in your area then do try and check these maps out. You can get them from the Heritage Centre itself or you can order online from the Alan Godfrey Maps web site. They're only £2.25 each and I consider them a real bargain, I've got hours of pleasure from my set.

With the 1867 Charlton Map not only do you get the map but a brief potted history of the area and a list of residents of the area complete with addresses. Not all of the roads are covered (Maryon Road and Victoria Road seem to be the most common ones listed) so don't go getting this thinking that you're certain to discover who lived in your house. However you just might, and wouldn't that be great.

More on the Horn Fair

I've written about Charlton's Horn Fair before but I've recently found out a bit more about it.

No one actually knows when it started, one explanation dates it back to the times of King John. It used to take place for three days from St Luke's day (18th of October), the church of St Luke's in Charlton dates back to 1250 which explains the day of the fair and opens the possibility that it really does go back that far.

I've previously touched upon the connection of horns with cuckoldry, there is though an alternate explanation for the horn connection. Apparently the traditional symbol for St Luke is an ox with horns. Many ancient fairs would apparently display some symbol of their being open, and it's easy to imagine that a fair taking place on a saints day would use the symbols of that saint for that purpose. So perhaps that's how it got it's name.

However the story of King John, in which he was caught in the act with the wife of a Charlton miller by the miller himself and thus got permission to hold the fair as compensation, is far juicer and therefore probably became more popular as the years passed.

The fair was opened by the procession from Cuckold's Point for which people apparently dressed up as the miller, his wife and the King. Cross dressing was also apparently the thing to be done for this procession. William Fuller wrote in 1703:

"I remember being there upon Horn Fair day, I was dressed in my landlady's best gown and other women's attire, and to Horn Fair we went, and as we were coming back by water, all the clothes were spoilt by dirty water etc. that was flung on us in an inundation, for which I was obliged to present her with two guineas to make atonement for the damage sustained."

The Victorian's weren't too keen on London's fairs which had a notoriety for unpleasant and lewd behaviour, Charlton's reputation was such that when an law was passed in 1871 that allowed such fairs to be abolished it was one of the first to go.

This additional information comes from the book London Lore by Steve Roud. It's packed with all sorts of tales about London and it's a really enjoyable read, so if you're into this sort of thing it's well worth a look.

Memories of Blow Up

A while ago I posted an entry about Maryon Park and how it was used in the film Blow Up.

Well an anonymous posted posted a comment to another entry that had some first hand local history.

He/she gives some memories of the filming of Blow Up and I really enjoyed reading them. So rather than have them tucked away I thought I'd post them up here.

Anonymous, whoever you maybe, I thank you very much.

I used to live in Woodland Terrace.in charlton.our house overlooked Maryon park.they are still there today.the film company asked our landlord at the time if they could paint the brickwork at the back of the properties.he refused so they built a false row of house fronts that you see in the film,When they were filming Blow up.me and a friend took some beer glasses back to the white horse pub for David Hemmings He told his chauffer to take us for a ride in his rolls royce,he drove us down to Woolwich ferry and back,we felt like royalty.

I finally get to Eltham Palace!

I've tried to go and see Eltham Palace before, unfortunately it didn't quite work... This Sunday was the first open day after the winter closure so I got my skates on and got down there. In brief it was really rather good!

The palace has a long history, apparently it was one of only six palaces which were big enough to accommodate and feed the entire royal court of some 800 people.

William the Conquerer gave the manor to Odo the Bishop of Bayeax, his half brother. In 1295 it was acquired by Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, who seems to have begun the building of the palace. It entered Royal hands in 1305 when it was given to the Prince of Wales, the future Edward II.

From then on the palace seemed to grow. The great hall, which still stands, was added by Edward IV between 1475 and 1485. At it's largest, in 1603, it was bigger than Hampton Court.

After Henry VII the palace seemed to gradually loose favour, Greenwich was closer to Westminster and easily reached by boat along the Thames. By the mid 1600s parts of it had collapsed, troops were stationed there to quell a revolt in Kent and as Parliamentry troops were want to do they apparently ransacked it. A report in 1649 sadly stated that the palace was "much out of repaire, and soe not tenantable."

The grand great hall was reduced to being a barn for livestock for some years.

