2020 Vision: An Imaginary Voyage through Deptford

An Imaginary Voyage Through Deptford 2020

Since we had passed the statue, Jack was convinced he was as tall as Peter the Great, until we got to Twinkle Park and he could no longer see us above the bulrushes. Besides, now Jack was dwarfed by the giant Red Lion. The lion had recently been repainted. I quite liked the graffiti and hoped it would stay but since the lion commemorates the pub that stood on the site of the park it apparently has to be red. It’s been here a long time. The Red Lion was one of the first in a series of sculptures that commemorate the pub names that surrounded the dockyard. There used to be dozens of such pubs. There was also the Red Cow. Along Prince Street near the Dog and Bell there was the Lord Nelson, the Navy Arms that used to be the Rose and Crown, then the Griffin directly opposite, The Peter the Great Tavern was in the dockyard itself, well that’s re-opened so it doesn’t have a sculpture, the Globe that features in Pepys diary is still there on Evelyn Street ….. On Watergate Street, the Bull and Butcher, there was a lot of fuss at first because everyone thought the sculpture of the butcher shouldn’t be a woman, until they learned about the Gut Girls in the Foreign Cattle Market. Anyway the sculptures have added a lot of colour to the area and there were all made by artists that had worked at the Faircharm state when it was largely studios. Then there was the Mansion House and the Three Jolly Sailors right by the Upper Watergate. I can’t remember them all.

The children started to sing “Twinkle twinkle….” They were singing and laughing as they skipped ahead through the old dockyard gate, I discreetly turned one last time to catch a glimpse of the serene Chinese woman we’d been watching, deeply absorbed in her Tai Chi. Her presence seemed to draw together all the elements of the little park, the trees, the rocks and water. The blackness of the moorhens scattering across the pond seemed suddenly more intense amongst the bright yellow iris. I felt hypnotized as the woman moved her arms and hands in meticulous slow motion…….

“Twinkle twinkle little star…..” they shouted at the tops of their voices as they ran into the Clerk of the Cheque’s garden chasing each other around the neat squares of box hedging and around the ‘witches hat’ bay trees and the ‘ice-cream’ twirled yew trees. They were immediately stopped in their tracks and went completely silent as they laid eyes on the brightly coloured Nicki de Saint Phalle moving sculptures in the Head Dock. I knew the children would love them but didn’t say anything to them as I wanted to see their reaction. The brightly coloured sculptures were on loan from the Centre Pompidou in Paris and did look wonderful swirling and dipping close to the water. We stood watching for a while on the bridge that crosses the gates of the head dock. As I looked down at the monumental stone blocks that make up the dock my mind drifted to the now absent noise of the hammering, sawing, calling of the shipwright’s over maybe more than five centuries of labour in this dock. I had almost forgotten that Jane was joining us today because she wanted to see the newly opened dockyard Officer’s gardens that had been restored according to details shown on some early plans. Apparently, Jane said, there was a direct correspondence with the plans and the traces of fountains and pathways that were found during archaeology. In the case of the dockyard gardens Deptford was following the hugely successful restoration of the Officers’ Gardens in the dockyard at Chatham. We had been to see those so Jane was especially interested to see how Deptford’s would compare.

