From the Bata Factory you take the Princess Margaret Road to Coalhouse Fort. I love the name of the road as it adds to the 1950s feel of the place. Coalhouse Fort is at the end of the road, set in parklands on the bank of the Thames.
Waiting for a new purpose. That’s what struck me when I saw it. Built 1861-74 partly under the direction of General Gordon it is on the site of an older fort. It became England’s first line of defence against the French ironclads. The French launched the first steam propelled ironclad war ship the Gloire in 1859. The fort was to counter the threat of invasion and remained occupied until after the Second World War. It was sold to Thurrock Council in 1962.
On the day I visited the fort was closed but you can walk around the perimeter and through the parkland. The fort has limited opening days and you can find details on the Coalhouse Fort Project. It is physically more imposing than its neighbour Tilbury Fort but in much worse state of repair. In the grounds there are remnants of the Second World war including an elaborate Pill Box and an old radar tower designed to look like a water tower to fool the enemy.
The parkland offers a combination of saltmarsh and grassland. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The paths are well laid out and will take you to the edge of the river. Notices by Ranger Ray Reeves warn you not to stray from the paths. It is one of those places that allows a big sky vista. There are good views over to Thames Gateway.
It’s got a lot to offer. Striking parkland, river views, interesting wildlife, children’s play area and historic interest – it’s just a pity it isn’t open more frequently. Perhaps a new purpose would assist this.
In today’s corporate environment you wouldn’t get a mission statement like “Living Separately – working together” but that was the slogan of Bata shoes. Tomas Bata a Czech began with a cobbler’s shop in Zlin but developed it into one of the big multinational retailers. In 1932 he opened a shoe factory in a remote part of the Thames. He followed in the tradition of social reforming industrialists, such as, Titus Salt who built Saltaire on the Aire in Bradford, William Hesketh Lever who built Port Sunlight on the Mersey. They wanted to improve the living conditions for their workers with good housing plus a range of social and educational facilities. East Tilbury was built by Bata in the international modernist movement style. It had everything you would expect to see in a town: shops, cinema, sports facilities, garage, post office, newspaper the thing that made it different was that it was all owned by Bata. The factory began to decline in the 1980s and was closed in 2005.
House Martin nests
Walking around the town now it still has a distinctive and different feel than most towns. There is the factory complex consisting of 13 large buildings in different states of repair. The three largest buildings on the factory site are the leather factory (1936) the rubber factory (1938) and the central office and administration block (1933), which is a listed building. The administration block is newly painted and well maintained. In one of the empty blocks house martins have made their nests along the roof line. You get the distinct feeling that if there isn’t more intervention this will revert to nature. Some of the other blocks are now used by other industries but mainly as archives and storage. This area is now called the Thames Industrial Estate.
A few metres outside the factory gate there is a statue to the founder Tomas Bata. It is surrounded by lawn and the path leading up to the statue as rows of roses along the border. Across the road is Memorial Park and in the centre is the War Memorial. This is a distinctive design quite unlike other memorials and the inscription is to “ Those of British Bata Shoes Co Ltd who lost lives in World War ll”. At some point the names of the fallen heroes would have been on two plaques on the sides of the memorial but, sadly, these have been removed. The sound of children playing in the close by infant school reminds you that the estate is still alive and has a future generation.
The social facilities were located in the Community House which has since been renamed Stanford House. Built in a similar design to the factory this was a link between the factory site and the housing estate. There are still shops in this block and I had lunch in Nancy’s cafe which is a run of the mill greasy spoon. An unexpected rush of customers, eight in total, resulted in the owner dashing next door to buy bacon and tea bags.
What is fascinating is the order and hierarchy built into the design of this utopian estate. Migrant and single people were housed in Community House which was known as Bata Hotel. Families were provided with rented houses. The oldest houses are in Bata Avenue. There are larger properties with integral garages and these were for the Bata managers. Throughout my visit I kept thinking about Workers Playtime and the concluding words of the programme “Good luck, all workers!”
