Back to Woolwich! MV Royal Iris hosted and inspired some of the biggest names in music in the 1960s, and is fondly remembered by many Merseysiders – so how the heck did she end up rotting away in Woolwich?
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My newest Lost Hamlets Video is now up on YouTube!
Here’s the script:
In my previous video, “In Search of Wricklemarsh”, I mentioned my assumption that it was a lost hamlet. We have quite a few of them in what is now south east London. Many still exist in our (sub)urban consciousness as “where the local shops are” but often all that remains is a road name and a couple of suspiciously old houses surrounded by later developments.
This is the case for the one which always “springs” to mind for me: the lost hamlet of Bedon Well. It’s very familiar, as I go through it a lot on the bus and used to walk all over the area as a care worker. It was a great way to stay in shape. Anyway, it turns out that so is searching for lost hamlets and so I decided that Bedon Well had to be next on my list.
Before we turn to the old maps, here’s where I’m talking about in modern times. We’re in the area north of the old Roman road of Watling Street, on the Kent side of Shooters Hill. Bedonwell Road is marked in pink.
The hamlet is named on Edward Hasted’s 1778 map. It is visible but not named on the 1805 Ordnance Survey map then named in the 1863 map. Closing in on the detailed 1870 edition we have a lovely view of the field boundaries and the hamlet. The springs and stream can be seen more clearly on the 1898 map, as can the encroaching suburbs.
So, the Bedon itself is a very minor tributary of the Thames and is mostly culverted now and we meet it where it is set free to join the River. We’re on the Thames Path by Corinthian Manorway, in Erith, also where the Green Chain Walk starts.
There’s no safe access to the foreshore here, so we’ll just have to enjoy a wider view. It’s not far off low tide, making it easy to imagine how this area might have looked in less industrial times – more reeds, less rubbish, and stretching for miles. The whole area between Woolwich and Erith would have been malarial swamps until the medieval monks of Lesnes Abbey started building the river walls and reclaiming farmland.
I know very little about “north of the River” and on checking Google maps I’m kinda perturbed to discover that Frog Island across the River there – which I assumed was some sort of nature reserve – is in reality the Waste Management Facility for the East London local authorities. The tumulus at the top there is the actual landfill.
For some reason, it’s at this point in writing my script that I remember the late great Erithite Linda Smith saying Erith wasn’t twinned with anywhere- but it did have “a suicide pact with Dagenham”. It’s so nice round here, non-locals might have to take my word for it but it’s a brilliant joke.
We will next head to Holly Hill Open Space, by Riverdale Road, the north side of the Bedon’s valley, and pick up the line of the stream there.
In 1493 a chap called Robert Henthorpe left three shillings and fourpence to mend “a well callyd Beton Well”, meaning “praying well”, but it’s also suggested that the name Bedon comes from an old English word “bydan” meaning “shallow valley”, and that is geographically accurate, as can be seen, although my back would beg to differ, at least on the way up.
Until relatively recently, the stream ran behind the houses on this stretch of Riverdale Road before joining an older culvert but was lost when the flats on the corner were built in the 1960s. We have now descended to where the Bedon enters the drain, at the junction of Brook Street and Riverdale Road.
Like most of south-east London, the first suburban settlers round these parts were Victorian gentrifiers seeking the Kentish fresh air which would be doomed by their arrival; their tidy colonies were doomed in turn by the success of the railways that had first bought them here. Their villas were consumed by the inter- and postwar development that turned the area between the Bexleyheath and North Kent railway lines into what has been described as a nameless, “featureless sprawl”. This certainly looks true when glancing at a modern map and I think if forced at feather-point to name the area Bedonwell Road is in, most people would just say Bexleyheath or Belvedere. By which I don’t mean they’d say either of those options, but that “Bexleyheath or Belvedere?” would be their answer.
We saw on the older maps that back in the day the area was rather less anonymous, dotted with named hamlets, woods and farms. Some of these names survived to become modern road and estate names but others were lost with the arrival of suburban settlers. There was a big house and a smithy at Bedon Well, as well as a scattering of cottages. The stream fed the ponds serving the wealthy Parsonage Farm, once owned by the monks of Lesnes Abbey but by Victorian times owned by the wealthy Vinson family, who issued their own local trading tokens. The postwar development and allotments along Streamway are on the site of their farmland and watercress beds.
