Woolwich

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Woolwich, a market town in south-east London and part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, sits 13.7 kilometres from Charing Cross. Its Thames frontage runs for 2.5 kilometres along the south bank. From the water the ground climbs quickly up the northern slopes of Shooter's Hill, reaching 60 metres at the common and 132 metres at the ancient London-Dover Road.

  The name is generally believed to come from an Anglo-Saxon phrase meaning a trading place for wool. Yet from the 16th to the 20th century, this stretch of riverbank was known for warships, cannon and soldiers rather than fleeces.

  That contrast raises a run of questions. What stood here before a king chose the shore for his shipyard? Who worked in the yards, and what were they paid? Why did an economy built around war fall apart so completely in the late 20th century? And what is growing now on the ground where the guns were made?

  23837

• 2. Before the King's Yard

  ›

  Sometime between the 3rd and 1st century BCE, builders raised an earthwork around the landward sides of a riverside settlement near today's Beresford Street. Its remains, probably those of a Celtic oppidum, turned up at the Waterfront development site. The Survey of London describes it as the only settlement of its kind located so far in the London area, and one that may have been a significant port before London itself. In the late Roman period the site was reused as a fort. A path probably connected it with Watling Street on Shooter's Hill.

  In 2015, Oxford Archaeology found a Saxon burial site near the riverside holding 76 skeletons from the late 7th or early 8th century. None of the graves held goods, which points to an early Christian community. The first church, dedicated to Saint Lawrence, stood north of today's parish church and almost certainly predates the Normans. It was probably rebuilt in stone around 1100.

  From the 10th century until the middle of the 12th, the abbots of St. Peter's Abbey in Ghent controlled Woolwich. This may trace back to a gift in 918 from Ælfthryth, daughter of King Alfred and Countess of Flanders. If so, it was the first recorded grant of English land to a foreign church institution. One consequence is that Woolwich does not appear in the Domesday Book. The 63 acres listed there as Hulviz are thought to be North Woolwich, which was then uninhabited.

  In 1236, a flood killed many people in the medieval settlement. The ferry is first mentioned in 1308, though it may be older. Pottery kilns found north of the High Street and Beresford Street suggest a tradition of pottery making from at least the 14th century until the 17th. Around Bell Water Gate, some private shipbuilding or repair may have been under way in the 15th century, a faint hint of what the river would soon be used for.

  256711

• 3. Guns, Ships and Soldiers

  ›

  In 1512, Henry VIII founded a yard on this shore, first called The King's Yard, to build his flagship Henry Grace à Dieu, known as The Great Harry. Later ships launched here included the Prince Royal, the Sovereign of the Seas, the Naseby, the Dolphin and the Beagle. A gun yard for storing and maintaining ships' cannon and armaments followed in the 1540s, and a ropeyard in the 1570s. The dockyard rode out many ups and downs for three and a half centuries before closing in 1869.

  In the 1530s, Martin Bowes, who had made a fortune at the Royal Mint, bought riverside holdings in Woolwich and Plumstead. Some of it was former church land freed up by the Dissolution of the Monasteries. His mansion, Tower Place, was for a time the largest dwelling in Woolwich. In the 1650s the Board of Ordnance won permission to prove guns in its grounds, an area known as the Warren, and twenty years later bought the house itself. The Warren grew from a place of storage into armament factories, military stores and research establishments. George III gave the whole complex the name Royal Arsenal in 1805.

  The Board of Ordnance also kept its own military personnel. By a royal warrant of George I, it formed the Royal Regiment of Artillery in 1716, with headquarters and barracks in the Warren. In 1741 it set up the Royal Military Academy there to train future officers. The Artillery moved to a new barracks on the edge of Woolwich Common in 1776, and the Academy followed to the other end of the common in 1806. Other units settled nearby, and together they became known as Woolwich Garrison.

  The Royal Artillery Barracks, designed by James Wyatt and built between 1776 and 1802, has the longest façade in London. Back in the Arsenal, the Royal Brass Foundry of 1717 is a grade I listed building. In wartime, tens of thousands of workers found jobs inside the Arsenal, and between wars unemployment loomed.

  910121317

• 4. Wages and Workshops

  ›

  Throughout the 18th century, between 500 and 1,400 men worked in the navy yard, the town's main employer. Malarial marshland made Woolwich an unpopular posting, so dockyard workers were paid as much as a third more than in other naval towns. They were mostly skilled artisans who were literate, Nonconformist and well organised. Soldiers, held in contempt, earned about a quarter of a dockyard labourer's wage.

  At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, 3,000 soldiers outnumbered the 2,000 dockyard and ropeyard workers, while the arsenal employed as many as 5,000. When the wars ended, thousands were discharged, which caused great distress. A steam factory gave the dockyard a new lease of life in the 1840s. The 1850s then brought a huge expansion of the arsenal, during and after the Crimean War.

