CHAPTER 6 St Mary’s and Morris Walk Areas This chapter covers the areas that lie inland from the for- is a good example of board school architecture. Robert mer naval dockyard. The land here billows across gently Pearsall’s fire station of1886 –7 is another notable survival. rising hills, its slopes now unified by twentieth-century Around these institutions the housing stock deterio- social housing. A history of that housing is preceded here rated, and slum conditions spread. The present character by accounts of the area’s first phases of speculative devel- of the area is largely due to the formation of the St Mary’s opment, largely late-Georgian in date, and of its numer- Comprehensive Development Area in 1951. There were ous institutional buildings, mainly churches and schools, important preliminaries on the Rectory Estate in the 1930s, mostly built during the Victorian era. The territory cov- when the Ecclesiastical Commissioners began an ambitious ered is bounded to the north by the grounds of the par- rebuilding project. But post-war redevelopment was initi- ish church of St Mary and Woolwich Church Street (Ill. ated by Woolwich Borough Council, a formidable house- 280). It extends as far south as the west end of Wellington building authority. This was the only project of its kind and Street, to the east across John Wilson Street and to the date in London overseen by a borough rather than by the west, straddling Frances Street, as far as the Morris Walk London County Council. Within twenty years the area’s Estate, which spills across the parish boundary. housing had been thoroughly recast in nearly 1,500 new Opposite the dockyard, houses and pubs were strung homes. Woolwich Borough Council struggled against the along Church Street by the eighteenth century, but the constraints of the place and the tenor of post-war housing land behind, mostly part of the Bowater family’s mano- policy in order to maintain conservative cottage-estate stan- rial estate, remained open. Westwards ribbon development dards. Despite inevitable defeat by the high-rise tide, mani- kept step with expansion of the dockyard, while the grad- fest in Norman & Dawbarn’s fourteen-storey butterfly-plan ual spread of bricks inland began in the 1780s with the towers of 1959–62 on Frances Street, limited success in this formation of Warwick Street. Crucially, John Bowater, in fight kept the area attractively habitable. It remains humane exile on the Continent to avoid his creditors, had obtained and open in aspect, well planned and decorous. an Act of Parliament in 1779 to permit the granting of More spectacular, if not more successful in either hous- building leases on his entailed lands (see page 7). The scale ing or aesthetic terms, was the LCC’s parallel initiative at was humble, but in the late 1790s some bigger houses were Morris Walk, where the building of a concrete-panel estate built. Huge growth in the population of Woolwich dur- of 562 dwellings in 1962–6 was at the cutting edge of tech- ing the Napoleonic Wars encouraged speculative develop- nological innovation in housing. The first use in Britain here ment of the fields south of the parish church, much of of the Larsen-Nielsen system of industrialized building which was glebe. From 1809 St Mary Street, Rectory Place and the associated publicity made this a portentous devel- and most of Kingsman Street were laid out as the Rectory opment. Land between the St Mary’s Estate and Morris estate, alongside gradual filling out of the western flank Walk Estate saw a later phase of renewal in developments of the Powis (later Ogilby) estate that included a sizeable of around 1990 led by the London and Quadrant Housing Methodist chapel of 1814–16 (now Gurdwara Sahib). The Trust, alongside an instance of Walter Segal’s model of self- houses ranged from hilltop villas to mean courts. To the build development at Parish Wharf. Finally, a short terrace west, beyond a path known as Hedge Row (now Prospect on Sunbury Street represents a revival of council-house Vale), a large triangle of land (the Morris Walk area) was building in 2010. Together all these episodes represent an modestly built up in the 1840s as a response to the dock- instructively broad range of approaches to social housing, a yard’s steam-factory