Finally in the late 18th and early 19th century things began to change. The hall underwent progressively more serious repair work. In the 1930s the Courtauld family came into possession of the site. They built an amazingl high tech art-deco house around the great hall. The Courtauld's left the house in 1944 and it passed back into the hands of the state, it was an educational establishment for the army until 1992. English Heritage assumed responsibility for the hall in 1985 and after the army left they took over the rest of the palace and house. Work was done to restore the house to it's 1930s peak with furniture reproduced and where possible identical furnishings sought from a variety of sources.

So what can you see today?

Well there's the Courtauld's house, which is actually rather impressive and I speak as one who's not overly interested in such things. The great hall is impressive, though the Courtaulds did some "restoration" to it which turned it into somewhat of what they though a medieval great hall should look like as influenced by the films of the times. However the woodwork of the roof looks pretty much as illustrations show it used to be and it is really rather impressive.

Outside you can stroll around the grounds, seeing some of the ruins of the palace, the moat, the medieval bridges over the moat, the walls and gardens.

All told it took me just over 2 hours to see it all and I really enjoyed it.

There's a whole lot of information about the palace on the internet, here's some places to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltham_Palace
http://www.elthampalace.org.uk/

I did take a few photos inside before Ms. Charlton-Above-Average pointed out to me that you're not meant to. Suffice to say I did feel rather guilty. Anyway I'll share some of those that I took at the end of this post.

I can really recommend a visit and it's so nice to write something, and to feel something, positive about the area after weeks of moaning about bad things.

The view you'll get of the house and the medieval moat and walls as you cross the north bridge to enter.
The entrance hall of the house
The Great Hall, looking towards the end where the King and Queen would sit. The roof is amazing!
The outside of the Great Hall.
Walking around the moat, some of it is still flooded.
Looking towards the north bridge over the moat.
Looking towards the house. This quite clearly shows the medieval walls around the moat and the modern house within, a very interesting place!

Some firsthand local history

A while ago I posted some of the history of Charlton Staiton, you can read it here. Well the other day a very nice man called Dave emailed me with a first hand account of growing up around her in the 1950s and in particular with some more information about the station.

I really enjoyed reading his email, it had some great pieces of real personal history about the area. In particular it was interesting to read that there were bombed out houses along Woolwich Road certainly up to the 1950s and possibly into the 1960s. It was also nice to see that it wasn't just me for whom a childhood day out was to go on the Woolwich Ferry :)

Anyway this is the email that he sent me:

With reference to your blogs about Charlton Station, a few memories still exist in my mind of life when I was a youngster, about nine years old at most.

I can recall travelling by train from Charlton, I think to meet an aunt arriving at Liverpool Street Station in the City. This was before the present station was built in the sixties. The ticket office was situated in a wooden 'shed' sited where the present tent like structure is built (the thing they built for the Millennium). There was a coal yard situated where the current run of modern houses are. You then had to cross the tracks via a bridge which crossed from the coast bound side to the London bound side. The bridge was sited at a point where there is now a shelter on the London bound side. The bridge was similar in appearance to the one that still exists at Maze Hill.
I have attached a photograph, which I believe was taken from the footbridge, which clearly shows the sidings to which you refer.

Further, I remember when the new station was built, vaguely. The Post Office used to be sited opposite the present station, in what is now a Chinese Restaurant( can't recall the name). For many years this building housed an insurance broker. Which is where I organised my first mortgage. When the new station was built, the Post Office moved to the new Concrete complex at its present location, but originally took up the whole of the building, rather than the truncated version that it now is. The Valley Cafe, which you also mention in your blogs,was for many years a Buthcher's called Lusby's. I can recall many visits accompanying my Nan, with whom we lived, to the 'Lane' to buy meat for my Dad's tea. Perish the thought that us kids ever ate anything like meat in the week. After buying three lamb chops, she would then pop into the shop next door to buy her snuff, sitting on the chair that was always placed in small shops in those far off days.

We used to sit on the wall of the road bridge overlooking the tracks as trains passed. One day upon returning home for my tea, I was greeted by my Dad, who immediately gave me a thick ear. He had seen me sitting on the wall as he passed by on his bike, on his way to work at the UGB (United Glass Blowers) in Anchor and Hope Lane, where theh Sainsbury Warehouse now is. It always struck me as strange that he never stopped to tell me off at the time.