I knew that Jane would be meticulous about her visit, she had been looking forward to the opening of the gardens and every time she had come to view the progress of the restoration and the contemporary re-interpretation of John Evelyn’s Sayes Court Garden, she would try to get a peek through the fence to check the progress of the gardens of the Officer’s Terrace, and of course to check that the designs were accurate. Jane had managed to get a copy of an original print of the dockyard from 1753 that showed the officers’ gardens in detail. It was Jane who had told me about Deptford dockyard’s links to Kew Gardens. Every time she visits she always brings Strelizia, bird of paradise flowers and as she puts them in the vase, it’s as if she’s never uttered the words before, she begins to tell the story of Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz being fetched from the Elbe in the Royal Charlotte Yacht to marry George III. She had managed to find a copy of the Scots magazine on Ebay that contained a contemporary account of the events, how the Royal Charlotte yacht was prepared for the voyage in the basin at Deptford. I said it must be copy but she’s convinced it’s an original from 1761. As she arranges the flowers she describes how the crew “were dressed at his majesties private expense in a red uniform with gold laced hats, light grey stockings with buckles and pumps,” Jane can go on forever about the number of nationally significant voyages started in the dockyard at Deptford, Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher, Cook……..Somehow it doesn’t matter what we’re discussing, eventually it all comes back to Deptford, one way or another, the origin of the Bank of England with the East India Company, the origin of the National Trust with Sayes Court, the discovery of Australia, the founding of the first British colonies in America. Just about everything, the first salaried and pensioned workers, I’ve usually stopped paying attention at this stage, and also something to do with dockyard labourers from Deptford erecting the palm house at Kew, and something to do with an entire garden being sent from Kew to the dockyard to be shipped to Catherine the Great and Potemkin who were crazy for English gardens. Everything either started in Deptford or comes back to Deptford, oh including the Golden Hinde that of course did both! I’m not sure where she gets this stuff from but she must be talking some sense.
Jane has now been asked to be a trustee for the Sayes Court Young Peoples’ Program but that’s based on her years of youth work all over London rather than her encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of Deptford. It’s an incredible opportunity for her to be able to bring together her two areas of expertise but she doesn’t see it that way at all, she absolutely believes in the power of planting and gardening, to transform these kids lives. Well at least it gives them a good qualification with real experience and practice behind it and the opportunity of getting a good job. She’s already been involved in the project as a volunteer and even got her sister’s boy a place on the apprenticeship scheme. He’d never done well at school, was always in trouble with the police and on one occasion it was quite serious. Anyway she got him a place on the youth training scheme and he loved it. He’s now working full time in the garden at Great Dixter. They’re one of the partners in the Sayes Court Garden Restoration along with Kew. Of course Jane reminds me she’s only following in the tradition of the McMillan sisters who caused an absolute uproar when they encouraged kids to plant vegetables in St. Nicholas churchyard. Apparently, Jane’s managed to persuade the guys who are constructing the Lenox replica ship that when it eventually launches she is going to strew the slipways with flowers from the Sayes Court gardens.
I know that Jane will want some peace for her visit to the garden, she can sit and walk for hours in Sayes Court, she never tires of it, so I take the children to see the foreshore finds at the Landing Place and Lookout. It’s great, part of the restored Look out building is a little café and you can look through the windows at the other section of the pavilion at a collection of fore-shore finds. It wasn’t difficult to replicate the little pavilion. They had been painted from various angles in several different John Cleveley paintings in the eighteenth century. Funny, he couldn’t possibly have known then what a resource he was leaving behind. But he was clearly a man who loved the dockyard. He must have painted it more than half a dozen times, each time finding some new detail, or new perspective. Jane did tell me either he was born in Deptford or was a shipwright in Deptford or maybe both. I once went to see one of his Deptford paintings up for sale in a gallery on Bond Street, you could get right up close and see the breath in the brushstroke. Someone once told me that an oil painting never fully dries out. Imagine, that moment of applying the paint, still present in the liquid surface. Now all the Cleveley paintings are back here in Deptford. I suppose since he lived here they must have all been painted here. Not all are the originals, the Maritime Museum have permanently loaned theirs and the Science Museum still had one which they gave to the Deptford Lenox Trust which gave them some capital enabling them to raise further funds. The Paul Mellon Foundation loaned theirs from Yale for the exhibition that they sponsored called ‘Mapping Deptford: drawings, paintings and plans from five hundred years 1513-2013’ and after the exhibition they allowed their Cleveley to remain permanently in Deptford. Oh, and one is a copy of one painting still in private hands. So that’s all the John Cleveley Seniors and there are a few John Cleveley Junior’s on display with the 1774 scale model and a number of ships models actually displayed in the model making rooms where they were made. No, actually, that can’t be right because I remember last time we went to the Master Shipwright’s Offices, Jane had told me that the Master Shipwright’s Repository, the Model Making and Drawing Rooms were only added in 1805 and some of the models are much earlier than that. I think I fell asleep when she was telling me about how Brigadier General Sir Samuel Bentham, who had added the top floor range to the Office, had been obscured by his more renowned brother Jeremy Betham, but was in fact the great-unsung hero of the Industrial Revolution. That’s why she sent me several links to websites and articles about him, again, something to do with building a navy for Potemkin and Catherine the Great. Anyway thanks to John Cleveley the Landing Place and Look pavilions could be accurately reconstructed with measurements taken from other plans of the yard. It was a cool idea to use the pavilion for a café and for the permanent finds exhibition. Most of the finds came from the foreshore in front of the dockyard, Lots of the finds have been donated by people who had been collecting pieces for years and wanted them to be where they would be understood and appreciated the most. There is even one piece from the Viking times found in the area of the early mast pond, which even though its tiny, the kids love it and its an easy name for them to remember. It’s called Viking snap and it was a kind of currency worn as jewelry. This is my favourite part of the dockyard because there is a story attached to each find on display and every now and then new finds are displayed so it’s a constantly evolving exhibition that everyone can participate in. One of my favourite pieces is the buckle from a rifle belt that came from a soldier on a ship that was on its way to fight on the royalist side in the American War of Independence, its quite faint but you can make out the writing on it that says, Loyal County Wicklow Rangers. Jack thinks its from a football team, but what actually happened was that the ship had left Ireland with loyalists to fight on behalf of the Crown and as the ship was crossing the Atlantic its mast broke and it had to return to Deptford to be repaired. It must have been dropped by a soldier here and remained on the foreshore all that time. Jane managed to find that out, don’t ask me how. My other favourite piece is a little brass Estee Lauder lipstick from the World War II. It had never been used. I wonder whether it was a marine or a Deptford lass that threw the lipstick in the river? Still it lasted for over fifty years in the Thames! I’m not sure what that says about the lipstick. Attached to this item is the story that 11 U.S. Marines were killed at the quayside of the dockyard when a V2 rocket hit their LSTs moored up here after the Sicily landings. I hadn’t realized, till Jane pointed it out, that the two great steel girders rising up above the tide from the foreshore depict the number eleven at the exact spot where they died. The names of the marines that were killed that day are soldered onto the steel girders above the tide-line. The people behind the memorial had tried to get the then president Barack Obama to open the memorial but his wife came instead.
Its incredible really that there is all this stuff, going back to the Vikings and even WWII and yet most of it is really small stuff but they also hold the keys to such huge stories that are significant moments in history. Georgia is always sure she’s going to find something from the Viking period. She never gives up, even though she mostly only finds clay pipes. She’s got quite a collection already and is so proud that one of her pipes is on display in the Landing Place Pavilion. Apparently it’s a very early pipe from about 1620. So she knows all about Sir Walter Raleigh and tobacco and why Virginia is called Virginia, not the tobacco but the state. She chose to write about it for a school project. It’s a good thing that the finds are displayed because it also helps people to know what to look for and its right by the landing steps that lead right down onto the foreshore so people can check things with the attendant when they come back after their mud-larking. What amazes me is the quality of the causeway leading from the Landing steps onto the foreshore. It was built in 1720 in front of the new storehouse and its still there, not a stone out of place. Keith was making us laugh the other day about the paving on the High Street that hasn’t lasted even ten years and this has been there for nearly three hundred years and how many tides? Two tides a day for 300 years. That’s something like well over 100,000 tides. Anyway, were not going down onto the foreshore today because today is a particularly special day as we’ve managed to get tickets to see the inside of the Lenox. Its so exciting and Jack can’t wait to get inside. We’ve been many times before, we got the residents reduced rate pass for multiple visits. So we’ve been plenty of times and it changes every time. The last time we came we spent time watching the canvas sewing. I thought it might be a bit boring but you got the chance to have a go and when Jack and Georgina realized that they could write their name on the sail, and this would then be sewn over they got really excited. In the end, Jack wrote his grandpa’s name. He used to love to come with us too, even though he knew he wouldn’t live long enough to see the ship afloat. He’d worked in naval dockyards himself where asbestos was rife, nobody thought a thing of it. Mesothelioma. The kids used to have a competition to see who could spell it correctly.
On board the Lenox the officers’ cabins are looking fantastic. Who would have believed that when the keel was laid and the timbers were up, even when the planking was finished, there were still some people who said it would never be finished? At least not even get this far? It’s remarkable how the officers’ cabins resemble the lovely paneled rooms in the Lenox Project house in Albury Street. It was such a stroke of luck for the Lenox project to get that house to use as offices for the duration of the project. It all adds to the overall connection of maritime Deptford, with St. Nicholas Church, The Victualling yard buildings and their ‘Deptford In WWI &WWII’ exhibition of the Supply Reserve Depot and then there’s the musical The Female Shipwright still playing at the Albany after its successful West-End run. Its been amazing to see the transformation of the dockyard after the return of Henry VIII’s foundation stone from 1513 and then the 1720 Clocktower and bell coming back, the opening up of the bright expanse of water in front of the Olympia sheds made complete sense and the number of people who stay to watch the caisson gate go up or down is incredible. It took me a while to see that the giant steel globe in the centre of the basin reflects the image of the Golden Hind, but in miniature. It’s really clever, because as the globe turns, you see this tiny reflection of the Golden Hind, circumventing the globe. As the visitor numbers grew to see the Lenox, the owners of the Golden Hind thought that it would be a good idea to bring the replica from St. Mary Ovary to Deptford where she really belongs. This encouraged the people who run the Endeavour to choose the basin at Deptford for her home in the western hemisphere. When the Lenox is finished she’ll also ride in the basin. It’s all happened quite naturally, it just snowballed. Now Deptford is the home to three replica ships and the Lenox Project are talking to the Maritime Museum about the return of the royal barges apparently the Guild of Shipwrights and some other City guilds that had links to Trinity House of Deptford Stronde are keen on funding this part of the project. Jane was telling me about Trinity Monday when all the great and the good took to their barges in the City of London to come to Deptford to come to elect a new master of the Bretheren of Trinity House of Deptford Stronde and to hear a sermon at St. Nicholas then there was a big knees-up in the Trinity Alms Houses. Of course the City of London has strong links to the dockyard, through Bridge House Estates and also the Corporation of London owned the site for the Foreign Cattle Market until it was requisitioned by the War Office to supply the troops in the field for WWI and WWII. The famous Cadbury’s chocolate bar tins were shipped from Deptford to battlefronts all over the world in 1912. Imagine a single site in London of this size still in one piece even after five hundred years, with so much history,
and yet it could have so easily been completely overlooked and become just another bland property speculation along the river.

