River Wall at Deptford Royal Naval Yard

River Wall at Deptford Royal Naval Yard

Information Presented on the River Wall in Response to the CgMs Archaeological Report Jan 2010 River Wall Section.

Archaeology reports in 2000 state, “ “The river wall in its entirety appears to be in relatively good condition and has retained key structural components to phases of construction associated with the 18th and 19th century dockyard. These features are the last in a complex development of slipways and dock entrances that date back to the dockyards initial construction in the early 16th century. The wall should be retained and incorporated in future proposals because of its historic features.” (Lowe 2000:13, 4.8)


It is indisputable that the river wall at Deptford is the point of origin for momentous historic events in the life of the nation. As well as the site of the launching of over three hundred ships many in the presence of the monarch, the river wall at Deptford bears witness as the point of departure for countless journeys of exploration, voyages of discovery and naval battles of immeasurable importance to the cultural life of the nation. The river wall is Deptford’s royal quayside. Henry VIII chose to emblazon the storehouse with his royal arms and cipher along the waterfront here in 1513. The site continued with a royal title until the end of the WWII when operations of His Majesty’s Supply Reserve Depot were concluded.


The site prior to the royal dockyard of 1513

As Geoffrey De Saye, 1135-1214, was Lord of West Greenwich we can safely assume that the parts of the dockyard site that once formed part of Sayes Court pre-date the dockyard by several centuries. Although Henry VIII established the royal dockyard here early in the sixteenth century, records testify to shipbuilding in the area for almost as long as records exist. William Page records that as early the reign of Edward I the men of Deptford were exempt certain taxes and granted fishing rights having out ships for the King.

Michael Oppenheim has stated,

there is some evidence that a pond with an inlet communicating with the river was in existence in the thirteenth century, in which case Hopton only adapted and improved it. The storehouse can be traced back to 1513, but it is possible that the building hired at 'Greenwich' in 1485 by Henry VII was in fact really at Deptford.




Dr. Christopher Phillpott’s writes,

The shipbuilding industry at Deptford Strand is known to have begun in 1420 with the rebuilding and refitting of royal ships, and the digging of a dock for one of them in a former garden belonging to William Ramessy (the precise location has not been traced). There had probably been earlier activity for which the evidence no longer survives. The Thomas had been waiting there on the stocks since 1418. The dock was retained to hold the dilapidated Katerine until March 1425, when she was sold for scrap. By the end of the fifteenth century this activity was well established at this settlement. In the 1460s Sir John Howard, Edward IV's commander at sea, laid up his ships at Deptford. In 1464 William Rose purchased timber from the Bridge House store at Southwark to build a ship at Deptford Strand. Ten years later a tenement was rented from the Bridge House estate there to repair a royal ship called the Antony Camfere. In 1487 Henry VII rented a storehouse for naval gear at Greenwich (possibly West Greenwich) and sent shipwrights and caulkers from Deptford to rig and repair his ships laid up in the Hampshire ports. A shipwright was buried at St. Nicholas church in 1494.

Among the many historic events associated with the site, perhaps the return of Drake, aboard the Golden Hind, his knighting here on board ship in the presence of Elizabeth I, and the laying up of the vessel in a makeshift dock, (most likely, I believe, the creek that became the canal to the mast pond) is the greatest moments of distinction for the dockyard. The wharf wall of Deptford royal naval yard is unparalleled along the London Thames for being closely associated with such a high number of nationally significant events. The occasions when monarchs are present at the waterside for the launching of their ships are too numerous to mention. The scale of these elaborate ceremonies sometimes attended by thousands of onlookers warrants a study of it’s own.

That the earliest plan of the dockyard survives intact from c.1517 marks this site as a rare and possibly unique survival of royal naval shipbuilding facilities on the London Thames.