As a young shaver, me and my mates took great delight in playing in the 'bombed out' houses that existed along the Woolwich Road between Charlton and Woolwich on the south side of Woolwich Road. Danger did not figure in our young minds, and the smell of burned wood still evokes memories of those 'safe' days long ago.This was in an area where the film 'Blow Up' was filmed, and although I have watched the film a number of times, I can't remember if the 'bombed' houses were shown. When I was nine or ten we moved to a flat on the Cherry Orchard estate, but I can remember that when they were filming Blow Up my Mum and Dad decided that we go for a walk around Maryon Wilson Park to view the film sets. In the film there appears to be a large terrace of houses backing onto the park. These never existed, and were just 'flats'.

Another great adventure I can remember is the day when our gang (No knives or turf wars in those days) decided to spend the day on the Woolwich Ferry. This was before the existing diesel powered boats were built. In those days you sat out on the deck in the open. I vaguely remember that the boats had two tall funnels mounted side by side, and I believe that they were paddle steamers, although I am not too sure about this. To get to the ferry in those days you went down a road called Ferry Approach which ran from Woolwich Road to the river opposite Hare Street. This area was redeveloped to make way for the new swimming baths.

Blackheath Railway Tunnel

If you're observant as you walk up to Blackheath from Charlton as you enter the Standard you'll notice a gap in the run of houses on your left along Charlton Road. Looking off to your right you'll see that there's a road, Invicate Road, running almost directly opposite it. It looks almost as if the road used to cross Charlton Road and run between the houses.

If you check it out on Google Earth you'll see it really clearly indeed. There's a very obvious gap running in a straight line all the way south to Shooters Hill Road.

It puzzled me when I noticed this at first and I wondered if it might be some old road or railway that had been removed.

However a Google Earth session shows that the north end of the gap lines up with where the rail tunnel emerges back above ground. It's also easy to image a curve linking up the southern end with the entrance into the tunnel to the east of Blackheath station.

As far as I know that railway has always been in a tunnel. However could the gap above it be because it was dug using the cut and cover technique? That is rather than tunnelling you dig a big trench and then build a roof before covering it back over.

Looking around on the internet I can find mention of some kind of accident in the tunnel in 1850 but with no details. The station dates back to 1849 so that does suggest that the railway never ran above ground.

Does anyone know?

Bombs in Charlton

A bomb from WW2 was found the other day in Charlton, it was apparently just behind Matalan. You can read about it here.

Also this week another bomb was found in St Pauls Cray (map, it was just sitting in a copse of trees.

That got me thinking about what it would have been like here during the war. I've done some shallow research on it in the past and it is quite interesting, and it explains the nasty state of Charlton Station too.

As best as I can understand the land between Woolwich Road and the river used to be mainly industrial, as such it was a target for bombing by the Germans. Location wise this area also would have suffered because it was near the docks, night bombing was never very accurate and the river would be followed for navigation.

Later still when the V1 flying bombs, Doodlebugs, started coming over the SE of London suffered again. There was a very cunning plan to use German spies who were actually working for us to decrease the accuracy of the things. The spies would radio Germany with reports on where the bombs were coming down and they'd exaggerate saying that they flew over London and hit to the NW of the city. So the Germans reduced the flying time of the bombs, which made them come down early, to the SE of the city. Hello Charlton...

In particular the station was hit by one of those things. Well I believe that it was one of those things, some claim that it was a V2 that did it but most reports have it as a V1. Apparently it blew the station apart damaging the shop that was next to it. It seems that it wasn't until the 1960's that the current monstrosity was built, I wonder what they did in the years in between...

There's a run of newer houses to the south of the station. When I first found out about the bomb hit I wondered if they were replacements for older houses that were damaged in the strike. I don't think that's the case though. Charlton Station used to have goods facilities, a set of sidings to the north of the station. They were taken away in the 60s, leaving the hole for the news homes.

However as you do go walking around the area you will occasionally see a run of older houses and then suddenly in the middle something much newer, I often wonder if that is the real sign of bomb damage from the war.