St Clement’s Church, Leysdown in The Isle Of Sheppey was demolished in the 1980s. All that is left is the graveyard. In the graveyard is a three-ton piece of Kentish ragstone bearing a bronze plaque. The stone, which was not erected until 1995, overlooks Warden Point the scene of one of the most emotional tragedies of The Edwardian Era.
The Scout Movement was founded in 1908; although the first camp, on Brownsea Island, had already been help in 1907. A summer holiday for working-class boys away from the inner-city slums was a wonderful opportunity and the movement spread rapidly.
In 1912 the boys of the 2nd Walworth Troop were given the chance of a holiday under canvas at the Scout Camp in Leysdown. In addition, there was the adventure of sailing down The Thames from Waterloo Bridge to the camp in their training ship, The Arethusa.
The summer of 1912 was cold and wet. In August there were no sunny days and only 9 days had no measureable rain. The Arethusa set sail on the afternoon of Saturday 3rd August with a complement of 5 adults and 24 scouts and arrived at Erith at 9:00 where they anchored for the night in a cold drizzle. They then rose at 4:00 on the Sunday to sail down to Leysdown. A strong wind was blowing from the Kent coast but the boat was protected by keeping close to the North Sheppey shore. However to get to Leysdown the boat had to turn down the East cost at Warden Point. At this moment, about 2:00 P.M. a heavy squall hit them and the boat overturned; throwing the crew and boys into the stormy sea.
Luckily, the Leysdown coastguard had been expecting The Arethusa and witnessed the sinking; so they were able to launch their lifeboat; with a crew of 2 coastguard and 2 volunteers, immediately and set off on the 2 mile trek, only powered by oars, to rescue the crew.
The heroic bravery of the coastguards and the adult scouts who went back into the sea time after time to try and rescue the boys resulted in 15 of the boys being saved and the tragic loss of 9 of the boys.
The tragedy deeply affected the nation and Sir Winston Churchill, then First Lord Of The Admiralty, sent a navel destroyer to carry the boy’s bodies back to Walworth. The bodies were taken to St John’s Church, Larcom Road where more than 100,000 people passed through to pay their respects.
The funeral was held on 10 August 1912, on yet another thundery, rain-soaked day. More than one million people are estimated to have lined the procession from St John’s to Nunhead Cemetery where the boys are buried. The Daily Mirror and The Daily Express both printed special editions.
The Daily Express organised a collection for a fitting memorial for the boys and in 1914 a life-size bronze model of a Scout designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and sculpted by Miss Lillie Read was erected by the graves. Unfortunately, in the 1960s, Nunhead cemetery fell into a state of neglect and disrepair and, in 1969, the statue was sawn off at the ankles and taken away and has never been seen again. Presumably it has been melted down for scrap.
Nunhard Cemetry has been much improved over the past thirty years thanks to the activities of The Friends Of Nunhead Cemetry. A new, much smaller, memorial was erected in 1992. At the base of the inscription is carved a circle of pebbles with a single stone in the centre. The Scouts symbol for ‘Gone Home’.
The tragedy was largely forgotten after World War I. There has recently been a revived interest. Some because of the centenary but mainly because of the three Beckham brothers. One, William, perished but two, Ted & John survived. Ted was to become the Great Grandfather of David Robert Joseph Beckham.
The advertisement for the Estuary Exhibition at Museum of Docklands caught my eye in the underground. The exhibition brings together the work of 12 artists to explore as curator Francis Marshall states “this largely overlooked landscape” and spans 28 years from 1985-2013. We are also reminded that this area has been the inspiration for artists and writers such as Turner, Constable, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad and TS Eliot.
The featured works include paintings, photography and film. Traditional paintings are provided by Michael Andrews and Jock Mc Faddon. The two paintings by Michael Andrews: The Estuary and Study for the Estuary were inspired by trips to Canvey Island and 19th Century photographs of the river. They capture the spirit of the river well.