Where the opportunity arises for the assessment of national heritage assets, in accordance with nationally published guidelines, following this process, a program of conservation and repair is a common response.
It is of course not unusual for heritage assets to be diminished in reports commissioned by developers. Spitalfields in the 1970’s and 1980’s is a good example. The silk weaver’s houses would have been swept away were it not for the perseverance of a handful of individuals determined to pursue a more enlightened approach. I wish to draw attention to a number of concerns regarding the factual accuracy of both English Heritage assessment and archaeology reports on the site.

We can no longer stand by waiting to hear in another ten years time, “If we knew then what we know now”. Thorough primary source research challenges claims made by English Heritage and developer led archaeology that seeks to diminish the historic importance of the Deptford yard. English Heritage first received a proposal to list the features of the yard in 2002, following the omission of the Deptford yard from the Alan Howard review of military establishments that was carried out in 1999. This first listing proposal was thoroughly updated in December 2009 with new information and highlighted the correspondence of this new information with publicly funded heritage policy published in 1998, 2005 and 2007 specifically aimed at maritime and naval sites. English Heritage has refused the invitation extended to the authors and counter signees of the now discredited English Heritage report. After a lengthy twenty-month process conducted by English Heritage, there is still no decision on the fate of the assets at Deptford.


The Problem with the Application of Archaeology Policy on purpose built below ground structures

In relation to the dockyard, where there are extant docks, slips, basins and mast ponds, it is simply neither accurate nor sufficient to speak of archaeology when these structures, such as the river wall, the massive stone construction of the double dry dock and John Rennie’s monumental basin mouth are extant structures, with evidence of their positions clearly visible from the foreshore. Since it is the nature of docks, slips, basins and mast ponds to be situated below ground, their presence below ground does not characterize the structures as archaeology nor warrant archaeological survey alone, but building survey also, in order to determine the full extent of survival and potential for conservation and repair, as is generally afforded to any structure of national and international historical significance.

A precedent for this has been established at Rochefort on the River Charente in France, where docks and basins silted up for a hundred years have been cleared and repaired for re-use. The English Heritage site at Sherborne Castle uses soil and turf as a conservation method.

Consideration of Historic Associations

The yard at Deptford witnessed the labours of Henry VIII’s Master Shipwrights Matthew and James Baker. In the period of Elizabeth I, Deptford laid up Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind and put out ships for the Armada. In the Hanoverian period, voyages of discovery by James Cook, Martin Frobisher and George Vancouver began at Deptford. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Deptford launched several ships for Nelson’s battles, including launching several ships for the Battle of Trafalgar. The yard also served as a military base during the twentieth century as His Majesty’s Army Supply Reserve Depot and Transport Depot in WWI and WWII. The site served as U.S. Advance Amphibious Vehicle Base during which time 14 U.S naval personnel lost their lives in a single V-1 rocket attack on the dockyard. The area of land in question, far from being a mere brown-field site, has served the Nation as a military installation through a period of five centuries. It would be difficult to propose a more historic stretch of the Thames in London.
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place’s potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the cultural history of the nation.


Fair and Reasonable Application of Policy

The English Heritage document Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide 2007, published more fully February 2011, states that works by Samuel Bentham and John Rennie warrant special consideration. Under subheading, Special Interest, it states, “Docks and harbour walls pre-dating 1840 generally form the most impressive engineering structures of their date and even where they have received alteration, as nearly all have, will normally merit designation, with those displaying technical innovation or association with major developments in shipbuilding, warranting a high grade. Examples would be key developments in modern dock construction such as those pioneered by Smeaton and Rennie or Samuel Bentham’s development c.1800 of caisson gates.”

The presently blocked penetrations to the docks, stairs, slipways and basin and the length of the extant river wall are the material evidence of their predecessors of the previous five centuries. The current penetrations were designed and constructed by the leading engineers of their day, including in the late Georgian period works by John Rennie and George Ledwell Taylor. These works predate the 1840 EH guideline by several decades, in one case by as much as twenty-five years.

The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of its association with the works of a person, or group of persons, of importance to the nation’s maritime engineering history.

