February 2012 – a spark in your veins

28th February 2012

Gold Ball, Cloth of Gold and Golden Window

Stained glass window in Memorial Hospital Presentation of a golden ball by William Fisher Lord of the Manor Plumstead to Queen Elizabeth — Stained glass window in Memorial Hospital: Presentation of a golden ball by William Fisher Lord of the Manor Plumstead to Queen Elizabeth

One of the delights of the Memorial Hospital is the stained glass that decorates some of its corridors and stairways, and the St Nicholas Chapel. I was lucky recently to have the opportunity to take some photographs of the windows, which I have put on the flickr site. Most of the topics depicted in the windows need no explanation; a view of Eltham Palace, Henry VIII’s Great Harry ship which was built at Woolwich and the religious subjects in the chapel. However I found one window, shown above, puzzling. Who was William Fisher, I pondered, and what was his connection with the area?

Google wasn’t my friend on this occasion, and couldn’t answer my questions. So I headed down to the local history section of the Woolwich library and the trusty W.T. Vincent’s “The Records of the Woolwich District”. Vincent talks about the visit of Queen Bess to Plumstead in July 1573, but names her host as Thomas Fisher rather than William. He describes Thomas Fisher as having been a clerk or bailiff who was employed by Sir Edward Boughton in the management of the king’s estates, Sir Edward having been granted “the manor and parsonage, tythes &c., within the parishes of and villages of Plumstead, Bostall, Wickham, Welling, Woolwich, Bexley, Lessness, Erith and Yard, alias Crayford” by Henry VIII after the dissolution of the monasteries. Vincent goes on to say of Thomas Fisher:

The old historian, Dugdale, represents Fisher as being:

“As greedy of church lands as other courtiers were,”: observing that “he swallowed divers large morsels, whereof Bishop’s Itchington was one; he made an absolute depopulation of that part called Nether Itchington, where the church stood (which he also pulled down for the building of a manor house in its room); and to perpetuate his memory changed the name of it to Fisher’s Itchington”

He also had a manor house in Plumstead , and much of the land in the parish which had been seized by the late King Henry had apparently come to his share. He was pretty well to do, and on the occasion of the royal visit he presented her Majesty with a ball of gold, with a cover, having a lion standing on the top, crowned and holding the Queen’s arms.

Vincent thought that Fisher’s home was the Old Manor House in Wickham Lane, also known as the Pilgrim’s House or Wolsey’s House.

A Google search for “Fisher’s Itchington” threw up Thomas Fisher MP, who according to wikipedia was MP for Warwickshire and was the person who depopulated Nether Itchington, but no connection with Plumstead or Woolwich is mentioned. So a partial solution to the mystery ….

Gold connections continue in some of the other stained glass windows at the hospital.

The Henry Grace à Dieu, also known as the Great Harry, was the first ship built at Woolwich Dockyard, and the reason the dockyard was founded by Henry VIII in 1512. It was the largest ship of its time, with many innovations such as having two fully armed gun decks, gun ports and 21 of the new heavy bronze cannon. As the window says: she conveyed Henry to the summit with King Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold and ended her life at the start of Mary’s reign in 1553, when she caught fire and sank at her mooring at Woolwich… “by neckclygens and for lake of over-syth,” according to Henry Machyn.

Stained glass window in Memorial Hospital: The Great Harry

The peaceful St Nicholas chapel at the Memorial Hospital opened in 1986 after the closure of the St Nicholas Hospital that was situated in Tewson Road, Plumstead. One of the windows in the chapel is known as the Golden Window, and illustrates the text “Suffer little children to come unto me”. According to the Lost Hospitals of London web site:

The ‘Golden Window’ was originally installed in 1956 in the Hospital chapel at Goldie Leigh Hospital. It was moved to the Memorial Hospital chapel and rededicated in December 1986.

That was all I could find out about this window, but I’ll add it to my list for the next time I’m in the library at the Heritage Centre.

What a range of interesting local history was encapsulated in just three windows!