There is work by four photographers, Peter Marshall, Gayle Chong Kwan, Christiane Baumgartner and Simon Roberts. Nearly half of the exhibition is given over to film or digital film. There are films of the The Bow Gamelan Ensemble and other works by Andrew Kotting, William Raban, Stephen Turner, John Smith and Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen. Portrait of a River by Larsen is just under an hour long. Some stamina is required to watch this in gallery conditions. The preponderance of this media means that the exhibition is in a dark enclosed room. Whilst this adds to the themes of decay and desolation I don’t think it presents a balanced representation of the estuary today. Much of the area around the river has reverted to marshland and has seen a return of wildlife, there are few, if any, images of this.
The Tolly had always been a basic working-class boozer.. the pub has many evocative photos of old charabanc trips hanging on the walls. However, with the CAMRA revolution and the transformation of West Greenwich’s Victorian terraces into highly desirable bijou residences, it rapidly became transformed into a heaving, standing-room only mass of students, academics, media-types and others generally classified as Guardian readers. Many came for the real-ale; but others, such as myself, preferred the
large bottles of Holsten lager that were sold; well before the general availability of strong continental lagers like Stella. Soon the only trace of the old working class was the old bloke in the cloth cap who collected the Christmas Club money every Monday and the pickled-eggs which remained the only food available. The trendiness probably reached its peak when we were treated to melodies from Jules Holland on the old piano in the back on the way to the outside toilet.
When I started the landlord was a genial old Cockney geezer called ’Arry who we all thought was married to a very large lady called Hilda who spent all her time perched on a stool by the bar. ‘Arry’s assistant was a bloke called John Ling who was distinguished by his dislike of the way the pub was going and his hatred of the new clientele. His particular dislike was anybody who tried to create a group of 5 by moving a chair from one group of 4 round a table to another. ‘Don’t move the chairs’; he would scream across the room.
When ‘Arry died in 1976 John took over the licence and we thought that he had married Hilda. But census records show that 52-54 was occupied by Henry C and Rose French from 1969 to 1976. Presumably Henry was ‘Arry; but I am sure I never saw Rose. And from 1964 to 1967 52-54 was occupied not only by the Roses but also by Fredrick and Joan Lambert. The only time it has been under multi-occupation. So I’m not really sure what ws going on there.
In the late-1970s, a drivers’ strike at the brewery affected supplies to The Tolly, and Tolly Cobbold indicated to John Ling that it was not worth keeping their remote outpost in SE10 open. However, Young’s Brewery stepped in and took over the lease. A friend assures me that this happened because he was so upset at the prospect of losing his favourite pub that he wrote a personal letter to Sir John Young pointing out that The Tolly would make a great asset in the Young’s estate and this had spurred Youngs into the takeover. Whether this is true or not, we will never know.
Traditionalists were delighted that a brewer like Youngs had taken over the Tolly. However, one of things that they did was to give the place a complete refit. Obviously,the first thing to go was the Tolly sign and its replacement with a large Richard I sign together with a much more distinct sign on the street column. The off-licence was converted into what is now the public bar and the back was extended to provide the luxury of indoor toilets. A nice beer garden was also built.
The Tolly has been a Young’s house for the past 30-odd years and it has always had more of a corporate feel than the pub under ‘Arry and John. Managers have come and gone without any really establishing a personality for themselves; and the bar staff tend to be the usual crowd of itinerant antipodeans and, more lately, east Europeans. Youngs corporate food and wine is available and the usual pub gimmicks ; quiz night (Sunday nights, can be entertaining), curry nights; burger nights; poker nights come and go.
A couple of years ago we had another renovation; ubiquitous innovations like distressed sofas were introduced; and, to the horror of traditionalists, they even put down a carpet in the lounge bar. The furniture in the public bar can make the place look like a giant’s living room.
At one time I thought The Tolly was the best pub in the world; now I’m not even sure that it’s the best pub in 52-56 Royal Hill..
So much for the trip down Memory Hill. The Richard I seems to be the only establishment on Royal Hill which kept the same identity since its foundation in 1830. Ironic, since for at least 40 years it has been generally known by a completely different name.
Thanks to the staff at Greenwich Heritage Centre for their assistance.
