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!
Public Running Dates 2012
We look forward to welcoming you back in 2012 for another summer of nostalgia, riding behind our steam and electric locomotives. The dates and timings have now been confirmed.
The railway and clubhouse will be open from 2:30-5:00pm. Train rides will be available for children and adults(!), with the last ticket issued at 4:30pm. Refreshments are available in the clubhouse.
Sunday April 22nd
Sunday May 6th 20th
Sunday June 3rd 17th
Sunday July 1st 15th 29th
Sunday August 12th 26th
Sunday September 9th 23rd
Sunday October 7th (last running)
The WDMES still haven’t been given a firm date for when they need to vacate the site behind the electricity substation on Rochester Way, so they have planned a full year’s events for 2012.
The Falconwood Miniature Railway is very popular with readers of this site. The railway, in its various wordings, is one of the most frequent searches that brings visitors here, attracted no doubt by my predecessor’s sound recording and video of the miniature railway in action. I’ll certainly be visiting one of their public runnings this year, and I’ve added the dates to the site calendar.
Hannah, the Education Officer at Woodlands Farm, sent me details of their Easter Holiday activities for children. I’ve added them to the e-shootershill calendar.
1st April – 9th April
Animal Egg Spotting trail
Not only chickens lay eggs – come and explore the farm and find the hidden animals which lay eggs – you may be surprised what you find!
Self guided trail available when farm open – Free!
Tuesday 10th April
Spring on the Farm
10am-12pm
£1 per child, accompanying adults free
Spring is here and this is the chance to meet the baby animals on the farm. We will be doing crafts, games and seeing the new animals.
Booking is essential, call 0208 319 8900.
Wednesday 11th April
Marvellous Minibeasts
10am -12pm
£1 per child, accompanying adults free
What is crawling around in the leaves and what is hiding under those logs? Join us as we go exploring in the woods to find what minibeasts are lurking about.
Booking is essential, call 0208 319 8900
Thursday 12th April
Toddler Club
10am-12pm
£2 per adult, children free
Meet the animals, enjoy some crafts or just play.
For more information, see our website or contact Hannah Forshaw on education@thewoodlandsfarmtrust.org
Woodlands Farm is located on the borders of the London boroughs of Bexley and Greenwich. At 89 acres, it is the largest city farm in the UK. Our priorities are education and conservation, and we are part of the Natural England Higher Level Stewardship Scheme. Our education programme attracts visitors from pre-school to third-age groups. The Trust aims to involve local community groups, schools, volunteers and businesses in farming and conservation, helping to bridge the current town-country divide.
We are open 9.30am-4.30pm, Tuesday-Sunday (except Christmas Day). There is no entry charge except for special events, though donations are always welcome.
Nearest tube: North Greenwich
Nearest BR: Welling
Buses: 486 and 89
We are a farm so sensible shoes and clothing are recommended! We do allow dogs, but please note that these must be kept on a lead and not taken into any farm buildings.
Lleyn sheep at Woodlands Farm
There are more pictures of animals at Woodlands farm here.
I wandered up to the elixir Gallery run by Verve Arts at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital while waiting for an appointment this morning, and was totally (but pleasantly) gob-smacked by the exhibition of infrared photography by Andy Linden that is currently on display there. A poster by the exhibition describes it:
Andy Linden is a member of the Aperture Woolwich Photographic Society, he has lived in the local area all his life and been a photographer for 30 years. He is also a member of the Royal Photographic Society and gained the distinction of Licentiateship (LRPS) in 2009.
All the pictures in the exhibition were taken using an SLR digital camera that has been converted so that it is sensitive to the infrared (non-visible) part of the spectrum.
Leaves and foliage strongly reflect infrared radiation, so they usually appear bright in an infrared photograph. The majority of these pictures were taken in and Greenwich Park and the surrounding areas. They have been post-processed in Photoshop to produce the tones that appear in the final prints.
There are more infrared photographs by Andy Linden on his Flickr site.
The exhibition is well worth a visit. It ‘s free and it runs until 13th May.
The Friends of Eaglesfield Park are looking for help to create a wild flower meadow around the new pond in Eaglesfield Park on Sunday 25th March from 10.00 to 12.00. As their poster, pictured above, says: all are welcome. This is the latest stage in the Friends’ refurbishment of the Lilly Pond which started last November.
