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.
More information here
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/n/north_woolwich/index.shtml
oh – I have this morning already been ranting away on another site about the evils of Newham Heritage sector which closed everything down at some point in the 1990s. I used to teach a Birkbeck class in the upstairs room in the Railway Museum on industrial history in East London- It was fine because there was always a boat or a railway train or something going by to divert proceedings. When Greenwich Industrial History Society was set up we decided to count North Woolwich as part of our area which of course it had been when it was in the Metropoitan Borough of Woolwich. Residents of North Woolwich seemed to think that they were real Woolwich and always referred to ‘South Woolwich’ when talking about the town on the other side of the river. I keep meaning to write up some of the North Woolwich Industries but never get round it but GLIAS did quite a bit in the last days of the ship repair businesses there. When North Woolwich was handed to Newham they assiduously removed every bit of information which might have been put up by the Met, Borough of Woolwich this included some signage at Old Barge House and a rather nice Woolwich electricity substation when you got off the ferry.Best of all was a notice in tbe local Ladies about prosecutions in Woolwich Police Court. However – great article
Morning – interesting as always, although there’s a little error to be corrected: “North Woolwich was still part of the County of Essex, where it would remain for over another 100 years)” should be “the County of Kent”.
Yes, part of Kent as was Woolwich south of the Thames.
Indeed – North Woolwich being part of a manor in Kent goes back to the post-1066 era.
Although the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich (which included two separate chunks of North Woolwich) became part of the County of London in 1889 – the North Woolwich bit was transferred to Newham Borough in 1965 and the rest of Woolwich became part of the London Borough of Greenwich.
The electricity sub-station (small building with 1937 date) between the ferry terminal and tunnel entrance was built by Woolwich Borough, and the houses on Woolwich Manor Way and Barge House Road were Woolwich Borough’s first council housing project, started in 1901.
I am told the WBC lettering on the sub-station was intentionally removed either after electrical supply was nationalised, or after Newham took the area on, and there are inscriptions on the Albert Road end of the two terraces of houses, but these have either eroded badly or been intentionally made illegible.
I can’t find the reference to it now, it came up in a discussion online somewhere, but the odd boundary meant that a Woolwich Borough dust-cart got sent across on the ferry on certain day/s of the week to do North Woolwich.
Many thanks for such an interesting article.This is not an area I have explored at all.I will look forward to the walk when organised.
Interesting that a free ferry was established when the paid for one was so close. Was there a view at the time that the LNER was inadequate for some reason?
The London County Council provided the free ferry so that there was a free crossing of the Thames in east London. The Metropolitan Board of Works (the predecessor to the LCC) had purchased and de-tolled the privately owned bridges in west London in 1869 and started the work to build the piers and construct a steam ferry a few years later. The MBW was replaced by the LCC a few days before the ferry started operations.
Hi,
The mention of the barges full of rubbish reminded me of my lunch time foreshore walks at Tilbury Power Station in the mid1970s. Along the shore to the east of the power station (now demolished) were the rotting hulks of barges filled with Victorian (?) rubbish acting as some form of river defence for the hinterland. It was a Victorian bottle collectors delight with a whole range of beer bottles, cods-eye bottles, ceramic pill boxes etc.
At some time the concrete sea walls have been extended along the foreshore and I don’t of the fate of the the numerous hulks.
A fascinating article as ever.
Ian Gerrard
Thanks for another most interesting blog. Having crossed on the free ferry, I have often cycled past the old North Woolwich Station building and been lost amongst the streets behind during the construction of the new rail line on my way back to central London. I will try again when it gets a bit warmer and venture further East. It is a poor area and much have been much changed by war time damage.
I enjoyed your “walk” through the woolwich area not an area I have not visited before and now probably never will but it’s always interesting to learn about these areas. For instance I’m surprised that these docks were built as recently as the 1850s with no previous usage of the area for a similar purpose. Just an indication of how transient we are as a race. It makes one wonder “what next.”
North Woolwich was never (as far as I can tell) within Essex (or Middlesex for that matter). It was a detached part of Kent (parish of Blackheath) probably since the time of the Norman Conquest. It only ceased to be part of Kent with the creation of the County of London in 1889.
The Free Ferry was one of the services provided by the LCC (and the Metropolitan Board of Works previously) in its programme of de-tolling the various Thames crossings.
Ah, the blog post I have been waiting for. In 2013, our family went on a “pilgrimage” to Pier Road, North Woolwich with my step-father, then 85 and his brother. As little boys in the 1930s, they had lived in a flat above number 8, a cafe serving the people getting on and off the Woolwich Ferry. Their mother, twice-widowed by the age of 35, managed the cafe. The two old men reminisced about the steam trains coming into North Woolwich station, the huge cargo boats coming down the river to the docks and how they would jump off the pier and swim in the Thames (which must have been so filthy). They also ran on and off the ferries on their journey from north to south bank, taunting the captains. It sounded an idyllic childhood – until the first night of the Blitz when their house and cafe were flattened by a bomb and the boys were evacuated, not together, and not happily. My step-father ran away and joined the Merchant Navy, probably as a result of dreaming about the faraway places those huge ships had come from. There is an archive shot in Call the Midwife opening titles which always makes me think of Pier Road. Thank you for allowing me to remember that wonderful day out with those two lovely men, both long gone now.
A very touching story. All these now purposeless spaces, emptied of the people who once lived there and the industries that employed them, need the reminders of time past that this blog and its commenters supply. It would be good if those blank walls, so often covered with rather meaningless graffiti, could be used for murals such as those painted by Karen Gregory and other artists in Somers Town and elsewhere which vividly depict the multitude of past lives.
Ann Pearson (reading the blog rather later than the rest of you in the time zone of Pacific Canada)
The Bargehouse Causeway is still there and extends some distance in to the river to the edge of the mudflats. It isn’t used very often as no local demand but is suitable for launching small RIBs or speedboats from trailers.
On one occasion is was used as a landing place for a trial using an amphibious vehicle: https://flic.kr/p/GomJSe
The PLA relaid the slipway several years ago.
The area was mainly marshland so it was with Victorian engineering it could be re imagined as a dock. Also by that time ships became larger so could not enter the docks closer to London.
By coincidence I watched the 1951 film Pool of London on Channel Four this afternoon and was pleasantly suprised to see that the North Woolwich Pier and nearby Barge House Causeway both appear in the film. Then and now photos of both locations (as well as many other well known places) appear on the Reel Streets website: https://www.reelstreets.com/films/pool-of-london-2/
Took my kids to the North Greenwich Station Museum in the early 2000s as my son adored Thomas the Tank Engine and all the character trains were there. A great trip out enjoyed by 3 generations. Was so disappointed to find out that it had closed. I suppose it wasn’t easy to get to and there wasn’t anything else there to attract visitors.
I’ve visited North Woolwich frequently since the 1970s and have led many walks there. If our author is interested I’d be happy to share the itinerary. Please delete this message if required.
All the best – Ian Bull
Very interesting! Thank you.