Bedonwell sits just south of Lessness Heath, the name of the Domesday settlement, the wider area when it was part of Kent and the heath itself. Part of that heath, to the east of the settlement, became known as Belvedere after the view and a later wooden tower built to look at it by local landowner Sir Culling Eardley, who inherited the land in 1847. He also improved the path over the heath to a road and built the first villa houses. As he continued to sell off his land and the railways arrived, a suburban village evolved and continued with the ancient name of Lessness Heath, quickly spreading as far as Bedonwell Road. However, it’s now usually known as Nuxley Village, a name applied by estate agents when Bexley Road, the road running north from Bedonwell, was renamed to Nuxley Road in 1939. The council road signs say Belvedere Village, but I don’t know anyone who actually calls it that.
Bexleyheath station is just to the south of Bedonwell, but it’s only in Bexleyheath because it’s where they put Bexleyheath station, and the town grew to meet it; the commercial centre is a good 10 minute bus ride away. Bexley New Town, as it was originally known, spread from the old Roman road over farmland and onto the heath which was once notorious for highwaymen. Here we see the area before the new town then its creeping progress towards the station, location marked with a pink spot, from 1805 before the town, to 1870, 1898, and then 1920, with the first new roads for the imminent explosion of interwar development.
We can still see the field boundaries and lanes reflected in the dense suburban layout of today, and some the developers turned into the main roads of the area, including Long Lane and Bedonwell Road. New roads included King Harold’s Way and Okehampton Crescent, which continued the line of the road to East Wickham.
Yeah, so that’s it, in terms of Bedonwell. There isn’t even an amusing historical name that sounds cheeky to modern ears. Apart from the UFO landings, there’s nothing interesting to report about this area.
Oh yes, the UFO landings! It turns out that this area is something of a hotbed of UFO activity. There was a sighting in 1952 over by Bexleyheath town centre, but then on a hot July Sunday in 1955 there was an actual UFO landing reported here, by multiple witnesses, including a young locum GP. Margaret Fry had been on her way with him to the doctor’s surgery in King Harold’s Way when she, the doctor and a load of kids had their close encounter, beginning when her car was overshadowed by the craft.
The UFO they saw was a classic flying saucer, which Mrs Fry described as “blue/ silver/ grey/ pewter texture, yet none of those colours.” Quite a group had been there, and the event had been covered in the local press after being reported by someone else. When the story was covered by the News Shopper fifty years later, they appealed for other potential witnesses and one of them, Rodney Maynard, who was 15 at the time, came forward.
He and his workmates were on their lunch at a building site here on Streamway and on hearing a commotion had run up to investigate. He confirmed he had seen a craft big enough to cover the junction and go over onto the pavements and described it as “black, sleek and streamlined with a surface like polished metal. It was very fine and beautiful. It certainly wasn’t a prank.” Mr Maynard saw it lift off from there and then hover briefly over the school before flying away.
Mr Maynard said he had never forgotten his close encounter, but told the Shopper he did not talk about it because “people would think you were barmy” and further, “our mums kept telling us we had not seen anything”.
Mrs. Fry, on the other hand, began a lifelong interest in ufology. Her 2004 book, available for Kindle, includes several other local sightings and encounters, and is £1.99 well spent as I had no idea we were so well connected round here. Pricelessly, Mrs. Fry also adds another layer of fun to the issue of where exactly we are, calling it Erith, reminding me that until the formation of modern greater London and with it the borough of Bexley in 1965, this area would have been in the borough of Erith, formed from the old Erith parish during the Victorian boom.
Mrs Fry describes further UFO incidents in the area in July 1978, including one witnessed by herself and several neighbours and another when an “egg shaped silver disc” flew down King Harold’s Way, witnessed by three older children, who she later interviewed and describes as “sensible”. As a fellow member of that generation, I like to think those safety films scared us into not being completely stupid, at least, but honestly? From the top of the 422 bus in good weather, the idea that this is something of an alien tourist route isn’t too far-fetched. It’s far more believable than the idea that this area is Erith!