With the luck the 25th will be blessed with the same beautiful spring weather as we have at the moment, unlike last month when I took the latest in my series of photos of the changes in the pond. I’m looking forward to taking a more colourful one when the wild flower meadow grows up.
wikipedia commons image of the Corky Fruited Water Dropwort
The Corky Fruited Water Dropwort (Oenanthe pimpinelloides) has been getting a lot of press in the last couple of days. It would appear to be the only barrier preventing deployment of a Rapier Missile Battery near the cafe in Oxleas Woods. The plant mainly grows in the west country, Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Hampshire but also in a few places around London. My New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora says it is a “tuberous perennial herb, found in hay meadows and pastures, especially those which are horse-grazed, and on roadsides. It grows in both damp and dry grassland.” It sounds like like an innocuous plant to have the power to deter missile batteries. The Devon Wildlife Trust describes it as follows:
Grows up to about 100 mm tall. The stem is solid, ridged and un-spotted, and it has a swollen corky base (hence the English name). The lower leaves are 2-pinnate in spring, but wither by the time of flowering. The upper leaves are 3-pronged and lanceolate, persisting into flowering. The roots terminate in rounded tubers.
Flowering takes place from June to August. The flowers are in umbels (2 to 5 cm across), on stout rays (1 to 2 cm across), which are flat-topped when in fruit. The flowers are white or pink, 2 mm across, with the outer petals unequal. Bracts and bracteoles are present. The fruits are cylindrical, ribbed, and thickened at the top with 2 erect styles.
Oxleas Cafe - Proposed Site of a Rapier Missile Battery
I first heard of the proposal to site missile batteries in the woods and on Blackheath through the Blackheath Bugle blog. It sounded so bonkers that I had to quickly check that it wasn’t 1st April – could anyone really be thinking of shooting down a couple of hundred tons of passenger aircraft over London? Surely they would have closed the airspace around London and stopped flights at London City Airport well before they got to that? But it does seem to be under consideration and has been reported in the Mail Online, the BBC News and News Shopper.
Local MP Clive Efford is objecting to the plans because there is a risk of damaging the ancient Oxleas woodland, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. As the Mail Online said
Mr Efford said five troop carriers had driven into the woods last Thursday, with the rockets pulled behind them on a trailer, to carry out a military exercise.
He said: ‘The missiles have a range of only ten miles so any plane they target would come down over a densely populated part of the capital. It seems to me they can be used only as an absolutely last line of defence.’
Mr Efford added that as the Rapiers were set to be placed by the Oxleas Wood cafe, ‘at least the missile operators would eat well’. Olympic security planners fear that terrorists could mount a repeat of the 9/11 attacks by flying a hijacked civilian plane into packed Olympic venues.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for any Corky Fruited Water Dropwort next time I’m walking in Oxleas Woods. Oh, and any Rapier Missile Batteries.
Clive Efford (centre) and friends giving a Valentines Day card to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital
The Mayor of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the Lady Mayoress will open the Tarts & Crafts fête at Shrewsbury House at 11 O’Clock on Sunday 1st April. The last Tarts & Crafts in November was very successful – some 800 people attended, visiting 34 stalls spread over both floors of Shrewsbury House selling a wide range of arts, crafts and foodstuffs. They will be adopting the same, successful format this time.
The Mayor will also be presenting Shrewsbury House with a Commemorative Certificate representing the Royal Warrant recently issued to the Royal Borough.
Shrewsbury House Community Centre is in Bushmoor Crescent, Shooters Hill SE18 3EG. The entry fee to the fête is 50p which includes a raffle ticket. The fête runs from 11.00am to 4.00pm.
Contact the Shrewsbury House Community Centre for more information or stall bookings, telephone: 0208 854 3895
Samuel Edmund Phillips memorial in Shooters Hill shelter
I came across the name Samuel Edmund Phillips while reading about his son, Major Charles Edmund Stanley Phillips O.B.E., F.R.S.E., F.Inst.P., who used to ride his horse from Shooters Hill to his workplace at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South Kensington. I often walk up Shooters Hill past his memorial shelter near Christ Church School, and wonder about its place in local history. Samuel’s obituary in the Electrical Engineer records that he achieved a lot in his life of just 45 years:
It is with deep regret we have to record the death of Mr. Samuel Edmund Phillips, which occurred somewhat suddenly at his residence at Shooter’s Hill, Kent, on Saturday last. He had been in failing health for some years, and suffered greatly from an internal complaint which proved to be caused by an ulcer.
Mr. Phillips, when a boy, was brought into contact with telegraphy, his father being at that time engaged with Dr. Whitehouse in carrying out experimental work in connection with the first Atlantic cable. He subsequently accompanied his father in the first Malta and Alexandria cable expedition, and in 1863 he became a member of the staff which Colonel Patrick Stewart formed to go out with the Persian Gulf cable, remaining at Bushire as a junior clerk. At the end of three years’ service he returned to England, and obtained an appointment on the electrical staff of Messrs. Latimer Clark, Forde, and Co., leaving these gentlemen to become electrician to Mr. W. T. Henley, in whose service he remained for 10 years. At Mr. Henley’s works he was appointed manager of the cable department, and occasionally he accompanied cable expeditions as head of the electrical department. In 1875 he joined Mr. W. Claude Johnson in partnership, and a small works was established at Charlton. This formed the nucleus of the present extensive range of factories which are so well known to all connected with the electrical industry throughout the world.