Stained glass window in Memorial Hospital Chapel: The Golden Window

24th February 2012

Nimby or not Nimby?

Possible site of two houses in Nithdale Road

A new planning application for 2 houses in Nithdale Road set me musing about Nimbyism. The acronym NIMBY (Not In My Back-Yard) is often used pejoratively, or as wikipedia says: “The term is usually applied to opponents of a development, implying that they have narrow, selfish, or myopic views.”

I have in the past opposed developments similar to the one proposed in Nithdale Road that were literally almost in my back yard, and I’ve felt slightly guilty about being a NIMBY. After all there is a housing crisis in the UK, with according to Shelter, 1.7 million people on local authority waiting lists, 7.4 million homes failing to meet the government decent homes standard and 654000 households overcrowded. Also, with the population rising, not enough new houses are being built each year; it has been estimated that 240000 new homes are needed each year and only about half that number are being built. So it’s pretty selfish to deny other people the opportunity to have a home of their own, isn’t it?

But … there do seem to be a lot of new houses and flats built in the area. The Love Lane development will apparently yield more than 900 new homes, then there is the ongoing development of the Royal Military Academy and the Royal Arsenal sites yielding hundreds more. Not to mention the 16 story residential block to be built on the DLR site, according to the new Woolwich Masterplan, and many smaller developments such as the former Cottage Hospital. Do we need to build on every small plot of land, irrespective of the impact on the neighbourhood?

Also it appears that proposed developments try to fit in as as many homes as possible. I guess more separate “units” equals more money. I’ve noticed a pattern on several proposals where there are a series of planning applications that successively reduce the number of proposed units in order to get planning approval. One went from a 4 storey block of flats to a 3½ storey block to a pair of three storey semis over the course of three or four years. Another, similar to that proposed in Nithdale Road, started with two small semis which was rejected, then changed to a single dwelling (also rejected). If I were cynical I’d call it the “see what you can get away with” tactic. Some of these homes seem very small; in fact new homes in the UK are the smallest in Europe.

Hoardings round plot in Eaglesfield Road

The planning history for the plot of land at the end of Eaglesfield Road also demonstrates the trend of successive applications for a reducing number of units. In this case from 12 flats to 8 ending in an application for 6 flats which was turned down by the council and then allowed on appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. As consent was granted over 3 years ago it should now have lapsed, but the land has been left unattractively hoarded up for several years. Sometimes such plots of land tend to turn into rubbish dumps if the people who live near them aren’t vigilant. The land owners, many of whom don’t live locally, don’t suffer from the impact to the local environment of neglecting a plot, or the long term impact on the built environment of building something that doesn’t fit in. It’s very rarely that I read a planning application and I think “that person really cares about the area”.

Recently applications to build on land that used to be back gardens have been turned down because it was seen as “garden grabbing” which Councils were allowed to use as a reason for rejection. It isn’t clear whether this will still have any force when the planning laws change. It’s also not clear to me how the proposed “presumption in favour of development” will balance against localism’s “new rights and powers for communities”. However that plays out, land owners may decide to just need to hang on to their holdings until some future government relaxes the rules sufficiently to allow them to build what they want.

As a result of my musings I feel a little bit less guilty about being a Nimby, and I will keep sending in my objection letters anyway.

20th February 2012

Blackheath Donkeys Move Home

I was surprised on a trip to Thompsons Garden Centre to find that the Blackheath Donkeys weren’t in their field at the side of the car park. Along with other gardening shoppers I often pause to see how they are doing before heading in to the garden centre. Then I remembered that an article in the Mercury had said that Greenwich Council had agreed with the owner, Lenny Thorne, that the donkeys would have a new field near Eltham Palace. Intrigued, I decided to pay them a visit.

There are a lot of fields near Eltham Palace, I discovered, and most of them seem to have equine inhabitants. The Palace itself was closed for the winter, but the surrounding gardens were beautiful in the crisp, clear winter air with a carpet of snowdrops under the trees. I checked the fields round the edges of the gardens, but there was no sign of the donkeys. I decided to try the other side of the palace.

