Ye who have a spark in your veins of cockney spirit, smile or mourn acccording as you take things well or ill;— Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!
Woodlands Farm poster about their winter activities
Woodlands Farm were in touch with details of their activities for young people over the Christmas break. Their e-mail said:
Tuesday 20 December: Winter Woodlands
Take a trip into our woodlands to learn how to get by in the cold. Shelter-building, fire-making and cooking are just some of the activities which will be taking place.
FREE (donations welcome); no booking necessary, drop in between 10am and 2.30pm. Ages 6+.
Will take place whatever the conditions, so do wear appropriate clothes and footwear for the weather.
Wednesday 21 December: Making cards and gifts
Yet to sort out a card and present for your nearest and dearest? No worries, the farm offers a one-stop shop for both, with a chance to make Christmas cards and photo frames from natural and re-used items. Saves you money and is kind to the environment!
FREE (donations welcome); no booking necessary, drop in between 10am and 3pm. All ages.
Thursday 22 December: Toddler Club
It’s Christmas at Toddler Club! £2 per adult; children FREE; no booking necessary, drop in between 10am and 12pm. For more information, see our website or contact David Hunter on david.hunter@thewoodlandsfarmtrust.org
The Woodlands Farm Trust
(registered charity no. 1051680)
331 Shooters Hill
Welling, Kent
DA16 3RP
Telephone & Fax: 020 8319 8900
Email: woodlandsft@aol.com
Website: www.thewoodlandsfarmtrust.org
Nearest tube: North Greenwich
Nearest BR: Welling
Buses: 486 & 89
I noticed yesterdayday that the work on the Lilly Pond in Eaglesfield Park has passed a significant milestone – the pond has been filled with water. In addition, as you can see in the photograph above a pond dipping platform has been constructed, the railings have been replaced with brand new ones, most of the paths have been re-tarmaced and planting around the edges has been completed. Well done Friends of Eaglesfield Park!
The original Friends’ leaflet about the proposed work included the following list of improvement work:
Construct a pond dipping platform;
Turn the lawn area adjacent to the pond into a wildlife garden, providing habitats outside as well as inside the water. (wild flower; native shrub; loggeries; deadwood; sawdust; grass cuttings; bare ground; sand);
Create an outdoor study area with seating and a hard surface for local school/youth groups to contribute to plans for an improved environment in London;
Improve the signage including directions and information signs;
Repair the railings around the pond;
Improve access, specifically from the southern entrance;
Establish a management plan;
Points 1, 5 and 6 appear to be complete, though not the others. I wonder if this is still the plan, or if it has been changed to allow for the proposed outdoor gym? Maybe they’ll even replace the Mulberry tree!
Incidentally many documents seem to have disappeared in the re-design of the Greenwich Council web site, including the draft Eaglesfield Park Management Plan, which breaks some links in earlier posts. The entry on Eaglesfield Park doesn’t mention the Friends, but instead has an incorrect reference to the Friends of Plumstead Gardens. Teething problems, I guess?
Here is the sequence of photographs showing the work on the pond progressing, including the two from my earlier post.
The Lilly Pond October 2011The Lilly Pond early November 2011The Lilly Pond end November 2011The Lilly Pond December 2011
Lambarde's Carde of the Beacons of Kent. Shooters Hill is top left
The number of communications masts around the summit of Shooters Hill are a testament to the hill’s appeal as a communication centre. However the hill’s height and prominence, which make it attractive for modern wireless communication, coupled with its position guarding the route from London to the coast, have made it appealing to communicators for centuries.
The marvellous Colonel A.H. Bagnold CB CMG tells a vivid and dramatic story of the hill’s role in message transmission before the advent of wireless communications. He places the start of its role as a Beacon Hill before the reign of Edward III (1312 – 1377), so about seven centuries ago. The complexity of the beacon system in Kent at the time of the Spanish Armada was plotted, on the map (or carde) shown above, by William Lambarde, who also founded the Queen Elizabeth College almshouse in Greenwich. Lambarde published the map in his book The Perambulation of Kent, credited as the first English county history, describing the reason it was drawn and how it could be used to decide the direction in which danger had been detected:
AS in warre, celeritie availeth no lesse, than force it selfe: So the Right honorable Sir William Brooke, Lord Cobham, and Lorde Chamberlaine of hir Majesties houshold (who hath been sole Lieutenant of this shire, since the first of hir Majesties Raigne) foreseeing how necessarie it was to have the forces of the countrie speedily draw togither, for the encounter of any hostilitie: and finding, that upon the fiering of the Beacons (which are erected for that service) not only the common sort, but even men of place and honour, were ignorant which way to direct their course, & therby (through amasednesse) as likely to run from the place affected, as to make to the succour of it: caused the true places of the Beacons to be plotted in Carde, with directorie lines, so many sundrie waies, as any of them did respect the other: By which, any man, with little labour may be assured, where the danger is, and thereof informe his neighbours. For example: suppose our first Beacon, standing on Shooters hill, to be light: he that will go thither may know by the watchmen from whence they received their light, which must be either from the West neare London, or Hamstede: or else from the East, by warrant of the fiered Beacon at Stone neare Dartford, or of that which is neare to Gravesende. The like of the rest: and so much for use.