Nowhere else on the Thames in London can a complex of docks, slips and basin entrances be found that directly relates to the nation’s greatest maritime journey’s, discoveries and battles through five centuries. It was, in part, this technology that gave rise to Britain’s centuries of maritime supremacy.


Composition of the River Wall

In respect of the river wall it would be intellectually incoherent not to include the penetrations of the wharf wall where the Thames has lapped against the walls of these various structures. The immediate landward structures are therefore proposed as part of the structure and character of the river wall per se. Indeed what marks this stretch of the Thames out from any other is the continued presence of these structures, albeit presently filled in intact. As a complex of maritime technology they are an unrivalled testament to the technological development of shipbuilding on the London Thames. The earliest plan of the dockyard is intact. The locations of the Double dry dock,
The Great Storehouse, The Great Basin, all present c.1517, remain in their ancient location.

The river wall has been repaired and altered as have each of the intrinsic structures of the dockyard. Such alterations elsewhere are acknowledged by English Heritage 2007/2011 as contributing to the historic value as expressions of development in naval technology.

The ‘dockyard wall’ can be understood as a single element of dockyard technology that contains all of the landward penetrations. The dockyard river wall is composed in part of the dockyard’s defining structures, its building facilities, the docks, slips, great basin and mast ponds.

The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place’s importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.

The penetrations under consideration are as follows: from the Upper Watergate moving upstream; the Great Dock c.1517, with its magnificent granite piers evident on the wharf wall and the recently excavated finely engineered massive stone stern dock entrance, most likely dating from the last decade of the eighteenth century to the first decade of the nineteenth century, possibly the only eighteenth century royal yard to survive; the Landing Place and Look out stairs dating from c.1720, in use for over two hundred years prior to being closed c.1930, these stairs maintain a fine early Georgian causeway still present in remarkable condition on the foreshore; Entrances to the pair of slipways depicted in John Cleveley’s several paintings of the yard in the mid eighteenth century such as Buckingham on the Stocks c.1750 ; John Rennie’s 1814 monumental stone worked entrance to the Great Basin evident as an extant penetration in the wharf wall and the Rennie designed wharf wall with its characteristic course of stone banding; According to the account written by M. Chevallier in 1860, the slipway immediately to the west of the storehouse was enlarged c.1858 at a cost of the sterling equivalent of 54,000 French francs in order to accommodate the building of the 26 gun screw frigate Ariadne in 1859. Ariadne was constructed on the model of the American Merrimak. (Chevallier 1860:11) In 1860 the “Ariadne,” commanded by Captain Edward Vanisttart, formed one of the escort to H.M.S. “Hero,” which vessel conveyed His Royal highness the Prince of Wales, afterwards His Majesty King Edward the Seventh, on his memorable visit to Canada and the United States of America.
The final extant penetration of the river wall is George Ledwell Taylor’s canal to the Mast pond constructed c.1828.



Misunderstandings, Errors and Confusions in Official Reports

Although the archaeological report has been revised three times since its publication in September 2009 with the latest revision at 2010, there remain several questions regarding the data contained in the report in the section reporting on the river wall.
Following the serious errors in the recent English Heritage report into the dockyard (Julian Heath/Emily Gee 2010), it is vital that claims made in the archaeological report are accurate as the publicly funded heritage agencies depend on these resources in order to make their own assessments. I have submitted documents earlier to demonstrate that Jonathan Coad’s work The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850 concentrates on a period when Deptford has already been in operation for 175 years. Coad forms conclusions without reference to Deptford’s contribution to the development of the royal yards and many of his claims are now disproved and whilst they have served an important role in the preservation and restoration of Chatham and Portsmouth yards, this work can no longer be relied on as a basis for understanding Deptford’s role and contribution to the development of the royal dockyards as a whole.

I address the queries as they arise in the section on the river wall and give substantive evidence to challenge the accuracy of the current archaeological report.

At 6.2.40 the CgMs archaeological report claims,

No part of the existing river wall predates 1796-1808.

