Deptford Dockyards: Biscuits, Brewing and Baccy

The first dockyard at Deptford was the King's Yard established in 1513 by Henry VIII. It wasn't until 1869 that it closed. It later became the Foreign Cattle Market and then Convoy's Wharf where huge ships unloaded paper until 2000 - my boyfriend Wesley remembers seeing them in the early 1990s. Today it is abandoned (above).

The above photo shows the entrance to the victualing yard at Deptford, renamed the Royal Victoria Victualing Yard in 1858. It finally closed in 1961 and today its ornate gates are hidden amongst the towerblocks of the Pepys Estate. It is hard to imagine how iconic they originally were for the thousands of men who walked through them every morning. Tobacco, rum, chocolate and ships' biscuits were just some of the many items stored at the victualing yard. Ships' biscuits were really rather nasty, being made from just flour and water (and perhaps the odd maggot).

Watergate Street

My boyfriend Wesley used to live on Watergate Street in Deptford. The image above is from www.olddeptfordhistory.com and shows the street some time in the early 20th century. It looks very different today! There certainly aren't any old weatherboarded buildings like the one on the left - once characteristic of areas such as Deptford and Rotherhithe.

At low tide it is possible to stand on the foreshore at the end of Watergate Street - at the moment you can only reach it by going along a narrow passageway beside the empty shell of Payne's Wharf. When we walked down here on Saturday, the brick walls echoed to a saxophonist playing by the water's edge.

Payne's wharf (below right) was built in 1860 and was a boiler workshop providing boilers for ships and vessels. Its arches perfectly frame Canary Wharf and its neighbours that have sprung up from the ruins of the city's docklands. It is a listed building today - well, more of a wall really. It is so important that structures such as these are retained in order to keep the character of waterside places in London before they disappear forever.

The image (below left) illustrates how much this end of Watergate Street has been raised from its original cobbled surface, presumably it is mostly building material from the Payne's Wharf site.

A Deptford Walk

I am in the process of creating some books about London - possibly taking the form of walks though the city - at the moment they are just a jumble of pages.

Areas looked at include:

Southwark

Lambeth

Greenwich

Shoreditch

Bermondsey

City of London

Borough

My most recent one is possibly going to focus on Deptford going up towards the old Surrey Docks - looking at the following things: St Nicholas Church and skulls, site of Payne's wharf - only the old river facade left, Watergate Street down to the river (complete with resident saxophonist), cobbled Borthwick Street (once Butcher's Row), Convoy's Wharf, tree from John Evelyn's Sayes Court, the Princess of Wales pub 1883, the old Storehouses from the King's Royal Dockyard, the steps where Sir Francis Drake was knighted, old cannons along the Thames front, entrance to the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard complete with more scary skulls, old boundary stone, gauge house, hydraulic lock Greenland Lock, lock keeper's office, hydraulic capstans, old crane, gasometer... ETC.

Old corner building - Oldfield Grove

There is an old building on Oldfield Grove (above) that interestingly marks the line of an old street, Cornbury Road, which once led off Oldfield Grove (then Oldfield Road). I believe it used to be the pub that is shown on a map from 1916 on the corner of Cornbury Road and Oldfield Road, which was called the Baron's Arms. I can't find any more information about it though!

Corbett's Lane, Bermondsey

I am particularly interested in the origin of older roads and streets in London, many of which are recorded today as lanes. Corbett's Lane near Southwark Park is an interesting example.

The map to above is perhaps the earliest image (1795) from www.mapco.net I could find of the lane and its strange dogleg bend - why is it this shape? What boundary does it follow? This road (formerly spelled Cobbetts Lane) from pre-industrial Britain is still a pleasant country byway free from later railway lines and terraces and is reasonably important as a small thoroughfare. It winds its way through fields and meadows on the south side of the Thames - St Helena's Tavern and Tea Gardens are on its southern side along with the interestingly named Lemon Valley. It is interesting that Lemon Valley is a well known location on the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic ocean. Is there some travelling connection with this? Or does this name hold some other significance?