The meander down King Johns Walk has a very rural feel, which is increased when it meets the fields at the bottom of the hill. This section of the Green Chain Walk is idyllic, with fields of horses and ponies on either side of the path and panoramic views of Central London from Canary Wharf via the Gherkin and Shard to the London Eye. The donkeys were in a field near a sign post telling me I was half a mile away from the Tarn and half a mile from Eltham Palace. They had moved last Wednesday, I was informed, and had settled in quite well and seemed happy in a field that was better drained than their old pasture and had good grazing.

So the field is now clear for the Equestrian Centre to be built between Woodlands Farm and the garden centre. I hope the donkeys get as many visitors as they did in their old home. I will put some more pictures of them in their new home on flickr.

Eltham Palace, the Donkeys' new neighbour

19th February 2012

Howgate Wonder in Nightingale Vale

Lewis demonstrating how to plant a tree — Lewis from The London Orchard Project shows volunteers how to plant a plum tree

I joined Avant-Gardening, The London Orchard Project and other volunteers to plant a plum tree in The Place Where Plums Grow on Thursday. In fact we planted two plum trees, and some apple and pear trees, as part of Avant-Gardening’s The Place Where Plums Grow project, which kicked off in the Nightingale Estate. One of the apple trees was the sweet cooking apple, Howgate Wonder, known for keeping its shape and texture when cooked. It is also known for sometimes producing very large fruit; the world record largest apple was once a Howgate Wonder weighing 3lb 11oz with a 21 inch circumference. It has since been beaten by 4lb 1oz apple grown in Japan.

The London Orchard Project was founded in January 2009 by Carina Millstone and Rowena Ganguli to promote orchards and fruit trees in London. They “are working with Londoners to plant and harvest apple, pear and plum trees all over the city, and help us all to rediscover the pleasure of eating home-grown fruit”. As well as planting new community orchards and training orchard leaders to look after them they rejuvenate and restore neglected orchards. One of these orchards is at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Monks Orchard Road Beckenham. Last week I joined a a group of volunteers to help plant some 40 or so apple trees there – including interesting and unusual varieties such as Lanes Prince Albert, Laxtons Fortune and, what bliss, Pitmaston Pineapples! There’s a detailed photographic description of the tree planting technique we used in the natural flow blog. One good thing about planting in Nightingale Vale was that the snow had melted and we didn’t have to break through 2 inches of frost-frozen soil to start digging.

Another of the London Orchard Project’s activities is mapping orchards, both where they are now and where they were historically. An extract of their map of orchards in London in the 1890s is shown on the right. This was taken from an analysis of Ordnance Survey maps of 1894-1897. There seem to have been even more 30 years earlier, judging from the 1866 Woolwich Ordnance Survey map. If the neat rows of tree symbols indicate an orchard, there was one just south of Nightingale Vale, another in the bend enclosed by Eglinton Road and Herbert Road and many more around Plumstead Common. The 1866 Shooters Hill map shows a large orchard in the grounds of Tower House, which could be the one shown in Brinklow Crescent on the London Orchard Project map, plus another large one just to the North of that, and yet another in the grounds of the old Bull Hotel – the present Eaglesfield Park.

I guess it’ll be a while before we see the fruits of our tree planting labour. But with a young adopter of each tree looking out for them the trees should have a good chance of survival. I’m looking forward to seeing some large Howgate Wonders in Nightingale Vale.

The last tree planted — Job done - the last tree planted

16th February 2012

Art Deco Co-op Saved in Draft Woolwich Masterplan

The Woolwich art deco Co-op building will be saved and restored if the new draft Woolwich Town Centre Masterplan is approved, and the “Bathway Quarter” and Powis/Hare Street would become conservation areas. Thanks to Raven at the London Masala and Chips blog for posting that there are four new Masterplans out for consultation – Charlton Riverside, Eltham Town Centre, Greenwich Peninsula West and Woolwich Town Centre. The consultations run until 9th March, and exhibitions have been arranged for residents to ask questions about the plans. For the Woolwich Town Centre plan these are:

Monday 20th February; 3pm-8pm (including presentations at 4pm and 6.30pm); Charlton Athletic FC, The Valley, Floyd Road; focusing on Charlton Riverside/ Woolwich Town Centre

Saturday 3rd March; 10am-2pm (including presentation at 11am); Woolwich library, Woolwich Centre; focusing on Woolwich Town Centre/Charlton Riverside

Monday 5th March; 2pm-7pm (including presentation at 3pm); Woolwich library, Woolwich Centre; focusing on Woolwich Town Centre/Charlton Riverside

On a quick read-through, the vision that the plan presents of the future of Woolwich is certainly an attractive and ambitious one. For example it says of the Co-op building:

Site 10 – Art-deco Co-op building
This important historic building should be converted to high specification residential development, with complementary, active uses on the ground floor. Smaller scale retail, cafés and restaurants are appropriate towards this end of the town centre, as the nature of the town centre gradually changes from the retail core, to what is the retail fringe, with a wider range of uses including leisure, community and culture.

Detail of the Polytechnic building in Polytechnic Street

And the “Bathway Quarter” around Polytechnic Street, including the Grand Theatre and the old baths, sounds stunning:

Site 7 – Bathway Quarter
This area has a rich character which should be preserved though sensitive residential-led refurbishment with active uses at ground floor to create a distinct urban quarter. This area has the potential to be a high quality, high-specification, loft-style place with bars, galleries and artists’ studios together with other uses such as a jazz club and creative industries such as architect’s studios.

The Masterplan contains 17 development initiatives, including some that are already underway such as the conversion of the older RACS building into a Travel Lodge hotel, the Love Lane Tescos development and the Woolwich Centre. It also proposes, in the 2018 to 2021 time frame, to improve Woolwich’s connection with the Thames by knocking down the Waterfront Leisure Centre and extending Hare Street to the river. A new leisure centre would be built in “a more central location in the town centre”. In addition the Gala Bingo site would return to being a cinema or entertainment venue. A less sympathetic development, which the plan says already has planning permission, is for the DLR overstation scheme; a seven storey, 96 room hotel and a 16 storey tower containing 53 residential units will be built over the DLR station in Woolwich New Road.

As I said, an ambitious vision, Sir Humphrey would call it courageous, which would totally transform Woolwich; it will be fascinating to see if it successfully comes to pass.

Hare Street - proposed as a new Conservation Area

16th February 2012

Shrewsbury Park 2012 Events

The latest Friends of Shrewsbury Park events e-mail was forwarded to me – details below and also on the Friends’ Information and Events page:

ACTIVITIES

Where to meet

19^thFeb 12

1.30 – 2.30pm

Cut back brambles through old allotments. Bring stout gloves and loppers

Junction of Green Chain Walk and Dothill

25^thMarch 12

1.30 – 2.30pm

Spring walk – follow the Green Chain Walk and more. Wear appropriate clothing. Keep dogs on leads.

Entrance gate at Mereworth

19^thApril 12

1.30 – 2.30pm

Clear rubbish at woods opposite Rowton Road . Bring stout gloves (we will supply rubbish bags).

Bat walk on a Friday evening in either April or May. Watch this space

Allotment gate at end of Rowton Road

20^thMay 121.30 – 2.30pm

Clear ivy from trees. Bring stout gloves and loppers/secateurs

Junction of Green Chain Walk and Dothill

10^thJune 12

1.30 – 2.30pm

Clear path through nature reserve. Bring stout gloves and loppers/secateurs

Junction of Green Chain Walk and Dothill

July

Summer walk with Eaglesfield/ Plumstead Common.To be arranged, watch this space

19^thAug 12

1.30 – 2.30pm

Orienteering for children. More information later

Car park

22^ndSept 12

1.30 – 2.30pm

Clear woods in Dothill. Bring stout gloves

Garland Road entrance

20^thOct12

2 – 3pm

AGM – to be arranged. Watch this space

Pity there’s no Summer Festival, with its marvellous dog show.

