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!
On the 29th November the Friends of Shrewsbury Park will be celebrating completion of their park improvement project, which included resurfacing the flood-prone part of the Dothill path, and we’re all invited to go along and see the official opening by the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
Kathy from the Friends wrote with details:
Please come and help us celebrate the new and improved Dothill/Garland Road entrance to Shrewsbury Park at 10am on Friday, 29 November 2013. The Mayor of the Royal Borough of Greenwich will formally inaugurate the new entrance, cutting the ribbon at 10am. We will then walk along the improved path, explaining what has been achieved. There will be a celebratory cake and a hot drink at the end of the short walk.
Whilst involved in this project, we have worked to improve the safety of the park by getting a grant to erect a kissing gate at the Garland Road entrance to Dothill. This will prevent motorcycles from accessing the park. The project has also improved drainage along the Dothill path – in past years it has sometimes been impossible to navigate Dothill because of the huge puddle across it. We have planted donated plants to improve the look of the entrance. We also have a fine new inscribed oak noticeboard, where we can display information on flora and fauna.
So please come and join us at the event. It will also be an opportunity to buy your Friends of Shrewsbury Park calendar (£5 – all proceeds to the drinking water fountain fund).
We look forward to seeing you on the 29 November.
The Friends calendar, shown below, has proven very popular and has had to be reprinted because the first print-run sold out. The pictures in the calendar were contributed by seven different local photographers or artists and all proceeds will go to the Park drinking fountain fund. If you can’t make it on the 29th you can also get a calendar by e-mailing the Friends at fspdog@hotmail.com.
Friends of Shrewsbury Park 2014 CalendarAutumn colours in Shrewsbury Park
Thanks to Lesley for the pictures and update about Mayplace Lane shown above. There was a great turnout at the get-together on the 3rd, with something like 15 to 20 people helping at different times. The Lane is looking much tidier now, and should be even better in spring when the bulbs planted are in flower.
Thanks also to the Royal Borough of Greenwich for sending a man and a truck to take away all the rubbish collected.
Nicola is hoping that we can repeat the tidy up at the end of January or early February, on a Sunday again if everyone’s happy with that. Further details will be circulated nearer the time.
Church of the Ascension, Dartmouth Row, London SE10 8BF
The Blackheath and Greenwich Group of Amnesty International is holding its annual fund-raising book sale on Saturday 23 November at the Church of the Ascension, Dartmouth Row, London SE10 (10 minutes walk up Lewisham Hill from Lewisham Station, DLR & Bus Station). Doors open at 10am.
The local group has collected thousands of books from a variety of sources, including publishers and book reviewers as well as individual donors. The quality of books – many of which are brand new – is exceptionally high, and there will be plenty of bargains to be found, from second-hand paperbacks to review copies of recently-published novels. Prices start at £1 for paperbacks and £3 for hardbacks.
The group’s book sales – now in their 39th year – are established as Amnesty International’s most successful local fundraising event in the UK, raising over£200,000 over the years.
Amnesty International works worldwide for the release of prisoners of conscience, fair trials for political prisoners and an end to torture, extrajudicial executions, disappearances and the death penalty. The Blackheath and Greenwich group has done a lot of campaigning work on Human Rights in China and stopping violence against women and meets at 8pm on the second Tuesday of each month at St. Margaret’s Church, Lee Terrace, Blackheath.
To find out more information about the Amnesty Blackheath and Greenwich group visit www.amnestybg.wordpress.com
One thing to be aware of: if you drive to the sale and park in Dartmouth Row make sure you check the time on your pay-and-display ticket – it is calculated in an unusual way. The tariff is 35 pence for 15 minutes, but you can only buy 15 minute units, and it “accepts over-payment”. This means that if you put in £2.00 you get only an hour and a quarter instead of the nearly an hour and a half you’d expect and you donate an over-payment of 25p to Lewisham Council. The traffic wardens seem to be especially vigilant around there too!