There's plenty of information out there on the net, some photos too, if you're interested. Here's some places to start:

http://www.virtualtours.co.uk/charlton/tour.html
Some old photos of Charlton, it includes one of the damaged station and another of the Siemens cable factory that was another local bomb victim during the war (a V2 I think).

http://www.kentrail.co.uk/Charlton.htm
More information about Charlton Station than you can shake a stick at. However it does get it's V1s and V2s confused giving a much higher speed to the V1 than it was capable of. The V1 was the noisy slow one that flew like a plane.

Well Hall Pleasaunce

As I've already said I tried to go to Eltham Palace yesterday. Well to be precise I did go to Eltham Palace, it just wasn't open.

So I made a plan B and got back on the road. Plan B required the locating and purchasing of some food, so we stopped on the way from Eltham to the A2 when we saw a Co-Op.

Over the road was a little park that looked interesting, it was Well Hall Pleasaunce and it was very interesting.

There used to be a manor house there that was home to the daughter of Thomas Moore amongst others. Later still E. Nesbit, the author of the Railway Children amongst others, lived in a house built on the site of the manor house.

That later house has now been demolished as well. What's left however is a rather interesting moat and next to is a barn that dates back to the 16th Century. The barn is now apparently a pub and while we were there a Wedding was going on. The park around the barn and moat all seemed rather attractive and pleasant to be in while we had our lunch.

We only had time for a brief stop as Plan B needed seeing to but I think we'll go back with a proper picnic and explore the place properly.

The park apparently has an active group of supporters, they have a web site here that has some more information about the park and what they do.

My camera decided that it's batteries were flat but I did manage to get a couple of photos out of it.

All things told a very pleasant surprise.

The gardens where we had our lunch.
The 16th Century Barn.

Maryon Park

The other week I went for a walk around Maryon Park, not to be confused with Maryon Wilson Park which is an adjacent but separate park in Charlton. The park is here and is probably most famous for being used in the film Blow Up (which I've not yet got around to watching).

I'd walked around the west side of it before but not the east and I was pleasantly surprised, it's a really rather lovely place. It is, perhaps, a bit small but it's very green and it feels very secluded and a million miles away from the built up area that it's in.

One special area in it is Gilbert's Pit which is on the west side. It's one of the disused chalk and sand quarries that used to fill the area. The pit was used up until the late 1930's, the sand from it was apparently mostly used for making glass. After the war the big pits were gradually filled in, they used them to hold rubble from the bombing of London. I believe that Charlton's Stadium might be built over another such pit. If you ever buy a property around here and you have an environmental survey done you'll be warned about "landfill". Rather than being a dumping ground for rubbish as you might presume that term means as far as I know it's referring to the filling in of those pits with that rubble.

Anyway.

Why is the pit special?

Well they cut down into the earth and in doing so revealed the layers of soil, rock and sand that make up the geological history of this area. Due to that it's a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). One of the things that it shows it that Charlton used to be covered by a warm tropical sea inhabited by, amongst other things, sharks and later by crocodiles.

If you look carefully at some of the exposed cliff sides you can see those layers quite clearly, it's really rather interesting. There's boards up that will tell you all about what you're looking at.

So basically it's all really rather good and quite a nice little hidden gem. It could do with a tidy up though, the paths to the pit are a bit overgrown with nettles and there's litter there too that's been there for years, in particular there's what looks like a bike saddle on the other side of the fence protecting the cliffs that I remember from when I first went there over a year ago.

Oh and if fossils, sharks and crocodiles weren't enough the Romans were there too. On the hill in the park they've found traces of a Roman Fort and a settlement.

The hill on the east side of the park, the trees really do make you feel quite secluded.

The tennis courts on the east side.

Gilbert's Pit, the west side of the park.

The view from the hill that separates the east and west sides of the park. I think it's around here that the Roman's had a settlement.

Charlton on film tonight...

One of the first things I discovered upon moving to Charlton is that a reasonably famous movie was filmed here in the 60's. The film was Blow Up and the place was Maryon Park.

Well Sky are showing the film tonight, it's on at 9pm on TCM2. They also showed it last night and I caught the very end recognising the tennis courts.

In a very odd coincidence I went exploring the park on Sunday in the time between the float parade and the riders. I'd not been to the east side of the park before and it seemed really rather nice. There'll be a post about it soon with some photos.

