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!
I’ll be leading a walk on the Green Chain from Charlton to Plumstead via Maryon Park, Charlton House, Woolwich Common, Severndroog Castle, and Shooters Hill etc. All are welcome, no need to book, and it’s free of charge. We’ll have lunch at Charlton House. Meet 11.30 at Charlton railway station. Finish 17.00 at Plumstead railway station, seven miles long. A packed lunch and waterproof footwear are essential.
There are some slightly glorifying, but not too embellished details here. http://www.walk4life.info/events/the-best-landscape-and-views-london-charlton-plumstead-shooters-hill-green-chain-walk
I’ve spent a great deal of time on Shooters Hill in the past few weeks. As lovely as ever, but isn’t it muddy? I suppose that’s what comes from a hill made of Clay!
Date: 26th January 2014
Start Time: 11:00am at Woolwich Arsenal Station
Duration: 3 hours
Length of Walk: 5.8 miles
Cost: Free of charge
Booking advice: No booking required
Walk Description:
Start your walk along this part of the Capital Ring with a ferry across the Thames to the Royal Docks and a walk through Beckton parks, the Greenway and the Lower Lea Valley to the largest remaining C18th tidal mill at Three Mills.
The walk takes in the Greenway, Bazelgette’s famous raised sewer that combated the “Great Stink” and cholera outbreaks.
Walkers are advised to bring a packed lunch.
I’ve often walked past Victoria House, the grand looking building on the corner of Shooters Hill Road and Academy Road, and wondered about its history. Recently I got the opportunity to get closer and have a look inside, courtesy of one of the (Interim) co-Heads of Greenwich Free School. While my main motivation for visiting the Free School was nosiness about the building, I found what I learned about the school fascinating and in itself worth the walk down the hill. My opinion of free schools, admittedly mainly influenced by newspaper headlines, was slightly negative: many free schools seemed to be motivated by ideology or faith, and I was appalled by the thought that creationism could be taught as though it were science. However I was very impressed by my visit to the Greenwich Free School.
The school opened in 2012 and will be based in Adair House once work on converting the building and constructing new facilities is complete. In the meantime they are using portakabins on the Adair House site, and have been granted planning permission to use Victoria House as temporary accommodation until September 2015. Whatever their provenance, the school is very much teacher led: their self-confessed geek teachers – enthusiasts for their subjects – are using the autonomy allowed by the free school system to pursue innovative approaches that avoid the target-driven micromanagement that blights many professionals’ working lives. In particular, I was told, they don’t focus on the C-D boundary as some do, which means not trying to improve the figures for the number of pupils passing 5 GCSEs at grades A to C by concentrating on those pupils expected to get a grade D. They are also determinedly Comprehensive, allocating places to equal numbers of children in each of the five ability bands decided by primary school tests.
The Greenwich Free School has proven popular with parents, and it is the most oversubscribed school in Greenwich with over 700 applications for its 100 places. This is despite, or maybe because of, its reputation for strict discipline and its extended working day. Pupils attend school between 8.30am and 5.30pm, a third longer than most children, though they aren’t set homework in year seven, and some of the additional time is spent on extra-curricular, enrichment activity.
I was guided on a tour of the school by one of the pupils. They have quite a few visitors, so every class has a “learning champion” who comes over to describe what the class is learning. One class was learning the basics of the Python programming language. They study computer science rather than ICT, and have some Rasperry Pi computers lined up for the class later on. In another classroom pupils were quietly reading, but rather than being seated at desks, as we always were when I was at school, they were all in their most comfortable reading position, whether that be seated, lying on the floor or otherwise draped over the furniture. That’s definitely the best way to read! At the end of my tour I talked about Shooters Hill local history to a pupil who was doing a project on the subject, and we had an interesting discussion about the history exhibited by the fabric of Victoria House.
Entrance lobby at Victoria House
The building’s history is most vividly illustrated in the entrance lobby, shown above. Victoria House was originally the Medical Officers Mess: the Locally listed buildings in Royal Greenwich list describes it as:
Medical Officers Mess (opposite the Herbert Hospital)
Built in 1909, graceful 2-storey building in the Classical style in two types of red brick; yellow terracotta detailing. Slated roof with Dutch gables to ends of building and centre dormer with semi-circular pediments extending into roof on either side of main entrance. Round headed windows to ground floor.