Bagnold also describes the 1747 experiment in telegraphy using static electricity conducted on Shooters Hill by Dr Watson, bishop of Llandaff. The “observers” of the transmission stood on (insulating) amber while holding an earthed iron bar in one hand and the end of the two-mile long transmission wire in the other. A gun was fired when the transmission started and the observer timed the difference between when they heard the gun and when they received an electric shock!
Semaphore Station - the Murray Shutter telegraph
Shooters Hill was a link in the next advance in communications as well – the Semaphore line. This used a set of rectangular frames containing six 5 foot high shutters to transmit messages between London and the coast. The first to be completed was between London and Deal in January 1796, with the following chain of stations: Admiralty (London), West Square Southwark, New Cross, Shooter’s Hill, Swanscombe, Gad’s Hill, Callum Hill, Beacon Hill (Faversham, branch point), Shottenden, Barham Downs, Betteshanger, Deal. The New Cross station was situated on Telegraph Hill – the Telegraph Hill Society’s web page includes a copy of a water colour sketch of the telegraph station, with the Shooters Hill station just visible in the distance. As can be seen in Pocock’s wood-cut below, the Shooters Hill station was on the ridge of the hill in an area known as Telegraph Field, which is now the site of the Memorial Hospital. (You may recognise the top of this picture because it used to form the banner picture for this blog). At its best this line could send a signal from London to Deal and back in two minutes. Perhaps this was the inspiration for the Disc World Clacks system which featured in various of Terry Pratchett’s books, such as the magical “Going Postal”, though the Ankh-Morpork system seems to have been considerably quicker than the UK Admiralty’s!
R Pocock of Gravesend's woodcut of the Shooters Hill Gibbet showing the Admiralty telegraph in the background (circled)
In the present day, as can be seen from the Ofcom mobile phone base station database, many of the communications masts on Shooters Hill are mobile phone or emergency service communication masts, including the Eaglesfield Road mast by the old fire station that was opposed by local residents led by SHAM. There are even mobile phone antennae attached to
Shooters Hill Water Tower and the Oxleas Wood Mast
the windows of the Victorian Water Tower at the crest of the hill – also opposed by local residents. However not all the masts are for mobile telecommunications. Some are thought to be communications systems for taxis or the ambulance service. The mast that can be seen behind the dairy in Foxcroft Road has been identified as a transmission mast for FM and DAB radio, for example the Digital One multiplex which carries a number of DAB channels including Talksport, Absolute Radio and Classic FM.
The Port of London Authority, who worryingly are advertising on their web site the availability of mast sites on Shooters Hill to telecommunications companies, have a mast just off Shooters Hill Road. This mast is a base station for the Automatic Identification System (AIS) which is used to identify and locate ships around the world, for example as shown in the map below from the Marine Traffic web site. The PLA mast also has a direct microwave link to a PLA Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) radar station at Blackwall Stairs, just across the river from the O2 dome.
Ham Radio enthusiasts also take advantage of Shooters Hill’s prominence, for example the Cray Valley Radio Society 2010 Summit was held in the highest pub in South London, the Bull at 416.7ft. The Society will be holding a Christmas Social Evening in the Bull in a couple of weeks time on Thursday 15th December 2011.
What next for communications in Shooters Hill? Well the 4G, or Long Term Evolution (LTE), technology is being trialled already – one trial by O2 includes the area around the Dome and Canary Wharf as well as central London. Live networks aren’t expected until 2014 beacause the frequencies won’t become available until analogue TV is switched off next year, but we can expect masts to be upgraded beforehand. And after that …. who knows, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Shooters Hill was still a communications centre.
Ship locations in the Thames and round the Kent coast
There’s another opportunity to stock up on Christmas goodies and buy Christmas gifts next Sunday, 27th November from 11am to 4 pm , at Tarts and Crafts at Shrewsbury House.
The Woodlands Farm Christmas Fair will be held next Sunday, 27th November, starting at 11 O’Clock. A chance to listen to carol singers while drinking mulled wine, and browse the local craft stalls.