Parts of the existing wall rest on the foundation of the earlier wall. This can be ascertained from low-tide examination of the colour and coursing of brickwork and from comparative examination of historic maps. In the exercise of determining the date for the wall, the plans of the dockyard I have consulted are Milton’s Plan 1753, Plan of the Kings Moorings c.1770’s, Plan of the yard, 1774 Plan of the yard c.1808, Plan of Deptford Dockyard 1870.

On river and dock walls, English Heritage Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide 2007 specifically states,

:05 under Special Interest reads.
“Docks and harbour walls pre-dating 1840 generally form the most impressive
engineering structures of their date and even where they have received alteration, as
nearly all have, will normally merit designation, with those displaying technical innovation or association with major developments in shipbuilding, warranting a high grade.”

Key elements of the dockyard structures used to determine the date of the the river wall include the 1720 steps, the mouth of the dry dock, the distance between the storehouse and wharf wall, the distance between the 17th century mast pond and wharf wall (the anchor wharf) and the c.1838 axonometric drawing showing the boat house slips and wharf wall.

The river wall at Deptford is most substantially altered at the dock mouth and at the basin mouth by John Rennie c.1814 in order to accommodate larger ships in the basin. The caisson gate developed in conjunction with the Master Shipwright was a sufficiently significant development in Rennie’s work for him to specifically record the development in his personal papers. Therefore on a number of counts according to English Heritage recently published documents the works at Deptford, the river wall and basin warrant a high designation. This would seem to be a straightforward affair where policy is satisfied by factual evidence. However this is one area where English Heritage’s own research was woefully inaccurate and its procedures of counter signing and quality assurance pitifully remiss.
According to the archaeological report, no part of the river wall predates 1796-1808. An apparent sleight of hand immediately declares, “that the wall post-dates the dockyard is most vividly illustrated by the fact”, however, what is most vividly illustrated is the sudden transition from 1796 to post date the dockyard i.e. 1870’s. This is both confused and confusing presentation.

The report claims that “the bulk of the river wall appears to have been constructed in the period 1896-1916”. The only evidence cited is that the wall cuts through “probably nineteenth century slipways on the foreshore. However, a more straightforward conclusion is surely that the blocked slipway entrances cut across the timber slipways. The remainder of the river wall is late 18th to early 19th century. This can simply be ascertained by a comparative analysis of the changes from the Milton plan of 1753 to the George Ledwell Taylor plan of 1830. The blocked entrances to the dry dock dates to 1875, the blocked entrance to the Great Basin to 1895. It is likely that the three slipways to the Thames were blocked at the same time as the dry dock. The boat-house slipways were open in 1838 as indicated in the axonometric drawing by W. J. Rivers.

Many of the lower ranges of bricks in front of the Master Shipwright’s House and the Storehouse are plum coloured stocks of the eighteenth century, and the presence of areas of pozzolano cement indicate a late eighteenth early nineteenth century construction. The distance from the north elevation of the storehouse to the river wall remains consistent from c.1750 to 1870 and beyond. This stretch forms approx a third of the river wall. The length of wall constructed by Jolliffe and Banks to Rennie’s design in 1814 and forms approximately another third of the of the river wall. Thus two thirds, therefore the bulk of the river wall is Georgian. As a work of Rennie’s according to English Heritage Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide 2007/2011 the river wall warrants a high grade of protection.

