Monthly Archives: February 2025

Euston Station and HS2 – A 2025 Update

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Eight years ago, I started an annual post about the works around Euston Station for HS2. That first post was about St. James Gardens, which I photographed just before closure, as the area was part of the route for HS2 rail tracks and the station infrastructure.

Back in 2017, I thought it would be interesting to walk the same route each year, and watch as the new station develops, to see how such a major London infrastructure build transforms a relatively small area, and what a brand new Euston station would look like – a new station that was desperately needed.

Little did I know at the time, that eight years later there would still be very little of any new infrastructure to see (a full list of all the posts is at the end of today’s post).

Although this was intended to be an annual post, I did not do one in 2024, as there was virtually no change to see, and sadly, in early 2025, this is still the situation, but if anything, keeping up a regular almost annual post does highlight the issues around a construction project such as HS2, and how shockingly bad as a country, we have become at deciding on, planning, financing and building this type of large infrastructure project.

So, for 2025, prepare to be underwhelmed !!

I started at Euston Station – a station that is in desperate need of a rebuild. The current station buildings opened in 1968, and my first experience with Euston was in the late 1970s when taking the train to the BT apprentice training centre at Bletchley. Then, it seemed a very modern and efficient station when compared to the decaying Victorian stations of the major termini around London.

Today, the majority of those Victorian Stations have been preserved and really well redeveloped, whilst the late 1960s Euston station has become over crowded, inefficient, rather strange walking routes to connect between over and underground transport, and is in desperate need of a rebuild.

However, the major change across the whole walk I would take in 2025, was not as a result of HS2, rather the change of the horrendous, over-bright advertising screen that took over the original platform and train information boards, back to the function it should be doing – indicating platform and train details:

Not much can be seen of the HS2 works from the station, but walk up to the upper level, and by the stairs in the south-west corner of the station, we can look over the area between the station, Melton Street on the right, and the old taxi rank to the south. This should be part of the new station, but for now, and the last few years, it is just a hole in the ground:

Walking out of the station, across the open plaza, under the office blocks towards the south-east, and the Doric Arch pub is still open:

And this area is still busy with buses:

On the eastern side of the station there is a new taxi rank, with multi-coloured shelters, which appear to reflect a new colour scheme for Euston signs, which at the moment only appear in small parts of the area being redeveloped:

From Euston Road there is very little to be seen of any HS2 works. The Grade II listed lodges, which are the only survivors of the 1870 build of the original Euston station, and which stand either side of the road used by buses to access the bus station, still face onto Euston Road:

In the above photo, there are two lamp posts, one on either side of the entrance to the Euston bus station. They are of a really interesting design. They are not listed in the Historic England database, and following a brief search, I cannot find any information about them.

The design at the top includes a wreath, and what looks to be possibly a Roman helmet:

Crossing the road between the two lodges, and we can see the 1921. Grade II* listed war memorial, designed by Reginald Wynn Owen, with the bus station to the right, and the late 1970s low rise office block that was built between the station and Euston Road as part of a development of low and high rise office blocks in the late 1970s:

And when we get to the junction of Euston Road and Melton Street, we can look along what is left of Melton Street, with the hoardings that surround the HS2 works blocking the road, with just a pedestrian walkway to the left:

And walking through what was Melton Street, we get into an area of walkways running between hoardings that block off views of what should be construction sites:

And which have hardly changed for the last few years:

Until we get to the south-west corner access to the station:

We finally get to see some of the working area for the new station:

At the corner of where Drummond Street once met Melton Street is the original Euston station of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (I wrote about a visit to the station and tunnels in this post):

This is the walkway that follows the route of what was Drummond Street, where it led up to the junction with Melton Street and Cardington Street. Again, this has not changed for the last few years, and is the access route to the station from the streets to the west of the station:

There are very few places where you can look through the hoardings and see any of the construction site. There is one in the above photo, looking north to the area that at some point will see the new HS2 tracks arrive at the new part of Euston Station for HS2:

The old St. James Gardens and burial grounds were in the area roughly where the blue containers are in the above photo, including the area slightly in front, to the rear, and to the left.

For a mid-week view of a construction site, there is very little going on.

To the west of the construction site, several streets have been truncated – Drummond Street, Euston Street and Stephenson Way. Cobourg Street which ran north – south across these streets is today mainly a walkway, with hoarding lining the eastern side of the street, towards the station.

The following photo is at the end of Euston Street, looking north along what was Cobourg Street:

The HS2 website has a Media section which includes photos of the construction site. The following image shows what is behind the hoardings in the above photo:

Image source: https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/resources/aerial-view-of-hs2-s-london-euston-station-works-january-2023-7-2

At the junction of what was Cobourg Street and Starcross Street is the Exmouth Arms – still open:

And along Starcross Street is Camden Council’s Euston Skills Centre, set-up to provide a wide range of training and skills for trades in the construction industry:

If I remember rightly, when the Skills Centre was first planned, HS2 played a large part due to the expected demand for a considerable number of trained construction workers, however reading through the brochure for the skills centre (downloadable here), there is no mention of HS2, presumably due to the lack of any significant construction work along the route of the new railway through Camden and the build of a new station.

The public open space in front of the Skills Centre includes a few relics from the wider area, and in the following photo are four cast iron pillars which were salvaged from the King’s Cross development:

The old Maria Fidelis Catholic School, now part of the Skills Centre:

I have now reached Hampstead Road, and the former Saint Pancras Female Orphanage building, later an annex of the London Temperance Hospital and now an NHS facility, is still standing on the edge of the construction site:

Whilst there are hoardings lining the side of the construction site along Hampstead Road, there is a small open space which has taken a number of forms over the years.

This is the view of the space in 2025:

The structure in the above photo is called “Reflect” and was designed and built by 18 young people from Euston as part of an HS2 programme.

The structure serves as a stage for performance, play, gatherings and shelter. At the top of the structure are mirrors arranged at different angles to reflect the sun and provide alternative views of the open space.

View from the base of “Reflect”:

Within this open space there are a number of raised planters, some of wood, others of concrete.

Some of the planters have some very brief information cards, for example in the following, the tree is a Silver Birch, a native of the Himalayas, and one of the orange cards informs that it is “used for sweeping leaves off patios and for flying”.

The white card at the end informs “Limestone. Calcium Carbonate. Native to Lincolnshire among many other places in the UK”. It all seems rather hurriedly done:

Further along Hampstead Road, and this is the junction with what was Cardington Street – now an access road to the overall construction site:

There are plenty of works going on along Hampstead Road. These works, according to one of the HS2 Euston updates is to “complete ‘no regrets’ enabling works across the HS2 site and other activities to make the site safe while the main construction work is paused“:

I love the term “no regrets” for work that presumably will need to be done whatever the outcome, and is why there is relatively little going on around Euston as the majority of works have been paused, following the Government’s announcement in 2023 about changes to HS2 funding and programme of works.

At present, construction work is moving ahead on the route between Old Oak Common in London, and Birmingham.