General Gordon Place, with post office on the left
The demolition work along Grand Depot Road for the new Tesco’s complex quite often makes me pause as I walk down into Woolwich. I find the machine currently pecking away at the 60’s-style office block quite mesmerizing, and I’m usually not the only one standing watching its progress. I wouldn’t mourn the office block, but it always seemed a shame that the red brick Victorian post office, on the left in the post-riot photograph above, couldn’t be retained.
However some of it is to be preserved according to a new planning application on the Greenwich Council planning pages. This is the developer’s response to condition 34 of the original planning application, which asks for details of “the methodology for the removal of the imperial seal ‘VR’ (Victoria Regina) on the flank elevation of the Post Office and its reinstatement within the development, together with other architectural features of merit on the Post Office (which shall include detailed consideration of the terracotta decorations of the gable ends, stone door surrounds and other architectural features of merit)” to be submitted to the Council before demolition starts. It includes details of how the bricks will be individually removed and bubble wrapped for storage, including marked up photographs showing which features will be preserved.
Unfortunately “Details of their reinstatement have not been formulised at this stage” – which I think means they don’t know where they will put the preserved features – so they will be put into storage. Looking at the computer-generated images of the glass-faced monolith that is being built, it’s not clear to me where the preserved Victorian decoration could possibly fit
The controversial Equestrian Centre that is proposed for the area between Woodlands Farm and Thompsons Garden Centre on Shooters Hill Road has passed two potential barriers to its implementation. Both the Mayor of London and the Secretary of State have decided not to intervene in Greenwich Council’s decision to grant approval for the Centre.
The Mayor’s letter stated:
Having now considered a report on this case (reference PDU/2760/GK02 copy enclosed), I am content to allow Greenwich Council to determine the case itself, subject to any action that the Secretary of State may take, and therefore do not wish to direct refusal.
However I request that Natural England are fully consulted in relation to the discharge of condition 22 regarding the ecological mitigation and management plan.
And that from the Secretary of State’s representative:
The Secretary of State has carefully considered this case against call-in policy, as set out in the 1999 Caborn Statement. The policy makes it clear that the power to call in a case will only be used very selectively. The Government is committed to give more power to councils and communities to make their own decisions on planning issues, and believes planning decisions should be made at the local level wherever possible.
The Secretary of State has carefully considered the impact of the proposal and the key policy issues, which this case raises. In his opinion, the proposals do not: involve a conflict with national policies on important matters; have significant effects beyond their immediate locality; give rise to substantial regional or national controversy; raise significant architectural and urban design issues; or involve the interests of national security or of Foreign Governments. Nor does he consider that there is any other sufficient reason to call the application in for his own determination.
The decision as to whether to grant planning permission will therefore remain with Greenwhich Council.
The decision does include 31 conditions, including a stipulation that there should be a minimum of 82 horse-riding hours a week access to the facilities by the local community, a prior programme of archaeological work and production of an Ecological Mitigation and Management Plan.
The report accompanying the decision reveals that 12 sites were considered as possible locations for the centre, most of them local sports grounds and playing fields, and the brief reasons why they were discounted.
It also states that the Council are seeking agreement for the Blackheath donkeys to move to a site in Woodbrook Road.
Perhaps most importantly the report mentions the “very special circumstances” that are necessary to justify development on Metropolitan Open Land. Mentions but doesn’t detail… in the words of the Mayor’s report:
The ‘very special circumstances’ put forward to justify the harm to MOL regarding Olympic legacy, increasing participation in sport, education, community benefit, lack of alternative sites and the financial justification from connection activity on the site are now, on balance, acceptable, and the application complies with London Plan policy.
So that seems to be that. Greenwich Council is allowed to decide on the planning application that they themselves have put forward.
Plan of the area where the Centre will be as it is nowPlan of the area after the Centre is built
The memorial at Heroes' Corner, Greenwich Cemetery
The Last Post always brings tears to my eyes, and not just because it was played by a bugler at my Dad’s funeral. Remembrance Day was an important time of year for Dad. In the photograph, framed in black slate, that looks at me as I type he is wearing a poppy in his British Legion beret. It was taken by a Mercury photographer to illustrate an article about him selling poppies in Lewisham a few years before he died. Another picture shows him standing proudly to attention as the standard bearer holding the Light Infantry Association standard at a remembrance parade at the Chelsea Barracks.
Heroes Corner, in Greenwich Cemetery, is the area where 263 of the 556 First World War graves in the cemetery are located. As the Commonwealth War Graves Commission describes it:
“Greenwich Cemetery contains 556 First World War burials. More than half of these graves are scattered throughout the cemetery, but 263 form a large war graves plot known as ‘Heroes’ Corner’. Here, two curved screen walls bear the names of casualties buried both in the plot and in unmarked graves in the cemetery. The Second World War plot adjoins and contains 75 graves. An additional screen wall commemorates casualties buried in this plot and ten others buried in unmarked graves elsewhere in the cemetery. In all, the cemetery contains 124 Second World War burials, 3 of which are unidentified British soldiers. Section E contains a plot of 30 Norwegian service graves from the Second World War.”
