Riverside. South bank east of the Tower. Greenwich marsh

Riverside. South bank east of the Tower. Greenwich marsh


Post to the east Charlton Angerstein and Silvertown
Post to the south East Greenwich
Post to the west Blackwall and Greenwich Peninsula West
Post to the north Leamouth and Dome

Barge Walk
New road built in 2014 between large blocks of flats

Bessemer Place
New road built in 2014 between large blocks of flats. Named for Henry Bessemer’s Greenwich steel works.

Blackwall Lane
This is the ancient road into the Marsh. It was also called Marsh Lane and Also Ship and Billet Lane after the pub on the corner with Woolwich Road. In this northern section of the Peninsula its line has been very much curtailed and it now ends at the roundabout with Millennium Way but it once followed the line of what is now Tunnel Avenue to the tip of the Peninsula
Housing. In the late 19th and early 20th there was some housing in Blackwall Lane, most of it associated with various industrial sites. In the 1860s Sidmouth Place ran off Blackwall Lane north of Morden Wharf Road. In the same area a Methodist chapel was associated with an East Place.,


Blackwall Tunnel Approach
Access road to the Blackwall Tunnel built in the late 1960s as part of an upgrade which included the new southbound bore.  Site of a permanent traffic jam.
Morden Wharf Sculptures. These are on the roadside side of Morden Wharf and consist of giant red iron ‘sticks’ in bunches tied round the centre and in heaps. This is an artwork erected by the current developer on site.
Blackwall Tunnel Gatehouse, This is the southern gatehouse to the tunnel built 1897 in red sandstone with a flat above the archway. An Art Nouveau by Thomas Blashill, architect to the London County Council. The facades were decorated with shields carrying the coats of arms of Middlesex, Kent, Essex and Surrey, and commemorative bronze plaques
Blackwall Tunnel.  The, currently northbound, ‘old’ tunnel  was initially designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette but with the inauguration of the London County Council in 1889, a new plan was drawn up by Alexander Binnie, the Council’s Engineer. This was for a single tunnel for two lines of vehicles and foot-passengers. It was, of course, to be free for all to use. The tunnel was driven through water-bearing strata by a Greathead shield and compressed air - the first time these techniques had been combined. It was ceremonially opened by HRH the Prince of Wales in 1897.
Blackwall Tunnel. The southbound ‘new’ tunnel. in the late 1930s the London County Council planned a second tunnel but work did not begin until 1958. It eventually opened in 1969
Concrete screen building. For many years a concrete box stood above the archway into the tunnel – the tunnel itself, not the gatehouse. It is thought that this was a wartime measure which originally contained equipment to close the tunnel in case of attack. It was removed as part of the tidying up process of the Millennium Exhibition.


Boord Street
Housing here was demolished in the 1960s.
338 Built as the Mitre public house. Became the notorious comedy venue, the Tunnel Club, and then a whole series of disreputable night spots 
St Andrews & St.Michael's Church.  This was built 1900-2 by Basil Champneys allegedly on a 20ft thick raft over tulle marsh. It is said to have been partly built with the money from the demolition and sale of St Michael's, Wood Street, in the City from where it’s pretty iron bell tower is said to have come from. The Parish was united with Christ Church in 1951 but St Andrew's was not closed until 1965. It was demolished after 1984. The site was leased to building contractors O'Keefe for industrial use and sold to them in 2003.
Weighbridge



Bugsbys Hole
Area in the river off the east bank the Peninsula and which has given its name to the area.  The identity of Bugsby is unknown but the name dates from the early 18th and identifies a part of the river used as a mooring.

Bugsbys Way
Road built by London Borough of Greenwich in the 1980s.
Holiday Inn Express. Built 1998.


Chandlers Avenue
New road built in 2014 between large blocks of flats.

Child Lane
New road built in 2000 as part of Greenwich Millennium Village with a name relating to a nearby school.

Cutter Lane
New road built as part of the infrastructure round the Dome and running between car parks.

Dreadnought Street
This is now a slip road off the A102M running round to the Dome.
Energy Centre. Under construction


East Parkside
David Beckham Academy. This was a football school founded by David Beckham Academy in 2005. The academy pulled out of the London site at the end of the lease in October 2009. Its indoor arena had two full-sized, artificially turfed pitches, alongside an education and administration centre, and a sports medical centre. The facility was subsequently known as The London Soccerdome and used for football coaching run by a different organisation. It closed in October 2014, with the site to be redeveloped for housing. The structure is to be re-erected in Southend.

Edmund Halley Way
New road built as part of the infrastructure round the Dome and running between car parks. This one is named after an astronomer.
Cable Car – aka the Emirates Airline. This opened in 2012 and runs from here to the Victoria Dock.

Green Place
This is a private landscaped service area for The Now gallery and other facilities in Peninsula Square.

