From Woolwich to Greenwich

Many people’s mental map of Woolwich and Greenwich is that they are more or less next door to each other. But the stretch along the river (walked by Cathy, Raja, Bunny and Toby) is surprisingly long, at least six miles. There is a lot of industrial wilderness in between and trekking round the Greenwich Peninsula also adds quite a lot of distance.

Greenwich and Woolwich have both have strong military associations. Woolwich’s arsenal and dockyard and Greenwich maritime college. Also very unusual is the fact that North Woolwich and North Greenwich are on the north bank of the Thames detached from the main settlements on the south bank. Very few other place names in London span the river in this way.

In the summer of 1880 there was a race between a man and a dog between London Bridge and Woolwich for a wager of £250. The man and the dog plunged into the river at half past three cheered by a great crowd of spectators. The dog know as ‘Now Then’ soon pulled ahead. By the time that the man pulled out of the race at Limehouse, the dog was nearly half a mile ahead.

Woolwich cannon and Tate and Lyle sugar refinery at Silvertown on the north bank of the river. Tate and Lyle was formed by a merger between Henry Tate & Sons and Abram Lyle & Sons in 1921. The factory was hit by a bomb on the first night of the Blitz in September 1940.

Missing Sculpture near Thames Barrier

Jetties and boats, New Charlton. Greenwich’s unsual mixture of elegant architecture and heavy industry can be traced to the vision of Henry VIII who was born in Placentia Palace in Greenwich but wanted to see England compete in Europe as a major industrial and military power. I was surprised to see just how much heavy industry survives untouched by regeneration. Current and past Greenwich industries have included the manufacturing of rope cable, soap, candles, dog food, gravel, boatbuilding, cement, gas, steel, tar, chemicals, bronze, brass, guns and gunpowder.

Raja and sand tip, New Charlton Metal sculpture, Greenwich Peninsula

Trinity Hospital, founded in 1613. The current building dates from 1812 and was a almshouse for 21 old ‘gentlemen of Greenwich’. It is administered by the Mercer’s Company. In the background is Greenwich Power Station, built by the LCC in 1906 to power trams. It was used as a backup power station to power the London Underground until 2002.

Bunny meets a Pearly King at Greenwich

Thames Indo-European Dark River Walk to the Source

On Sunday yesterday myself (Toby), Cathy, Bunny and Raja began a walk which I hope to do in sections from Woolwich just downstream from the Thames Barrier to the source of the river in a remote Cotswold meadow in Gloucestershire.

The Thames is the most accessible and most intensely mythological and story-filled stretch of major river in the world. I am hoping that people will join in with me on various stages of this walk which I hope to do each week on Sundays.

I have really enjoyed a lot of walking over this summer and felt so invigorated mentally and physically by it. I really want to carry this on into the autumn and share this with my friends. Without getting burdened down with “heritagey” side of visiting sites I’ve been getting into the way that walking helps to build up and explore mental maps of names and places and the connections that link both on the ground and in the memory. Thanks to Ray, Alice, Marchain, Phil, Bunny, Cathy and Raja who have joined in on my walks so far. One of the more interesting walks was a mammoth one due-north out of Kings Cross to the open countryside packhorse roads, and eventually up to St. Albans in Hertfordshire. This, August bank-holiday walk was partly inspired by Iain Sinclair’s book Edge of the Orison which is an account of a semi-deranged walk by the early 19th century rustic poet John Clare from Epping Forest to his birthplace in rural Northamptonshire. But I was also thinking of huge day walks described in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the Durbervilles and also of Jah Wobble’s epic aboriginal-style walkabouts out of Hackney. I'm also reading Peter Ackroyd's newly published Thames - Sacred River to give some inspiration on the psychogeographical side. This is the spirit in which I hope the walk and these blogs will develop.