Walking London's Waterways: Great Routes for Walking, Running and Cycling Along Docks, Rivers and Canals by Gilly Cameron-Cooper

Author:Gilly Cameron-Cooper [Cameron-Cooper, Gilly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General, Travel, Special Interest, Hikes & Walks, Museums; Tours; Points of Interest
ISBN: 9781607652700
Google: 7_6ZDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing
Published: 2016-12-01T20:29:06+00:00

Sea aster

Henry VIII’s Woolwich

Go up steps and round to the right to walk under the flood barrier; continue until steps lead up to the Terrace Café and Information Centre. At the time of writing, the next part of the route is an ‘interim path’ directing us inland. Go behind the café towards the Learning Centre and turn right along the road, following the walls of a red-brick factory-cum-warehouse. At the junction – with a ‘noted stout house’ (now an animal welfare clinic) on the right – go straight across to walk along a cycle path through a little park planted with silver birches. At the main Woolwich Road, turn left following the ‘interim footpath’ signs to a roundabout. Take the second left to go past warehouses and a big chimney, right, the site of the former Boiler Works and Iron Foundry.

Take the first road left into a housing estate, built on the site of Woolwich Dockyard, which was founded in 1513 by King Henry VIII. At the junction, go straight across the road and a community garden, under the building and through an unlocked gate to the riverside. Woolwich probably started off as a harbour and market for wool: this is what the Anglo-Saxon name signifies, just as Lambeth was possibly a ‘lamb wharf’, for animals being transported across the river from the grazing fields of Essex. Henry changed all that by deciding to build his new dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford instead of Portsmouth. They were closer to the armouries and labour supply of London and to the king’s favourite palace at Greenwich. The establishment of the Royal Laboratory, later the Royal Arsenal, half a mile or so downstream in 1695 was even more convenient for complementary arms supplies, and the dockyard held its own for the next couple of centuries. In the 19th century, despite having the first plant for repairing ships’ steam engines in a naval dockyard, it failed to keep up with technological advances, and eventually closed in 1869. Woolwich was also a garrison town, home of the Royal Artillery, but this too has now gone.

Turn right along the riverside path; across the water is the massive Tate & Lyle sugar refinery building. Turn right and continue along the riverside, up and over an iron folly of a footbridge and, when you reach the cannons, turn right up the steps. The route via Defiance Walk passes the 18th-century Clocktower House on the right. This was the former base of the Admiral-Superintendent of the dockyard, whose job was to make sure that Admiralty instructions were carried out. Exit through the old dockyard gates and cross the road to Woolwich Dockyard Railway Station, which you see ahead to the left.

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