Grenfell Street
This street was once the main access road the gas works. It was a short residential street, now under Millennium Way)
East Greenwich Gas Works. The works was set up in the early 1880s by the South Metropolitan Gas Company. It was their out of town ‘super’ works and led to the closure of several smaller works which they had taken over. It aspired to the highest standards and was one of largest gas works worldwide. It was nationalised in 1946.  Gas making ceased with the advent of North Sea Gas in the 1970s and the works eventually closed in the 1980s.
Livesey Institite. This stood at the end of Grenfell Street outside the works gate. It was a social and sports club for gas works staff and included a theatre and other facilities.
Gas Holder 1. This was built in 1886 as the World's first four lift holder and of, 8.6m cubic foot capacity. It was the largest holder in the world when built. It is still extant but unused and its future is unknown.
Gas Holder 2. Built in 1891, it was the the largest holder in the world. It was a 6 lift holder with a flying lift to contain 12.2 m. cubic feet. It was damaged in the 1917 Silvertown explosion and the flying lift was never replaced. It was demolished in 1986 although the tank appears to remain.


John Harrison Way
Road built to access Greenwich Millennium Village in 2000. Named after the clockmaker who lived in Barton on Humber and only came to Greenwich twice.
Memorial Park. Open land named for the Gas Works memorial
War Memorial. This was set up by the gas company and names their workers killed in the forces during the Great War. Originally dedicated in 1926 it was moved here by Kay Murch.
Millennium Primary School. Opened in 2000 to service new residential areas on the peninsula. It was in fact Annandale School which moved here as its founding body. It includes an autistic unit
Peninsula Health Centre. Opened 2000.


Millennium Way
New road built to access the Dome in 1999
St.Mary Church of England School. Extension to existing school opened in 2015.
Portacabins. Offices and depot for peninsula managers8
North Greenwich Station. Opened in 1999. This lies between Canary Wharf and Canning Town on the Jubilee Line.  It has a striking blue-tiled and glazed interior, with raking concrete columns rearing up inside the huge underground space, was designed by Will Allsop
Bus Station and taxi rank. Associated with the station.


Mitre Passage
Office buildings



Morden Wharf Road
This was also known as Sea Witch Lane after a riverside pub. It was called after Sir John Morden who set up Morden College who are the owners of this area. It was built by lessee Charles Holcombe for riverside access. The road was closed for access to the riverside by Tunnel Glucose factory which stood on the site.
The Mechanic’s Arms. Pub built in 1870, the original licensee was William Drew. It was demolished in the late 1890s as part of the LCC’s Tunnel Avenue construction program.

Old School Close
Dreadnought School. The date of the school is unclear and there may have been a predecessor building. This was a London School Board School and may be from the late 1880s - since there are records of repairs and extensions in 1900.It  closed as the population moved from the area in the 1960s and has been used as a store for the Horniman Museum ever since.

Olympian Way
This is a new name for the riverside path.

Ordnance Crescent
Part of west side, including the Ordnance Arms, has gone for the Tunnel.

Oval Square
Shops around a planted and landscaped square for the Millennium Village

Pilot Busway
The busway runs on some dedicated track and on some roads. This section parallels West Parkside. It was built for a guided bus which never worked and never ran


Riverside walk. West bank
Morden Wharf. This square covers only the northern section of Morden Wharf.
Great and Little Pits –these were field names in the riverside area owned by Morden College and leased to industry frrm the late 1830s.
Bryan and Howden. This company leased part of what became Morden Wharf from Morden College in 1837. They made coal gas manufacturing apparatus and were also tar distiller’s
Holcombe. Charles Holcombe leased part of the area from Morden College from 1841 for industrial use.
Willis and Wright. This firm was based on what became Morden Wharf. They were vinegar manufacturers from Old Street in Shoreditch. In Greenwich they had a tar and chemical factory.
Kuper. This was a wire rope making company from Camberwell. Making iron and steel ropes for collieries and ships rigging.  . Some early cable manufacture was contracted to them. From here SS Persian was loaded with cable via a jetty made f barges.
Telegraph Cable Works. Submarine Telegraph Cables. Kuper became Glass Elliott in 1854 and cable manufacture was based here, although it later moved to Enderby Wharf. This site had closed by 1900 and was taken over by Bowater
Bowater. Thames Export packing. Bowaters were paper manufacturers. They leased the site as Thames Export Packing Company Ltd and specialised in preparing paper for export.
Ashby Cement Works.  In 1852 -1856, Henry Reid and John Winkfield made ‘Roman Cement’ here. The company name changed to the East Greenwich Portland Cement Company and in 1870 became William Ashby and Son and closed in 1926. Ashby was a Staines based company
Maudslay Son and Field. Mainly based to the north of this square in Bay Wharf the company had a boiler works here franchised from the French Belleville Company.
Segar Emery and Co. Ltd. took over the Maudslay boiler site in 1904. They were mahogany merchants with connections to America. The business appears to have involved the importation of tropical hardwoods and had a saw mill and dock on site
Molassine Company Ltd. In 1908 this company moved onto the site vacated by Segar Emery. They had been set up with a secret formula for animal feed molasses was stored here in big steel tanks. They made a feed for horses and later dog food. The red sandstone block on Blackwall lane was built in 1916.
Bay Wharf. This site is mainly in the square to the west and will be described there