Evidence

Moving west along the wall, we encounter the survival of George Ledwell-Taylor’s 1828 work creating the canal to the mid-eighteenth century mast pond (NMM ADM Y/D/11-D8 1828). Jonathan Coad refers to Ledwell-Taylor as one of the finest dockyard architects. Further west, to the left and right of the Basin mouth, already established as work by Rennie 1813-17, the presence of 150ft length of Craigie stone specified by Rennie during his works to the Basin mouth is extant and clearly visible. (PRO ADM 106/3185 WORK 41/594 signed John Rennie. NMM ADM Y/D/11-D7 16 Nov 1813. See also, A.W. Skempton A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland. 2002 and CgMs 3.2.4 / 3.2.1)
The Landing Place and Stairs, that feature in John Cleveley’s eighteenth century paintings of the launching of ship, blocked post-1930, formed the ceremonial and Royal entrance to the yard for more than two hundred years. (See Metropolitan Archives, Thames Flood Defence Survey MBW) The granite quoins to these Royal Stairs align with the granite quoins to the Double Dry Building Dock, as shown on George Ledwell-Taylor’s 1820 plan of the yard and correspond to the 1868 O.S. map. It is therefore established beyond doubt, through on site and archive based study that the harbour wall to the King’s yard is early to mid nineteenth century expressing the work of George Ledwell-Taylor and John Rennie following proposals by Samuel Bentham. (NMM ADM Q/3320-3323 9th Oct 1802, 23rd Aug 1805)
In summary it is highly unlikely that the presentation of data given in the report is sufficiently accurate as to present a correct picture of the river wall.
From the period c.1770 repairs will, of course, have taken place overtime, however, it appears that the length of wall from Upper Watergate at the east end of the yard heading west to the beginning of John Rennie’s works has not altered at least in position. John Rennie’s works are significant in themselves to warrant a high-grade listing. From the basin mouth East the wall is largely constructed of infill, to the most westerly slipway and infill to the early mast pond and infill to the boathouse slipways.

Summary

The river wall is dramatic site of the labours of the Navy’s foremost Master Shipwright’s, naval architects and artificers. As a single entity the river wall expresses the work of George Ledwell Taylor, John Rennie, the filled in Landing Place and Look out steps from 1720, and the granite piers to the double dock. The river wall is the site of countless launches in the presence of monarchs throughout the life of the dockyard, the putting out of ships for the Armada, the voyages of exploration and discovery of Raleigh and Drake and Frobisher in the Tudor period, the knighting of Drake aboard the Golden Hind, of Cook’s voyages of exploration and discovery in the 18th century, of Nelson’s battles including Trafalgar, and of the deaths of 11 U. S. Service men in WWII by VII Rocket. These events mark this stretch of river wall as an important historic elevation that has served the nation as a military base for six centuries, since the first records revealing ships put out for Edward I.
However, the now discredited English Heritage designation report in Overall Conclusions claimed that the river wall is, “a relatively common type of feature with similar examples found elsewhere along the Thames throughout London.” Appearing to blatantly ignore the early origin of this site as a royal dockyard, the English Heritage claim pays no attention whatsoever to the countless associations with historic events and individuals throughout the centuries.

The English Heritage report also claims, “The applicant cites Jon Lowe's report 'Preliminary Assessment of Surviving Historic Fabric Convoy's Wharf, Deptford' (June 2000) 3,2,4 as stating that the bulk of the river wall was thought to date to the re-modeling of the Dockyard during the 1830s, and because of its pre-1840 date should be designated.”

However, English Heritage’s own published documentation Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide Heritage Protection Department
March 2007:05 under Special Interest reads,
“Docks and harbour walls pre-dating 1840 generally form the most impressive
engineering structures of their date and even where they have received alteration, as
nearly all have, will normally merit designation, with those displaying technical innovation or association with major developments in shipbuilding, warranting a high grade.”

The river wall from east to west is a structure containing the work of George Ledwell Taylor’s canal to the 18th century Mast Pond, the John Rennie basin mouth and river wall, the blocked Watergate steps of the Landing Place and Lookout c.1720 and granite piers to the c.1806-8 Georgian dry dock. (See George Ledwell Taylor’s 1831plan). The river wall expresses a unique collection of royal dockyard engineering structures on the London Thames and is far from being “relatively common” and “found elsewhere along the Thames” as the report claims, summarizing reasons not to confer statutory heritage protection (Heath 2010:07).