In 1882 the lane is still free from urban sprawl and is still an important(ish) road, but in 1895 up springs WestLake Road to the North, Silwood Street to the right and Eugenia Road to the south - as the image below shows (from www.old-maps.co.uk). The surrounding terraced roads seem to follow the shape of Corbett's Lane closely, but the Lane itself remains untouched and it becomes little more than a narrow path. It is interesting that this redundant part of the lane has shrunken but not completely disappeared. But it is still a shadow of its former self and is much smaller than the western part of the lane that became Rotherhithe New Road. Many lanes in London take this form - small parts of them retain their original name and other sections become main roads that are numbered or include 'New' in the title.

Modern roads are all about saving time and money, and the older Corbett's Lane fails to provide a straight and efficient route from Southwark Park Road to Rotherhithe New Road and thus has been bypassed. The map below is from 1920-22 (www.old-maps.co.uk).

So what remnants of Corbett's Lane can still be found today, if any? The dogleg part of the lane can still be found at the northern edge of the Silwood estate which is undergoing a process of regeneration - it retains its old name which is unusual. It is a cul de sac but in theory it still runs parallel to Silwood Street and then twists up between Westlake Road and Eugenia Road, past St Katherine's church and Rope Walk (which once provided rope for nearby docks), where it is a small path. A small straight road parallel to the railway arches and lined with small businesses has also been named Corbett's Lane (originally Corbett's Passage) - it does not follow the ancient route but links up with where the dogleg bend used to be. It is nice that the old name has stuck to the area and thus gives an air of continuity to the estate even if many of the streets have since changed. Below is a modern map from www.google.maps.co.uk with the original plan from the 1851 map overlaid onto it - this might not be accurate, so it may be that the eastern side of the lane matches better with the modern road than it appears to. The green part of the road is Manor Road and Rotherhithe New Road. The red part of the lane is Corbett's Lane. To the left of Corbett's Lane, Debnams Road was originally called Prospect Place, which gave it a somewhat prosperous sounding air. Derelict old tower-block Gillam House, between Silwood Street and the railway line has just been demolished.

Who is the Cobbett of this particular road (as it was originally spelled)? William Cobbett (1763-1835) was a radical politician and one of the foremost political journalists of his age. The St Helena tavern and tea gardens that were to the south of the lane were open from c.1770 and must have provided a welcome relief from the squalor of the city. This was a neighbourhood known to be frequented by footpads or highwaymen, especially around Trundley's Lane. - hopefully not still the case!

Lambeth High Street

I was walking in Lambeth High Street the other day and it occurred to me that this road isn’t really like an ordinary high street with the usual small shops and pubs spread along it. Originally in Lambeth there were two streets that ran parallel to the river and were dissected horizontally by Lambeth Butts: Fore Street, and Back Street (the northern section was called Back Lane) as you can see in the photo to the right from www.mapco.net (Lambeth, 1753)

The modern Lambeth High Street follows Back Lane which has a characteristic twist west at its north end towards the river at Horse Ferry (where the Garden Museum is today). Today it is like any small back road in the city, but for the old pub halfway down, the Windmill - one of many small buildings now vanished - it has been rebuilt since the old 19th c. photo below to the right from www.partleton.co.uk. It is in fact the only older building in the street apart from the ornate one on the corner that I think used to house the Royal Doulton pottery. It has some beautiful tiles on the facade. Potteries were once common in Lambeth (as was Delftware).

Lambeth High Street was originally narrower than today. Nearby Lambeth Walk was then named Three Coneys Way after a local pub (coneys are rabbits if you were wondering!). This in turn ran into the wonderfully named Melancholy Walk which is today Boundary Row and Surrey Row (I think?). I wonder who gave it this name and for what reason?

What fascinates me most about London is its rich patina of history and how it makes itself known to us on the surface. Little clues as to the antiquity of roads and streets hint at how old some parts of the city are. Sometimes telltale signs might be in buildings of some considerable age but might also be as simple as the name of the road, its shape, length or location in relation to other streets. At the moment I am especially interested in roads of some antiquity - many of which are known as lanes and have all sorts of interesting bends and turns in them, often split up and dissected by large modern roads.