Riverway
Riverway is now a car park around the Pilot Pub and cottages. Until 2000 it was a road which ran to the river where there was a causeway.  Some of the sites listed below were on the stretch between a wall and the river, now occupied by large blocks of flats.
Railway – there was a railway bridge which crossed Riverway and which would roughly have been on the site of the traffic lights in West Parkside. This was on a branch of the Angerstein Railway going into the gas works. There was a signal cabin above the road.
East Greenwich Tide Mill. This was built on the riverside in 1901 by George Russell. It was upriver of Riverway.  It was designed by William Johnson. During the construction an explosion in a boiler of a Trevithick engine here led to changes in early engine use.  The mill was found to be structural unsound by 1810 and was rebuilt by Brian Donkin. It was probably still extant in 1900. 
Millponds. These stretched back behind the mill – one being described as a ‘basin’.  Some parts of them were still extant in the 1940s.
Hills Chemical Works. The tide mill was taken over by Frank Clarke Hills in 1842 and the site became a chemical works, making manure and processing gas works waste
Phoenix Wharf.  After Hills death the northern section of the chemical works was bought by South Metropolitan Gas Co as an extension to their East Greenwich Gas Works. They ran it to manufacture various chemical from gas works waste.
Ammonium Sulphate store. This was a storage shed with pre-cast concrete parabolic roof on the site of the Phoenix chemical Works.  It remained after all other gas works buildings had gone and was used for film and video production. . Demolished in the 1990s. 
Blackwall Point Power Station site. This was on the upriver side of Riverway. In 1900, the Blackheath and Greenwich District Electric Light Co built the earliest power station here on part of the chemical works site. It was rebuilt in 1951. Rge Control room was separate from the rest of the station and buildings were on both sides of Riverway. The Jetty remains. 
East Lodge. This house was built as part of Russell’s estate for New East Greenwich and generally used for supervisory staff. It was demolished probably in the 1900s.
Redpath Brown – British Steel. This structural steel plant was built around 1901 on a site used for the dumping of spoil from the Blackwall Tunnel.  Redpath Brown was a Scottish company eventually taken over by Dorman Long and Bolkow Vaughan. It was later nationalised as the Riverside Steel Works under British Steel. It closed in the 1980s.The site was later used for Police Riot Training.
Greenwich Yacht Club. The club was for several years based in the old canteen building of the Redpath Brown factory.
Pilot Inn. The Pilot was built in 1802 by Russell as part of his scheme for ‘New East Greenwich’ – a stone on the pub wall commemorates that. The Pilot concerned is probably William Pitt the Younger, ‘The Pilot who weathered the storm’.
Cottages – there were once more cottages and some tenement blocks. These too were built by Russell for workers at the tide mill. Ceylon Place. The name probably relates to the Treaty of Amiens of 1802, the date of the cottages, which seceded Ceylon to Britain.
Thames Church Mission Hall. This mission to seamen started in one of the Ceylon Place buildings. It later evangelised from boats on the river and built St. Andres’s Church in Gravesend.
Coalite Plant. This dated from 1929 and was licensed to South Metropolitan Gas Works.
Fuel Research Station. This had begun as a First World War poison gas research body but became the official government coal research establishment. On closure it moved to Warren Springs


Thames Path east bank
There are a number of seats and stopping places along this stretch.
Port of London Authority scanner
Power Station Jetty. Built for the Blackwall Point Power Station 1950s.  Now in use as a theatre and entertainment site.
Children’s playground
Pilot Causeway. This was licenced in 1801 when the river bank was opened for the east Greenwich tide mill.  It extended from what was Riverway. It appears to have been removed.. 
Redpath Brown Jetty. This belonged to the structural steel works. After their closure it was disused and was eventually taken over by a rival Greenwich Yacht Club. This was closed down and the jetty removed for the Millennium in 2000. It is now used as a mooring area for boats belonging to Greenwich Yacht Club


Tunnel Avenue
Tunnel Avenue was built to access the Blackwall Tunnel when it was first built in the 1890s. It was then chopped up in the 1960s when the motorway was built. The stretch on this square is effectively now part of the Blackwall Tunnel Approach and the roadside of some of the wharves listed under Morden Wharf – and further north, the roadside of wharves which will he listed in the square to the west.
Star  in the East Pub. This is now an electrical shop alongside the tunnel approach
Tram Telephone Box. This stood alongside the tunnel entrance as a reminder of the tram services in the area. It was removed as part of the tidying up process for the Olympics.


West Parkside
Southern Park.  Amenity grassland used for sports.

Scources
Archive
Aslet. History of Greenwich
Bygone Kent-
Carr. Docklands History Survey
Francis. History of the Cement Industry
GLIAS Journal
GLIAS- Newsletter
Goldsmiths. South East London Industrial Archaeology
Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarians. Journal
Greenwich Chamber of  Commerce. Report
Greenwich Peninsula History. Web site
Greenwich Society Walk,
Industrial Archaeology Review
Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich. Industries of Greenwich
Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich. Festival brochure,
Mills. Greenwich Marsh
Mills. Innovation, Enterprise and Change on the Greenwich Peninsula
Mills. Mr. Bugsby
Nature Conservation in Greenwich
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Port of London. Magazine
Spurgeon. Discover Greenwich and Charlton

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