Anyway 9pm tonight.....

Who were the first band to play the O2 Arena?

Well many people might think that it was Bon Jovi on the 24th of June, that's wrong.

The Sun "reveals" that it was Kaiser Chiefs, Tom Jones and Peter Kay on the 23rd of June at a party for the O2 workers. Wrong.

Greenwich Council Leader Chris Roberts says in the latest edition of Greenwich Times that it was the Councils "big ambition" that "the first people who ever performed on this stage were [those] Children from Greenwich Primary Schools" who sang their on the 20th of June. It's a shame that ambition didn't come true, in fact it clearly hadn't come true when those words came out of his mouth. So that's wrong too.

So who was it?

Well it was this lot......

They were playing while many people were still coming into the arena while the lights were still on and the first song they played was a cover of Dakota by the Stereophonics. Who were they? Well I haven't a clue. Can anyone out there help me out? There's a lot of disinformation going around about this semi-famous event and other bands taking the credit when this lot really deserve it.

So if anyone out there knows who they are please let me know.

Edited to Add
After checking through my photos and looking at the time they were taken the running order for the evening looks something like.
7.00pm: Allowed in the Arena
7.15pm: The first mystery band were playing
7.45pm: The choir of primary school children were singing
?.??pm: Lucky Soul Played
20.45pm: Mystery James Blunt-a-like man was playing
21.00pm: Rietta Austin was playing

Well it looks like Rietta Austin was the first to "headline" the O2 Arena, This Is London seem to agree.

However The Greenwich Phantom has mentioned a party for a bank and has had a reply saying that there was a party on Sunday the 17th. So did a band play that night? Was it in the Arena?

Charlton Horn Fair

Last weekend saw the Horn Fair being held at Charlton House. I knew it was coming but I was away from the area (which is also why there's no photos of HMS Ark Royal) and couldn't make it up there.

Audrey, who went along, emailed me so I really thought that I should say something about it.

The Horn Fair seems to date back over 300 years. A "mob" used to gather near Deptford and then march to Charlton. Men, so it would appear, often dressed in women's clothing and wore horns on their heads. Horn fairs seem to have a connection with cuckoldry. The marchers would gather at Cuckold's Point in Deptford in the case of Charlton's Horn Fair and the horns themselves were meant to be a symbol of it.

Daniel Defoe (author of Robin Crusoe) had this to say in the 1720's:

"Charleton, a village famous, or rather infamous for the yearly collected rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think, is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz'd well govern'd nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable. The mob indeed at that time take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that day; as if it was a day that justify'd the giving themselves a loose to all manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time."

For some more information on the Horn Fair click here.

Audrey kindly provided me with some photos which I'll post up below.

View from Greenwich Park under threat?

I love Greenwich Park, somewhere I don't go nearly as often as I should. In particular I love the view from the top of the hill by the Observatory. Well apparently that's under threat.

What I didn't know was that there are clear corridors set out under London planning laws so that St. Pauls can be viewed from various places around the centre of London. Tall buildings in those corridors are very restricted.

At the moment the corridor from Greenwich to St. Pauls is 300m wide, the rules have been changed so that the corridor will now only be 115m.

I understand how important it is for London to be a living city, it's one of the reasons I love living here so, it can't just freeze in time. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the great view into town from Greenwich isn't an accident, it's been planned for. I hope the new regulations don't damage it too much.

The full story can be found here.

I couldn't find a photo from Greenwich to St. Pauls so at the top is one that I took from the opposite direction....

Italo Svevo

While sitting in Chu & Cho's Tapas Restaurant on Charlton Church Lane many months ago I noticed that the house opposite has a blue plaque it. That usually represents that some "important" person lived there at some point in the past.

It turns out that an Italian (well sort of, he was born in Austria) author by the name of Italo Svevo lived there from 1903 until 1913.

Click here for more information about him.

My favourite tale about him is his inability to give up smoking and his request for one final cigarette on his death bed, he promised that it truly would be his last one.

As a footnote it's very pleasant to write about something nice for once, I meant to do this last week but then there were those things with the car parking changes and the Red Bull air race.

Charlton Average, not just there for the bad things in life.