The section between Old Oak Common and Euston Station is on pause whilst attempts are made to secure funding from the private sector to help with completion of this final leg of the route into central London, and a new station.

As far as I know, there is no final design for a new station to terminate the HS2 tracks, and no decision on how far the existing Euston station will be rebuilt and integrated with a new station for HS2.

Work preparing for the Euston Tunnel, part of the route between Old Oak Common and Euston seems to be going ahead, as the HS2 Media documents include images of the tunnel boring machines being prepared, for example, this is “Euston TBM Madeleine pushed into launch tunnel preparing to begin constructing the Euston Tunnel”:

Image source: https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/resources/rail-minister-and-new-ceo-at-old-oak-common-station-box-to-see-the-two-tbms-preparing-to-build-hs2-to-euston-7

However, this may be down to contractual commitments, and the tunnel boring machines for the Euston Tunnel will have been ordered long before the 2023 hold on the route between Old Oak Common and Euston, and what do you do with a tunnel boring machine that you have ordered, when it arrives on site?

HS2’s January 2025 Construction Update has a slide with all the tunnels and the progress of their tunnel boring machines.

Many of the tunnels are complete, and tunnels where construction is still underway are listed as being from 29% to 62% complete.

The two Euston tunnels are both listed as 0% complete, with their status as “Preparing for launch”.

Access into the works along the western edge of Hampstead Road:

More of the ‘no regrets’ enabling works” being completed along Hampstead Road:

Further along Hampstead Road, I turned west into Mornington Crescent, then to Clarkson Row, where there is a high wall running between the street and the railway, however it is just possible to lift the camera above the wall to take some random photos to show the construction works on the opposite side of the working rail tracks. This shows the route of the new HS2 tracks into Euston, parallel to the existing:

Looking further to the west:

Both views look very similar to 2023.

And with that, I am at the end of my 2025 walk around the HS2 Euston construction site, which, as I stated at the start of the post is rather underwhelming, with little having changed since my 2023 walk.

For years, HS2 has been a rather polarising, marmite project – you either love it or you hate it.

It is costing a vast sum of money, much of which has been wasted, for example with the ongoing changes and cancellations to parts of the route, the delays to the final stretch into Euston – which although major works have been delayed, just keeping the site secure and open is costing money, as are the activities presumably going on behind the scenes to try and secure funding for the Euston route.

Personally, I am in favour of HS2, although I have always thought that the name is wrong. Shaving minutes of a journey to Birmingham in no way justifies the expense. High speed only becomes relevant if the route is extended to the far north of the country and into Scotland.

Where HS2 will be very positive is by the provision of additional rail capacity, and taking trains off the existing tracks allowing additional local services to be implemented, however whether you support HS2 or not, it is a horrendous example of the country’s inability to plan, make a decision on, fund and build a major infrastructure project, and to be consistent during a long construction phase.

Will it look the same during a 2026 walk – I suspect it will, and I will bore you with that in a post next year.

The opportunities of new rail routes has recently been shown by a change in the agreement to operate HS1, the route that connects St. Pancras with the Channel Tunnel, which fully opened in 2007.

Under the changes just agreed, HS1 has been renamed London St Pancras Highspeed, and whilst up to now Eurostar has had an effective monopoly on the use of the route, it has left HS1 significantly under utilised, but now the route will open up to other operators, with the potential for a wider range of destinations across Europe.

And just imagine if HS1 was connected to HS2, so that high speed trains from Scotland and the north of England could have direct connectivity with destinations across Europe (which was once one of the selling points for the whole concept of HS2).

In the meantime, I will leave you with the concept designs from 2022, showing what should have been under construction at Euston. The station exterior:

Image source: https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/resources/hs2-euston-station-concept-design-exterior

The station interior:

Image source: https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/resources/ilokw-nye96-e9kz8-kj7l6-ro892

And if you would like to read about the last 8 years of progress (or lack of) around Euston, my previous posts are here (this will be an ever growing list over the years to come, until the opening of the station, which I hope to see at some point):

My first post was back in 2017 and covered St James Gardens, just before they were closed for excavation.

My second post in 2018 walked around the streets to the west of the station, as buildings began to close, and the extent of the works could be seen.

I then went back in 2019 as demolition started.

In 2020, demolition was well underway and St James Gardens had disappeared, and the associated archaeological excavation had finished

And in June 2021 I went back for another walk around the edge of the construction site.

A 2022 walk around the site is here.

And my last walk around the site was in 2023, which is here.

alondoninheritance.com

Patrick Colquhoun and the Thames River Police

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In 1949, my father photographed the patrol boats of the Thames River Police, moored in the river next to the floating police station, which was located where the RNLI Lifeboat Station is today, next to Waterloo Bridge, which is the bridge seen in the background:

The boats of the river police, or to give them the correct name of today’s force, the Marine Policing Unit, have changed somewhat in the intervening 76 years:

The founding of the Thames River Police as a professional force goes back to the year 1800. The rapidly growing trade based along the river, the storage of valuable goods in warehouses and boats on the river and the resultant dramatic increase in theft resulted in an urgent need for a force that could protect commercial property.

Whilst a police force for the river had been formed in 1798, it lacked the supporting legislation, along with a more professional approach to policing, which the Port of London required.

One man, Patrick Colquhoun was instrumental in demonstrating the remarkable volume of theft, the commercial impact that this had, both on owners and the loss of tax revenue, and putting forward an argument for legislation to support a professional river police, and in 1800, he published a major work of some 676 pages with the title of “A Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames”:

It is a remarkable read, and before looking at the contents of the book, some back ground into the life of Patrick Colquhoun.

He was born in March 1745 and died at his house, 21 James Street, Buckingham Gate, in April 1820.

To try and find a detailed account of his life, I searched newspapers of the time to see if there was an obituary, however every paper published just a brief couple of lines, similar to the following from the New Times of London on the 3rd of May, 1820:

“On the 25th, at his house, No. 21 James-street, Buckingham-gate, Patrick Colquhoun, Esq. LL.D. aged 76. Author of the Treatises of the Police of the Metropolis and the River Thames, and of the Wealth, Power and Resources of the British Empire.”

I eventually found a very comprehensive story of his life in the Barbados Mercury and Bridgetown Gazette on the 26th of September, 1820:

“We lately intimated the death of our Countryman Patrick Colquhoun, and we should not have again referred to this painful subject had we not felt that his was no ordinary merit, and that it was in some measure our duty to bestow upon his memory our tribute of respect for the patriotism of his public life.

Mr Colquhoun was descended from an ancient family settled in Dumbartonshire for many centuries. A younger son, he proceeded to Virginia, and there, although in the wilds of America, having access to a valuable library, he, by his own industry, completed his education. Returning to Scotland, he established himself in Glasgow. For three successive years he was elected Lord Provost of that City.

He regulated and improved the Forth and Clyde Navigation, so beneficial to the internal commerce of the Island.