extension. subject further explored in chapters 8 to 10. The South Eastern Railway Company’s line knifed across all this in 1849, in cuttings and tunnels through combes and promontories. Elsewhere in this now densely residential Early housing and solidly working-class district the Victorian period saw the insertion of two big Anglican churches, in large mea- sure a response to the entrenchment of Nonconformist Near the dockyard worship. These were St John’s, and St Michael and All Angels’, a Tractarian initiative that came to involve William Church Street and Lord Warwick Street area Butterfield. Other arrivals were four schools and a fire sta- tion. A maternity hospital followed in the 1920s. Three of There was early ribbon development at the western extrem- the schools have been rebuilt; the fourth, Woodhill Primary, ity of settlement in Woolwich, along the south side of 282 CHAPTER SIX ST MARY’S AND MORRIS WALK AREAS CHURCH HILL CHURCH HILL 310–338 310–338 GREENLAW STREET GREENLAW STREET WOOLWICH CHURCHWOOLWICH STREET CHURCH STREET 198–220 PH 198–220 PH 222 –252 222–252 SUNBURY ST SUNBURY ST 1–99 1–99 Ferryview Ferryview B B Health Centre Health Centre WOOLWICH CHURCHWOOLWICH STREET CHURCH STREET 79 90 79 90 Kingsman Parade Kingsman Parade BOWLING BOWLING GREEN ROW GREEN ROW C 128–132 C 128–132 WARWICK ST WARWICK ST PH PH LORD LORD 59 59 70 Playground Playground A 37–41A 37–41 70 68 68 ET 58 EET 58 RE 279 15–35 TR 15–35 ST 279 T S 56 – 26 E 56 – 26 TREET STRE Y S T RY AR TT ET A M 59–73 59–73 E P MARSHALL’S GR M 13 12–22 P MARSHALL’S GR 13 12–22 PH PARISH T PH PARISH 1–6 T LI GARDENS LAMPORT CLOSE LAMPORT1–6 CLOSE S S LI GARDENSTIVO WHARF 1 MONK STREET TIVO WHARF 33–44 1 1 51–70 MONK STREET 4 33–44 1 MARYBANK51–70 MARYBANK 4 2 2 13–18 BELSON ROAD 13–18 75–89 75–89 BELSON ROAD D D 189–257 56 189–257 56 F F K K RECTORY PLACE Cardwell Cardwell K RECTORY PLACE J RD RD CL CL BELSON ROAD BELSON ROAD K ING ING J School 42–64 96–102 School 42–64 S ESCREET 96–102GR SMA T ESCREETMA HGR E ELT H L C ASTILE C ASTILE 18–41 E E N R 18–41 N S R S T CARR CARR T 41–55 D 41–55 D SAMUEL SAMUEL 2–48 CHA GLENALVON WAY 2–48 CHA GLENALVON WAY A SAMUEL F A JO SAMUEL F 88–94 JO ROAD G 88–94 R E ROAD St Michael G R E St Michael O O GROVE A HN GROVE A R M HN and All Angels and All Angels R N M N R N R N Church L Church L 17–39 C 17–39 C N E N E S E A 80–86 WOODHILL E A S WI WOODHILL 80–86 WI S S Morris Walk STREET Morris Walk STREET G CALDERWOOD STREET RM G CALDERWOOD STREET RM L L S Estate S O S MARYON Estate S MARYON O RINL T RINL T G O PROSPECT VALE PROSPECT VALE G O R 1–15 R 1–15 70–78 70–78 N E E N E E BORGARD ROAD BORGARD ROAD I T I T N N S S G T G T Congregational Congregational R R W W E Church E PH A PH Church E A E 110 110 L T L T K LYFORD ST LYFORD ST K 123 123 R GRAVE JIM BRADLEY CL JIM BRADLEY CL Woodhill LG AVE R OAD UL R OAD Woodhill MU M School School A Fire Station A Fire Station Rectory RECTORY Rectory RECTORY B Sunbury Lodge B Sunbury Lodge 70 70 C Cyril Henry NurseryC SchoolCyril Henry Nursery School PH PH D St Mary Magdalene CED SchoolSt Mary Magdalene CE School GODFREY HILL GODFREY HILL PLACE PLACE E Gurdwara Sahib E Gurdwara Sahib F Woolwich DockyardF RailwaWoolwichy Station Dockyard Railway Station Elliston WELLINGTONElliston STREET WELLINGTON STREET G Pickering House G Pickering House BELFORD GR BELFORD GR House House H Preston House H Preston House J Lindsay House J Lindsay House Mulgrave Mulgrave K Fraser House K Fraser House School School L Watergate House L Watergate House PH PH M Glebe House M Glebe House Ft Ft 400 400 N Grinling House N Grinling House ARTILLERY PLACE ARTILLERY PLACE M M 120 120 280. St Mary’s and Morris Walk areas, 2007 Woolwich Church Street as far west as what is now after a fire in 1851 and previously the Horse and Star), Frances Street (Ills 7, 8). This was dependent on the the Ship and Punch Bowl, the Black Eagle, the Globe and naval dockyard and across a road that the navy main- the Old Sheer Hulk (Ills 293, 295).1 supplementary (non-statutory, local or Grade III) list of development that was probably seventeenth century in its tained. Church Hill may have had a medieval nucleus The south side of Church Hill had houses large and buildings of architectural or historic interest in 1954, but origins.