  In the 17th century, Sir Robert Mansell of Greenwich owned two glass factories near Glass Yard. He also managed the dockyard and the ropeyard, which finally closed in 1832. Some of his glassmasters were Huguenots from Lorraine. Kilns on the town's hillside made earthenware and clay pipes, and continental potters may have controlled the kilns producing Bellarmine stoneware. Sand dug near Plumstead and Charlton was shipped from a wharf near Tower Place. In 1863, the German firm Siemens & Halske opened a submarine-cable factory in the Dockyard area, and it expanded rapidly.

  Woolwich market received its charter in 1618, though it is certainly older. It had long stood on the High Street at a spot called Market Hill, but it gradually drifted toward the main gatehouse of the Royal Arsenal. The authorities did not approve. A replacement set up in the Bathway Quarter around 1810 failed, and survives only in the name of Market Street. Until 1879 the market at Beresford Square remained illegal and was regularly cleared by the police. Once legalised, it had room for 136 stalls. In 1903, Italo Svevo described it as "very lively".

  Powis Street and Hare Street, laid out in the early 19th century, became the main shopping streets. Several Victorian shop façades by the local architect Henry Hudson Church have survived. In 1868 the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society was founded. It grew into one of the biggest consumer cooperatives in the country, with two department stores in Powis Street, shops around south-east London, factories, a building society and a funeral service. Beresford Square also held the largest of the town's many public houses.

  1415162223

• 5. Streets and Crowds

  ›

  Around 1500, as the naval and military buildup began, Woolwich had only a few hundred inhabitants. In 1665, Samuel Pepys stayed here to escape the Great Plague. The population was then estimated at 1,200 or more, with about 300 working in the dockyard. Around 1720 it had reached 6,500, and by 1801 it was almost 10,000. The booming wartime decade that followed pushed it to a peak of 17,000.

  Building picked up again in the 1830s. Workers' houses spread south, mostly close to the river, while officers' houses went up around Woolwich Common and higher on the hill. In 1841 the population was 27,785, and by 1861 it was 41,695, with 4,596 houses in the parish and little space left. Further building moved to Plumstead, Charlton and North Woolwich, later also to Eltham. After a dip in the late 19th century, the 1901 figure of 41,625 matched the level of forty years earlier.

  Victorian Woolwich was a rich social mix. Skilled engineers worked alongside unskilled labourers, including women and children, at the Arsenal and other factories. Soldiers made up 10-15% of the population, and a small bourgeoisie of officers and professionals sat above them. Some areas were notoriously overcrowded. The so-called Dusthole near the river was considered one of London's worst slums.

  Until the railways arrived, the Thames was the main artery between Woolwich and London. The Woolwich Steam Packet Company greatly improved river traffic in 1834. The North Kent Line, running from London through Greenwich and Woolwich to Gillingham, opened in 1849. In 1889 the Woolwich Free Ferry made it easier to live in North Woolwich and work in the Arsenal, or to live in Woolwich and work in the Docklands. Trams of the first generation also ran through the town from 1881 to 1952.

  Until 1842, when the Old Town Hall was built, the parish vestry met in a room in the church of St Mary Magdalene. Woolwich was part of the London metropolitan area from the mid-19th century, though officially still in Kent. It became officially part of London in 1889, with the formation of London County Council. In 1900 the parishes of Woolwich, Eltham and Plumstead formed the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, and the new Town Hall was inaugurated in 1906. In April 1965 the borough was merged into the London Borough of Greenwich, which became a Royal Borough in 2012. The borough's administrative buildings remain in Woolwich, at the former Town Hall.

  1819252628

• 6. Classroom, Pitch and Stage

  ›

  Woolwich Polytechnic was founded in 1891 and offered higher education alongside secondary schooling, including the Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys. It grew steadily through the 20th century, filling almost an entire block in the Bathway Quarter. In 1970 it merged with other local colleges to become Thames Polytechnic. It received university status in 1992 and a year later took the name University of Greenwich. In 2001 the university relocated to the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, leaving a small administrative presence behind.

  The first free kindergarten in the UK, the Woolwich Mission Kindergarten, opened in 1900. It began in a room provided by the Rev. Walter Wragge, a Christian socialist vicar of Holy Trinity church in New Charlton. His sister, Adelaide Wragge, founded it. She was the Fröbel-influenced principal of Blackheath Kindergarten Training College.

  In the 18th century, Woolwich Cricket Club, later the Royal Artillery Cricket Club, was well known. Cricket and other sports were mainly played by military officers and students at the Royal Military Academy. Tom Cribb, a 19th-century bare-knuckle boxer born in Bristol, lived and died in Woolwich aged 66. He was buried in St. Mary's churchyard, where his memorial is a lion resting its paw on an urn.

  In 1886, workers at the Royal Arsenal founded a football club, first called Dial Square, then Royal Arsenal, then Woolwich Arsenal. Large crowds soon came to its ground in Plumstead. The club moved to Arsenal Stadium in Highbury, North London, in 1913. Another side, Royal Ordnance Factories F.C., was founded in response to Woolwich Arsenal joining the League, but lasted only a few years.