He removed to London, and was nominated a Police Magistrate, but his was not a disposition to confine itself to the routine of mere official studies; or, seeing evils and imperfections in a system, to object, find fault with them, and leave them as they were. He felt it his duty to suggest remedies, and, as far as the means were afforded him, practically to prove the utility of his suggestions; with this feeling, he published ‘The Police of the Metropolis’ and soon after his assistance was solicited by the Duke of Portland to systematise and superintend the marine police of the River Thames.

Mr. Secretary Dundas estimated the increase to the Revenue from the system established at £30,000 annually on sugar alone, by the prevention of depredations on that article, and so expressed it in his speech on introducing the Thames Police Bill into the House.”

Patrick Colquhoun in 1818:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

There is more to the obituary, which I will come onto later in the post, however the above couple of paragraphs bring us to Colquhoun’s book.

He had already written about the Police of the Metropolis, and his next book, Police of the Thames, focuses on the problem of theft across the Port of London, policing of the river, quays and warehouses, and the Acts of Parliament, laws and penalties needed to address what was a significant and growing problem at the end of the 18th century.

Patrick Colquhoun was into detail. The book is full of the history of the Port of London, how it had arrived as one of the major global trading centres by the end of the 18th century, how the port operated, trade through the port, those who work across the port etc. and Colquhoun used plenty of data and statistics to support his proposed approach.

His book really provides a very in depth understanding of the Port of London at the end of the 18th century, and for today’s post, I will look at the first couple of chapters which provide some background to the operation of the port, and the different methods of theft of goods whilst in boats on the rivers, whilst being transferred, and when stored in warehouses.

Indeed, at every part of the chain from when a ship arrived at the Port, to the time when goods where shipped to their final destination, there was a risk of theft.

At the end of the 18th century, the City of London had already long been a trading port, for as well as being a major crossing between the north and south banks of the Thames, the city’s role as a trading port was key to London’s existence, importance and growth.

It was not only English merchants though who were responsible foe trade. Some of the first records of trade through the city, show that in 1561, there were no Englishmen who had a sole occupation as an importer and exporter. The 327 people who were recorded as being merchants, consisted of:

In the 16th century, England was somewhat behind other European countries, such as the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal (for example, in my post a couple of weeks ago on William Adams, when he arrived in Japan in 1600, the Portuguese and Spanish had already established trading links, and the Dutch were also trading in the region).

Much of the early trading through the City was driven by trading companies, and merchant adventurers, who raised the funds needed to buy or build ships, raise crews and trade across the world, and the 16th century saw a growing number of these companies:

  • Hamburg Company – one of the earliest. Granted a charter by Henry IV in 1406, and renewed through to 1661
  • The Russia Company – Charter granted by Queen Mary in 1555
  • The Eastland, or North-Sea Company – Charter granted by Elizabeth I in 1579
  • The Turkey Company – Charter granted by Elizabeth I in 1581
  • The East-India Company – Charter granted by Elizabeth I in 1599
  • The American Company – Charter granted by Charles II in 1663
  • The Hudsons-Bay Company – Charter granted by Charles II in 1681

The impact on trade by companies such as the East-India and Hudson’s Bay can be seen in how trade through the Port of London was switching between Foreign and British owned ships. The following table shows the change between 1702 and 1751:

It was not just trade with foreign countries that was creating the rapid rise in the volume of trade through the Port of London, there was also a considerable amount of coastal trade, with ships trading between London and the various ports around the coast of the country.

The following table is one of very many from the book and shows the type of detailed information on the Port of London used by Colquhoun. The table shows the Coasting Trade between the Port of London and the ports across England and Wales in 1796:

The following table shows the increase in foreign trade throughout the 18th century, and the mix between British and Foreign ships. The table shows that foreign shipping expanded considerably during the later half of the century compared to the first half:

All these ships transported a vast array of valuable goods, and the book includes a large, fold out table detailing “Commerce and Shipping of the River Thames…..applicable to the year ending the 5th January 1798, with the true Valuation of the Merchandise Imported and Exported from and to Parts beyond Seas”. It was difficult to photograph this table due to the delicacy of this 225 year old book, and really not wanting to damage my copy. The following is my best attempt, click on the image for an enlarged version:

This was a colossal volume and variety of goods that at some point were on a ship in the Port of London, transferred between ship and quay, and stored in w warehouse.

I used the Bank of England inflation calculator to see what the equivalent value would be today, and the £30,957,421 of Imports would today be worth £3,375,071,706, with the £29,640,568 of exports being worth £3,231,504,408.

A number of caveats need to apply to these figures, for example the accuracy of inflation figures going back over 200 years, purchasing power, etc. but they do give an idea of value, and in today’s money, in 1798, £6,606,576,114 was being imported and exported through the Port of London

All these figures on trade in the Port of London were included in Colquhoun’s book to indicate the scale of the problem, as this vast array of valuable goods offered a considerable opportunity for theft, both by “professional” thieves, as well as organised and petty pilfering from those who worked across the Port of London.

Patrick Colquhoun believed that theft was endemic.

He believed that theft became a significant problem after the start of the 18th century, and attributes this to a decree of religious and moral decay, described in the following paragraphs:

“The progress of evil; propensities was slow, while a sense of Religion and Morality operated in a greater degree than at present; upon the minds of the lower orders of people. In the moral, as in the physical World. The change of habit is gradual, and often imperceptible. In contemplating the magnitude of the abuses which are to be developed in this Work, the mind is naturally led to an inquiry into the causes which have produced a system of matured delinquency; which is perhaps, unparalleled in the criminal history of any other country.

It is not unlikely, that the disposition to pillage Commercial Property while afloat, derived its origins in no considerable degree, from the habit of Smuggling, which has prevailed ever since Revenues were collected.”

Colquhoun treated the propensity for theft as a disease, which contaminated the minds of those working on the river. Those infected were seduced by motives of avarice, habits of pillage, and an impunity that came with the lack of appropriate laws, and the force to carry them out.

In describing how the disease spread, he states that: “New Converts to the System of Iniquity were rapidly made. The mass of Labourers on the River became gradually contaminated. A similar class upon the Quays, and in the Warehouses, caught the infection, and the evil expanded as Commerce increased.”

Colquhoun’s book provides very many detailed descriptions of daily life in the Port of London, and of those involved in the very many types of illegal activity in the port. These descriptions help us to understand what it was like in the Port, and the dangers faced by those transporting goods.

