- Greater London news in brief
- Shirley Windmill
- If it's Victorian, it's doomed
- Walthamstow Pump House
- Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland: first conference
- Early gas in London
- The history of Clarence Wharf jetty, Rotherhithe
- Can we find a better name?
- 171news.pdf
At the south end of Crouch Hill exterior restoration work is almost complete at the ornately decorated Vicwardian dairy building (GLIAS Newsletter June 1997). It is not known what use the building might be put to.
At Three Mills the roof of the House Mill is now entirely covered by red clay tiles. The unauthentic slates we had taken for granted have all gone.
Low cloud and heavy rain prevented the Dakota (GLIAS Newsletter April 1997) landing at Biggin Hill for the planned Newcomen Society flights on Saturday June 28th. Disappointed participants will be accommodated on other dates.
Regular delivery of beer by dray horses from the Ram Brewery Wandsworth may soon be a thing of the past. Motorists are getting too angry at the slow pace of the drays in the dense traffic of the locality and there have been unpleasant incidents of road rage. This might be the last brewery in the country to use horse drays for regular commercial deliveries as distinct from the occasional use of show horses and vehicles. Bob Carr
Shirley Windmill in Croydon (TQ 355 651) is a picturesque brick-built tower mill with a Kentish-type boat cap and the interior even though incomplete is well worth a visit.
The mill is being maintained and restored with the help of local enthusiasts. Now surrounded by new houses it is situated at the end of Post Mill Close. Don't be confused by the road name, this refers to the previous mill of 1808 which burnt down and was replaced by the present tower mill.
This year Shirley Windmill will be open to the public on the first Sunday afternoon of every month from 1pm till 5pm from now until October 1997 with an additional European opening on September 14th. Visitors will be welcome at the Windmill on the designated open afternoons. For further information telephone 020 8656 6037. Bob Carr
If it's Victorian, it's doomed
The kind of Victorian urban building we used to take for granted is beginning to disappear at what seems to be an ever-increasing rate. This may not be in large scale clearances of the kind we had in cities 30 years ago, demolition can be piecemeal a few houses at a time but it all adds up. An example of this process is taking place on the north side of Victoria Dock Road E16 just opposite Customs House Station. The public house on the corner was recently demolished and now a few other properties are being cleared. It will not be a great surprise if the rest of the terrace soon goes too. Generally there will then be a rapid building of relatively low-rise redbrick housing squeezed into all the space available. This is becoming an almost ubiquitous process and one wonders will almost all of inner London soon be low rise housing and apart from major public buildings little else?
Not only domestic-type housing has been disappearing. At water pumping station sites we had got used to chiminies and boiler houses being absent but by now the engine houses themselves have in a number of cases gone as well. In recent years there have also been heavy losses among large factory buildings and mills, sometimes associated with fire damage. Traditional floor maltings are becoming rare and what has been saved of many industrial buildings by adaptive re-use is often almost unrecognisable, so extreme is the exterior modification or decoration. In London there are not that many Victorian warehouses left, often a warehouse has been demolished to be replaced by a housing block built in a style resembling the original building. We awaken to the fact that buildings roughly of the late Victorian period are no longer commonplace. Bob Carr
This is an association of local groups and concerned individuals in Waltham Forest, who are dedicated to the preservation of The Victorian Pump House, built in 1885 to pump sewage, which has survived within the Low Hall Council depot in the heart of Walthamstow. The pump and filter beds are long gone but, fortunately, the two Marshall 'C' class horizontal stationary steam engines, installed in 1897, have survived intact and in relatively good condition. One now operates with compressed air and the other is currently being restored. We would welcome your visits at our Open Days - on the first Sunday of each month. Tel: 0181 527 7041.
Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland: first conference
The Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland (IHAI) was formed in late 1996 as a joint north/south venture. A conference at Dublin was speedily organised to survey the Industrial Archaeology activity throughout the island. This report briefly covers the papers presented.
The conference commenced with Kenneth Mawhinney tracing the IA surveys carried out in the Republic during the 1970s by the State Department An Foras Forbartha and this was followed by Cormac Scully who reviewed the work that had been done in Northern Ireland. He mentioned that Green's book 'The Industrial Archaeology of County Down' of 1963 was the first regional IA book to be published in Great Britain, well preceding the famous David & Charles series. Later, in 1980, this was followed by McCutcheon's large and comprehensive tome covering the whole of Northern Ireland published by HMSO. McCutcheon was subsequently given a government-funded ho Research Fellowship in Industrial Archaeology at Queen's University, Belfast. From this appointment an Industrial Archaeological Record of Northern Ireland was started; the talk then concentrated on how this has progressed over the years.
A Dubliner, Mary McMahon, gave a comprehensive survey of the changes along the River Liffey in her talk 'Dublin's Disappearing Docklands'. The Industrial Heritage of Cork City was then described by Colin Rynne (Director of the newly established Cork Butter Museum) from his work on this topic over eight years, and Mary Sleman followed with a lecture on the post-medieval archaeology of rural County Cork, which covered her studies during the past twelve years.