The tragedy of the First World War is compounded by the courageous futility of mass charges against artillery and machine guns. My favourite poet, Wilfred Owen, captures the gritty reality and sadness, and also seems to express some of the anger we feel today at the waste of a generation.
Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
The close relationship between Shooters Hill and the armed forces is epitomised by the monumental architecture of the cluster of military-related buildings around Woolwich Common – now the site of the shooting stadium for the 2012 Olympics. Close to the Greenwich Cemetery there is the former Royal Herbert Hospital, then the former military academy and of course the Woolwich Barracks. Nearby stands the ruin of St George’s Garrison Church, with its Victoria Cross memorial. Further up Shooters Hill is the Memorial Hospital.
Responsibility for raising the money to build the War Memorial Hospital was the role of the Remembrance Committee at the end of the First World War. They did this largely through public subscription, for example all the staff of the Woolwich Arsenal agreed to have a shilling a month deducted from their pay to contribute to the cost. The hospital was opened on the 2nd November 1927 by HRH the Duke of York, who also planted the Lawson Cypress that still stands in front of the hospital. The heart of the hospital is the Hall of Remembrance where two books of remembrance lie open, commemorating local servicemen and civilians killed in the two world wars. A page is turned every day. Yesterday the civilian pages included records of six deaths in Red Lion Lane on the 19th October 1940 and deaths in Eglinton Road on 15th October 1940.
The Hall of Remembrance at the Memorial Hospital
And the heroism and sacrifice has continued since the second world war: Malaya – 40 British service personnel killed; Cyprus – over 105 killed; Korea – 765 killed; Aden – 68; The Balkans – 48; Kuwait – 47; Falklands – 255; Northern Ireland 719; Iraq – 179; Afghanistan – 382. The last post has been sounded too many times.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
The Friends of Shrewsbury Park are looking for people to help clear the rubbish in the woods at the side of Dothill on Sunday 20th November. Their e-mail which was forwarded to me said:
Dear Friend of Shrewsbury Park,
we will be holding a “clearing up” session on Sunday, 20 November, at 12 noon. Please come along, with stout gloves, to help clear the rubbish in the woods at the side of Dothill.
We will meet at the Garland Road entrance to Dothill. If it is pouring with rain, please assume the event is cancelled and we will fix another day.
The Lilly Pond October 2011The Lilly Pond November 2011
The Friends of Eaglesfield Park’s hard work in securing funding for the restoration of the Lily Pond has started showing some results as the work has now commenced. As the pictures show it is currently work-in-progress and a bit messy, more like the Bagnold’s Clay Pit than a pond. But it will be a great improvement when complete, and hopefully meet its original objectives of improving the park, promoting biodiversity and providing an educational resource for local schools.
I’m very disappointed though that the Mulberry Tree on the eastern side of the pond is no longer there. I’ll miss it: the piquancy of the mulberries used to complement the sweetness of blackberries foraged from the lower part of the park. I wonder why it was removed?
I find it fascinating to track changes to a local area through old maps, such as old ordnance survey maps, and Shooters Hill is particularly interesting. There is a feature on the 1866, 1894 and 1914 maps where the pond is currently, and of about the right size and shape, though they are not explicitly marked as a pond. In the 1866 map the pond feature is set in the middle of what looks like an orchard behind what was then the Bull Inn. This Bull is in a different place to the current Bull, closer to Cleanthus Road, and considerably larger. I guess the area round the pond was the gardens known as “the Shrubbery” mentioned in the history section of the Park Management Plan: the 1866 map is certainly consistent with it being a laid-out garden. At that time much of the surrounding area was farmland, with few of the roads we now know: there’s a field boundary instead of Eaglesfield Road. By 1894 the Bull Inn is no longer there, but there is a Bull Hotel located where the current Bull is. Some of the old Bull Inn buildings are still there but the orchards round the pond feature are gone. There is still no Eaglesfield Road, but there is a drive-way leading along the same route to a large house called Lowood, now the Golf Clubhouse. By 1914 this drive-way had become Waldstock Road (later to become Eaglesfield Road) and the Eaglesfield Recreation Ground lay on either side of it. The pond feature is still there, and has a drinking fountain next to it.
The Friends of Eaglesfield Park first started thinking about restoring the Lily Pond shortly after they were formed in 2007; it’s a great tribute to their commitment and persistence that it is now in progress.
The Lilly Pond October 2011The Lilly Pond November 2011
