WOOLWICH to CHARLTON VILLAGE, and on to GREENWICH
Blackheath: ROYAL STANDARD
Greenwich: WOOLANDS HOUSE. Vanbrugh Hill area. Maze Hill area
East Greenwich Conservation Area
Thames Path (riverside)
ROYAL ARTILLERY BARRACKS
THE KING’S TROOP
THE ROTUNDA
QUEEN ELIZABETH HOSPITAL
CHARLTON CEMETERY
Laid out in 1855, but with no landscape interest, according to the GAZETTEER .
CLASSICAL TOMB : to the right of the entrance in CEMETER6BLANE. Covered in ivy, contains an fifty of JEMIMA AYLEY, 1860.
More prominen5 TOMBS (to the left of the entrance close to the WAR MEMORIAL cross):
SAMUEL PHILLIPS bust and the same inscription (“Write me as one who loved his fellow men”) we read on his memorial,seat on SHOOTERS HILL.
OBELISK to ANDREW GIBB, whose MEMORIAL SHELTER is on BLACKHEATH.
East part of the cemetery: Tomb of THOMAS MURPHY, owner of the former GREYHOUND TRACK (3 columns, 2 greyhounds).
SE: area devoted to TURKISH GRAVES
CHARLTON PARK
CHARLTON HOUSE
CHARLTON VILLAGE
Charlton Road
Welcome to Blackheath
Batley Park
THE ROYAL STANDARD
NE of the black heath
Site of the Vanbrugh Pits
VANBRUGH PARK
The remains of the pits and adjoining neighbourhood Vanbrugh Park, a north-east projection of Blackheath with its own church, so also termed St John's Blackheath,[23] are named after Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of Blenheim Palaceand Castle Howard, who had a house with very large grounds adjoining the heath and its continuation Greenwich Park. The house which was originally built around 1720 remains, remodelled slightly, Vanbrugh Castle. In his estate he had 'Mince Pie House' built for his family, which survived until 1911.[24]
Its church, St John the Evangelist's, was designed in 1853 by Arthur Ashpitel.[25]The Blackheath High School buildings on Vanbrugh Park include the Church Army Chapel.
VANBRUGH PARK ESTATE
Westcombe Park Road
Short detour: Mycenae Road
MYCENAE HOUSE
During World War 1 Belgian refugees were housed in WOODLANDD In the early 1920s it became a nunnery and the Little Sisters of the Assumption built Mycenae House as their
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Noviciate House. The property was bought by Greenwich Council in 1967 and Mycenae House became a Community Centre. Until 2003 Woodlands was the Local History Library and Art Gallery and then in 2008 the Greenwich Steiner School was established there and the Garden House flats were built.
At the nunnery young girls were trained for the religious life. The chapel for the convent was in Woodlands in an imposing pillared room with an Adams ceiling
The nuns were involved with the local community through their caring and nursing activities and held a Mass which local people could attend. The nuns were reportedly seen playing netball in front of Mycenae House. A notable addition to the gardens was made by the Little Sisters of Assumption who created an artificial grotto in imitation of the grotto at the Catholic shrine of Lourdes in France. This was later taken down for safety reasons.
WOODLANDS HOUSE, Blackheath country estate of the Angerstein family.
Woodlands, now a Grade 2 Listed Building, was designed by local architect George Gibson.
The modest villa originally faced east with a handsome portico entrance, still visible. In about 1800 the entrance used today was built. Some of the original patterns around the frieze - festoons of flowers - can still be seen.
The house was extensively enlarged in the early 1800s but was restored to its original size after the Angersteins left.
The building was built on a site leased in 1774 from Sir Gregory Page by John Julius Angerstein (a Lloyd's underwriter). Angerstein made his fortune in the East Indian trade as well as having West Indian business links, including a third share in a slave plantation in Grenada.[2] His art collection was bought in 1824 to form the nucleus of the National Gallery, London. Angerstein occupied a house in nearby Crooms Hill, Greenwich, while the villa was constructed over the next two years to a design by local architect George Gibson[3] and was completed in the summer of 1776.[4]’
In 1774 John Julius Angerstein a financier, chairman of Lloyd's and later philanthropist took a hundred year lease on 42 acres of land.