Colquhoun identified a number of “species of Depredation”, or “Classes” of those involved in theft across the Port of London, and I have summarised his descriptions of these as follows:

  • River Piracy – This was where organised gangs would attack a ship or lighter, and would take almost everything on board. Methods included cutting the anchor ropes or chains and letting the ship drift to a more suitable part of the river where it could be stripped, not just of cargo, but also of rigging, ropes, anchors, cables, anything that could be moved and had a value.
  • Night Plunderers – These were “chiefly composed of gangs of the most dissolute Watermen, who prefer idleness to labour”. Night plunders would look for, of be informed of, unattended lighters on the river, and would steal anything that was accessible and portable from the lighter. They would then take their plunder to a place agreed with a Receiver (another of the many criminal roles across the Port). Night plunders would often steal from the same place over a period of time, and Colquhoun gives an example of five boat loads of Hemp being stolen from a lighter over the course of a few weeks, and conveyed along the river, through London Bridge to Ranelaigh Creek where the stolen Hemp was sold.
  • Night Plunderers. denominated Light-Horsemen – Light-Horsemen were a type of Night Plunderer that focused on the West India Trade. Their pillage was “generally extensive and valuable”. They were organised, with Receivers on both sides of the river who were the chief leaders of individual gangs, The gangs of Light-Horsemen consisted of one or more Receivers, Coopers, Watermen and Lumpers, and they would board a boat fully prepared with Iron-crows, Adzes and the tools needed to open casks and shovels to take out Sugar. The Watermen procured as many boats as were needed, the Lumpers unstowed the casks in the hold and the Coopers took of the heads of the casks, and all hands assisted with filling bags and loading into their boats.
  • Heavy-Horsemen or Day Plunderer – These criminals would pilfer whatever they could from a ship or lighter, often while working on the transfer of cargo. They would often use an undergarment, called a “Jemmy, with pockets before and behind; also with long narrow bags or pouches, which, when filled were lashed to their legs and thighs, and concealed under wide trousers”. They would carry off vast amounts of Sugars, Coffee, Cocoa, Ginger, and Colquhoun quotes one instance where s single gang stole enough sugar, that, despite being sold for half of its actual value, made them £397.
  • Journeymen Coopers – These workers were employed to repair casks and packages, but in reality many used this work to thieve. For example, when leaving ships in the evening after a day of proper work, they would carry off Sugar, Coffee, and any other articles or goods that were easy to conceal and carry.
  • Watermen – For theft across the river, a boat would be needed, and unscrupulous Watermen would often provide the boats needed, and take those intent on stealing to their targets on the river. They would keep watch, and afterwards take the gangs and their stolen goods back to shore, and they would receive a payment for their services. Colquhoun provides an example of how a Waterman would work – “A Ship-Master who had been a stranger in the river, finding himself beset by a gang of audacious Lumpers, who insisted on carrying away Plunder in spite of all his exertions to prevent it, while he was engaged on deck in searching these miscreants, a barrel of Sugar which stood in his Cabin was in the course of a few minutes, emptied and removed in bags through the cabin windows, under which a Waterman with his boat lay to receive it, and got clear off without discovery, to the surprise of the Captain when he returned to his cabin.”
  • Mud-Larks – Where a vessel close to shore was being looted, the Mud-Lark would prowl about in the mud, under the Bow and would receive bags from those on board the vessel, and would carry the bags to shore. Mud-Larks would also prowl around Dock-Gates on the pretext of looking for nails, where their principal object was to receive sheets of Copper and bags of Nails which were thrown to them by dock labourers.
  • Rat-Catchers – Ships would often be infested with rats, so a Rat-Catcher would provide a valuable service, however many rat-catchers used their work to steal from ships. Rat-Catchers would often work at night to set traps, and at the same time take some of the cargo. They would also revisit the ship whenever they wanted on the pretext of checking and resetting the traps, but again used these opportunities to steal. Rat-catchers were also known to transfer live rats between ships in order to get more business, and to use the opportunity to steal from other ships.
  • Game-Lightermen – This class of criminal consisted of Lightermen who would steal from the lighters on which they worked. Lighters were used to transfer cargo between ship and land, and between ships, so for a period of time the cargo carried was under the control of one or more Lightermen, who would use the opportunity to take a proportion of the cargo being transferred. Much of this stolen cargo was transferred to a small boat, or skiff, and Colquhoun provides an example of a seizure of a Skiff loaded with a bag of Coffee and 109lb of Sugar whilst in the act of being stolen from a Lighter.
  • Scuffle-Hunters – These are described by Colquhoun as “literally the lowest class of the community, who are vulgarly denominated the Tag-Rag and Bobtail”. Scuffle-Hunters would hang around the places where goods are being landed on the Quays, and offer assistance as a porter. They would wear long aprons, which allowed them to conceal any goods that they could take, whilst apparently helping the loading or unloading of a ship.
  • The Warehouses – Whilst Colquhourn does not list a specific name for those who stole from warehouses, he does include warehouses in the list as a place from where individuals or gangs would steal. This included those who specifically entered a warehouse at anytime, day or night, with the intention to steal, as well as those who worked in a warehouse and used the opportunity to pilfer goods.

Based on the above descriptions, it seems amazing that any of the goods traded through the Port of London survived the process, and did not end up in the hands of a Receiver, however even if 5% of traded goods ended up as being stolen, this would still be a value of just over £3 Million in 1798 prices, being stolen every year.

The descriptions help us to understand what life was like on the river, and along the Quays where goods were being loaded and unloaded. It was a place where ship and cargo owners must have been forever on their guard, where boats with a gang of men passing along the river would have been viewed with suspicion by those on ships, and where many of the shops of London sold stolen goods.

As an example of how stolen goods were traded on, Colquhoun gives an example of Thames Street.

Today Thames Street (now Upper and Lower Thames Street) is a much widened street with dual carriageways taking traffic between the eastern and western sides of the City.

In the late 18th century, Thames Street ran along the back of the warehouses and quays that lined the river, and as with most of London at the time, there were many Pubs both along Thames Street and in the surrounding streets.

It was in these Pubs that stolen goods were sold. Journeymen Coopers would take their Boards of Sugar, and small Grocers would purchase this sugar with fictious Bills of Parcels used to cover the transfer of stolen property from the Pubs to their shops and houses.

Print from 1801, the year after Colquhoun’s book was published, showing the Thames, busy with shipping:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

There is too much in Colquhourn’s book to cover in a single post, so I will explore the Port of London and Policing the Port in more detail in the coming months, but for now I return to the obituary published a few months after his death, to provide a summary of his other achievements:

  • He established a society at Lloyd’s, with some of the most respectable merchants, to assist the poor and the needy by the distribution of soup, potatoes, herrings etc.
  • In 1806, he proposed the establishment of Savings Banks “to lead the poor by gentle and practicable means into the way of bettering themselves”
  • He was “so highly esteemed in the dominions of His Majesty, as on the Continent of Europe, that the colonies of St. Vincent, Nevis, Dominica and the Virgin Islands, as also the Free Hanseatic Republics of Lubec, Bremen and Hamburg, nominated him their Representative and Consul General”
  • As well as his two books on policing, he also published a book on the “Power, Wealth, and Resources, of the British Empire”, along with other publications on Criminal Justice, Political Economy, and on Commerce and Manufacture of Great Britain
  • He was one of the first five who met and formed the Royal Institution (this was the meeting on the 7 March 1799 at the Soho Square house of Joseph Banks. I can not immediately find any confirmation of this)
  • He was a Member of the Society for bettering the condition of the Poor
  • The University of Glasgow conferred the distinction of Doctor of Law, and he was granted the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh

The obituary ended with a summary that he had “a mind fertile in conception, kind and benevolent in disposition, and bold and persevering in execution; ever ready to give his advice and assistance when his means enabled him to do so, and that his long and laborious life was honourable to himself and useful to his Country”.