The now discredited English Heritage designation report goes on to claim, “John Rennie supervised a partial rebuilding in I8|6 on an occasional superintendence basis. However these works had to be replaced some twenty years later in the l840s £800 was spent on dismantling and rebuilding the wharf wall. Some of the 1840’s brickwork survives since a recent archaeological assessment by Jon Lowe and updated by Duncan Hawkins concluded that the 'fabric through out the length of the wall.....was probably constructed during the last major re-modeling of the dockyard in l846.” (Heath 2011:06)

John Lowe’s report for CgMs reads,
“The bulk of river wall thought to date to the final re-modeling of the Dockyard during the 1830’s with the blockings inserted 1869-1894. The Thames frontage of the site was surveyed in detail in both plan and section in 1832-38.” (Lowe 2001:3.2.4)
The survey referred to is the Hydrographic Survey commensurate with the George Ledwell-Taylor’s 1831 plan together indicating that the majority of the river wall predates c.1830 contrary to unsubstantiated claims made in the report. Indeed, Heath’s report appears to mis-quote Lowe who writes, at Lowe 3.2.6. “ The brick fabric throughout the length of the wall is unlikely to have a large date range as it was probably constructed during the last major re-modeling of the dockyard in the 1830’s. The similarity of material both above and below the stone features indicates initially one phase of build.” This detail is very important in determining the date of the wall. The stone feature referred to above is that described in 3.2.1 of Lowe’s report,
“The river wall is mainly brick with a large stone course incorporated intermittently along its length.” This feature is John Rennie’s specification of 1815. "There are to be two courses of stone through the wall, of fifteen inches thick each course; the facing is to be of Dundee or Craigleeth stone, and backing of Roach Portland, and they are to be of like sizes, and done in similar manner as the walls of the entrance; and the whole is to be coped with Dundee or Craigleeth stone, eighteen inches thick, four feet broad in the beds, and in lengths not less than five feet with stone joggles in the joints."
The archaeologists did not consult the Rennie archive at the Institute of Civil Engineers. (ICE REN Tracts Folio Vol.49.) It was therefore not known at the time of writing the reports that this stone feature was the 1814-1815 works by John Rennie. However the inclusion of this detail in these archaeological reports dispels claims that Rennie’s works were “destroyed” in the 20th century or that the bulk of the river wall is post 1840.

The sum of £800 referred to and the occasional superintendence by John Rennie refers solely to the 10ft, small stretch of wharf wall to the east of the Basin mouth and the slip which the Admiralty against John Rennie’s advice in 1814 chose not to replace. The horizontal stone banding and stone toggles are specified by Rennie and shown on his plans of May 8th 1815, 31st August 1814 (ADM 140/1170 Parts1- 2) are still in place.
(Specification of the Masonry, Brick Work, Piling, Planking, &c. of A New Entrance to the Basin at the Royal Dockyard at Deptford, and also for the Building of A River Wall From the said Entrance to the Second Slip on the South. ICE REN Tracts Folio Vol.49).

The length of extant river wall by John Rennie is 160ft, a further 400ft length of wall from the dockyard limit to the west (being the Upper Watergate steps), shown on George Ledwell Taylor’s 1831map, comprises the wall to the fore of the Master Shipwright’s House and the wall to the fore of the 1720’s storehouse, which other than receiving due repair is in line with that shown on the Ledwell-Taylor plan of c.1828. Other than infilling of dock, slipway and basin mouth closures, which according to archaeologists “are the last in a complex development of slipways and dock entrances that date back to the dockyards initial construction in the early 16th century.” The report offers no documentary evidence to substantiate its claims of majority post-1840 construction.

Conclusions reached by archaeologists in 2000 state, “ “The river wall in its entirety appears to be in relatively good condition and has retained key structural components to phases of construction associated with the 18th and 19th century dockyard. These features are the last in a complex development of slipways and dock entrances that date back to the dockyards initial construction in the early 16th century. The wall should be retained and incorporated in future proposals because of its historic features.” (Lowe 2000:13, 4.8)

Recommendations

Recommend assessments to ascertain the potential for the re-opening of the 1720 landing place stairs that were closed in the 1930’s, the re-opening of the stone entrance to the dry dock, the re-opening of John Rennie’s monumental basin entrance and the three slipway entrances in order to vividly express the uniqueness of this internationally historically significant Thames frontage and along with the extant opening of the George Ledwell Taylor canal to the 1760’s Mast Pond this will allow for the re-instatement of seven bridges along the dockyard river frontage creating a historically unrivalled section of the Thames Path in London.