I started going to The Tolly around 1972. The CAMRA real ale revolution started by Richard Boston in The Guardian had just started and The Tolly, a basic, back-street boozer, seemed ideal. No 52 Royal Hill, the bit with the curved window, was a simple, single room bar. No 54, what is now the public bar, was an off-licence. The off-licence had hardly any stock and very few customers; although it was possible to buy bottles of Toll Light Ale which came in a very attractive Perrier-style bottle with a label featuring an art-noveau statue of a naked Bachante. Arching over the ground floor windows of the two buildings was a large sign saying ‘Tolly House’. So, like everybody else, I assumed that the pub was called The Tolly or The Tolly House. Only on close inspection could you see that ‘Richard I’ was written in the corners of the sign. The single, wood-floored bar had some simple wooden tables and chairs; the most prized being the long table and forms in the bay window. The toilet was outside at the back; and could only be reached by walking through the backyard. There was no garden.
They have probably been selling beer at 52 Royal Hill almost since the street was laid out around 1830. Contrary to popular belief, and the insistence of the residents, the street has no royal connections other than that is was developed by a Victorian builder called Robert Royal. It was previously known as the more prosaic Gang Lane. After Royal Hill had been built the current stretch of Point Hill up to Maidenstone Hill was known as Royal Hill Row. The bit of Royal Hill which now runs between Blissett Street and Greenwich South Street was still known as Green Lane.
The ravages on the working classes of London caused by gin drinking are well-known. To combat this, The Duke Of Wellington’s Tory government introduced the 1830 Beer Act designed to encourage beer drinking as an alternative; beer being much safer than water due to the heat of the brewing process destroying bacteria. The tax on beer was abolished; and anybody could apply for a licence, costing 2 guineas, which allowed them to brew and sell beer in their own houses. (Don’t ever say that a Tory government ever did anything worthwhile!) Not surprisingly this proved a very popular measure and Beer Houses, also known as Small Beer Shops or Tom& Jerry Shops sprung up everywhere. Many of these proved to be extremely dubious establishments and The 1869 Act put a brake on the opening of new shops; but those already in existence were allowed to continue.
The 1860 Greenwich Licensing Guide makes no mention of premises at 52, 54 (or 56, the current Greenwich Union) Royal Hill; the only establishments there are The Prince Albert (now The Prince Of Greenwich), The Barley Mow (now The Hill), The Globe, and The Duke Of Kent (fate unknown). But this lists only Inns, Ale Houses and Victualling Houses. In the 1896 Guide (Unfortunately, the Heritage Centre only has the1860, 89, 91 & 96 editions of these fascinating books) a new section for Licensed Beer Houses, Wine Shops and Grocers has been added and we now find The Richard I at number 52 and The Fox and Hounds at 56. Both establishments are listed as providing Beer, Wine and Billiards. I don’t know if this is ‘proper’ 3-ball billiards or Kentish bar-billiards. If is full billiards then I can only assume that the table was upstairs as there is certainly no room in the current bar.
Given that few Beer Houses were created after 1869, we can assume that The Richard I and The Fox and Hounds were in existence well before 1869. The 1885 census lists Mrs E Dorrington a Beer Retailer at number 52; Thos Tippen, a florist, at 54 and George Hulby at 56 which is actually named as The Fox and Hounds.
The situation continued for the first couple of decades of the1900s. 52 & 56 continued as Beer Houses; but 54 changed to a confectioner. In 1910 54 also opened a Telephone Call Office on the premises to enable to local residents to make and receive calls on the exciting new telephone system. The owner of 52 since 1910 was a George Honeybone and in 1923 he managed to buy 54 and to merge the two building to create his beer empire at The Richard I.
At some stage the business was taken over and the pub supplied by The Tollmache Brewery Company which later merged with the Cobbold Company to form the Tolly Cobbold brewery based in Ipswich. Hence the sign; which is where we first came in.