15th February 2012

Grand Gig Friday

The Woolwich Grand hosts another evening of music next Friday, 17th February. If it’s anything like the last one it will be well worth dropping in to.

Friday’s line-up is Katy Carr, Nigel of Bermondsey, Bromide and Joey Herzfeld & his so-called friends. Katy Carr, who has been described as evoking Kate Bush and P.J. Harvey (and even Edith Piaf), has had three CDs – Screwing Lies, Passion Play and Coquette, with a fourth, Pazsport, in the pipeline. Coquette includes the track Kommandant’s Car which is about the escape of Kazimierz ‘Kazik’ Piechowsk from Auschwitz, where he was interred by the Nazis in1940 for being a boy scout. Katy later met Kazik in Poland and recorded a documentary about the meeting. As she says in this interview, she:

“… has since then through an Arts Council grant been able to bring Kazik to England to elaborate further on his experiences. At one event in March at the Polish Embassy in London he made an official address and the film was screened, and at another at Baden Powell House he was presented with a special letter of honour from the Chief Scout, Bear Grylls.”

Nigel of Bermondseydescribes his work as:

Psycho-geographical songs and stories from Bermondsey, South London. Also songs and tales of Wapping, Rotherhithe, Walworth. Now incorporating Covent Garden and Bloomsbury. Soon to be adding The Strand.

Nigel also has three CDs: Nigel of Bermondsey, London Dream Time and Bermondsey Folk.

One of Nigel’s psycho-geographical interests is the Cross Bones graveyard on Red Cross Way in Southwark, in the shadow of the Shard, which I used to walk past regularly on my way to work. It’s not normally accessible to the public, but the large double gates are festooned with ribbons and messages commemorating the outcasts who were buried there. Perhaps Nigel will talk on Friday about the prositutes, known as the Bishop of Winchester’s Geese whose bones are there.

Bromide:

is london-based, essex-born, capri-owning, cat-worshiping, singer-songwriter simon berridge and anyone he can con into playing with him.

bromide plays mid-fi acoustic/electric folk pop. people have likened his music to elvis costello, american music club, ray davies, the only ones, lloyd cole, robyn hitchcock and kevin ayers. bromide has no idea so will take their word for it.

Bromide’s CDs are iscariot heart, no.space.anymore.even.inbetween.words and ‘the trouble with.. bromide’.

Joey Herzfeld is, I think, this guy:

After 5 years writhing and screaming in cabaret/rock band Hooverville (myspace.com/joeyherzfeldandhooverville) Mr Joey Herzfeld has strapped on an accordion to deliver his mix dark humour and psychosis on mainly acoustic instruments. Formed at the end of 2010, Joey Herzfeld and The Haunted have been gigging regularly and have already recorded most of an album. Storytelling songs of murder, lechery and insanity are interspersed with the odd instrumental – spooky waltzes, toe-tapping blue-grass, and gypsy stomps.

Though I guess that will be confirmed on Friday, and also whether his so-called friends are the Haunted.

Sounds like another great evening at the Grand.

13th February 2012

End of the Woolwich Free Ferry?

The Woolwich Free Ferry could be gone by 2017 if Transport for London’s latest proposals on Thames crossings are implemented. They have just launched a public consultation on proposals which include a new Silvertown Tunnel and a new ferry at Gallions Reach which would replace the Woolwich Free Ferry.

For all ferry fans - how happy we were when it opened on Twitpic — Woolwich Celebrates the opening of the Woolwich Free Ferry

The earliest that a ferry is recorded as running across the Thames at Woolwich is in 1308 when it was sold for £10. There was also a privately run ferry in the early 1800s, established by an act of Parliament in 1811. Later in the 19th Century, after pressure for a ferry from Woolwich residents, the Free Ferry was instigated by the Victorian engineer Sir Jospeph Bazalgette, better known as the builder of London’s sewage system. It has been part of Woolwich life for over 120 years. It was opened on Saturday 23rd March 1889 by Lord Roseberry – an occasion for a major celebration in Woolwich, illustrated in the picture on the right posted by Mary Mills on twitter. In 1996/7 the ferry carried over 1 million vehicles and approximately two and a half million passengers, around 2000 vehicles a day southbound and 1500 northbound.