As an inventor Mr. Phillips has given us the oil insulator, which has not only been largely adopted for telegraph lines in India, Egypt, and other countries, but has proved of immense value for overhead lines for electric lighting and the transmission of power in all quarters of the globe.
Mr. Phillips took the keenest interest in scientific matters generally, and to his good judgment and sound common sense may be attributed in a great measure the success of his undertakings. His genial manner and generous nature made him a universal favourite, and his loss will be deplored by a very wide circle of friends and acquaintances. It is not customary even in deploring the loss of an old and valued friend to abstain from the impersonal, yet we cannot help saying that the late Mr. Phillips was one of those quiet, unobtrusive men to whom England owes so much. He, in common with his surviving partner, was imbued with the view that it is necessary for a firm’s success to have a reputation for thoroughness, and together they built up a reputation for the firm’s work that gives it a foremost place among our manufacturers.
Postcard of Memorial Fountain from 1930s
Samuel’s memorial has an eventful history. Originally a drinking fountain given in 1893, it was allowed to fall into disrepair, and was restored in 1957. Then in 1985, according to David Lloyd Bathe’s history of Shooters Hill, “Steeped In History”, it was reduced to a pile of rubble by a heavy vehicle, but was restored by the local council. The line “Write me as one that loves his fellow men” on the memorial comes from the poem Abou Ben Adhem by the poet and writer James Henry Leigh Hunt:
Abou Ben Adhem
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
“What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.
The Johnson & Phillips company that Samuel founded with Walter Claude Johnson was based at the Victoria Works in Victoria Way, Charlton, which was hit by one of the last V2 rockets to fall in Greenwich on 9th March 1945.
Castle House, home of Samuel Edmund Phillips
The Phillips family lived in Castle House, which is shown on the 1866 ordnance survey map as being located just off to the east of the track that leads from Shooters Hill to Severndroog Castle. Major Charles Phillips later sold the Telegraph Field, where the old semaphore had stood, to the War Memorial Hospital Committee for £3500 to form part of the site for the new hospital, along with the crown property Hazelwood and an adjacent strip of land. He later donated the sum he had received for the Telegraph Field to the fund for building the new hospital. The place where Castle House once stood now appears to be a car park in the Memorial Hospital grounds.
What an interesting shelter!
As a technical aside: I had been trying, unsuccessfully, for some time to take the “panoramic” view of the memorial at the top of this post using the free Nokia Panorama software on my N8 mobile phone. It didn’t seem to be able to match up adjacent sections, despite the, to my eyes, abundant clues. Then I upgraded my phone to the Symbian Belle release, which included a free copy of Scalado’s Camera Lover Pack, saving myself a whole one pound and 50p. Scalado‘s software worked first time; I should have known those clever Swedes wouldn’t let me down!
It’s a great shame to see the end of the Symbian software that still drives the majority of the world’s smartphones despite its rapid decline over the last year following Nokia’s adoption of Windows Phone, but great that the Nokia Symbian engineers are going out with a bang with their 41MP camera phone the 808 PureView.
If you think the the Woolwich Free Ferry should continue, or you think a Gallions Reach ferry would lead to unacceptable traffic problems, or if you object to a new tunnel at Silvertown, or if you want to make any other comments about Transport for London’s river crossing proposals then you have until midnight of the 5th March to complete the consultation questionnaire. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Ferry could be gone by 2017 if TfL’s latest proposals on Thames crossings are implemented.
There seems be be strong affection for the Free Ferry; in the 2003 consultation about the Thames Gateway Bridge 76% of respondents thought the ferry should be kept open. As the TfL consultation key findings brochure says:
“ If the bridge would lead to the closure of the Woolwich Ferry, I would be strongly opposed to the bridge.”
Over three-quarters of respondents to this question (5,086 in total) said that the Woolwich Ferry should be kept open in some form.
3,537 people added comments to this question.
Many respondents said that they would oppose the bridge if it simply replaced the ferry.
The market research confirmed this finding, with 69% of respondents wanting the Ferry to be kept open.
The consultation on the new proposals is open until midnight on Monday. It only takes 5 minutes to complete – just 17 questions including the age, ethnicity etc. questions – and allows you to say whether you support the new Gallions Reach ferry and Silvertown Tunnel.
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
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.