I didn’t even know that it was Love your Local Market fortnight when I visited Lewisham Market last week. The main drawback to visiting Lewisham is that it is pedestrian unfriendly. Well at least until you get to the market itself. If arriving by public transport, at the station, the first thing you see is a huge traffic island. To motivate you to continue your journey there is a large painted turquoise wall sign with the words shop, enjoy, shopping on the far side of the island. It also has pastel yellow and pink flowers reminiscent of film credits from a 1960s Doris Day film. Once past the roundabout you come across the largest police station in Europe. I have heard jokes that it’s so big it can be seen from space. It is on the site of a former Army & Navy department store.
Lewisham Police Station
Lewisham Clock Tower is at the eastern end of the market. It was erected to commemorate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897. The exact date when the market started isn’t clear but it does date back to 1903. There are very few remnants left of the old market or town just the Clock Tower and the Co-Operative building which is now a gym. The town centre was devastated by a flying bomb in 1944. The present Lewisham Shopping Centre was built in 1977. Here and there are odd pieces of “Parisian Style” street furniture which just adds to the cacophony of the place. Despite this the market itself is vibrant.
Parisian street furniture
No matter when you visit, and it is open Monday to Saturday, it is busy. I have been there on Monday and been astounded at the number of people shopping. There are a range of stalls selling fruit and vegetables, fish, clothes and hardware. Close by is Genaro’s Delicatessen which is one of Time Out London’s best food shops. A friend of mine, originally from Sardinia, berated me for buying supermarket own brand pasta. A practice I have since stopped. She only buys her pasta from Genaro’s. The two Turkish restaurants are also good.
Markets can be more than simply a place to shop they are an opportunity to see a slice of everyday life and culture. The Love your Local Market fortnight is nearly over but I have decided that it would be good to visit other markets along the Thames.
Have we anything to learn from the Americans about the future of our High Streets? Having just returned from a road trip along the east coast and the Appalachians I think we can learn from their mistakes. The development of the strip mall, a group of buildings housing several retail stores with a shared parking lot, have led to the decline of the downtown areas. They form a “sprawl” along the highways leading to a town. Bill Bryson described this vividly in his book the Lost Continent back in 1988. Now the strip malls themselves are in decline. I saw lots of vacant lots with the box like buildings beginning to decay. Just outside Asheville I came across a complete empty mall. This isn’t an isolated example and bloggers like dumpystripmalls are recording closures.
I’ve always thought that the strip malls are terribly inconvenient. You have to shlep from mall to mall confronting the traffic, it’s inefficient in both time and fuel and they are not attractive places. I’m pleased to learn I’m not alone in this. In this article about land use they conclude that the future of retail in the States belongs to town centres and main streets. Some of the towns I saw that were beginning to see the renaissance of their downtown areas were so vibrant and interesting. Culpeper and Ashville were two of the best places I visited. There were some common threads to their development. Some shop space was being used for art and community projects. There was a good range of shops many providing aritisan goods and crafts. Most had a micro-brewery making some really interesting craft beers. In Ashville there were seven!
Downtown Culpeper
We may not have the same sprawl as in the States but we do have our own version. In Charlton there is a sprawl along Bugsby Way and there are plans to expand it. The strategic objective in the Charlton Masterplan is to“Stitch together the retail and residential neighbourhoods” which sounds like a lot of meaningless fluff. Sainsburys are re-locating to the Woolwich Road and there is a new Marks & Spencer store planned. On top of this just down the road in Woolwich is the Tesco monolith overshadowing General Gordon Square. It seems to me that there is a policy conflict – a desire to maintain our historic town centres and have shopping centres or our version of the strip mall. In a time of economic decline and austerity is this feasible?
Latest retail figures for the UK show that we may well be following the example of the U.S. High Street footfall is up 3.4%, the strongest performance since December 2011, whilst shopping centre visitors fell 3%. One of the reasons cited is that shoppers have been put off by the unattractiveness of the out of town centres prinicipally caused by closures such as Comet. Just like the States the proximity of an evening scene for drinks and food helps footfall. I for one hope that this trend continues. However, rather than building on the experience of other places we seem set on a course to open more out of town centres and the danger is that Woolwich, Eltham High Street, Charlton Village and Blackheath Standard could be affected.