The Beeches, one of the boys houses at the Hollies
The handsome three storey Edwardian building, pictured above, set in a secluded parkland enclave in Sidcup has been converted to flats. They are prestigious homes according to the estate agent’s blurb, but not so long ago this building was home to 50 boys, some of the 570 children from Greenwich and Deptford who lived at what was, at different times, the Greenwich & Deptford Children’s Home, Sidcup Children’s Homes, Sidcup Residential School and Lamorbey Children’s Home but was usually referred to as The Hollies – a name it was officially given in 1950.
It was also where my Dad and three of his younger brothers grew up in the 1930s.
Dad’s birth certificate says he was born in 1926 at 48 Vanbrugh Hill, which was the address for The Greenwich Union Infirmary. The infirmary was later renamed St Alfege’s Hospital, was then replaced by Greenwich District Hospital which was completely demolished to make way for the new Greenwich Square. The Greenwich Union Infirmary often wasn’t mentioned by name on birth certificates because it was originally part of the Greenwich and Deptford Union Workhouse, and there was a stigma attached to the workhouses, though it later became a more general hospital.
The Hollies Mansion House
It was the Board of Guardians of the Greenwich Poor Law Union who acquired the 1854 mansion house called The Hollies and its 69 acre estate and commissioned local architect Thomas Dinwiddy to design the children’s home. Dinwiddy was the architect for other south-east London public buildings such as Laurie Grove Swimming Baths and the John Roan Girls School. The Guardians’ aim, according to Bexley’s Conservation Area Appraisal, was to set up a “model home for orphans”, though it was also to be a home for the destitute children for whom the Guardians were responsible. As well as four three-storey blocks for boys to live in and thirteen pairs of cottages for girls, the development was designed to be self-contained and included a laundry, gymnasium, swimming pool, bakery, boot makers and infirmary, plus a working farm and the nearby Burnt Oak Lane School. The original manor house was retained as an administration block and for staff accommodation. The home opened on 30th October 1902.
Dad lived in Blackheath until 1932 when the family became homeless. They stayed with friends or slept in church halls or lived a hop-picking life in Kent until the brothers were taken into the Hollies in 1933.
The Hollies Children’s Home
The accommodation houses and cottages at the Hollies were all named after trees, and the boys blocks were called Beeches, Firs, Limes and Oaks. Dad and his next younger brother were in Oaks and the two youngest in Firs. Each boys’ house was staffed by a house father and mother, usually a married couple, two nurses and kitchen staff. The house father and mother for Oaks were called “Dog” and “Frog” Shenton, and the superintendent was a Mr Harper who had a goatee beard and never smiled.
Life at the Hollies seems to have been strict. The boys wore grey suits and boots, and had numbered lockers for their boots and numbered places for their tooth brushes in the washroom. They were expected to do household chores, and they also worked on the farm and in the gardens. However they did get pocket money: 1d a week up to age 10 rising to a shilling a week at age 14. They would save some of this to spend on their annual holiday, the house father recording any savings in a book. Dad also recalled dressing up for a Christmas party at nearby Avery Hill College and going to Blackfen School.
I recently got a copy of Jad Adams and Gerry Coll’s excellent history of the Hollies from Bexley Local Studies Centre. It provides a lot of detail about the regime at the Hollies. They were almost self-sufficient. Most clothes were made on-site; there was a tailor’s shop and needlework room, and they had a jersey-making machine and a stocking machine. Their farm provided much of the food, such as milk, eggs and vegetables. The book also includes personal accounts of life in the Hollies from former residents. More personal stories about life at the Hollies can be found on The Hollies Children’s Home Reunion Group web sites.
Although some of the personal stories about life at the Hollies are unhappy, Dad never had a bad word to say about the home and seemed to have had a positive, happy experience.
The water tower and swimming baths
Dad left the Hollies in August 1943, aged 14, for a live-in job at the Bromley Court Hotel on 5s a week. The Battle of Britain was at its height, and he returned to the Hollies after the hotel was bombed. They found him another live-in job at Maples Furniture Store in Tottenham Court Road, and he also worked at the Naval and Military Club in Piccadilly. When he reached the age of 17 he volunteered for the army, 7 and 5, and was trained in time to join the British Liberation Army in France and also served in Palestine, Hong-Kong, Germany … but that’s a different story. Overall, despite its difficult beginnings, Dad had a happy, good life.