It was clearly once a grand entrance hall for the officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps. It is a well-proportioned room, with some elegant iron work on the balcony. On the floor, in mosaic tiles, is the cap badge of the RAMC which, as wikipedia says, depicts “the Rod of Asclepius, surmounted by a crown, enclosed within a laurel wreath, with the regimental motto In Arduis Fidelis, translated as “Faithful in Adversity” in a scroll beneath”.
Cap badge of the RAMC in mosaic tiles in Victoria House
Another sign of the building’s origin as posh lodgings and a mess for officers of the RAMC can be seen in the room to the right of the entrance lobby. At each end there is a handsome wood framed fireplace, the top panels of which are carved with the initials of the then reigning monarch, King Edward VII. This is also repeated in stone over the entrance, together with the date 1909.
Carved crest in wooden mantelpiece in Victoria House
Finding out more about the history of the Officers Mess has been quite difficult. The date over the door would seem to indicate that the Mess was built in 1909, but according to the Woolwich Common Conservation Area Character Appraisal, 1909 was the year the “estimates passed”, but it was built later, though there is no supporting evidence for that statement, or an actual date. Who was the architect for the building? I don’t really know: the closest I’ve got so far is an entry in the catalogue at the National Archives:
Woolwich Barracks: Royal Medical Hospital. Royal Army Medical Corps Officers’ mess and quarters. Foundation plan and ground plan. Record plans. Scale: 1 inch to 8 feet. Signed by Harry B Measures, FRIBA, Director of Barrack Construction, War Office, 80 Pall Mall, London
Harry Bell Measures was an architect who, amongst others, designed many of the buildings for London Underground’s Central Line. However in 1909 he was also the Director of Barrack Construction at the War Office and it was probably in this capacity that he signed the plans rather than as the architect. Seems like yet another good reason for a trip over to the archives at Kew to see if there are any clues there about who the architect was.
Another possible source of information about the RAMC Officers Mess was the the library at the Wellcome Collection, which includes the “Royal Army Medical Corps Muniment Collection”. It’s another place where time can slip away very quickly, absorbed in the collection of old documents and photographs. I found quite a few about the Royal Herbert Hospital, including pictures and photographs of Royal visits by Queen Victoria and Princess Margaret, but nothing about the RAMC Officers Mess. I’ve still got a few leads to follow up, but if I find anything it will be the subject of a future post.
More recently, after it ceased to be the Officers Mess, Victoria House has hosted a number of different organisations, including a doctors’ surgery, a pre-school and the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) Forces Help charity. In 2007 planning permission was granted, on appeal, to convert the building into a 75 bed care home. The conversion would have retained the front facade but the rest of the building would have been demolished. This was still the plan in January 2013 when the planning approval was renewed. However the Land Registry records that in June 2013 the building was bought by “The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government” for £4,800,000 plus £960,000 VAT. The plan now for the former Officers Mess is that it will become a primary school, and the Greenwich Free School Group has submitted a proposal to the Department for Education to set up this new primary school. It would adopt the same ethos and educational approach as the existing Greenwich Free School.
I hope they don’t lose the historical reminders of the Officers Mess in the process of creating the new primary school. The Heritage Statement submitted with the planning application only talks about the impact on the heritage represented by the nearby former Royal Herbert Hospital and Woolwich Common, not on Victoria House itself, but perhaps this is just an oversight.
Edward VII initials and date over the entrance to Victoria House
Last July was the 20th anniversary of People Against the River Crossing‘s victory in its campaign to save Oxleas Wood from a six lane motorway, yet it still seems that the woods are not safe. The statement by badger-bashing Environment Secretary Owen Paterson that “clearing ancient woodland for houses and roads could be allowed as long as developers promise to plant 100 new trees for each ancient one felled” exacerbated my insecurity because the “Disneyland absurdity” of trying to recreate an ancient woodland was one of the key arguments PARC used to defend Oxleas.
Fungible is one of my favourite words. It means interchangeable or freely exchangeable. For example a pound coin is fungible. If you lend someone a pound coin you would be happy to get any pound coin in return. People, obviously, are not fungible, though sometimes corporate bean-counting spreadsheet bashers behave as if they were.