The Office of Public Works in Dublin instigated an Architectural inventory of Ireland in 1990. Gerald Browner told us about the work of this survey which commenced with a pilot study at Carlow town in 1991 and 24 towns have now been covered. Fred Hamond (author of the latest book on IA in Northern Ireland) gave us an extensive exposition on the Industrial Heritage of North-east Antrim. He was followed by a borough engineer at Galway, Paul Duffy, who showed examples of his research work into the origins and development of mills, industrial and aut engineering sites in County Galway.
Ronald Cox, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Civil Engineering Heritage in Trinity College, Dublin, gave an overview of the nature and extent of Irish civil engineering heritage and the problems of dealing with the larger number of masonry bridges was specifically addressed. The final paper was presented by William Dick on how Information Technology can be utilised to not just assist in Industrial Archaeology but be a resourceful and tob comprehensive tool, revealing latent information which might otherwise be missed, or obtaining data that would take too long to collate and discover if using conventional methods. His practical demonstrations were impressive.
It was a good conference with a varied and interesting mix of topics. The IHAI should be congratulated for managing to organise it so soon after the formation of this new body to appear on the Industrial Archaeology scene. Alan Birt
When I started writing notes on historic gas works I intended to start at the earliest and work forward. I have been thwarted in this because interesting things have kept coming along and so I have written about them instead.
This time I intend to start with the earliest coal gas making plant which I know about. It was an experimental plant in London where coal gas for lighting was made three years before Murdoch's Redruth demonstrations. There were many experiments with the manufacture of coal gas in the late 1700s but no-one patented the process. By the 1800s there was big money to be made from gas lighting and this was why Murdoch's claim to have been the first 'inventor' of gas emerged. Murdoch had powerful backers who were prepared to invest in a large scale lobbying exercise while other 'inventors' were not so easily able to make their claims known.
This story is about a Mr Hatchard who had found out about coal gas in the 1780s through a connection with the Earl of Dundonald (another 'first' inventor of gas). In 1789 Hatchard's next door neighbour was John Champion, one of the Bristol brass making family. He was in his 80s and had retired to London. They lived in Warwick Row in what is now the area around Victoria Station. In Hatchard's back garden they set up 'a fire place and chimney' and 'placed an iron pot... attached a tin cylinder... the smoke when lighted produced a column of bright flame.'
They tried to interest Trinity House in what they had done, knowing an improved light for lighthouses was needed. A delegation of Elder Brethren came to see this 'light by means of vapour issuing from coal' but the idea was not taken up. Champion went on to contact Matthew Boulton, William Murdoch's employer. They met to discuss the matter but Boulton appeared not to be interested. That was the end of the matter. Champion died and Hatchard... well, I don't know... he might have become an undertaker, or a bookseller, or something else like that. I have often wondered if this story is true - but it is backed by some incontestable contemporary archive evidence. I am not pretending to be the first historian to have discovered Mr Hatchard, but I am not aware that anyone else has asked who he was and what he was up to.
Family history research has led me to a possible connection with the Sugg family. The Suggs - still in business today - boast that they have made gas fittings since the earliest days of the London industry. This makes me think that there must be something more to this story than a simple tale of an unrecognised inventor. Powerful interests - the Champions, Boulton and Watt, probably Sugg (and by implication Winsor and the Gas Light and Coke Co.) either knew about Mr. Hatchard and silenced him, or knew that he was a liar.
This account is a very abbreviated one (a longer version appeared in Historic Gas Times No. 8, August 1996). I would be very happy to write it up as a 'proper' article if anyone would care to commission me (with all the references in place). It raises a lot of interesting issues - about the links between industrialists and inventors and the way that knowledge was developed and processed; about why we (and the late Victorians) need to identify and mythologise 'inventors'. It is also, probably, about lies and skullduggery. I am glad, though, that we can now firmly set the first demonstration of gas lighting in London. Mary Mills
PS A few issues ago I wrote about a gas making plant at Three Mills (GLIAS Newsletter April 1997). Thanks to Tim Smith we can now firmly locate the site as near the windmill which once stood on the bend where the footpath along the creek now follows the riverbank.
The history of Clarence Wharf jetty, Rotherhithe
This late 19th-century jetty, a unique structure on the Thames, served Clarence Wharf in Rotherhithe until about five years ago, when it was unfit to be used owing to the badly corroded deck.
When developers moved in to the site in 1996 it was intended to demolish it, apart from a small piece. However, locals saw the jetty as a recreational asset to the area, and a highlight on the Thames Walk. Local residents, Simon Hughes, and the London Rivers Association campaigned to the LDDC and the Department of National Heritage to save it. It has now been totally refurbished by Bellway Homes at a cost of nearly three quarters of a million pounds. The completely new, steel-framed deck, designed by the architects Clague of Ashford, Kent, is split onto two levels, connected by tapering stairs, with hardwood decking and handrails. Safety and feature lighting have ensured the jetty is adequately lit at night, and they highlight a birdlike canopy sculpture at the end of the gangway from the Thames Walk.