Last time we were here, we got talking to a group from the Netherlands who had come straight here on the new ferry from Rotterdam and docked in Deptford just to see the Seven Bridges that cross the openings of the dock, slipways, basin and mast ponds along the waterfront. They had read about the Seven Bridges Project in an article in the Architectural Journal celebrating Deptford’s second Stirling Prize (the first was Laban) but were just as impressed with the environmental and ecological re-use of the mast ponds as a place for bird life on the Thames to nest and feed. I think Jane gave them a link to the eco-project website. Incredible really, one day is not long enough to visit all the sites, the temporary sculpture exhibition in the dry dock, the reconstruction of the Lenox, the gardens of the Officers’ Terrace and the Sayes Court Youth Project, the foreshore finds and the all the maps, plans, paintings and models of the yard no wonder people are ready for a sit down when they get to the Albany for ‘Female Shipwright’, the musical. Its quite incredible how the English language is so full of naval phrases, there’s lots of them in the musical, of course Jack’s favourite is “freezing the balls off a brass monkey” even though he now knows what it really means. The show has been such a success, a few weeks ago we couldn’t even get a table at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant in the High Street, Georgia loves their summer rolls.

Having a royal dockyard so close to London, that attracts so many hundreds of thousands of visitors has, apparently, what with all the publicity around the Lenox, what did the press call it? “a major national heritage enterprise”, ended up increasing the visits to Portsmouth, Chatham, Sheerness, Plymouth and even Pembroke. So now you can get a pass that allows access to all the yards, and it’s partly funded by Network Rail. It has something to do with Deptford being the first urban railway station in London, so Jane said.

The success of the Lenox project has really captured the imagination of the funders and there have been lots of spin off social projects. Now that Deptford has been twinned with all the former dockyard towns of the colonies there’s now an incredible School’s Exchange Program coming up where the youngsters can choose whether they go to Bermuda, Chennai, Malta, Simon’s Town or one of the many former overseas dockyard towns .You see, Deptford was the dockyard responsible for supplying all the overseas yards, so there have been links for centuries, according to Jane, everything from paper and ink to whatever was needed to build or repair a ship. There was even an entire flat-pack building sent to Bermuda in the 1800’s. But unlike the infamous furniture, this building lasted for years and still exists. It’s now pride of place in their dockyard. Anyway, for this school’s exchange, Georgia wants to go to Malta, where apparently the door-cases on the houses in Valetta are even more impressive than the ones in Albury Street. Georgia’s a keen artist and spent days drawing the door-cases on Albury Street. Her favorites were the little naked babies. Jack has plumbed for Simon’s Town in South Africa, he thinks he’ll see tigers and elephants there, not just penguins. Jane and I are off to Bermuda…Just kidding, but I have promised to go with her to see her sister in Yorkshire. I secretly want to go to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Ever since the Henry Moore Foundation decided to be the principal funder for Summer Sculpture on the Jetty it’s got me really interested in sculpture again. That project has recently expanded and now it now includes installations in the gardens at Laban and Jane said there’s talk of a exhibition coming from the Antoine Bourdelle Museum in Paris. I much prefer his work to Rodin. I hope the centaur gets to come along and the archer, they are both remarkable.


Who would have thought that all this potential, what does Jane call it, ‘historic cultural capital’, not the place, the stuff, the stories, was lying buried beneath just a few inches of concrete for a hundred years. Jack says it’s just like Sleeping Beauty, put to sleep by the wicked witch. I remember when someone asked me why do you still live in Deptford, and I remember saying it was the Cape Canaveral of its day that I didn’t know anywhere else in London that had so much history, so much latent potential and yet so little to show for it. It’s compelling. Now there’s all this. The replica of the Lenox is almost complete. Sayes Court garden receives more visitors each year as people come back again and again. Training on the Lenox Youth Project and Sayes Court Garden Project has given young people opportunities they would never had had. The international links that Deptford has re-made with other dockyard towns has broadened the horizons and raised the aspirations of many school pupils. Deptford is now a place where people come to stay in hotels, eat in the restaurants, see major international standard exhibitions of sculpture.
Who would have believed it a few years ago?

As we left the dockyard we passed through Twinkle Park, the Tai Chi woman was sitting by the rock under the birch tree and the Red Lion was now once again emblazoned with a striking black graffiti tag. It looked much better than before.

The Last Launch at Deptford?

THE LAST LAUNCH AT DEPTFORD.
Loyalty and Lovingly Dedicated by Mr. Punch to H.RH. Princess Louise.
If there's a spirit of the tree, as fair Greek fable tells.

And the green blood of the Dryad is the sap of acorn-bells,

Not death, but higher life, befalls the Nymphs of the oak-trees 
That are squared and shaped, and set to frame the ships that rule the seas.
And they were not doleful Dryads, but exulting ones that spread 
Their unseen wings for shelter of Louise's gracious head,

As she faced the nipping March wind, like a daughter of the sea, 
To christen the last war-ship that from Deptford launched will be.
Lift high the wine, sweet Princess, and with blood-red baptism crown, 
The bows, slow creeping streamwards, as the dog-shores are struck
down: And, fit name for last heart of oak that from Deptford-slips shall glide, Bid God speed " to The Druid, as she curtesies to the tide.
Tis the last launch from Deptford: the old yard has had its day;


Times change and war-ships with them: oak yields to iron's sway: 
There are wider slips and statelier sheds, and broader quays elsewhere, 
And Wisdom says "concentrate," and Thrift says "save and spare."
Deptford is now a frowsy place, ill-smelling, dank and low, 
Where muddy banks are eat away by a foul stream's festering flow: 
Where low Vice haunts and flaunts, and flares, fed full on sailors' gains, 
And threatening them with surer wreck than all lee-shores or mains.