Are trees fungible? I don’t think so. At a simple level a 500 year old Oak tree is clearly not equivalent to a new sapling, and when you take into account the land where the tree is growing, its ecology and history, it is even more clear. When one side of the equation is a hazel or chestnut tree whose shape has developed through centuries of coppicing, that is part of an 8000 year old woodland and that stands in a historic landscape that provided the raw materials for the construction of the Royal Navy’s great wooden ships, there should be no dispute. And what about rare trees like the Wild Service Tree that are found in few places in the UK, that are difficult to grow from seeds, reproducing through suckers from existing trees, and that are indicators of an ancient woodland ecology. Irreplaceable.
CBRD (Chris’s British Road Directory) Google Earth overlay for Ringway 2
This was the heart of the argument that the Oxleas Nine and PARC made to oppose the compulsory purchase orders for the roads to feed the East London River Crossing. The route through Oxleas Wood, Woodlands Farm and Plumstead was slightly to the east of Ringway 2, shown on the snippet above taken from cbrd.co.uk web site’s superb UK roads database. The orders were for:
A total of 101,713 square metres of land within the Eltham Park, Oxleas Wood and Falconwood Field area comprising:
(a) 9,223 square metres of land in Eltham Park, on both sides of the railway line between Eltham and Falconwood British Rail stations; the main part extending east from the swimming pool on the south side of the railway and a small piece lying opposite the swimming pool to the north of the railway (Plot 1);
(b) 29,777 square metres of land in Oxleas Wood, between Rochester Way in the north and the railway to the south; (Plot 2);
(c) 9,393 square metres of land at Falconwood Field east of the junction between Rochester Way and Welling Way (Plot 3); and
(d) 53,320 square metres of land in Oxleas Wood, extending in a wide strip northwards from Welling Way to Shooters Hill/Bellegrove Road (Plot 4),
As David Black explains in “The Campaign to Save Oxleas Wood”, because the order included “land forming part of a common, open space or fuel or field garden allotment” there had to be land given in exchange that was equal in area and “equally advantageous to the public”. However the land proposed to be given in exchange was part of Woodlands Farm, which already provided some amenity to the public, and it would be fenced off for ten years to allow trees to grow and even then would not have the ecosystem and history accumulated over thousands of years of the woodlands it was to be exchanged for. The objectors argued that this was not equally advantageous to the public.
The Environment Secretary seems to be saying that this is no longer a valid objection and that the only thing that matters is the number of trees planted.
This is important because there are still proposals to construct a river crossing – ferry, bridge or tunnel – at the same place as the East London River Crossing. The reports from previous consultations admit that the road network south of the Thames is inadequate to support such a crossing, but doesn’t suggest how this can be rectified, other than a throwaway suggestion of “a tunnel south to the A2”. This is not a convincing suggestion. Elsewhere the report dismisses the option of a tunnel replacing the South Circular to Woolwich in part because it would be “the longest road tunnel in the UK by some margin”; a tunnel under Plumstead and Oxleas to the A2 would be far longer. Also the proposal for a tunnel under Oxleas Wood as part of the East London River Crossing scheme was dismissed on cost grounds, unless it were a cut-and-cover tunnel, which would destroy the ancient woodland anyway.
The conclusion from the consultation about the replacement for the Woolwich Free Ferry and the development of a new Silvertown Tunnel was that further work would be done and that for the Free Ferry options which include a new crossing at Gallions Reach a further consultation would be held at the end of last year. Presumably this has been delayed. TfL said:
In the coming months we will undertake further work to determine the traffic, environmental and regeneration impacts and benefits of the possible new river crossings, building on the initial assessments we have undertaken to date. We anticipate a further consultation later this year on options for replacing the Woolwich Ferry, including the options recently consulted on, allowing stakeholders and members of the public to consider the findings of our impact assessment work and enabling a decision to be taken on a way forward in the summer 2014.
TfL’s work on the traffic impacts of a Gallions Reach crossing will not, in my opinion, be complete unless they include a convincing, costed proposal for solving the inadequacies of the transport network south of the Thames that politicians commit to. Otherwise the additional traffic generated by the new crossing will overload local residential roads leading to pressure for new roads and a renewed threat to our heritage ancient woodland. It’ll be interesting to see whether TfL provide this as input to their promised new consultation.
The pictures below show some of the flora of Oxleas Wood that we saw on Barry Gray’s Bluebell Walk last year. There are more photographs in a Flickr set, including Butchers Broom, Ladies Smock, Wood Sorrel, Wild Garlic and, of course, Bluebells.