The house built for him was called Woodlands,
'an elegant neo-classical villa'. Here was a retreat from his life as a marine insurer at Lloyd's and a place where he and his family enjoyed the benefits of his wealth and social connections.
The Angerstein family used Woodlands as one of their family homes for nearly a century until John Julius's grandson William sold the estate in 1873 to pay off debts from his extravagant life style. The surrounding land was used for housing development and the house and the immediate grounds were occupied amongst others by local ship owner Sir Alfred Yarrow.
J.J. ANGERSTEIN
John Julius (1735 - 1823) had been born in Russia. He came to England aged fourteen under the guardianship of a merchant, Andrew Thompson. After his apprenticeship in the City, he rapidly established himself as an underwriter at Lloyd's (the insurance market) whose future he helped to shape. He made most of his fortune in marine insurance, including the insurance of ships bringing produce from slave estates in the West Indies. At that time slavery was part of the fabric of the financial and mercantile worlds in which he operated, and he had personal and professional connections with slave estates in the West Indies, although it is unclear how far he benefitted from them.
John Julius married twice and had two children by his first wife, Anna: John and Julia.
John in turn had several children but it was his youngest son William who continued to live at Woodlands until 1870. Both John and William were MPs for the local area.
His Legacy
John Julius used his wealth to support many charities and causes locally and nationally. Locally he backed the Kent Dispensary, was a director of Greenwich Hospital and helped establish the Royal Naval Asylum in Greenwich.
Reminders of the Angerstein name in the area are a local pub, a street and the crossing point of the railway that John Angerstein built in 1852 to transport goods to the Angerstein Whart. St John the Evangelist church, Blackheath, was also funded by him. The family vault is in St Alphege's church, Greenwich.
friend and patron of the artist Thomas
The gardens
The grounds of Woodlands which sloped north to the River Thames were filled with plants and flowers. There was an impressive conservatory 300 feet long and 50 feet wide
- the finest in England' - where the gardener David Stewart nurtured plants from China, New Holland, and the Cape of Good Hope with the help of an innovative heating and ventilation system. Robert Sweet, who trained under him, became renowned for his botanical books including an illustrated one on geraniums still in use today. There was a
4-acre kitchen garden with many hot houses, a dairy, a grotto, a lake and an American plantation. Produce from the garden and the hothouses were served to guests when the Angersteins were entertaining.
The present-day gardens (now known as Mycenae Gardens and the Dell), though smaller and less formal, are registered as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, with areas reserved for wildlife, and a rich variety of trees, some of which may have been planted by the Angersteins
Short detour, to Maze Hill
VANBRUGH CASTLE
Vanbrugh Hill (road)
Humber Road
Woodland Heights, residential
If you continue downhill, when you reach WOOLWICH ROAD
Site of the GREENWICH WORKHOUSE and INFIRMARY, erected 1839-40
Former cinema
Woodlands Park Road
Colomb Street
THE DUKE OF GREENWICH P.H.
THE OLD TICKET OFFICE, now THE MAZE HILL POTTERY
Tuskar St.
THE HATCLIFFE. Almshouses
The Hatcliffe Charity owns a Greenwich almshouse in Tuskar Street and has property holdings in the area with which to fund it. The exact identity of the founder, William Hatcliffe, is not clear but he seems to have been a courtier probably from Lincolnshire or East Anglia. Money was distributed to the poor of Greenwich by the charity for 250 years before the construction of the Tuskar Street almshouses in 1857.
The charity owned a portion of land along the Woolwich Road – and indeed still owns some of the shops east of the Ship and Billett. Records of land deals before the 1980s have not survived but it appears that much of this land has been passed to the public authorities for building during the previous century. This includes and episode in the 1970s when land was sold to a property speculator and subsequently compulsorily purchased.
Caradoc St.
within the East Greenwich Conservation Area and is subject to specific planning controls aimed at preserving its character. A portion of the street falls within the buffer zone of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, requiring developments to be visually sympathetic to the site. Additionally, some buildings on Caradoc Street are locally listed and subject to an Article 4 Direction, further restricting certain types of development