But the Deptford that we look on, to whose yard we bid good bye, 
Was once the Deptford, where, in pride. The Great Harry wont to lie; 
Where, lusty King to lordly ship, from his Greenwich palace near, 
Bluff King Hal among his shipwrights showed broad breast and face of cheer.
With delicate Anne Boleyn upon his brawny arm— 
Lamb and Lion,—monarch's majesty, enhancing woman's charm— 
To mark, well-pleased, how in his yard the work sped swift along, 
from fair keel to tall top-side of swift pink and carrack strong.
And rapid ran the Ravensboume, a cleanly country stream, 
Glassing in its bright bosom, brave attire, and banners' gleam, 
When, fene'd in tower of jewelled ruff and tun of pearled robe. 
Came good Queen Bess to welcome Cattain Drake from round the globe
'Twas in this very Deptford creek was drawn The Golden Hind, 
Fragrant with spices of New Spain, rich with heap'd spoils of Ind, 
As to bold Queen bold Buccaneer knelt on his own deck-board 
Plain Captain Drake, and rose again Sib Francis from her sword.
Twas in Deptford yard, from reign to reign, the Petts* their credit
won, Handing their craft of ship-builder from famous sire to son; To Deptford smug Sam Pepys took boat, in Charles's thriftless day, To note "how still our debts do grow, and our fleet do decay."
And hither, from the fair-trimmed yews and hollies of Sayes Court, 
Came a burly, bull-necked Muscovite, for labour and disport; 
Sturdy swinker, lusty drinker; king with king, and tar with tar, 
The Northern Demiurgus, Russ Prometheus, Peter Tzar.
Richer in slips and stores and sheds, there be other yards, I trow, 
But none more rich in memories. Old Deptford yard, than thou. 
It was well done and worthily of a Princess fair and sweet, 
To christen the last war-babe, born

of thee into our fleet.
And may The Druid ne'er disgrace the parentage she owns, 
Or mar the glorious memories that spring from Deptford stones: 
May she bear her worthy England, and the white baud that but now 
Has dashed the wine of baptism upon her shapely bow!

• The Petts were the hereditary ship- builder* of the English navy from the days of James The First to those of James The Second.
A Third Co

Foundation Stone 1513

once upon a time...A vision for Deptford

worldwide interest in Deptford

whilst its always fascinating to see where people are reading the blog, and encouraging that so many people in so many places across the world are interested in Deptford's history, from Mexico to Moscow, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia to New Cross, its especially interesting to see that today someone from Baghdad is taking an interest. Perhaps it has something to do with heritage assets at risk?

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Heritage Assets At Risk: King’s Yard, Convoy’s Wharf Deptford

This article follows two extensive pieces of research carried out in response to a recent decision by English Heritage not to recommend statutory protection on the heritage assets at the former Royal Naval Dockyard at Deptford. For the purposes of brevity I have not included all the data contained in those responses. As a result of the submission of the material to English Heritage demonstrating significant errors in their research, the decision that had been ratified by DCMS is currently being reviewed.

Heritage Assets At Risk: King’s Yard, Convoy’s Wharf Deptford
December 2010
Chris Mazeika


The Royal Dockyards are amongst the most long-lived, extensive and coherent monuments to the history of the United Kingdom. Many of the industrial, technological, military and social changes that occurred in the post-modern and modern periods are embedded within their surviving fabric.
Anthony Firth, Wessex Archaeology 2004.


The royal dockyard at Deptford is understudied in comparison with other royal dockyards leading to the oft-repeated statement that little of the dockyard at Deptford survives. However, in The Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology (Charles Orser 2002), David Divers writes,

“Trial excavations, prior to the redevelopment of the dockyard site, have revealed that most of the main features of the dockyard, the storehouses, dry docks, slipways, ponds and the basin still survive below ground level.”

Whilst more recent developer led archaeology seeks to diminish this statement, it does not contradict this summary view.

In the past, historic assets at Deptford have remained largely disregarded by the elite of heritage officials. In 1954, whilst the dry dock for the Cutty Sark was being constructed in Greenwich, Deptford was witnessing the demolition of Henry VIII’s Great Storehouse of 1513, the earliest naval building in the country. Thirty years later, in 1984, the last of the 1720’s storehouse with its fine early Georgian clock-tower and belfry were swept away. At the present time, some £40 million is being spent rebuilding the Cutty Sark after it was destroyed by fire. By the time Deptford dockyard approaches its quintentenary in 2013, it could remain buried under the development proposed by Hutchison Whampoa. None of the dockyard structures proper, its’ docks, slips, basins or mast ponds are yet to receive statutory heritage protection. This is a state of play that places Deptford outside of the resources expended on statutory protection and may amount to a form of social exclusion. The imminent development of the site of the dockyard seeks to leave no trace of the former dockyard other than the GII listed basin slipway covers, and landscaping over the Tudor double dry dock.

How has this deplorable neglect by the statutory agencies charged and publicly funded to protect heritage assets arisen?

In the 1999/2000 Alan Howarth review of heritage assets in royal dockyards Deptford was omitted form consideration.
Another serious problem lies in the resources that English Heritage has employed to determine the significance of Henry VIII’s royal dockyard at Deptford. To date the secondary source material depended on by English Heritage to assess the significance of Deptford dockyard consists of three sources. These are, Jonathan Coad’s The Royal Dockyards, 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy (Scholar Press 1989), English HeritageThematic Survey of English Naval Dockyards. Summary Report: Thematic Listing Programme (Lake and Douet, 1998) and Heritage Protection Department, English Heritage, Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide (March 2007).

Whilst it is widely recognized that Jonathan Coad is the pre-eminent historian of architecture and engineering in the royal yards, data on Deptford dockyard did not substantially inform Coad’s study. To date, assessment of the significance of the royal dockyards has so far been achieved without the inclusion of data concerning the dockyard at Deptford. Therefore, the whole understanding of the sequential development in all of the yards requires review once data concerning Deptford royal dockyard is incorporated. The opportunity provided by secondary stage archaeology at Deptford may reveal insights to the development of the yards where such archaeology is not presently possible at the other royal dockyards.

Due to the omission of data on Deptford in the studies listed above several conclusions asserted by the authors are incorrect and have impacted negatively on a precise understanding of the heritage assets at Deptford.

This article is developed from a report sent to EH, following their recent decision not to confer statutory heritage protection on the surviving dockyard structures at Deptford. These consist of the double dry dock, the wet dock (basin) slipways deserve attention because, like the 1513 storehouse (SAM), they too have their origin in the Tudor period. The mast ponds, whilst later, dated to c.1650 and c.1765 also deserve further study. Perhaps more crucially, because Deptford has so far remained immured from research agendas, its further study through extensive archaeology will have implications for our understanding of the contribution it makes to the development of royal dockyards as a whole and for its contribution to developments in domestic architecture in Europe, as well of for its contributions to civil engineering in the early nineteenth century.