Leaf of Wild Service Tree in Oxleas WoodStitchwort flowers in Oxleas Wood
Liz wrote to tell me about the Friends of the Pet Cemetery Annual General Meeting in a couple of weeks time. She wrote:
“The Friends of the “Old Blue Cross” Cemetery are holding their first AGM on Tuesday the 21st January at 7.30pm at Minnie Bennett House, 164 Shooters Hill Road, London SE3 8RW. Our membership is growing slowly and we would welcome any interested members of the community to come along and learn about this “Secret Gem”, what has been achieved so far and the plans for the future.
The agenda includes: an introduction to the former Blue Cross Cemetery, and its history; the achievements of the FoPC so far, and their future plans; Finances; Gardening Activities; and the election of the Committee. The meeting is followed by refreshments, a raffle and a quiz.
The Pet Cemetery is a calm, secluded area tucked away near Hornfair Park, studded with poignant memorials to pets from the 1930s and 40s. Its entrance is near the pedestrian footbridge over Shooters Hill Road next to the Fox Under the Hill pub.
While walking along Herbert Road photographing buildings of local interest, I walked right past some of the most interesting – the group of 5 wooden-framed houses at the top of Llanover Road. These houses were built by the people who lived in them as part of a cooperative self-build group, following a design by the architect Walter Segal. Some of the builders still live there, and I was lucky to be able to talk to a couple of self-builders, Gordon and Dee, about how they did it. They generously lent me their album of photos recording the build – some of them are included below.
Walter Segal was a German-born architect who moved to London in 1936. In 1963 he pioneered his eponymous building method when he constructed a “temporary” wood-framed building in a back garden in Highgate to house his extended family while their main home was being extended. That building is still standing today, the first of many constructed using the Segal method. Quite a few Segal houses have been built in south-east London, and those in Lewisham are particularly well known. The architect himself provided guidance and encouragement to the Lewisham builders. After he died in 1985 two of the roads where his houses stand were named after him: Walters Way in Honor Oak and Segal Close near Blyth Hill. Two of the houses in Walters Way were open to the public in last year’s London Open House, whose brochure described them as:
Each house is unique, many extended and built using a method developed by Walter Segal, who led the project in the 1980s. Both houses have benefitted from extensions and renovations. Sustainable features include solar electric. water and space heating. Walter Segal 1987.
There’s more about the green and sustainable features on the Superhomes web site, and the Modern House web site has some great photographs and details of several South London Segal houses.
Walters Way, Honor Oak
Walter Segal’s method was designed to be simple, suitable for people with no previous building experience, and to avoid what he called the “tyranny of wet trades”; that is, there is no need for brick laying or plastering. The building plan is based on a set of timber frames, constructed from standard, readily available materials using basic carpentry skills, which sit on pad foundations. This means that there is less need for levelling a site and disrupting existing trees and vegetation, and it allows houses to be erected on sloping sites which are problematic for traditional methods: Walters Way, for example, is a steeply sloping site. The roof is attached after the frames have been erected, allowing the builders to work under cover on the rest of the building. Within the grid defined by the wooden frames builders can chose the layout of the rooms in the house and, as the walls are not load bearing, can even rearrange the internal lay-out after the build is complete.
In the borough of Greenwich a number of Segal self build developments were overseen by Co-operative Housing in South-East London (CHISEL). Gordon and Dee were part of the first of these: the Greenwich Self Build co-operative project at Llanover Road, which officially started on 16th March 1993. The site had been occupied by a row of three Victorian houses, numbers 220 to 224 Herbert Road, according to the 1914 OS map, though they had been demolished and the site littered by fly-tipping by the time the project started. The first of Gordon and Dee’s photos below show the site as it was when they started. The fly-tipping and rubbish had been cleared away by the council – the only physical help the council contributed to the build! The self-builders had all been selected by the council, and were working on a “Self Build For Rent” model. They committed to putting in 20 hours a week each on the build. In return for their labour in building the houses they would be able to live in them on a reduced rent. Before starting they attended a training course, though it mainly seems to have covered how to use power tools safely.
The Llanover Road plot at the start of the project
The official start was attended by local MP Nick Raynsford, seen on the left in the photo below. The architects were probably Architype, led by Jon Broome, who also worked on the other projects undertaken by the Greenwich Self Build co-operative at Parish Wharf near Woolwich Dockyard, and Birchdene and Silver Birch in Thamesmead.