Personally I think it would be a great shame if we lost the ferry; I use it occasionally, and usually find it quite an efficient and relaxing way to get over to the north circular and Essex – when there’s no problems and two ferries running of course. However I’ve experienced quite long delays there as well, and can sympathise with commuters who have to cross the river regularly when the service is impaired.

Sentiment aside I have a couple of concerns about the proposed new ferry at Gallions Reach. Firstly, where will the traffic for the ferry come from? Some, I assume, will come from the direction of the Woolwich Ferry – heading down the South Circular then turning right along Woolwich High Street to Thamesmead and the new ferry. How much will be tempted to take an earlier right turn and cut across through Shooters Hill or Plumstead I wonder? And what about the traffic that comes in to London on the A2 – again how much will cut across through East Wickham and Plumstead to get to the new ferry. It seems very likely that there will be an increase in traffic along streets that aren’t designed for heavy use.

The increase in traffic will lead to demands for improved roads and before we know it Oxleas Wood and Woodlands farm are under threat again – a subject of previous posts on this blog. It appears to be a re-run of the very old plans for Ringway 2. The Google Earth snippet below is taken from an overlay provided by the cbrd.co.uk web site’s excellent UK roads database. It shows Ringway2 running down through Oxleas Wood and Woodlands Farm, ploughing across Plumstead to Western Way and thence to the Thames. Underneath is an extract from the TfL consultation documents showing the proposed new road to connect to the Gallions Reach ferry. Spot the difference!

CBRD (Chris's British Road Directory) Google Earth overlay for Ringway 2 — CBRD (Chris’s British Road Directory) Google Earth overlay for Ringway 2

TfL map extract showing route to new Gallions Reach ferry

My concern is aggravated by suggestions in a 2009 presentation by a TfL Planning Manager that the Gallions Reach ferry could be replaced by a fixed link (i.e. a bridge) “depending on local development and demand, and impact of congestion relief at Blackwall and Dartford.” Sounds like that could lead to Ringway2 by stealth.

I’m also concerned about the effect of the proposed development on people living in Thamesmead. I went for a walk up Gallions Hill yesterday to take a look at the route of the proposed new road. I was immediately struck by the loud and frequent aircraft noise. The area is directly under the flight path for London City Airport and aircraft are quite low here on their landing approach. I was also struck by the landscaping and rows of new, young trees that had recently been completed on the land to the North-west where the new road would run; it has been converted into a park, soon to open to the public. So residents would have a major road and ferry port to add to the aircraft noise, and potentially lose a new park!

Panoramic view from Gallions Hill looking North-west

The consultation on the new proposals is open now. It only takes 5 minutes to complete – just 17 questions including the now standard ones on age, ethnicity etc. – and allows us to say whether we support the new Gallions Reach ferry and Silvertown Tunnel. It runs to midnight on 5 March 2012.

9th February 2012

Rotunda Rings

A new sign has appeared on the Grade II* listed Woolwich Rotunda – “Woolwich Station Boxing Centre” – which could be good news for its future. Good news in that the building, which has been empty since its artillery museum exhibits moved to Firepower in 2001, now has a use as a boxing gymnasium. However we can’t raise our hopes too high as there is still no definite information on whether it will be restored.

The building’s slow decay has been a concern for some time; for example the Greenwich Phantom blog has published several posts about the Rotunda over the last few years. It is on the English Heritage “Heritage At Risk” register, which describes it as a:

24-side polygon, single storey building designed by John Nash. Concave conoid lead-covered roof; first erected in grounds of Carlton House in 1814 for (premature) celebration of Allied victory in Napoleonic wars. Housed the reserve collection of ‘Firepower’ museum but now vacant. Lead-sheet roof covering is failing.