As one, if not the earliest of royal naval yards, the survival of its earliest plan illuminates the Tudor and Stuart organization of dockyards while its Restoration and Hanoverian expansions remain intact. The presence on the site of two essentially domestic examples of dockyard architecture, the Queen Anne, Master Shipwright’s House of 1708 and the Officers’ Offices of 1720 both testify to earlier eponymous structures built on the same sites. As the site of the first wet dock c.1517, this technology was later exported to the Medway and south coast yards.

The recent designation report relating to Deptford dockyard commissioned by EH in June 2010 and certified by the DCMS, contained several errors. This has been challenged by primary source research leading to the decision being reviewed. The review is currently underway. The detailed information here based on primary archive based research is intended as a positive contribution to the new assessment in November 2010.



Assessment of Secondary Resources


Coad, J.G., The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy (1989)
Lake, J. and Douet, J., The Naval Dockyards: A Thematic Survey (1998 English Heritage, unpublished report)
Heritage Protection Department, English Heritage, Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide (March 2007)

Jonathan Coad’s seminal book, The Royal Dockyards, 1690-1850 did not substantially cover the upper Thames yards of Deptford and Woolwich. The omission of information on Deptford in particular means that many conclusions based on comparison of the yards reached by Coad in 1989 can and should now be revised. Lake and Douet’s 1998 survey in advance of the Alan Howarth review of the listing and scheduling of the royal yards in 2000 depended heavily on Coad’s work, “Jonathan Coad has been involved in the study of naval dockyard facilities for nearly thirty years, and the great bulk of information relating to specific buildings, within this report and in the list descriptions, is indebted to his research.” (Lake and Douet 1998:101) Further EH Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide Heritage Protection Department March 2007, repeats the errors and omissions made by Coad and those made by Lake and Douet.

Coad’s omissions are compounded in the Lake and Douet survey. Lake and Douet’s dependence on Coad’s work shows how errors of omission and definitions of significance have continued to ignore Deptford’s contribution as the earliest Naval dockyard proper. This assertion that Deptford is the earliest naval yard, described as “the cradle of the navy” continues to be a controversial claim due to the commissioning of a double dry dock for Henry VII at Portsmouth. However, the facilities at Portsmouth were not substantially developed until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Whilst Woolwich can claim the building of Henry Grace a Dieu in 1512, it was at Deptford that Henry VIII chose to erect his cipher in 1513.



Assessing Significance

Current practice at EH singles out individual components of the dockyard for assessment of their heritage significance.
This approach is challenged based on EH’s own recommendations that,

“A holistic approach should be taken where several original or near contemporary associated structures survive together or where a group of structures displays the evolution of port facilities in one significant place.”
Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide 2007:05

The Deptford site, as with any dockyard, is made up of its constituent parts as an interrelated whole. The history of the development of the yard begins with the double dock, slips, Great Storehouse and basin, together forming the earliest foundation of the yard, c.1513-1517. There is record of royal ships being built, repaired and stored at the Deptford site prior to 1513.
The areas occupied by the mast ponds are well-documented expansions of the yard in the 17th and 18th centuries. In terms of dockyard functions and the interdependence of the structures under consideration here, the Navy depended on all of these structures combined for the build, repair and maintenance of its fleet. Therefore to attempt to single out individual structures for historic significance lacks an intellectual rigor and is counter to English Heritage publicly stated policy and guidelines, since the double dry dock and the basin are all extant c.1517, together they form the earliest part of the yard. It seems to make no sense not to confer SAM status on the far greater material survival of the Basin and double dry dock which both also have their origin in the Tudor period.

Further, the royal naval dockyard at Deptford ought not to be reviewed in isolation from the royal naval victualling yard immediately adjacent to the west, the royal naval hospital at Greenwich to the east, St. Nicholas Church, Deptford the “Westminster Abbey of the British Navy” or the GII* listed Albury Street to the south. If a truly holistic approach is sought commensurate with EH Capitalising on the Historic Landscape (October 2009) then it is time to acknowledge and recognize all of the above when considering the listing and scheduling of Deptford dockyard. It is time to recognize that the existent of the World Heritage Site of Historic Maritime Greenwich depends on the royal dockyard at Deptford for its origins.


Significant Data

The 2009, 2010, first stage developer led archaeology by the Museum of London did not place its trenches to find the most significant remains on the site. When questioned on the apparent haphazardness of the placement of trenches, Duncan Hawkins, leading the work, has claimed that maps and plans that cover a period of 1688 to 1939 can be as much as three metres out and are therefore unreliable. However, given that these plans were often drawn up by the leading cartographers of their time and given the correspondence between such maps and plans and further considering the limited space available say between the Master Shipwright’s House and the Double Dry Dock, his response is highly questionable.

The following significant components have so far been omitted from archaeological investigations. These omissions seriously weaken present attempts to assess both heritage and archaeological significance.

1. Head dock and gates to head dock of the double dry dock
2. Gates to the mast pond of the 17th and another gate of the 18th century
3. 18th gates to basin and the John Rennie floating caisson of the 19th century
4. Stone Slipways to boathouses
5. Officers’ Palace front Terrace
6. River Steps 1720

Deptford’s significant contributions to the development of the royal dockyards requiring reassessment:

Officers’ Terrace
Officers’ Offices
Double Dry Dock
Wet Dock/Basin
Iron Slipway Covers
Slipways
Mast Ponds
River wall and King’s Stairs



Specific Amendments and Corrections to Coad (1989) and to Lake and Douet (1998) Heritage Protection Department (2007)

Lake and Douet’s 1998 survey reads,

“At the smaller yards abandoned during the nineteenth century, Deptford, Woolwich and Harwich, no features of interest, apart from those already protected, have survived.” (Lake and Douet 1998:05)

Coad’s book covers the period 1690 -1850 by which time Deptford, as a royal dockyard, has been in existence for almost two hundred years. Henry VII commissioned the building of a double dock at Portsmouth in 1495, however before the middle of the seventeenth century this had fallen into disrepair and its use was discontinued. There is also evidence of a dock at Deptford as early as 1420 when the Katrine came from Greenwich to be put on the stocks in a “dook” at Deptford. (Hasted History of Kent: Maritime History :337)

Archaeology by CgMs and Pre-Construct Archaeology in 2000 (Hawkins) 2000 (Lowe), 2001 (Divers) disproves Lake and Douet’s 1998 assertion that at Deptford “no features of interest, apart from those already protected, have survived.”