Official opening with MP Nick Raynsford March 16th 1993
The first stage of the build was to dig the holes for the concrete bases for the pad foundations. The little digger in the photograph was the only “large” piece of machinery used in the whole build, and was passed on the next Greenwich project at Parish Wharf when the Llanover Road builders had finished with it.
Preparing the concrete base blocks
Unlike brick built houses, the foundations of Segal houses don’t run underneath the entire area of the house. Instead they have pad foundations – the upright posts of the wooden frames stand on a paving slab which is sitting on top of a point block of concrete, about 600 x 600 wide, the depth depending on local soil conditions. The ends of the wooden beams are sealed with a lead sheet which seals them very effectively against moisture. The weight of the house holds it in place. For the Llanover Road houses the flat felt roof is topped with some two and a half tons of gravel, so there is quite a weight to keep the house in place. The only connection to the ground is through services pipes and cables. In Gordon and Dee’s experience there has never been any problem with stability, even in the recent strong storms which damaged more traditionally built properties. They did say that the house sometimes sways a little though.
Base slabs in place
In the early parts of the work at Llanover Road all of the self builders worked together – preparing the foundation bases and constructing and erecting the frames and main structure. After that they tended to concentrate on their own properties. It was a lot of work, especially while holding down a job and bringing up a family
First frame upDeveloping the structure
The roof in the standard Segal design is flat, though with some critical differences to other flat roofs to avoid some of their problems. The waterproof membrane is not fixed down but laid loose on the roof deck, with a generous amount of overhang, like a table cloth. This allows the membrane to accommodate any movements in the building frame and to expand and contract with temperature, so it doesn’t crack or tear like fixed membranes. On top of the membrane is a 40mm layer of 20mm diameter shingle, which weighs it down and shields the membrane from direct sunlight. The Llanover Road houses had the standard Segal design flat roof, though the other Greenwich properties had pitched roofs. For the Llanover self builders the only way to get the shingle up on to the roof was to use a rope and pulley and a builders’ bucket. Shifting two and a half tons of shingle in this way was a significant undertaking!
Ready to add the roof gravel
The internal timbers all had to have six coats of a special varnish. The walls and partitions were constructed with cavities, which were filled with insulation made from recycled copies of Yellow Pages using a blowing machine – one of the reasons the Segal homes are more energy efficient than other houses. The trickiest carpentry inside the house was needed to construct the stairs, especially the different shapes required for the treads when the stairs turned a corner.
Six coats of varnish/paintYellow pages for insulationWindows and porches
It took two years and nine months to complete the Llanover Road self build, and the material costs for a house were £13,500. The development was the first Segal housing project to be completed since the original ones in Lewisham. The opening ceremony was again attended by local MP Nick Raynsford, who was also the Labour Party Housing Spokesman. Inside, the completed Segal house feels surprisingly spacious. If the beams are left exposed it has an Elizabethan feel, though many self-builders paint the insides a uniform colour, making it feel like any other house.
The Greenwich Self Build co-operative went on to further Segal projects in Woolwich and Thamesmead, with the members of the original group maintaining their involvement for later developments. The Parish Wharf development is described in English Heritage’s Survey of London volume about Woolwich as follows:
Parish Wharf, off Woodhill, is of the same period, but it is something different. The self-build method espoused by Walter Segal was followed here in 1992–5 to produce eight free-standing four-bedroom houses. Using modular, dry-jointed and cheap post-and-beam timber frames, on stilts to avoid the cost of foundations, these chalet-like houses were built for themselves by members of Co-operative Housing in South-East London (CHISEL). Their architects were Architype, then led by Jon Broome, Segal’s leading disciple, with Bob Hayes as the job architect. The name, which seems puzzling here on the landward side of the railway, reprises that of a municipal depot that lay east of the former dockyard.
Segal house in Parish Wharf
As well as the Llanover Road, Parish Wharf, Birchdene and Silver Birch projects the Greenwich Self Build co-operative put in a proposal for a further Segal project in Abbey Wood, but it didn’t get the go-ahead. The co-operative was formally dissolved just a couple of years ago, in September 2011. Co-operative Housing in South-East London (CHISEL) is responsible for about 250 homes in south-east London, Colchester and Brighton, of which about a third are self-build, energy efficient Walter Segal properties that were constructed by the tenants who mostly still live in them.