  The Theatre Royal in Beresford Street, later renamed the Empire Theatre or Woolwich Empire, dates from the 1830s. It was enlarged in the 1880s and 1890s to seat about 2,000. It worked as a variety theatre and a cinema, ended up as a strip-joint, and was demolished in 1960. Shortly after 1900, three new theatres opened with a combined capacity of 4,430. The Grand Theatre in Wellington Street opened in 1900 as a variety house for 1,680, became the Woolwich Hippodrome in 1908, and turned full-time cinema in 1923. Rebuilt in 1955 as the Regal Cinema, it closed in 1982, later served as a nightclub, and was demolished in 2015.

  The Granada and the Odeon, later the Coronet, each seated around 2,500. Both are imposing 1930s buildings, and both have been converted into Pentecostal churches. Woolwich currently has no movie theatres, though cinemas feature in the plans for the Spray Street quarter and the Island site.

  2021222362

• 7. The Long Decline

  ›

  The Royal Ordnance Factory closed in 1967, and the Siemens factory followed in 1968. The Royal Arsenal then scaled back its operations and finally closed in 1994. Other employers, including the Woolwich Building Society and Morgan Grampian Publishers, were taken over and moved away. Without major employers, unemployment soared.

  The town's makeup changed as well. Sikhs were the first large group to settle in the area, later followed by black Africans, many of them from Nigeria. Even so, the population of the parish fell to a low of 17,000 in 1971. In the shopping district, department stores and chain stores closed. By the early 1990s discount retailers and charity shops filled the empty shops, and Greenwich Council occupied vacant office buildings.

  The post-war years also reshaped the streets. Roads were widened and whole neighbourhoods pulled down to make room for modern housing, some of it in tower blocks. The experimental Auto Stacker car park, built on the site of the Empire Theatre, was opened by Princess Margaret in May 1961. It never actually worked and was demolished in 1962. Widening the High Street and Beresford Street left little of the old town. Several listed military buildings were demolished in the 1970s, including James Wyatt's Engineers Barracks of 1803.

  In 1974, the first branch of McDonald's in the United Kingdom opened in Powis Street. Despite the decline, Woolwich was still regarded as a representative English town. That same year the Provisional IRA bombed the Kings Arms pub, killing two people.

  During the 2011 England riots, Woolwich was one of the affected areas. Several buildings were attacked and a few destroyed. The Great Harry Wetherspoons pub was set on fire, though it was later remodelled and reopened. On the 22nd of May 2013, Lee Rigby, a drummer and soldier based at the Royal Artillery Barracks, was murdered close to the barracks by two Islamic extremists. The killing caused upheaval in the town.

  The 16th Regiment Royal Artillery left Woolwich in 2007. The barracks still house the Royal Artillery Band and, more recently, the Second Battalion Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment and the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery. Their relocation has been announced for 2028.

  3031333536

• 8. Rebuilding on the River

  ›

  The first sign of a renaissance came with the housing redevelopment of the former Royal Arsenal. Most historic buildings on the site have been renovated and turned into apartments. Several thousand homes have been built or are under construction and thousands more are planned, mainly luxury flats in tower blocks near the river. A riverside walk, parks, a museum, shops, cafes, pubs and a farmers' market have made the Arsenal desirable.

  In 2017 it was announced that the borough had acquired five historic buildings around No 1 Street to create a creative district costing £31 million. Plans included a 1,200-seat auditorium, a performance courtyard seating up to 600, a 450-seat black box theatre and a riverside restaurant. Resident companies include Academy Performing Arts, Dash Arts, Chickenshed Theatre, Protein Dance, Greenwich Dance and Greenwich+Docklands International Festival. The district opened as Woolwich Works in September 2021.

  Woolwich Arsenal DLR station opened on the 10th of January 2009 as the terminus of the London City Airport branch. The 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics used Woolwich for shooting events, in temporary facilities built on the Royal Artillery Barracks grounds and Woolwich Common. In May 2022 the Elizabeth line station opened, giving Woolwich a direct link to Heathrow Airport. The London Plan identifies the district as an opportunity area, expected to grow from a major centre to a metropolitan centre within Greater London over the next few decades.

  A large redevelopment west of General Gordon Square began in 2011. The square was re-landscaped with a new water feature, and the Love Lane project demolished several buildings, including the Post Office and the Director General public house. The Woolwich Centre, holding the public library and council offices, was completed in 2011. A 259-home development with an 84,000 square foot Tesco hypermarket followed in 2014.

  In that same year, the Tesco development was named Britain's worst new building and awarded the Carbuncle Cup. The judges called the design "oppressive, defensive, arrogant and inept". Tesco later claimed £46.7m from Willmott Dixon for cladding replacement, and Willmott Dixon sought to reclaim the same amount from its supply chain. When the case was heard in February 2023, two suppliers countered that the problems arose from Willmott Dixon's negligence. In July 2024, Willmott Dixon said the cost of fixing the scheme had risen from £44m to £48m.

  In September 2012, Greenwich Council approved a plan to convert the Art Deco RACS department store into apartments and shops. Across the road, the late Victorian RACS Central Stores building was renovated and reopened as a hotel. Further regeneration is centred on Hare Street and the Riverside, and the Waterfront Leisure Centre is to be relocated in hopes of attracting development there. Redevelopment plans for the Spray Street Quarter in 2018 included a proposal to demolish the 1936 market hall.

  3839414751