I’ve pasted my full script and blurb below – including the drinking game, of course!
In this video, I am somewhat further afield in South East London in search of the ancient settlement of Wricklemarsh. It now only survives as a road name, but what a wonderful name it is, sounding like somewhere Puddleglum might have lived. I’m currently suffering with my back, so let’s see how far down the eponymous Road we can get before my spine gives out. Apologies for the terrible camera work, I’m no Mike Jelves even when fit.
When my family moved back to Woolwich in the 90s, we lived off Shooters Hill Road and the nearby Wricklemarsh Road caught my eye, as it would, and at some point, I also saw an old map that showed Wricklemarsh as an area. Without doing any research I vaguely assumed the road was a remnant of some old hamlet or similar, probably lost under housing development and/or the Rochester Way Relief Road and remembered only in the name.
I recently found myself with time to kill in Kidbrooke so went for a bimble and came across Wricklemarsh Road again. It was clearly of the 1930s and I couldn’t see anything that might indicate a lost hamlet. Again, I vaguely blamed the A2, but this time was determined to do some actual research, somewhat easier now than in 1993 – although of course in those days I’d have been able to visit the nearby Woodlands Local History Museum, which became the Greenwich Heritage Centre, which is now CLOSED, and I will take every excuse to mention this.
Not to be too clickbait-y about it but what I discovered shocked me. I mean, I wasn’t as surprised as I was back in the day when I discovered wee Jimmy Krankie was not only a lady, she was married to that fella, but more surprised than I am these days when a government fails to deliver its promises on social care.
(FIG 1) Here you can see the general area we are talking about. This road I’m now marking in pink (FIG 2) is the modern Wricklemarsh Road, as you can see bisected by the A2 there not far from where it joins the Sun in the Sands roundabout on Shooters Hill Road, once the Roman road of Watling Street.
Wricklemarsh is mentioned in Domesday Book as a vil, the basic administrative unit, smaller than a manor. Its name is given as something like Witan-marsh, probably caused by a Norman scribe corrupting the local names of Wrickle or Writtle-marsh and nothing to do with the Witan. Writtle and wrickle mimic the babbling brooks and streams that would have cascaded down Shooters Hill into the marsh. In Domesday times, by which I still mean the 11th century and not now, it had ploughland enough for four teams of oxen, or around 50 inhabitants and an area of about 500 acres. It was pretty much the same size as its neighbour, Lee. (Everyone in South East London has a neighbour called Lee, or maybe Leigh these days.)
The area is next mentioned, as Writtlemarsh, in King Edward I’s 1284 rent accounts, the amount paid suggesting it had changed little since Domesday. After that, it barely troubles history until the 16th Century, from when we start to know about the many families whose hands it passes through, including well-known local names like Hervey and Morden. If you’re interested in who they all were, please see my main source for this bit, Wricklemarsh Revisited by Michael Egan, which is linked to below. Over this time, we can see the name settled down as Wrickle- rather than Writtle-marsh.
Wricklemarsh continued as a sleepy agricultural hamlet, though not an isolated one; in Tudor times it would have been called upon by Greenwich palace when they had visitors and needed extra supplies. The ancient Watling Street would have made it just about possible for farms around here to supply London with dairy, and they wouldn’t have had to get up too early to get to nearer market towns like Woolwich.
Things were eventually to change though, and the inevitable gentrification set in. This began in the 1720s, when the estate was bought from the Morden family by Sir Gregory Page, who had made his fortune in South Sea company stock before the bubble burst. He demolished the old manor house and built a stately home (FIG 3) set in a landscaped parkland which was rather smaller than the Domesday vil, there being 273 acres left after the various land sales over the years.
(FIG 4) On John Rocque’s epic map of the area around London in the 1740s Wricklemarsh is labelled Ridley Marsh, perhaps a gentrification or mishearing of the old name, and the extent of the park can be clearly seen. Blackheath Village doesn’t exist yet, hence the snobbery around it not being a “proper” ancient village, but you may also be able to see there that it’s the area labelled “Dowager’s Bottom”. (FIG 5) The Dowager in question was Lady Susan Morden, last resident of the old manor house; the Bottom refers to the area’s geography, not hers. Her home was probably on the site of Park House, (FIG 6) built in the 1780s and now in Cresswell Park, serving as the presbytery of the late Victorian church next door.