Gordon and Dee still live in the house they built themselves, 20 years ago. As the name they gave their house attests, they don’t have any burning desire to build another house.
Brass name plate on Gordon and Dee’s self-built house
Robins are still my favourite Christmas card picture, so here’s another one from Woodlands Farm to accompany my seasons greetings, and best wishes for 2014. Also Madeleine from the Friends of Eaglesfield Park wrote asking me to thank everyone who has helped with the continued development of the park’s wildlife pond and meadow and to send their Seasonal Greetings. She included an update about the pond and wild flower meadow.
This year the wildlife pond and meadow have flourished. Pond life is well established with water boatman, pond skaters, newts, dragonfly, damselfly, snails and many other creatures to be identified. Frogs are certainly enjoying the pond – we discovered dozens of “froglets” hidden in the long grasses during our tidy up sessions. The water lilies offer good cover and shelter for pond creatures and their flowers are attracting various insects.
The Pond Dipping Platform is providing a great deal of fun and enjoyment. It is wonderful to be able to “get up close” to nature and to hear children asking so many questions (not that we always have the answers – but we do have reference books!).
The meadow had quite a different appearance this year, displaying a greater abundance of tall grasses. Grasses are very important for many insects including beetles and bees. Wildflowers are appearing, and we were very pleased to see a strong patch of pink clover and yellow iris at the water edge, which have attracted numerous butterflies. There is still a lot to do, but it is now possible to see distinct features of the meadow habitat as to what is more suited to sunny/dry or shady/dry or, boggy areas around the pond. Very much a “learning curve”!
Next spring we will begin the seasonal work again. We are planning to reduce some of the tall grasses and will be planting appropriate wildflower plug plants and sewing more seeds. We will keep you updated.
There is no doubt that the Pond Restoration has been worthwhile. We know that our local community value the wildlife pond and meadow and it is very pleasing to see that the wildlife is also now focusing on “the oasis on the hill”.
If you have any news or views about Eaglesfield Park, we are always very pleased to hear your comments. Also, do you have any photos of the ark, or pond area you would like to share, I would be pleased to receive them via my email address.
Eaglesfield Park Neighbourhood Watch Scheme have organised a seasonal singing celebration and community get-together again this year. It will be held in the new hall at Christ Church Primary School next Thursday, 5th December at 6:30pm, with the choirs of Plumcroft and Christ Church Schools singing seasonal songs.
Their announcement of the event gives the details:
You’re invited to take part in the Eaglesfield Park Neighbourhood Watch Scheme (EPNWS) Christmas carol concert on Thursday 5 December. Please put the date in your diary.
From 6:30 to 7:30pm, you can listen to the children from Christ Church and Plumcroft Primary Schools singing a selection of modern songs and traditional hymns in the new hall at Christ Church Primary School, Shooters Hill SE18 3RS. Please note, this is a venue change from previously advised.
You’ll also have a chance to join in and put to test your carol singing abilities!
Organised by the EPNWS, the event showcases the terrific partnership work of both primary schools and the importance of promoting community spirit.
Headteachers, parents, teachers, residents and scheme members will have a chance to get into the festive spirit, enjoy mince pies and mulled wine (at a small charge) and take part in the raffle.
Year five and six children from Plumcroft Primary School are making home made goodies for young people to enjoy including cookies, fairy cakes and truffles – all under the watchful eye of class teacher Helen Goodman.
This is the second time that EPNWS has run the event, and the scheme is hoping for an even better carol concert this year.
Jenny Penn, Principal Co-ordinator of the EPNWS said: “We’ve received so much positive feedback from last years event that I am delighted Headteacher Luigi Leccacorvi from Christ Church Primary School very kindly offered us to use of their new hall. The music teachers from both schools are pulling out all the stops to make it a terrific evening. I think everyone will be impressed and have fun. Also, the EPNWS welcomes the chance to continue our partnership work with our two local primary schools.”
Christ Church School’s new building and the MUGA Court
For many of those at the event this will be their first chance to see the new building at Christ Church, which includes the new hall and additional space for teaching. This makes a big difference to the old cramped teaching accommodation, which was well below government size guidelines, and also means that pupils no longer have to leave the school building for lunches, PE and games
It is more than eighteen months since the public inquiry into the use of common land for a new play area for the school, following which the planning inspector approved the development. The School decamped to portacabins at the Shooters Hill Post-16 Campus while the building work took place, returning to their extended home buildings for the start of this term.