Researching this story highlighted to me how lucky my generation have been compared to our parents’. Our lives haven’t been threatened and turned upside down by a world war, living in what Steven Pinker calls “the long peace”, and we’ve benefited from the NHS, decent council housing and improvements in education that have allowed many of us to be the first generation of our families to go to university. It seems we’re now losing many of these benefits and also the social mobility that accompanied them.
The Hollies closed as a children’s home in the 1980s and most of the buildings have now been converted to housing, though the swimming pool and gym are now the Hollies Countryside Club. The estate has been designated a conservation area, described as “a good and well preserved example of a late Victorian workhouse environment”, with seven of the former children’s home buildings in the London Borough of Bexley’s local list of buildings of architectural or historic interest.
Mayplace Lane near the bronze age barrow on Plum Lane
If you’re interested in helping to tidy and improve Mayplace Lane, or want to know more about proposals to prevent fly-tipping in the lane, then come along on Sunday (3rd November) at 11.00am to meet others with similar interests. Nicola sent a reminder on twitter about the get-together:
As well as clearing litter there are suggestions that lovers of the lane could also improve it by guerrilla gardening and encouraging nature, for example by building woodpiles for hedgehogs and erecting nesting boxes. Perhaps a Neighbourhood Watch group could be set up. I’m sure these ideas will be discussed on Sunday, along with proposals to put lockable gates at each end of the lane to stop fly tipping trucks from dumping their loads of rubbish.
The gating suggestion was set out in a meeting at the Town Hall on the 19th September attended by Paul Stephen, the Community Safety Officer and Partnership Coordinator in Greenwich Council’s Safer Communities Team, Martin Ryan from CleanSweep, local councillor Danny Thorpe and a few local residents. There would need to be gates at the Plum Lane junction and just above Highview flats down near Dallin Road, and a “Friends of Mayplace Lane” group would need to be established to take responsibility for the lane after the gates had been installed. It was stated that because the lane is unadopted the council had no legal responsibility to clear fly-tipped rubbish, though they have been doing this up to now, and if gates were installed it was expected that the Friends would be responsible. Details of how the scheme would work, such as exactly what gates would be used and who would be given keys for the gates, were left for later clarification.
Before gates can be put up the council will need to get a “gating order”, for which they have to follow a process which includes a full consultation of affected people. To decide whether it was worth starting on this process an informal door-to-door poll was conducted one Saturday morning at houses in Eglinton Hill and Brinklow Crescent which back on to Mayplace Lane. The result, according to an e-mail from Councillor Danny Thorpe, was: “We have 39 responses in total, with 37 in favour and two against or not interested.” This was enough for the council to start on the gating order process. I haven’t heard yet how it’s progressing.
Snippet from1837 map in the Firepower Museum
I think Mayplace Lane is fascinating, and love the idea that perhaps it was once a route that Bronze Age people used to visit the land of their ancestors – the barrow cemetery that once adorned the top of Shooters Hill. I had read that it was an old track that predated the modern road layout, and found confirmation serendipitously at the Firepower museum‘s recent community open day. A map of Woolwich and environs from 1837 on the wall at Firepower includes an intriguing path from the top of Sandy Hill Road up to the summit of Shooters Hill. You can see it on the snippet above labelled “To Shewsbury House”. It starts just over the road from the Fox and Hounds; a pub of that name is still there today.
Why do I think that path is Mayplace Lane? Well its northern end is in about the same place – continuing the line of Sandy Hill Road, roughly where Herbert Road is today. But also, in the 1866 OS map from Alan Godfrey shown in my earlier post about Mayplace Lane you can see that Mayplace Lane ends up close to the start of the old Shrewsbury House’s long drive way, which was roughly where the fire station is now. I’ve included the 1866 snippet again below, rotated through 180° so that South is at the top as in the 1837 map. Mayplace Lane winds up the centre of the map. Interesting that in the 29 years between the 1837 and 1866 maps some modern roads such as Eglinton Hill have been constructed – the start of the development of the Herbert Estate by British Land.