It was too frustrating to try and match Rocque’s map perfectly to a modern view but here’s (FIG 7) my best effort, with the new house sitting at the junction of modern Blackheath Park and Pond Road. The pond is long gone, but a boundary wall and a path remember its location. (FIG 8) Nearby Morden College is also very much still there, alms-houses which the sale of Wricklemarsh estate helped to fund in perpetuity. To this day the charity founded by Sir John Morden is dedicated to supporting older people.
Wricklemarsh was a very stately home indeed, very much in the style of the time, and I’ve linked to as many more pictures as I can find of it below. Designed by John James, who was also architect of the Ranger’s House in Greenwich, it was famous for its lavish interiors and Sir Gregory’s art collection, which included a Rubens and a Van Dyck. According to a contemporary description, Wricklemarsh was “one of the finest houses in England, resembling a royal palace rather than a residence of a private gentleman.” He also had a house at Westcombe Park and one at Well Hall, Page House, which hung on until 1931, and was where Edith Nesbit wrote The Railway Children.
When we move to the Ordnance Survey map published in 1805 (FIG 9), we can see that the house, now in Wricklesmarsh Park, has been reduced to stumps. Despite costing £90k (the modern equivalent of around £16million to build), it was not long for this world, itself falling quickly to further gentrification. Page and his wife died without issue, and the estate passed to his great-nephew Sir Gregory Turner, who added Page to his name per the will and became Sir Gregory Page-Turner. (FIG 10)
Page-Turner decided to sell up, and in 1783 the estate was bought by another name locals will recognise, John Cator. Prior to his purchase, the government considered buying the estate to use for the military academy, which ended up in Woolwich. The survey done at the time enables us to reliably impose the boundaries of the estate on a modern map. Egan does this in Wricklemarsh Revisited and there’s no point reinventing the wheel so here is his map imposed on the modern aerial view. (FIG 11)
Cator bought the estate for the ridiculously knock-down price of £22,250, just under £3million in today’s money. He already had his own stately pile at Beckenham and had no interest in the Wricklemarsh house, which, unfashionable and vandalised, was considered surplus to requirements. Some of the estate was leased for development, like Montpelier Row and the Paragon. The house was slowly demolished from 1787, with ruins standing until 1808, the remnant we saw on the 1805 map. The ruins were something of a tourist attraction, becoming the subject of a watercolour by Turner (no relation, as far as I know) and an oil painting by William Marlow entitled Elegant Company in the Ruins of Wricklemarsh House, which I have also linked to below. (FIG 12)
Cator did take the bits he liked of Wricklemarsh and used them at his home Beckenham Place, (FIG 13) now a municipal golf club. With them went the last trace of Wricklemarsh on the maps, until its revival in Wricklemarsh Road during the inter-war building boom.
Cator’s nephew John Barwell Cator further exploited the parkland for its development potential, and from the 1820s the Blackheath Village we know today really began to take shape. The Cators that followed him were further able to take advantage of the early arrival of the railways, (FIG 14) and the area developed into the affluent Victorian suburban village which it essentially still is. There was some very tasteful postwar redevelopment, (FIG 15) but Blackheath benefitted from early gentrification and therefore nimbyism and is better preserved than many older competitors. Traces of Wricklemarsh Park and its boundaries can still be seen in the shapes of roads. (FIG 16)
None of these roads is Wricklemarsh Road though, (FIG 17) which runs towards the area but it’s clear that it wasn’t part of the ancient estate. In Victorian times, the area of the estate is identified as Blackheath Park, and where Wricklemarsh Road will be is still fields south of Shooters Hill Road, in blue. (FIG 18) By the time of the postwar aerial photo, Kidbrooke has been taken over by housing and the road has been fully developed. It has a junction with Rochester Way, marked green, the 1920s bypass to the ancient road. (FIG 20)
I’ve no doubt anyone who has had this video suggested to them knows all about the abandoned London Ringway plans, but if not, links below and gosh, enjoy that rabbit hole. The South Cross part of Ringway 1 would have destroyed most of south London and even Blackheath Village was significantly threatened by the demolition required to build a cut and cover tunnel for an 8-lane motorway. Although this was getting off very lightly indeed compared to everywhere else, there were protests and a counter proposal for a bored tunnel was made and looked likely.