The change of use is a result of the King’s Troop’s move to their new Woolwich barracks at Napier Lines. They have some 60 soldiers who are keen boxers and need somewhere to train. Inside the Rotunda the transformation to a Boxing Centre is well advanced – two boxing rings have been erected and gym equipment and punch bags have been installed.

The Rotunda is an amazing structure, and I recommend Jonathan C. Clarke’s fascinating paper, Cones, Not Domes: John Nash and Regency Structural Innovation which talks about its history and John Nash‘s design. Originally the building was self-supporting, it didn’t have the central “tent-pole” that was added after it was moved to its present site, and was described in 1830 as having “no equal but the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral.”

The Rotunda was originally part of a complex of temporary buildings and rooms erected for the Prince Regent in 1814, taking ten weeks to build. It was the centrepiece of a fête in honour of the Duke of Wellington on 21st July 1814 to celebrate the abdication of Napoleon and his exile to Elba. Jonathan C. Clarke describes the role of the Rotunda:

The Rotunda, or ‘Polygon Room’ as it was originally called, was the showpiece of the ensemble of interconnecting temporary structures which were designed collectively to accommodate 2,500 guests, including royalty, nobility, foreign ambassadors, ministers and officers of state. The temporary buildings were laid out in an H formation to the south of Carlton House, and included refreshment rooms, promenades, giant supper rooms, a botanical arbour and a Corinthian temple to Wellington. At the centre of the whole arrangement was the Polygon Room, with three apartments to the east, west and north (Crook & Port 1973, p. 317).

Of course Napoleon escaped from Elba and was not finally defeated until the Battle of Waterloo on Sunday 18 June 1815.

It’s quite a contrast for the Rotunda – from the magnificent focus of a major national celebration to a boxing gym in nearly 200 years – but at least it’s now back in use and there’s hope that this beautifully and elegantly engineered building will be saved.

Punch bag and gym equipment in the Rotunda

7th February 2012

Woolwich Welcomes King's Troop

Salute of the King's Troop outside Woolwich Town Hall

Woolwich was packed again today as hundreds of people lined the streets to welcome the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery to their new barracks at Napier Lines. Crocodiles of school-children in reflective jackets waving council-issue union jacks arrived early and had pride of place at the front. One clique of photographers, laden with long lenses, large tripods and a fluffy microphone were held in a well-positioned cage opposite the salute receivers, while another clique roamed restlessly seeking a good spot. Members of the Royal British Legion, medals proudly displayed, lined up to salute the newcomers with dipped banners.

The Mayor chats to some early arrivals before the King's Troop parade

The parade was very, very impressive. It seemed like all of the King’s troop’s 100 plus horses were there, some carrying officers, others in teams of six pulling the ceremonial 13 pounder cannons – perhaps the same ones that had fired the 41 gun salute yesterday in Hyde Park to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee. The officers wore their hussar-style dress uniforms, black with 18 carat gold thread frogging and red piping. The jackets alone cost £4800. Their busbies have a white plume and a red flap that was designed to be filled with sand as protection against enemy sabres.

King's Troop Gun team outside Woolwich Town Hall

The Gunners guiding the gun trains had their hands full controlling the beautiful but sometimes skittish horses, which are capable of pulling a ton and a half of artillery piece at full gallop. They have moved from their home of 65 years at St Johns Wood where they had a close relationship with the local community, who will miss seeing and hearing them riding off to their ceremonial duties. While they won’t be able to ride from Woolwich to Central London now, it is likely that we will see them around – even if only training in their new facility alongside Repository Road.

The King’s Troop’s old barracks have been sold for £250 million for re-development. They move into a purpose built new barracks which will provide stabling and training facilities for 170 horses as well as space for the ceremonial gun carriages. The new building has been designed with sustainability in mind, and includes solar chimneys to ventilate the stables and a heating and hot-water system that will use horse manure as a fuel.

The first barracks for the Royal artillery were built in Woolwich in 1720, just four years after they were founded. It seems appropriate that an artillery regiment have returned.

Receiving the salute outside the new Woolwich Centre

I’ll put some more photographs on flickr.