Archaeology has proven that “by far the greater part of the dockyard survives as buried structures filled in intact between 1869 and 1950.” (Divers 2002)

At Rochefort dockyard on the river Charente in France, the
in-filling of docks with mud, that occurred after the closure of the yard, has been proven to have performed a conservation function for almost a hundred years permitting the excavation of the docks and basins providing for their present day re-use.
(See http://www.hermione.com/en/)

Archaeology reports of the Deptford site state, “The structures of the yard proper, the docks, slips, basins, mast ponds landing places and stairs, constitute a substantial architectural fabric that is currently extant, though largely invisible, being covered by superficial accretion or infill.” (David Divers. Jan 2001:12/ 3.5.14).

With regard to the impact of developments subsequent to infill Divers adds, “major dockyard features survive across much of the site and that later activities on the site have had relatively little impact on these remains.” (Divers 2001:69/9.1.4)

Divers concludes, “the evaluation has established that the major features of the dockyard have survived in their predicted locations with little evidence for widespread truncation by later activities on the site.” (Divers 2001:71/9.4.2)

These statements above have not been contested by the 2010 archaeology reports. Where truncation has occurred even at depths of more than 3m, this truncation proves to be isolated given the vast expanse of the majority of structures under consideration.

The majority of above ground dockyard buildings survived into the post WWII period, as evidenced by a series of photographs of the Supply Reserve Depot c.1953. The large and small Smitheries, Joiner’s workshop, Account’s Office, Coach house and stable belonging to the dockyard, were taken down and sold off piece-meal in June 1872. The majority demolition of royal dockyard buildings at Deptford occurs in the thirty-year period 1954 to 1984. Construction phases therefore occur post 1954. Plans of building phases throughout this period in the National Archives and London Metropolitan Archives as well as Local Authority Archives allow for thorough analysis of potential truncation of historic structures by these mid to late twentieth century building phases.
As the majority of buildings constructed post-war were warehouse buildings, these ephemeral structures, as confirmed by archaeology, created little truncation and where this has occurred it is likely to have had minimal impact.




Wet Dock/Basin

The pond at Deptford that becomes the wet dock or basin is a naturally occurring feature that may prove to be the logical reason, alongside established shipbuilding skills in the area, for Henry VIII’s decision to site the dockyard at Deptford in 1513. By 1517 we know that the King’s ships, including the Mary Rose ride safely in the pond there.

In relation to wet docks (basins) Coad credits Dummer with their development as a solution to the risk of damage to ships from storms “The solution, first adopted at the south coast yards in the 1690’s, was the construction of wet docks.’ (Coad1989:89) In Dummer’s survey of 1698 the wet dock is detailed in 1688. By 1690, the date given by Coad for the first provision of wet docks in royal yards, a wet dock had been in operation at Deptford for almost two hundred years. (BL Add.6555)
It is clear from the letter from Chatham to the Navy Commissioners, that the expertise in the construction of wet docks was transmitted from the Deptford Officers and artificers.

Chatham Hill House. Oct. 1, Sir John Mennes, Sir W. Batten and Peter Pett to the Navy Commissioners.

“The making the wet dock is of so great concernment that we desire you to send a warrant and a letter to Capt. Badily, master attendant at Deptford, and Jonas Shish, the assistant, Mr. Johnson, the shipwright at Blackwall, and Mr. Castle at Redruth to repair here by next Friday morning to join two or three able men of the Trinity House and such others as we shall appoint to view where it is to be made, resolve on the manner and estimate the charge, that so we may have full satisfaction while we are here and be better able to give the account when we come to London. We desire also that Mr. Randle, the house carpenter at Deptford that made the dock there, may come down.”

However, EH Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide Heritage Protection Department March 2007 repeats the error of claiming the origin of wet docks with the south coast yards,
“The first wet docks – where lock gates enclosed and maintained artificial expanses of water – were constructed for repairs by the Royal Navy at Portsmouth and Devonport (Plymouth) in the late seventeenth century.” By this time, Deptford’s wet dock had been holding ships for almost two hundred years when it was surveyed and valued by Dummer in 1698 at £2,659.2.7. The gates themselves were valued at £164.

As the first wet dock, the basin at Deptford offered a model of benefits free from tidal shifts, allowing ease of access to ships from the quay. In 1517, at Deptford, the basin held the Monarchs’ ships safe from harm. The Great Basin was an early resource of the King’s Yard, mentioned in an Indenture of 1517 (BL Add.6555), as holding amongst other ships the Mary Rose. The Basin was also the site of testing early diving bells by John Evelyn, (Diary 19 July, 1661). In Charnock's "History of Marine Architecture" it is given,

"A note how many ships the King's Majesty (Henry VIII.) hath in harbour, on the 18th day of September, in the 13th year of his reign (1521); what portage they be of; what estate they be in the same day; also where they ride and be bestowed." From this we are enabled to see what use was made of Deptford as a naval station at that time:—"The Mary Rose, being of the portage of 600 tons, lying in the pond at Deptford beside the storehouse there, &c. The John Baptist, and Barbara, every of them being of the portage of 400 tons, do ryde together in a creke of Deptford Parish, &c. The Great Nicholas, being of portage 400 tons, lyeth in the east end of Deptford Strond, &c. … The Great Barke, being of portage 250 tons, lyeth in the pond at Deptford, &c. The Less Barke, being of the portage of 180 tons, lyeth in the same pond, &c. The twayne Row Barges, every of them of the portage of 60 tons, lye in the said pond, &c. The Great Galley, being of portage 800 tons, lyeth in the said pond, &c." (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45272)
Also is found,
Oct. 12 Hen. VIII., wages of caulkers caulking the Mary Rose
in the pound at Deptford, 6d. a day. To 7 men who helped to
"plumpe" the Mary Rose for a day and a night, 2s. 8d. Total,
219l. 2s.
The Great Basin continued as the place for the safekeeping of the royal yachts and the royal barges were laid up at Deptford until its closure in 1869.
http://www.mod.uk/defenceinternet/aboutdefence/whatwedo/defenceestateandenvironment/modartcollection/ministryofdefenceartcollectionlaunchofa60gunshipatdeptfordc1720.htm (accessed 22/12/09)



Double Dry Dock

Coad, Lake and Douet omit the c.1517-1869 Double dry dock at Deptford from their studies. Yet nowhere else in England, other than at Deptford, can be witnessed a double dry dock with its origins in the Tudor period that testifies to the transition from timber to stone construction of docks. The unique status of the double dock at Deptford is enhanced by its history of construction and the development phases it expresses.
An account of the visit of the French national, Monsieur V. Chevallier, to the various yards in England published in1860, records that at Deptford in respect of the double dry dock, the head dock is constructed in stone whilst the stern dock is constructed from wood. This is new and vitally important information on the materiality of the double dry dock. The stone used to construct the dry dock may be that referred to in letters dated c.1756 detailing stone to be brought from Weymouth for the rebuilding of the dock.
Stone docks in-filled for almost a hundred years at Rochefort have since been excavated and found to be in good state of preservation. Within fifteen years, by 1875 the dock at Deptford was in-filled.