Snippet from 1866 OS Map rotated so South is at the top
Another thing that’s been puzzling me about Mayplace Lane, possibly related to gates, is the strange concrete blocks in the ground just past the Bronze Age barrow. You can see them in the photograph below – two rows of three square concrete objects a couple of yards apart. Each piece of concrete has a distinct, separate circle at its centre, as though there was a concrete post which has been cut off level with the ground. Does anyone know what they are or were? There’s nothing on the old OS maps to indicate that there was a gate or barrier at this location, and they look more 20th century than 19th. I wonder if they could be something to do with second world war defence preparations. There were other defensive structures nearby – for example Dragon’s teeth were set up in Eglinton Hill and Brinklow Crescent to impede movements of tanks and mechanised infantry. I’d love to know – but it’ll have to be another topic for my next visit to the Greenwich Heritage Centre.
Charlton House, with its resident lusty ghost, phantom rabbits and other paranormal phenomena, is a great venue for a Halloween event. So the fancy dress ball in aid of the Maidstone and Lewisham Samaritans this Saturday (26th October) is likely be a spooky affair. Tickets are available from Charlton House and cost £30.00, which includes welcoming cocktails in the Long Gallery and a Halloween supper in the Grand Salon, and is followed by dancing ’till midnight in the Old Library.
The best known ghost at Charlton House is Sir William Langhorne, who was thwarted in his desire to father an heir while he was alive, despite marrying a 17 year old local maiden when he was 80 years old, and has continued to look for a fertile bride after death. He is reputed to have turned the door knobs of rooms where female guests were staying, and is blamed for invisible-fingered bottom pinching. But he is not the only ghost in the house: a grey lady carrying a bundle believed to be a dead baby has also been seen, and phantom rabbits haunt the Long Gallery. There have also been reports of poltergeists mysteriously moving people’s belongings around, unexplained lift ascents and strange sounds.
All this paranormal activity has prompted psychic research organisations such as the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), and the Ghost Clubto investigate. The most spectacular occurrence witnessed by investigators occurred late one evening in 1995. A police siren sounded and there was an explosion, following which the seven pieces of a shattered blue and white tea cup were found laid out in a circle in the centre of the Long Gallery. In another test by the Ghost Club in 1999 a wooden mushroom shot ten feet across a room accompanied by a loud bang.
Are you brave enough to dance in a Halloween Ball at such a spooky site?
Samaritans’ first phone at St Stephen Walbrook
This year is the 60th Anniversary of the founding of Samaritans by the Reverend Chad Varah, who vowed to stop the isolation and ignorance that would lead people to suicide. Chad answered their first call on 2nd November 1953. Now 20,665 volunteers answer a call, email or text every six seconds. To mark the anniversary, and 60 years of continuous running, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 60 volunteers from Central London Samaritans will be walking 8 miles through the city of London starting at Samaritans’ first base, Sir Christopher Wren’s St Stephen Walbrook church, and finishing at CLS current centre in Marshall Street, Soho. They are aiming to raise awareness of Samaritans work and raise money to help fund it – if you’d like to sponsor them there is a donations page on Virgin Money Giving.
St Stephen Walbrook, Samaritans first homeHenry Moore’s stone altar at St Stephen Walbrook
Hannah, the Education Officer at Woodlands Farm sent details of their October half term events for children:
October Half Term Children’s Events
Wednesday 30th October
Tremendous Trees
1pm-3pm
Free!
Join us in our woodland as we discover all about trees and the wildlife associated with them. We will also be collecting some seeds for our tree nursery. Come down any time between 1-3pm to join our afternoon of tree discovery.
Thursday 31st October
Horrible Halloween
6pm-8pm
£2.50 per child.
Come along to a spooky evening at Woodlands Farm. Wear fancy dress and make a lantern before we go on a night walk, looking for nocturnal wildlife as well as hearing a Halloween story or two. Booking is essential for this event, to book call 020 8319 8900.
Friday 1st November
Super scarecrows
1pm-3pm
£2 per child
Come along to Woodlands Farm to join us in some super scarecrow fun. Help us make a new scarecrow for our yard or make your own mini scarecrow to take home with you. Drop in anytime between 1-3pm to join the fun!