The new buildings were commissioned and the schools hall blessed on the 12th November at a service presided over by the Bishop of Woolwich, the Right Rev’d Dr Michael Ipgrave. Schoolchildren were also addressed by the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Greenwich Councillor Angela Cornforth.
Proposed replacement for the Woolwich Grand from the planning application
As expected a planning application has been submitted to demolish the Woolwich Grand Theatre and replace it with 46 flats and a cafe. The application description says:
13/2798/F | Demolition of existing buildings and the construction of a building comprising a lower ground level with 6 storeys providing 163sqm of A3 / A4 / D2 space on the ground floor and 46 residential units comprising 15 x 1 bed units and 31 x 2 bed units with associated disabled car parking, cycle storage and refuse storage. (REVISED DESCRIPTION) | 38 WELLINGTON STREET, WOOLWICH, LONDON, SE18 6PE
The application was submitted on behalf of a company called Secure Sleep Limited, which was incorporated just this year, on 14th January and a company called 38 Wellington Street Limited which is in administration. According to the current Title Register at the Land Registry the Grand Theatre is owned by 38 Wellington Street Limited who bought it on 13th March 2003 for £900,000. The register says that an agreement was made on 9th May 2013 to sell the property to one of the named directors of Secure Sleep Limited.
The application makes barely a nod to comments at the consultation event in September about the importance of the Grand as a cultural hub in the Bathway Quarter of Woolwich – an area that the Woolwich Masterplan says should have “bars, galleries and artists’ studios together with other uses such as a jazz club and creative industries such as architect’s studios.” The Design and Access Statement, which contains most of the details of the application, includes the plan below purporting to show how the proposed commercial area at the front of the new building could be used to screen films. I’m surprised they bothered – it’s not very convincing.
Plan showing use of cafe area for film screening
How can we help to save the Woolwich Grand? Well firstly we can sign the petition started by Stewart Christie calling on Greenwich Council to List the Woolwich Grand Theatre as an “Asset of Community Value” under the Localism Act 2011. It’s got over 200 signatures already, in less than a week.
Secondly we can object to the planning application. This can be done very simply on-line through the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s planning pages. If the link doesn’t work then use the simple search to find 13/2798/F. Or we can object by letter, quoting reference 13/2798/F, to:
Georgina Galley
Directorate of Regeneration, Enterprise & Skills
Woolwich Centre, 5th Floor,
35 Wellington Street,
London SE18 6HQ
Comments need to be submitted and letters arrive before 17th December.
The third way to help the Woolwich Grand survive is to go along to their events. They have a number arranged for the next month, listed below, and their Facebook page and web site are kept up to date with new ones.
“Gentlemen of Horror”
27th 28th 29th of November
7pm Red room. £7.50 plus concessions
Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee defined an era of British horror, starring in Hammer Horror films together for 26 years.
When they first worked together in “The Curse of Frankenstein” and “Dracula”, Peter Cushing was one of the most famous actors in Britain, while Christopher Lee was unknown. For the next quarter of a century, these two killed each other again and again and became firm friends. As Christopher Lee became internationally famous, Peter Cushing gradually retired into a life of quiet obscurity. And yet neither quite lost their taste for blood…
In the Peter Cushing centenary year, The Gentlemen of Horror takes you backstage on Cushing and Lee’s relationship, into the dressing rooms of the films they made together. The play will be followed by a screening of Dracula A.D. 72, starring Cushing and Lee.
Actors: Simon Kane and Matthew Woodcock
Writer: James Goss
Directed by Kate Webster
http://www.wegottickets.com/location/10449
Hansel and Gretel
1st December 1:30pm and 4pm
A Family Adventure packed with life-sized puppets and interactive storytelling.
Abandoned in the woods, Hansel and Gretel must escape the clutches of a hungry witch with their courage and cleverness. Follow the breadcrumb trail to the gingerbread house for interactive storytelling, live music and a set good enough to eat.
‘If you think there is nothing new to be found in traditional tales, this approach could surprise you – they’re well worth seeing’
King of Comedy night
6th of December at 7pm
Comedy again on the 6th of December at 7pm till 11pm in the red room in the form of King of comedy night.
