The following notes are taken mostly from the English Heritage survey of London.... Massively condensed so as not to bore everyone to death :-) This was Woolwich before McDonalds.... Maybe even before Woolworths !! :-) [Chris} Although Woolwich has a history going back to Saxon times, The beginnings of Woolwich as we know it now began around 1512 in the reign of Henry the 8th, when a wharf was established just east of Bell water gate , roughly where the leisure centre car park stands now. The site was favoured because it is situated on a long straight stretch of the Thames with deep water and just eight miles below London. The Crown bought the site in 1518 and used it as an Ordnance depot for arming it’s ships. It became known as Gun Wharf. About 10 years later a two acre site called Boughtons docks, in the area we know as the dockyard was set up as a naval ship building yard. Sir Edward Boughton had inherited the manor of Woolwich in 1518 and having good connections at court he also managed to buy the Burrage estate and with a little help from the dissolution of the monasteries he picked up the manor of Plumstead . Edward sold the Boughtons docks site to the Crown in 1546. Another transaction by Boughton was the sale of a large tract of land to the east of Woolwich, mostly marshland to Martin Bowes. Bowes built himself a Mansion on his new lands. The new Royal dockyard was not at this stage a huge site and in the mid 1570s a rope yard was set up back near the old Gun Wharf , A long straight stretch was needed for rope making and this was established roughly parallel to Beresford street. In 1667 the Dutch attacked the British fleet at their Medway moorings, this prompted the Crown to acquire the whole 31 acre site of martin Bowes estate, giving the Gun Wharf in part exchange. This was the beginnings of what was called first The Warren and then the Royal Arsenal... The site very soon spread eastwards across Plumstead marshes and at about the same time the Royal Dockyard was also expanding to the east and west Despite the Military expansion, the main part of Woolwich was still a privately owned estate. Over the next 150 years Woolwich changed hands a few times , first from Boughton to Richard Heywood in 1554 then to Willian Gilbourne in 1580. Gilbourne lived in a Manor house on the land that is now Hare street. In 1693 two relatives, both called Richard Bowater bought ‘Woolwich’ for £11,800 . In the 1730s the estate passed to Edward Bowater .. Edward had sons and one of them managed to run up some pretty huge debts and in 1771 Edward had to borrow £10,000 against the estate. Things did not improve and two years later the Bowaters were all in Marshalsea jail for debts. Over the next 20 years the Bowaters finances were extremely complicated and in 1799 a lease of 99 years, for a large chunk of the east side of Woolwich, was bought by the Powis brothers who were Brewers from Greenwich. To be continued ......... possibly
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 22:37:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015