There were some criticisms of his approach, that he was too much on the side of Commerce and Capitalism. His view on the poor also seems to have followed the 19th century view of the “deserving poor”, as Colquhoun in some of his publications appears to divide the poor into those who deserve help, and the criminal poor, who only deserve the full force of the law, and this can be seen earlier in the post with his use of “species of Depredation”, or “Classes”.

His book on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames does provide us with a very comprehensive view of the Port of London, at the end of the 18th century, a time when the London Docks were about to enter a period of rapid expansion.

I will explore this brief period of London’s history in more detail, using Colquhoun’s book in future posts.

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Lower Robert Street, Jenny’s Hole and the Tragic Death of a Child.

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The area between the Strand and the Embankment is a fascinating place to explore. There are plenty of small streets and alleys, many running between the Strand and Embankment, others linking between many of these streets. Those that run down to the Embankment can be (for central London) relatively steep, with a number having steps up to the Strand – a reminder of how this area was once the steep bank between the foreshore of the Thames, and the high ground along which the Strand became part of a well travelled route linking the City of London and Westminster.

The area was also once the home of the great London homes of the rich and titled, estates such as Arundel House, York House, Essex House and Northumberland House.

As with most of London, continuous redevelopment has transformed the streets and buildings, perhaps the most significant being the construction of the Embankment and Embankment Gardens which now provide an expanse of flat land between what was the boundary between land and river, and the Thames of today.

The descent from the Strand down to the river needed some creative construction techniques for many of the large estates and buildings, and one of these was the late 18th century Adelphi development by Robert Adam.

Located where the 1930s Adelphi now stands, Roberts Adam’s original Adelphi was a development of streets and houses on a level platform to bring the estate up to, as close as possible, a level with the Strand.

To level up the Adelphi development, it was built on a complex of arches that created an area below the houses that was intended to be rented out for storage, stabling, warehouses for the wharf between the Adelphi and the river, etc.

There is almost nothing left of this dark and damp subterranean area following the development of the existing Adelphi building, however the following mid 19th century print by John Wykeham Archer gives an impression of what these vaults were like:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

One place we can get feel for what it was like to walk down into the vaults under the Adelphi, is in the street York Buildings, where towards the upper part of the street, there is an entrance under a 20th century building, into Lower Robert Street:

Much has been written about Lower Robert Street, about its eerie atmosphere, and the story that it apparently even has a ghost, but in today’s post I will be concentrating on the history and architecture of the place, what it was like when the Adelphi was built, and the difficulty of showing Lower Robert Street on a map, although there is also a very tragic story that could have been the source of the ghost story.

When we walk into Lower Robert Street via the entrance shown in the above photo, we are walking under a 20th century building, and when the Adelphi was built, this was through an open gap at the end of a terrace of houses.

After passing under the later building, we get to the original, late 18th century stretch of the street, where it passes under the rear of one of the terrace buildings that line Robert Street above:

In the above photo, you can see the cheap approach to building this side of the buildings. The rear of the terrace was not meant to be on public display. It was not facing onto a street, and if you had business in the house (apart from those who were servants or workers), you would access the house from the front, on Robert Street.

The photo below shows the terrace of houses in Robert Street that the tunnel passes under, and shows the fine front of these buildings, Good brick work and decoration, compare with the cheap finish of the rear of the buildings:

Horwood’s 1799 map of London shows the area soon after the completion of the Adelphi.

In the following extract, the Adelphi is the rectangular block of terrace houses between Royal Adelphi Terrace and John Street (now John Adam Street), and to the left of the Adelphi, we can see Robert Street, and continuing to the left is George Street (now York Buildings):

In the above extract, the arrow points to the entrance in George Street / York Buildings to what is now Lower Robert Street, and as can be seen, this was an open entrance at the northern end of a terrace of houses, and that led into what appears to be a narrow, open space between the buildings in George Street and Robert Street – probably for service access to the buildings – a space that is open at its southern end.

Although not marked on the map, I assume that the length of tunnel underneath the house on Robert Street was there at the time, as the house is of the time of the Adelphi, and it would not have made much sense to build the tunnel at a later date.

I have marked the route of the tunnel and current route down to the south of the Adelphi with the red line in the above map.

This routing shows the source of the name as Lower Robert Street as part of the route runs below Robert Street.

A possible error in a map leads to an intriguing possibility.

I use OpenStreetMap as a source of maps for the blog, as they can be reproduced on non-commercial sites, and when checking OpenStreetMap for the area around the Adelphi, I found that it shows the route of Lower Robert Street mirroring the open space in the 1799 Horwood map, all the way down to the gap between rows of buildings at the southern end.

This can be seen in the following extract, and I have added the route of what is assumed to be Lower Robert Street today, and is shown in red (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

There was once very limited access between the two rows of buildings along the line of what is shown as Lower Robert Street in the above map, however it was not a street as implied by the map, and today is closed off at both ends.

If we follow the old part of the tunnel under the buildings on Robert Street, we can see the bright lights of the loading bay for the Adelphi at the end:

I assume that instead of the loading bay, the tunnel of Lower Robert Street provided access to the vaults underneath the Adelphi, and the view would have been of a series of arches, vaults and dark space running off into the distance.

We can get an impression of the area around Little Robert Street by looking at mentions in old newspapers, and the following dates from 1774, listing the prizes of the lottery held to raise finance for the construction of the Adelphi, where winners received houses or vaults:

A double vault for coach-house and stable with hay loft and servants rooms, over, on the north side of the Mews Street, situate between Lower Adam Street, and Lower Robert Street, being the first west from Lower Adam Street, which is let on and in occupation by Mr William Adam, Mr Capel, and Mess. Hodgson & Co. tenants at will at £34, 13s per annum.

A vault on the north side of Lower John Street westward of the vault facing Lower Robert Street. Ground rent 7s 6d per annum.

Note that as well as Lower Robert Street, the list mentions Lower Adam Street and Lower John Street, so there must have been a network of subterranean streets, with names mirroring the streets above.

We can get an idea of the size of the vaults and the uses to which they were put, from the following advert of leaseholds for sale in the Morning Herald on the 22nd of March, 1819:

“Numerous spacious Warehouses and Vaults, seven coach houses, stables for 50 horses, and other extensive and improvable premises, situate in Robert-street, Lower Adam-street, Lower Robert-street, Mews-street, Durham Street and under the Arcade, all in the Adelphi”

The rent obtainable from the above premises, which were already let, amounted to £448 8s per annum.

There is not much further mention of Lower Robert Street, or the vaults under the Adelphi. The build of the Embankment would later cut off the Adelphi from the Thames, so there was no opportunity to use the space for storing goods transported by river, and when there was an attempt to sell the vaults, warehouses, and houses around and under the Adelphi, they would not sell, perhaps indicative of the condition of the estate, certainly of the vaults below.