The double dock at Deptford, is the earliest sole surviving example of a Tudor double dry dock testifying to the transition from timber to stone construction.


Slips

Slips number five in total at Deptford, No.1 is to the west of the basin mouth, no.’s 2 and 3, are found off the basin under the iron sheds (Olympia listed GII) and no.’s 4&5 are located to the east of the basin mouth before the storehouse.

Building slip No.5 immediately to the west of the storehouse was lengthened in c.1858 at the cost of £54,000 to receive the 36 to 40 gun frigate Ariadne constructed on the model of the American Merrimak. (Chevallier 1860:11)
EH Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide 2007 recommends protection for,
“buildings that were innovative in design; are well preserved; or display alterations that illustrate the technology of accommodating larger ships.”

Given the date and cost of the new work, archaeology may discover that the slip was reformed in stone. Considering the closure of the yard within ten years and an imminent infill of the slip, there is a strong potential for high quality survival.

For a rigorous intellectual coherence in listing to be achieved, commensurate with the English Heritage call for “an holistic approach to be taken where several original or near contemporary associated structures survive together or where a group of structures displays the evolution of port facilities in one significant place”, it will be necessary to consider the origin, function and context of the iron slipway covers.

Slips are first shown off the wet dock in Dummer’s survey of 1688. The earliest slips may have been present in the 1500’s and those in the Dummer survey are the direct ancestors of today’s basin slips. The slips beneath the slipway covers are reformed at the time of building the slipway covers shown on a plan signed by George Baker. (NMM ADM/Y/D11 5th Oct 1844) The slips were designed by Royal Engineer Capt. George Denison. Construction drawings detailing the materials used survive.
This makes the present slipways contemporaneous structures integral to the slipway covers in time and in function and part of a series of developments to accommodate larger ships. At most this makes the slipways little more than twenty years old before they were in filled and therefore the likelihood of a good state of preservation is high, especially given that no building has taken place within the slipway covers.

The iron slipway covers at Deptford are the earliest surviving example of their kind. R.J.M Sutherland’s conjectural date of approximately 1846 for the surviving slipway covers at Deptford was made in 1989 and may now need to be reconsidered on further examination of the plan at the National Maritime Museum. The 1844 date of this plan showing the new slipways may suggest an even earlier date for the iron slipway covers than that of 1846 conjectured by Sutherland. Besides, following the demolition of the iron slipway covers at Pembroke and Portsmouth, Deptford maintains the earliest example of their kind.

As a complex of slipways, docks, basin and mast ponds, from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Deptford expresses a rich complex of dockyard structures that bear witness to the technological developments in shipbuilding from the age of sail to the iron-clads of the late nineteenth century.

The c.1846 George Baker slipway covers to the Basin Slipways though somewhat altered, still exhibit corrugated iron to their front and rear elevations. This is an original and early example of the use of corrugated iron and its presence and the fenestration pattern must therefore be recorded in the present listing of the covers to ensure future protection. Photographs c.1871 show the presence of this corrugated iron and the early fenestration pattern.

The 1846 George Baker slipway covers, the 1815 John Rennie basin mouth, The 1845 slipways by Denison are an example of what Lake and Douet, writing for English Heritage, refer to as “collaborative genius” between the private sector and royal engineers and the technological know-how found in the royal dockyards. As the earliest surviving example of iron slipway covers as a first technological advancement and the second technological advancement (considering John Rennie’s personal note indicating a change to his practice of building dock gates based on his collaboration on the Basin caisson-gate with William Stone, Master Shipwright at Deptford), the high potential for good survival of the twin slipways being contemporaneous with the innovative iron slipway covers, it is hoped that the English Heritage review will consider these constituent elements in the light of their own advice for “an holistic approach to be taken where several original or near contemporary associated structures survive together or where a group of structures displays the evolution of port facilities in one significant place”.

The restoration of the basin as an inland body of water allows for an enhancement of the legibility of one of the earliest functional structures of the yard, the basin c.1517. The iron slipway covers being the earliest surviving example of their kind contribute to the significance of the earliest wet dock complex in a royal yard in England recorded as functioning from the early 1500’s to the late nineteenth century, c.1895, indeed for some four centuries.


Officers’ Terrace

In his book, The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850, Coad states that the Plymouth terrace commences building in 1692 and is apparently finished by the end of 1696. (Coad 1989:53 ADM 106/2158 pt.1) Coad’s claim that the Plymouth terrace was “the earliest to be designed and built as a single unit” is challenged by the Deptford Terrace.

In relation to the development of royal dockyard officers’ housing, Lake and Douet claim,
“The earliest was the former Devonport Officer's Terrace, (now part of South Yard and largely destroyed by bombing), which was built between 1692 and 1696 under the direction of the Surveyor, Edward Dummer.”

However had the authors fully consulted King’s MS 43, Dummer’s renowned survey of the royal dockyards of 1698, the plans of Deptford show that the Deptford principal officers’ terrace was in place by 1688, and extraordinarily may even be the same terrace as shown in Evelyn’s annotated map of Deptford c.1623. Deptford Master Shipwright Jonas Shish writes to the Navy Commissioner’s on June 22nd 1665 on account of repairs needed to the Clerk of the Survey’s House amounting to £12. (ADM 106/ 28- June 22nd)
Therefore the modest Deptford palatial terrace is clearly evidenced as being built prior to Devonport and as such Deptford not Devonport as Lake and Douet have claimed “shows the earliest instance in Britain of a palace front terrace.”
The terrace at Deptford accommodated the Master Attendant, Clerk of the Survey, Clerk of the Cheque, Builder’s Assistant, Storekeeper, and Surgeon. The total value ascribed to the terrace by Dummer in 1698 was £3,662. The most expensive house was the corner house occupied by the Clerk of the Cheque valued at more than £950. The Master Shipwright was accommodated in the house alongside the double dry dock valued at a mere £111. In 1705 this causes Master Shipwright Joseph Allin to petition the Navy Board for a new house.

In relation to the Devonport terrace Lake and Douet continue, “Furthermore it predates Mansart's Place Vendome in Paris, finished in 1698 and usually credited as the first full development of the palace front in Europe.” (Lake and Douet 1998:82) This honour too must be credited to Deptford where a regular fenestration pattern and rhythm together with centralized and rhythmical door placement form the simple but clear palace front. Lake and Douet state “the development of palace-front terraces within the dockyards is of considerable significance in the evolution of English architecture. This form of unified planning was widely used during the eighteenth century and in the first half of the nineteenth century, and is considered one the country's particular contributions to European architectural history.” (Lake and Douet 1998:87) It is therefore Deptford dockyard that makes the particular contribution of considerable significance as the earliest palace front terrace in Europe.