The East Cross part of the Ringway around here took over existing plans, like the already underway vital improvements to the Blackwall Tunnel approach, which were complete by the late 60s (FIG 21), and the Dover Radial motorway, at a late stage of planning to replace or bypass Rochester Way from the Sun in the Sands roundabout and down to meet the South Cross at Kidbrooke. This was also considered essential, and the required compulsory purchases had been made.
To most of south London’s relief, the Ringways were cancelled in 1973, but people living around the increasingly unsafe Rochester Way were righteously angry that their necessary road had been lost to a folly. Years of lobbying and pro-motorway protests ensued to ensure that the Dover Radial plans still went ahead in some form. The resulting Rochester Way Relief Road was finally finished in 1988. (FIG 22) In the area where it divides Wricklemarsh Road, the old Rochester Way still runs alongside the A2 as a local road.
I didn’t make it to the end of Wricklemarsh Road, but it carries on like this ‘til it hits the tidy wee postwar estate at Corelli Road. (FIG 23) So, I must get to the point and actually answer my own question “what happened to the lost hamlet of Wricklemarsh?” Well, it isn’t truly lost, it just got gentrified early and we call it Blackheath Village. Although personally, I’d prefer it if we used its proper name, Dowager’s Bottom.
It was also apparently called Dowager’s Hole, but let’s keep it PG.
BLURB
Slightly further out than my usual stomping grounds, in this video I am in search of the lost hamlet of Wricklemarsh. What I found shocked me.
This channel is not monetised, and I intend to keep it advert free, but if you’ve enjoyed it enough to want to be supportive, please consider donating the traditional cost of a coffee to the Greenwich Wildlife Network:
My latest video will premiere at 8pm on Sunday 22nd December.
Please enjoy my infodump on Woolwich, with a wee bit of Belvedere!
Unlike my previous video, this one I’m pretty sure is entirely accurate but please feel free to point out anything you think I’ve got completely wrong.
I may monetise in future, but for now I’m doing this for fun and the love of this town so if you’ve enjoyed this video, please make donations in lieu of buying me a coffee to The Greenwich Wildlife Network. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=4AQM4AQNYYX6W
THANKS TO
This video would not have been possible without Mike Jelves, ig: jetblacksquares_selondon
Photos credited to CM are from the archive of Chris Mansfield, www.chrismansfieldphotos.com
Photos credited to RG from godisinyourtypewriterblog.wordpress.com
The National Library of Scotland, doing the Lord’s work with layered maps: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.6&lat=51.49375&lon=0.06298&layers=260&b=ESRIWorld&o=100
Those cool postwar aerial photos have been licensed by Historic England specifically for this video, see them and more: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/
The Sainsbury’s archive is a glorious thing: https://www.sainsburyarchive.org.uk/
Whether you’re joining me for the premiere on Sunday 22nd December or just looking for an excuse to drink at any time, I’ve got you covered with the official drinking game!
You’ll need a pint or two and some shots.
Do a shot when:
You see a sundial
Joggers!
Take a swig when:
I promise a future walk
There’s a bus
“remnant”
“wee bit”
Reference to the River smelling
“ghost”
“neglect”
If you’re teetotal or the designated driver:
Make someone else of your choice do a shot every time a church or cleric is mentioned
If you work in town:
Shot when you see your place of work
Pint down in one if I mention it!
If you see yourself in the video, and aren’t me or Mike:
You are officially the winner, and should immediately finish your own, and everyone else’s, drinks, then do a victory lap
If you are me or Mike:
Shot!!
If you’re Chris Mansfield and want to get plastered:
Take a swig when one of your photos is credited
If you’re me and want to get plastered:
Shot when you know that was a shit take on that voiceover bit but just really wanted to get it finished.
Alt title: “My Woolwich video ended up with loads of Deptford”
I hope you enjoy my first video!
The Silent Playground is a 1963 British drama movie filmed in south east London. This video looks at the Woolwich parts, as well as what turned out to be Deptford!