The record of the auction, from the London Daily Chronicle on the 22nd of June, 1927, includes Lower Robert Street within Lot 1, which compriosed:

“The freehold island block, Adelphi Terrace, including Nos. 1 to 10, John Street, 5 and 6 Robert Street, 19 Adam Street, the Adelphi foreground, with the lofty vaults and arches, embracing buildings in Adelphi Arches, Adelphi Cottages, Lower Robert Street, Lower Adam Street, part of Durham Hill, and ‘Jenny’s Hole’, together with soil of the subterranean private roads”

The contents of Lot 1 include some interesti8ng references. Firstly the “subterranean private roads” confirms that there was a network of streets below the Adelphi, which must have provided access to the vaults and warehouses below ground.

Secondly the reference to “Jenny’s Hole”.

There are a number of references to “Jenny’s Hole” the first is from Thackers Overland News on the 25th of March 1858, where:

“The notorious Adelphi arches will, it is expected, shortly cease to afford shelter to the helpless outcasts of London. They are in gradual process of letting. The most fearful den among them, one upon which had been bestowed the title of ‘Jenny’s Hole’ was taken a short time since by a publican for a wine-cellar”

The above article hints at the state of the area underneath the Adelphi, and the following report from Lloyds Weekly Newspaper on the 19th of September, 1852, paints an even darker picture, both of the area below the Adelphi, and of the tragic conditions that children could get into in 19th century London. It is a long and harrowing read:

“YOUTHFUL PROSTITUION AND DEATH – On Friday, Mr Langham, the deputy coroner for Westminster, held a lengthy inquiry at the St. Martin’s Workhouse, touching the death of Mary Ann Palmer, aged fifteen years, which occurred on Tuesday last at the workhouse, having been brought there by the police, who found here on the previous Sunday in a frightful state of disease and destitution, under the dark arches of the Adelphi in the Strand.

The case was one of these harrowing details exhibiting the horrible extent of juvenile prostitution in the metropolis, the bare recital of which appals the mind.

Sarah Cunningham, a girl only eighteen years of age, but whose appearance indicated the rapid course to an early grave, said that she had been fatherless and motherless since she was nine years old, having from that period got her livelihood on the streets, with the exception of about three months when she had a place shortly after her parents’ death (the jury shuddered as they looked upon the girl).

She formed an acquaintance with the deceased about eighteen months ago, since which time they had been companions up to her death.

The deceased and witness used to frequent an unoccupied stable, under the dark arches of the Adelphi, and a place also known as Jenny’s Hole down there from about half-past eight in the morning until nine at night, as they were too dirty and ragged to walk the streets, and they used to be visited by the young men working about the place, as also those passing to and fro by the halfpenny steamboats.

The police used to visit the place frequently, both day and night, but they were eluded, as the various girls went and hid, or left the place by another opening, returning again as soon as the constables had gone by.

The deceased was following her late course of life when the witness first met her, which was one evening at the Victoria theatre. The young men at the stables used to give them something to eat, and help to screen them from the police. They got no other money, but what they obtained under the arches in the way stated.

Deceased was very bad and had been in hospital twice. Witness had heard her say that she had a good home to go to – In answer to the coroner, witness stated that she would be glad to do anything that would take her off the streets.

Policeman Joseph Kelly, 137 F, said he found the deceased in ‘Jenny’s Hole’ on Sunday week last. She was lying down in a very bad state, being exceedingly filthy and loathsome in the extreme, labouring under a complication of diseases, and being covered in sores and vermin. Everything that could be done was done for her at the workhouse, but she died about four o’clock on Tuesday morning, the immediate cause being dropsy.

The father of the deceased said that she had been enticed from home nearly two years ago. He had spared no money on her education, and the last time he saw her alive was in November, when he had her home from the hospital and cleansed, but she soon went away again. She was his only child.

A verdict of ‘Natural Death’ was taken, and the coroner and jury sent the girl Cunningham to St. Mary’s workhouse, Lambeth, that being her father’s parish, and if she was not taken in, Mr. Testall, the master of St. Martin’s would receive her until her proper settlement was ascertained.”

A dreadful story, and one that tells much about being poor and at risk in London in the mid 19th century. The comment about whether the workhouse in Lambeth would accept Sarah Cunningham, was probably down to the common problem of lack of money, and a parish workhouse not wanting to take people from outside the parish, or seek more funds from those in the parish.

In many of the stories and accounts of Lower Robert Street on the Internet, there are references to Poor Jenny being a prostitute murdered by a client, and it is her screams that still haunt Lower Robert Street, and presumably where the name Jenny’s Hole came from.

The list of hauntings in London at this link, claims that Jenny was a prostitute murdered in 1875, and presumably is the source of the name Jenny’s Hole, however as can be seen in the above articles from 1852 and 1858, Jenny’s Hole was in use almost 25 years before the supposed murdered prostitute of the same name.

I cannot find the source of the name “Jenny’s Hole”, however I do find the tales of the haunting of Lower Robert Street a rather glib dismissal of the appalling and tragic conditions that young girls such as Mary Ann Palmer and Sarah Cunningham could find themselves in. and the way they were treated and abused.

At the bottom of the old tunnel of Lower Robert Street, looking back up in the direction of the entrance at York Buildings:

In the above photo, the Adelphi loading bay was behind me, and when I turned to the left, I could now look along the route of what may have been Lower Robert Street, and which is now part of the underground car park of the redeveloped Adelphi:

Which then leads to the exit onto Savoy Place – the street that runs between the Adelphi and Embankment Gardens. The exit / entrance can be seen to the left of the following photo:

In the following print of the original Adam’s development of the Adelphi, the entrance can be seen to the far left of the run of arches that faced from the vaults onto the foreshore of the Thames:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

I am still unsure of the full route of Lower Robert Street. There is only a very small part of the original structure remaining, where it passes under the terrace house on Robert Street.

Did it then turn right and head to the river side of the Adelphi? Was it an actual street, or more probably just an access route from the street to the west of the Adelphi that ran alongside the western edge of the vaults under the Adelphi to exist to the south.

The fact that there was also a Lower Adam Street (mirroring Adam Street on the east of the Adelphi) and Lower John Street (mirroring John Street to the north of the Adelphi, implies that there were three subterranean streets running along each of the western, northern and eastern sides of the vaults, with the southern side looking straight through the arches on to the Thames foreshore.

Whatever the source of the name Jenny’s Hole (it probably refers to a previous occupant of this small place, possibly an alcove within the vaults), it was where fifteen year old Mary Ann Palmer was found, and soon after died, and her death tells an important story of the tragic circumstances that children could find themselves in, in 19th century London.

And the small stretch of Lower Robert Street is the only surviving part of the subterranean environment beneath the Adelphi that she would recognise today.

You may also be interested in my post on the Embankment Gardens Art Exhibition and the Adelphi, which goes into more detail about the Adelphi.

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North Woolwich – A Station, Pier, Pleasure Gardens and Causeway

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Towards the end of last year, I published a number of posts about the Royal Docks also crossing the river via the Woolwich Ferry and Foot Tunnel to North Woolwich.