The public is free to go onto the jetty and it can be accessed by wheel chairs to the centre part. Clarence Wharf Jetty is the only one of its size on the Thames and only a mile down the river from Tower Bridge. At the jetty the Thames is 400 metres wide (a quarter of a mile). It is an experience to see how large the Thames is at this point in Central London and one can only be inspired by its grandeur.
The jetty was originally built by the South Metropolitan Gas Company in 1882, after they had taken over the Surrey Consumers Gas Company, who owned the Rotherhithe Gas Works. It stood out in the Thames beyond the low water mark, to receive the iron-built steam colliers which brought coal to the works from the Newcastle area. The coal was heated in closed retorts to produce coal gas, with coke and tar as by-products.
The jetty was extended upstream in 1908, when it was given a new steel deck, and it continued in use until the gas works closed in 1959. The sand and gravel firm, Redland Aggregates, then used it for another 33 years to land sea-dredged ballast. This salt-laden material was harmful to the steelwork of the deck, and it finally ceased work in 1992.
The structure stands on massive piers in the form of hollow cast-iron cylinders, about 1.5 metres in diameter. The four at the upstream end, which were added later, have distinctive bottle-shaped tops with projecting brackets, like 'ears' which supported the old deck girders. (There are similar ones in the much larger gas works jetty near the East Greenwich Millennium site). The hollow piers were cast in sections in a foundry, and shipped to Rotherhithe, bolted together through flanges inside so that the joints cannot readily be seen, and sunk into the river bed. The insides were then filled up with concrete.
It serves as a grand memorial to the talents of the Victorian men of Southwark who built this jetty using methods of their time. This technique of construction was first used in London in 1860 to build the Hungerford Railway Bridge between Charing Cross and the South Bank. Clarence Wharf Jetty will now serve as a lasting reminder of Rotherhithe's industrial heritage.
Clarence Wharf Jetty can be reached from Rotherhithe Street near the junction of Brunel Road and Salter Road. There is unrestricted parking along Rotherhithe Street and Rotherhithe Underground station is close by, but is currently closed for refurbishment. A frequent bus service operates between stations. Andy Hind
Why is industrial archaeology so unpopular? It seems particularly unattractive to people young enough never to have known working industry at first hand and part of the distaste is probably due to the name. Factory work has dreadful connotations involving exploitation, appalling working conditions and diseases associated with particular trades which reduce the life expectancy of the unfortunates who worked in them. Is industrial archaeology something horrible most people would prefer not to think about? The word industry itself seems now to be perceived as unpleasant, perhaps even in its other sense of diligence or hard work.
Of course industrial archaeology covers far more than the study of old factories but phrases such as 'the romance of industry' and 'the wonders of engineering' are redolent of the titles of nineteen thirties books for boys and have a decidedly dated flavour. Some effort has been made to find a better name for our interests but industrial heritage is not that appealing and again we are saddled with the unfortunate word industry which appears to be widely regarded with horror. Manufacturing industry is now largely confined to areas of the Developing World where workers are generally believed to be badly treated and exploited and the polite preference not to be associated with trade is very persistent.
We do concern ourselves with public services and transport but railway enthusiasts are considered pathetically anti-social and are now even the butt of advertising jokes so we don't want to be associated with them. The word archaeologist has a pleasant ring but there is then an unfortunate general assumption that archaeologists only dig things up (literally). The study of the past seems to be well regarded and popular provided that past is either long ago or very comfortable. Escapism seems to be an important ingredient in order to explain, at least subliminally, why a particular largely unpaid activity is worth pursuing. To a considerable proportion of the population industrial archaeology is regarded as an activity only associated with old men who were once engineers and at that engineers in the sense of factory hands who went around with a swab of oily cotton waste in disgusting and unhygienic conditions.
In the West scientists seem to be mostly old men and almost no-one studies engineering at university to pursue a career as an engineer afterwards. Bright capable younger people go into the City to make money and one wonders who will be around to understand what industrial archaeology was all about in say 40 years' time. Trends in history of technology are leading to sociological rather than technical studies and the mechanical engineering culture of 40 years ago is becoming ancient Greek to an increasing proportion of the population. There might be a case for concentrating on social history rather than the nuts and bolts of engineering in that future generations will simply not be equipped to understand the details of what was done in the industries of the last hundred years or so. To a manager a machine can be a 'black box' whose interior is totally unpenetratable and the understanding of which is in any case unnecessary. Industrial archaeology whatever change of name is contemplated might become equally expendable if we cannot broaden its appeal and interest succeeding generations. Bob Carr