The principle is simple 10 acts battle it out for the prize of king or queen for the night the audience decides who the winner is. This interactive principle is proving very popular among acts and audience members alike.
So come down and enjoy the show, get involved and have a laugh on us.
Roller Skating
7th December
The next roller skating event which will take place on Saturday 7th of December in the main hall. The evening will be split into two sections, from 3pm to 6pm there will be a family skating session followed by the adult session from 7pm to 11pm.
Family Skate Session:
With Skate Hire – £7.50
Without Skate Hire – £5.00
Spectator – £3.00
Roller Disco:
With Skate Hire – £10.00
Without Skate Hire – £8.00
Spectator – £3.00
Our aim is for everyone to enjoy both these fun events, see the flexible space available at The Woolwich Grand and have a great time as well as taking in other events that we’re staging at The Grand.
“A Boy who Cried Wolf”
7th/8th December
21st/22nd of December
Gem and Ren take you on a journey to a perfect town where nobody lies at all… Or do they? We need future superstars, ballerinas, firemen and teachers to help us sing, dance, shout and shimmy our way through the story of A Boy Who Cried Wolf… Or did he?
To book tickets fellow link: http://www.wegottickets.com/location/10449
I suspect it’s not going to be easy to save the Grand, but what’s the alternative – a Woolwich of flats and betting shops?
The Woolwich Grand – under threat of redevelopment
Woodlands Farm and Shrewsbury House are holding their Christmas Fairs on the same day again this year – Sunday 1st December. As only a short, scenic stroll separates them it’s easily possible to visit both and will be a good day to go shopping for some distinctive and unusual Christmas presents.
Maureen from the farm wrote with details of their Fair:
All are welcome at the Woodlands Farm Trust Christmas Fair at 331 Shooters Hill, Welling on Sunday 1 December 2013 from 11am-3pm. Visit Santa’s Grotto, sip mulled wine whilst browsing stalls of local produce and crafts for early Christmas present ideas, or relax in our cafe while the kids enjoy crafts and games. A great festive day out for all the family. Entry is free, but donations are always welcome and go towards the running of the Farm.
Volunteers at the farm have been busy recently. The farm was badly affected by the storm-force winds a few weeks ago, with a number of trees and large branches down along the footpath to Garland Road, and lots of work to clear them away. Also the farm’s new education building has been erected, remarkably quickly, and will soon be ready for the large number of schoolchildren who visit – 3,500 every year according to the farm’s web site.
Hawthorn berries at Woodlands farm
Up the hill from the farm, the Christmas Fair at Shrewsbury House has also become a regular fixture in the calendar. Last year they hosted a wide variety of hand-made craft stalls – ceramics, jewellery, textiles and many different cakes and sweets – as well as paintings by local artist Ray Marshall and photographs from the aperture Woolwich Photographic Society.
And, of course, both fairs will have mulled wine and festive music so we can make an (early) start on getting in to the Christmas spirit.
The Friends of the Pet Cemetery in Hornfair Park have been awarded a grant from the Mayor of London’s Capital Clean-up campaign, and will be meeting on Sunday at 10.30am to celebrate and hold a short clean-up session.
Jean Patrick, the Friends’ Secretary, wrote with details:
We are pleased to tell you that the FOPC have recently been awarded a grant from the Capital Clean-Up Scheme. This is an initiative from the Mayor of London’s office, and sponsored by McDonalds. We were successful because we demonstrated a long term commitment to the project.
To celebrate this, we are holding a short clean-up session on 24th November, 2013, from 10.30am. This will provide you with an opportunity to see our progress so far and also, if so inclined, to help with our winter tidy up. Please wear suitable clothing, and bring a pair of gardening gloves.
McDonald’s have requested a group photo to be taken on the day, so if you wish to be included in this photo, please ensure that you are at the cemetery by 11am.
Dogs are welcome, but please ensure that they are kept on a lead.
For those of you who have not visited the cemetery before, it is located on Shooters Hill Road, near the footbridge, and on the opposite side of the road to the Fox under the Hill pub/restaurant.
We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.
There are some interesting memories of the pet cemetery on the Charlton Parks Reminiscence project, and information about the Blue Cross Kennels of which the pet cemetery was once part, with some old photographs, on the Thames Facing East blog.