This is a really interesting part of east London with plenty to discover (I hope to have the area as a new walk later this year), and there is one last part of North Woolwich that I want to cover, a short walk along the river, starting by the entrance to the Woolwich Ferry, marked by the “S” to the left of the following map, with the blue dashed line showing the route covered in today’s post (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

Starting by the approach to the ferry, if I look to the east, there is a walkway along the side of the river, with a pier running into the river at the end of the walkway:

The shed like building at the entrance to the pier (P in the above map):

A look inside confirms that the pier is derelict, although the metal framework to the pier looks substantial, the wooden flooring has decayed:

The pier is here because of the adjacent North Woolwich Station, which is just across the road from the pier.

When the station opened in 1847, there was nothing much on the north side of the river that needed a railway, but it was built to serve the town of Woolwich across the river, and the station did soon lead to developments on the north bank.

So that those living or working in Woolwich could reach the station, a ferry was needed, and two piers were built, one on the south and one on the north banks of the river. The pier on the southern side has long gone, but the north pier remains:

The shed at the end provided a rudimentary, covered waiting area and also included a small ticketing kiosk.

Initially two steam ferries of the Eastern Counties Railway, the “Kent” and the “Essex” crossed the river from this pier (when the service opened, North Woolwich was still part of the County of Kent, where it would remain for over another 100 years).

A third boat, the “Middlesex” arrived in 1879, followed by the “Woolwich” which replaced the original “Kent” and “Essex”.

Soon after the opening of the service, the South Eastern Railway had opened a rail service direct to Woolwich, and the Woolwich Free Ferry arrived in 1889.

Despite the challenges of the direct rail service to Woolwich and the Free Ferry, the ferry service operated by what was now the Great Eastern Railway, continued until 1908, when it was no longer financially viable, and closed.

The pier on the south of the river was soon demolished, however the pier at North Woolwich became a calling point for steam boats providing a service out to Southend and Margate.

The number of ferries using the pier tailed off significantly after the Second World War, and the last record I can find of the pier being used for ferry traffic was in August 1950, when children from the Hay Currie School in Poplar boarded a boat at the pier for a trip along the Thames.

Perhaps the strangest use for the pier was in April 1983 when a 112 pound bomb was dredged up from the Thames near Waterloo Bridge.

The bomb was defused at the scene, then taken by boat down to North Woolwich Pier, where it was transferred to a lorry, which took the bomb to Shoeburyness, where it was safely exploded.

The walkway along the river runs up to a raised platform next to the pier, and this is the opposite side of the shed at the land side end of the pier:

On the platform is this rather good information panel showing key places in North Woolwich, with a brief paragraph about their history:

The North Woolwich Pier was built to provide rail passengers with transport to and from Woolwich, and opposite the pier is the old station building:

As mentioned earlier, and in my posts about the Royal Docks, North Woolwich Station arrived before the construction of any of the Royal Docks. The line and original wooden station building opened in 1847 by Eastern Counties Railway, who in July 1847, “gave an excursion train on Monday last, from Ely to London, Woolwich, Greenwich and Gravesend, the company being taken by the new line to the North Woolwich Station, where steamers were in readiness to carry them whither their inclination led them. About 250 persons availed them of the trip. The train returned to Cambridge by 9 o’clock.”

I can imagine that if you lived in the Cambridgeshire city of Ely in 1847, London, as well as places such as Woolwich, Greenwich and Gravesend, along with all the river traffic and trade, would have been perhaps a once in a lifetime trip, certainly a trip to some of the rarely visited parts of a dynamic part of London (or Kent as it was then, however many newspaper reports referred to North Woolwich as being in Essex).

The station building that we see today was built in 1854, and by the end of the 19th century, we can see the station and rail tracks in the following extract from the OS map. (North Woolwich Pier is in the green circle, a hotel (see next in the post) is in the red oval, and causeway (see later in post) is in the blue oval. The station is to the left of the red oval) (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

The following extract from the 1927 edition of the Railway Clearing House Official Railway Map of London and its Environs shows the railways around the full Royal Docks complex, with the North Woolwich branch heading down, between the Victoria and Albert Docks, to the station which terminated the branch:

And in the following enlargement, we can see the two, competing, ferries across the river, the Free Ferry and the London and North Eastern Ferry (the former Eastern Counties Railway):

The 1854 station building was taken out of use in 1979 during a period of major maintenance to the North Woolwich branch line, and a new station building was constructed to the south of the station, alongside what is now Pier Road:

Attribution: Alexandra Lanes, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons

The old station remained empty until 1984 when it was opened as a railway museum by the Passmore Edwards Trust.

The North Woolwich branch line closed in December 2006, and the museum closed two years later.

I checked the Historic England map of listings, and the 1854 station building is Grade II listed.

The building is now occupied by the New Covenant Church.

Going back to the extract from the OS map. within the red oval is a building marked as a hotel. The hotel was the Royal Pavilion Hotel, and at the rear and to the north of the hotel were the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens – gardens that would lead to the Royal Victoria Gardens, the open space with trees shown to the right of the hotel.

The hotel and pleasure gardens were there because of North Woolwich Station (shown to the left of the red oval in the above map), and the pier.

When the line was completed, and the station opened in 1847, much of this part of North Woolwich was empty and undeveloped. The Royal Victoria Dock to the north would not open until 1855.

In the 19th century, as the railways expanded across the country, the opening of a new station was often associated with the opening of a hotel, and even in what must have been the empty and windswept shores of the Thames at North Woolwich, the Royal Pavilion was built facing the station, and adjacent to the pier.

Pleasure Gardens were often found across London by the river, and to attract customers, the hotel opened the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens, with an aim of attracting customers from Woolwich via the ferry, or from the rest of London via the railway.

An advert in the Kentish Independent on the 24th of July, 1852 reads:

Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens – North Woolwich – Admission Sixpence

THE ABOVE GARDENS will be opened to the Public THIS DAY (SATURDAY)

A talented Quadrille and Brass Band will be in attendance, Conductor, MR. GRATTAN COOKE. Refreshments, White Bait, Wines &c., of the best quality will be served in the gardens, and the Royal Pavilion Hotel.

Trains leave the East Counties Railway, Bishopsgate Station, calling at Mile End, Stratford Bridge, and Barking Road, at a Quarter before and a Quarter after the Hour (One o-Clock excepted) throughout the day.

Steam Packets leave Hungerford Bridge, and London Bridge and the intermediate Piers, every Twenty Minutes. The Eastern Counties Railway Company’s Steam Packets ply between the Pavilion Pier and the Town of Woolwich, constantly throughout the day.

In August, 1952, the Pleasure Gardens were advertising “SPLENDID ILLUMINATIONS, Fireworks by Cotton of Vauxhall”, with “Gala Nights, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Fireworks at Half-past Ten.”