Given that Dummer became the Surveyor of the Navy in 1692 having joined the navy in 1668, unless sufficient scrutiny is given to the similarities and differences of the Deptford and Plymouth terraces such as to support the possibility of a Dummer authorship at Deptford, prior to his role as surveyor, if this is possible since as an extra clerk in the office of the Surveyor from 1678 he had responsibility for drawing, we must look elsewhere to ascribe authorship of Deptford’s early palatial terrace. Celia Fox’s 2007 paper for the British Library, “The Ingenious Mr Dummer: Rationalizing the Royal Navy in Late Seventeenth-Century England” also misses the Deptford officers’ terrace.
From Coad in 1989, Lake and Douet in 1998, to Celia Fox in 2007 the plan, elevations and valuations of the Deptford terrace found in Dummer’s 1698 survey were not included in any of the authors’ deliberations. For thirty years Deptford’s major contribution to the development of European architecture has been missed.


During the 2010 archaeological dig on the Deptford site a trial trench was placed in the area of the terrace however this was placed in the garden of one of the houses. Though it is claimed by Duncan Hawkins of CgMs Consulting that four archaeological test pits are targeted on the Officers’ Terrace three appear to miss the terrace entirely with just one to the rear of the Master Attendants House.

The significance of the terrace may have been missed for a number of reasons. Firstly, part of the terrace was demolished in 1806. This was the corner house for the Clerk of the Cheque. The demolition of the finest house in the yard was in fact carried out by the superior officers. This extraordinary act was performed in order to prevent a Commissioner taking up residence in the Deptford yard. The officers succeeded in their aims and the Commissioner was forced to take up residence at Woolwich. The east to west section of the terrace was re-faced and given sash windows in the mid-eighteenth century. This part was finally demolished c.1900 leaving the majority of the north to south range of the palatial terrace surviving until after WWII. (NA Works 43/614 no.1)

The foundations of the Deptford terrace should be excavated in order that as much information as possible can be determined about this most important contribution to the development of European architecture. This area of the terrace has subsequently received a single storey rudimentary workers’ rest and washroom and the 1951 London Ferro-Concrete warehouse.
Information on the largely forgotten Navy Treasurer’s house indicated on the 1623 Evelyn map in the yard to the west of the storehouse, once home to James, Duke of York might also be sought.



Officers’ Offices

Lake and Douet follow Coad in claiming the earliest purpose built office at Chatham in 1750.

The Deptford Master Shipwright’s House of 1708, and Deptford Officers’ Offices of 1720 are, in fact, the earliest examples of their kind surviving in the country.
Letters sent to the Navy board in 1720 request a rebuilding of the offices indicate that the yard officers at Deptford were accommodated in the earlier building on the site,
A letter from the Deptford Officers of 27th June 1720 reads,

The Master Attendant, Master Shipwright, Clerk of the Survey and Master Shipwright’s Assistants Offices being very Rotten and Decay’d and the Storekeeper wanting an Office by the Water Gate being to be taken down, We humbly propose to take the Old Offices down, to Erect New Offices two storeys high in which the Store keeper may be accommodated, the Charge of which besides the Old Materialls will Amount to about £350, We humbly submit to your Hons.” (ADM 106/3466)

This request is followed by five sets of initials for the officers concerned. This letter is followed by another of 30th June confirming that the new offices will occupy the place of the old offices between the Master Shipwright’s House and the Porter’s Lodging. (ADM106/3466)
By 15th August 1720, a request is sent for stone to cope the near completed new offices. (ADM 106/3299) Later a map of c1740-50 describing the office building of 1720 on a key as ‘T, V, W’, the Master Attendant’s, Clerk of the Survey and Master Shipwright’s offices respectively. Therefore, in contrast to Lake and Douet’s claim that little is known about how these earliest dockyard offices were used, precise information does indeed tells us that were occupied by the yard’s high status officers. By 1805 we know a considerable amount more about the use of the offices from a twenty-three paged letter and two plans sent to the Navy Board by Samuel Bentham petitioning for his extension and re-organisation to the office building along the centralizing principle of the Panopticon. ((NA WORK 41/585-6 June 26th 1804/4th June 1805,
NMM ADM/ Q 3323 28th Feb 1805) It was in these offices at Deptford that Bentham gave the order for models to be constructed to demonstrate the possibilities for the introduction of iron into shipbuilding. (NMM Q/ADM 3322 15th March 1803)

Lake and Douet’s later assertion in relation to Deptford, “At the smaller yards within reach of the Navy Board in London, Woolwich and Deptford, much more limited accommodation was provided.” (Lake and Douet 1998:84) is entirely incorrect as is theirs and Coad’s assertion that Chatham has the earliest purpose built dockyard offices darting to c.1750. The existing office range at Deptford of 1720 is in fact the earliest purpose built range of Officers’ Offices. The Deptford Master Shipwright’s House of 1708, and Deptford Officers’ Offices of 1720 are now the earliest examples of their kind surviving in the country.

The listing case of the Deptford dockyard offices is detailed here in order to demonstrate that at the time of listing GII in 1993, little early material was thought to remain and the building therefore thought to be unremarkable. However following primary source archive based research, the date of build has been established as 1720 confirming that the building was the earliest surviving purpose built naval office building in the country, the authorship of the 1805 addition to be by Samuel Bentham (incorporating the centralizing principle of the Panopticon) and also the first place to be designated for the building of models to demonstrate the introduction of iron into shipbuilding.

Re-use of ships timbers and the earliest known example of Bentham’s method of timber marking has also been revealed extensively throughout the offices. The case of the re-use of ships’ timbers found in the Wheelwright’s Shop at Chatham has been described as of world significance. What had been officially considered to be of little interest, of local or regional importance only, now stands as the earliest series of buildings to testify to the domestic and office architecture of the Tudor, Stuart and early Georgian dockyards.



Conclusion

Together, omissions in the studies by Coad, by Lake and Douet and other English heritage authors, exacerbated by the lack of an authoritative comprehensive study of Deptford dockyard, have enabled the heritage assets at Deptford to be jeopardized by an over reliance on insubstantial secondary sources.

The information contained in this document is put forward in an effort to end the systematic disregard of Deptford’s historic cultural assets by the statutory agencies and to ensure the future enjoyment of a local and national, even international culturally significant environment, the former royal dockyard at Deptford.

It becomes a political matter of social exclusion from the fair and reasonable comparative application of statutory resources when Deptford's historic cultural assets systematically do not receive the statutory protection afforded to other royal dockyards. Heritage protection at this stage will enable the wealth inherent in the intellectual property of Historic Maritime Deptford to be exploited and enjoyed by its’ constituency which is global.

No part of this document may be cited without reference to the author.
Chris Mazeika 2010