For more information, see our website or contact Hannah Forshaw on education@thewoodlandsfarmtrust.org
Work on the new education building at the farm is progressing rapidly; the building itself was already in place when I wandered down to the farm yesterday. I wonder if it will be open in time for the half term events?
Suzanna Fitzpatrick, who used to look after publicity for Woodlands Farm, wrote with details of an evening of poetry on Thursday 24th October organised by The Greenwich Poetry Workshop:
Greenwich Poetry Workshop presents:
Poetry at the Treehouse
Thursday 24 October 2013, 7pm for 7.30pm
The Treehouse (top floor), The Greenwich Tavern, 1 King William Walk, Greenwich, SE10 9JH
Nearest stations: Cutty Sark DLR or Greenwich DLR/mainline
FREE ENTRY, no booking required.
Open Mic
Pamphlets for Sale
Suzanna will be reading some of her own poetry at the event. She is an accomplished poet – she wrote the Poetry London commended Lamb 001 inspired by her lambing experience at Woodlands Farm – and her poetry has been published in magazines such as South Bank Poetry, The Frogmore Papers, Brittle Star and The North.
If you write poetry and would like to read any poems on Thursday then put your name down for the open mic when you arrive.
Autumn is a fruitful foraging season, and Woodlands Farm is a fruitful place to forage for sloe berries and wild damsons. They will be foraging on Saturday, and using some of the fruit they gather to make Sloe Gin. Barry Gray from the farm wrote with details:
I attach a flyer for our autumn forage for sloes and wild damsons, with an opportunity to make sloe gin. This is a chance to see Woodlands Farm in autumn, hunt for wild fruit in the hedgerows and learn to make delicious country liqueurs in time for Christmas. Every participant leaves with a bottle of delicious hooch!
HEDGEROW LIQUEURS
Saturday 19th October 2013
1.00—5.00 pm
Price £8 (£5 members)
18+ years only
Join us for a tramp and forage around the hedgerows, followed by sloe gin making.
Bring your own gin or spirit of choice together with at least a one litre, wide neck (>2.5cm) container. Alternatively, Kilner type jars, 1.5 litre, will be available at cost price. Sugar, sloes and wild damsons will be provided by Woodlands Farm.
Book early via the Farm Office, numbers limited
Please dress appropriately for outdoor activities
You can contact the farm to book a place by phone on 020 8319 8900 or by e-mail on woodlandsft@aol.com
The Friends of Shrewsbury Park are holding their Annual General Meeting this Saturday, 12th October starting at 11.00am. Kathy from the Friends wrote with details:
We will be holding our Annual General Meeting on Saturday 12 October 2013, at 11am. We will meet at the bottom of the path that leads down from the car park, and joins Dothill. If you are unsure where this is, please get in touch.
We will start with the business side (reports, elections), and then go on to finish the path through the old Nature Reserve – we hope you will be able to help us with this. If you are able/willing to do so, then please bring along secateurs, loppers and stout gloves. There will be a hot drink and biscuits for volunteers.
We welcome members joining the Management Committee, so if you have some spare time and would like to join the small, friendly team, then please get in touch with me and I will give you more information.
This will also be an opportunity to admire some of the Friends’ achievements over recent months, such as the new drainage system and re-surfaced path on Dot Hill pictured above. This part of the Dothill path was susceptible to flooding, as can be seen in the picture with an earlier post about the improvements, so the changes will make a big difference. Further down the path the Friends have erected a new set of wheel-chair friendly gates and a hand-carved notice board at the Garland Road entrance to the park.
New notice board at Garland Road entrance to Shrewsbury Park
If you are skilled in web site maintenance you may be able to help the Friends with their excellent website. They are looking for a volunteer to take over the technical aspects of updating their site as the web designer who has looked after it for the last five years has had to step down due to work commitments. Potential web masters can contact Kathy by e-mail on fspdog@hotmail.com or come along and see her at the AGM.
The Friends are currently raising funds for a water fountain for the park, and have produced a 2014 Calendar which will be sold to help raise money. It includes art work by local children and photographs showing the park at different times of the year. The wintry January photograph is included below. The calendar costs £5.00 and will be available at the AGM or via the Friends.
The January Picture in the Friends of Shrewsbury Park 2014 Calendar