It must have seemed rather a strange place to have a Pleasure Gardens, however given the location next to the river, and the lack of development, I can imagine that this was a rather good place to spend a summer’s evening in the 1850s, however this isolation would not last long, as the Royal Victoria Dock opened in 1855, and around the same time, plots of land were being advertised for sale for building, and adverts of these mentioned the proximity to the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens.

The following 1956 revision of the OS map shows the hotel was then a Public House. The space is now occupied by a new block of flats. The map also shows how the tracks at North Woolwich station had expanded to the west of the station building, with space for goods traffic as well as holding trains (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

Looking around the back of the station building, we can still see the cast iron supports for the canopy that was once at the rear of the station:

And a sign along the fence shows the use to which the area to the rear of the station was put in the recent past:

Leaving the old station and pier, I am continuing east along the river walkway, which runs along the southern edge of the Royal Victoria Gardens:

The Royal Victoria Gardens occupy much of the space of the old Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens.

The Pleasure Gardens continued in use until the late 1880s. They were very popular, and there are newspaper reports of the crowds that would head to the gardens in the summer, however by the end of the 1880s the pleasure gardens were in financial trouble, and the gardens were taken over by the London County Council, and renamed as the Royal Victoria Gardens.

The gardens suffered much bomb damage during the last war, resulting in the loss of many of the original features of the gardens, which included features such as an Italian garden, a maze, flower beds and a rifle range, however the gardens remain a really good area of green space, with the added benefit of being alongside the River Thames.

The walk along the river is part of the North Woolwich Trail organised by the “Ports of Call” initiative, with “Works of art at the Royal Docks”.

I was unaware of this, until I saw one of their plaques on the wall along the river, by the Royal Victoria Gardens. Click here for the Ports of Call website.

There is an interesting example of industrial machinery in the Royal Victoria Gardens:

This is a steam hammer, dating from 1888, and was from the blacksmith’s shop of R.H. Green and Silley Wier Ltd, at the Royal Albert Docks, on the site of what are today, the buildings of London City Airport. The steam hammer was installed in the gardens in 1994.

Looking back along the walkway between the Thames and the Royal Victoria Gardens, with the pier of the Woolwich Free Ferry in the distance:

Continuing along the walkway along the river, the gardens are replaced by blocks of flats, and I have come to the first of two small docks, where there is a sloping causeway into the river, which the walkway bends around:

This first one is not named. It is shown on the OS maps earlier in the post, so it was here in the late 19th century, when it was at the end of what is now Woolwich Manor Way. I also checked the Port of London Authority listing of all the “Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames”, and whilst it is clearly a well built and useable landing place, the PLA listing makes no reference to the dock.

Continuing along the river walkway:

And I come to the dock which is shown on the maps, and is in the PLA listing. This is Bargehouse Causeway:

In the PLA listing, it is called “Old Barge House Drawdock”, and the listing states that there were “Stone setts on wooden piles”. The OS maps do not name the causeway, but show that a causeway extended out from the dock, however if this still exists, it was not visible due to the state of the tide during my visit.

The word Drawdock refers to a place where a boat could be drawn out from the river.

The sign on the pole states that there is no mooring and the causeway is not in use for personal water craft. The location of the pole probably makes the causeway difficult to use as it is placed in the middle of the approach to the landing place.

Although it is just Bargehouse Causeway today, the use of the name Old Barge House Drawdock in the PLA listing provides a better indication of its age.

The causeway is the site of one of the first ferries between what is now North Woolwich, and the town of Woolwich, between what was Essex and Kent, and was first mentioned in 1308.

There are very few mentions of the ferry up until the end of the 18th century, and in the following decades the ferry at Old Barge House Drawdock seems to have been a very active place.

It was in use for foot passengers crossing the Thames, as well as farmers taking their produce to market, with a frequent route being Kent farmers taking cattle to market in Romford.

The name of the draw dock seems to have come from the home of one of the early operators of the ferry, who had dragged up an old barge from the river, and lived in the barge above the shoreline.

In the OS maps shown earlier in the post, you can see a building with the PH for Public House, and the pub was on the site of the old barge, and took the name of the Old Barge Inn.

During much of the 19th century, the ferry was very busy, and the Army also introduced their own ferry between Woolwich and Old Barge House Drawdock.

Such was the popularity of the crossing, one of the operators of the ferry embarked on the following works, reported in the Kentish Mercury on the 9th of May, 1840:

“WOOLWICH FERRY – Mr. Thomas Howe, proprietor of the Old Barge House, Woolwich Ferry, has nearly completed the embankment of the Thames, which he commenced during the latter end of last summer. The esplanade now formed is about one thousand feet in length, with a depth of one hundred and fifty, and is raised to the height of twenty feet above high-water mark.

The whole level has been laid down with grass turf, and surrounded by a neat railing, and when completed will form one of the most pleasing promenades on the banks of the Thames, commanding, as it does a perfect view of Woolwich, with its Dock-yard and Arsenal, together with Plumstead, Shooter’s Hill, and the delightful scenery of Kent.

Upwards of one thousand barge-loads of rubbish have been employed in forming this embankment. The traffic between the two counties has increased about one hundred per cent since the improvement on this ferry commenced. The thousands who pass the ‘Old Barge House’ will scarcely observe that this favourite spot in in the county of Kent, notwithstanding it is situated on the Essex shore.”

Strange to think whilst standing at the dock, that this was once described as one of the most pleasing promenades on the banks of the Thames, however it was rare for a large area of space, with good transport connections, and green space, to be found along the river. The Victoria Embankment had yet to be built, and much of the river, on both north and south banks was industrialised, so I can imagine that this place in North Woolwich was a very pleasant place to visit.

What killed off the ferry from the Old Barge House Drawdock, was the opening in 1889 of the Woolwich Free Ferry. A ferry where you had to pay to cross the river could not compete with a free ferry which was a very short distance away.

The view towards the east, along the Thames from the concrete ramp at Old Barge House Causeway:

Walking up from the Barge House Causeway / Drawdock, requires walking up a ramp, and then steps or a longer ramp to get down to Barge House Road, which leads up to Albert Road.

The road is obviously named after the pub (which stood to the left of the following photo), and the old drawdock, and the barge used at some point as a home by an operator of the ferry:

This was such an interesting, short walk.

Royal Victoria Gardens is a lovely open space along the river, which owes its existence to the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens and the associated hotel, once at the western end of the gardens, and the promenade built by the owner of the Barge House pub at the eastern end of the gardens.

These were both places that were built due to the availability of adjacent transport routes, and seem to have been places that attracted thousands of visitors to North Woolwich in the decades around the middle of the 19th century.

The need for the ramp and river walkway walls to built up, can be seen from the above photo, where the low lying area of North Woolwich is today still protected from high tides by large concrete walls and ramps.

It would be interesting to find out if any of the “one thousand barge-loads of rubbish” that were used to formed the embankment in 1840 is still there, as I suspect it would offer an interesting look into mid-19th century life.

I hope to be offering some walks around North Woolwich and the Royal Docks later in the year – if I can get organised in time, as this is a really interesting part of east London to explore.

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