In relation to the river wall and its component docks, slips, basin and mast ponds a no build-line proposal may be drawn from the wharf wall to the extent of the length of the Double dry dock approx 400ft to the far west of the site incorporating the slipways, the Olympia shed and small mast pond in order to avoid any further destruction of the substructures of the historic assets of the dockyard.

Whilst this may at first appear extreme, it is not yet known how the component structures of the yard are constructed and what may remain of earlier structures. In particular damage to timber land-ties, brick and stone ‘foundations’ to the sides of the structures must be avoided. Therefore observing the curtilige or ‘apron’ of the docks and slips where the main capstans and penstocks are housed will ensure the satisfaction of policy guidelines outlined in PPS5.

Until knowledge of the build of the docks, slips and basin is gained any outline permissions will be in contravention of PPS5. Such knowledge has not yet been established by the piecemeal test pits carried out so far. Aside from PPS5, URB20 determines that heritage assets are fully understood.

Conclusion

The river wall at Deptford is an outstanding and unique heritage resource. Among all the royal dockyards, only at Deptford is the early Tudor plan exhibited with the dock and basin still extant in their early locations and the current penetrations are the signifiers of their ancient predecessors. The Carolean and Hanoverian expansions of the yard to the west also remain intact.

The dockyard gave rise to the wider town of Deptford and local people take a pride in the history of the area. The Deptford foreshore as a place to walk and view the river wall is an important cultural resource for local people.
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place’s importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community.

Where the construction of openings exist or traces remain, such as the vast granite piers to the dry dock, the visible fletton-blocked opening to the 1720 Landing Place and Lookout stairs with its fine stone causeway extant, the timber slipways on the foreshore marking the entrances to the slipways, where exact measurements of the openings can be read from numerous plan sources, the extant opening of the basin slipway, and the extant opening of the mast pond canal, the 1838 axonometric drawing of the boathouse slipways prior to their infill, all these elements could be re-instated.

Where one or more markings survive along the river wall to testify to the locations of dockyard structures this should be capitalized on to consolidate and contribute to the assets of the dockyard as a whole, in line with English Heritage policy that a holistic approach should be taken where several structures demonstrate the evolution of port facilities in one significant place over a period of time.

We await English Heritage’s recommendation and deliberations.

10 Good Reasons Why

Ten Good Reasons

1.Deptford is the only royal dockyard with its Tudor plan extant. The undercroft of the storehouse, the dry dock, slipways and great basin are all structures that have their origin in the Tudor period c.1517. Nowhere else in England testifies to the Tudor and Stuart arrangement of a royal naval dockyard. Regardless of the condition of the dockyard’s intrinsic structures, which are incidentally described in archaeological reports as extremely good, the plan of these structures has remained unchanged for five hundred years.
See:
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/deptford/v/largeimage71996.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=lqvnthcE19cC&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=encyclopedia+of+archaeology+deptford&source=bl&ots=bSmPYgLDy3&sig=N66zTzdVZb7XSoBYjAux86rKQho&hl=en&ei=LdI-TrDqJZCVswbN98TMBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&sqi=2&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=deptford&f=false

2.Nowhere else on the Thames in London is as rich with five centuries of historic association with events of national and international significance and has so little at present to visibly demonstrate this.

3.Simply because the docks, slips and basins were filled in intact a hundred years ago it does not mean they should remain filled in. In particular their below ground position does not make them archaeology, they were built ‘below ground’. Building survey is required in order to fairly and fully assess their future potential. At Rochefort in France, docks filled in a hundred years ago have been successfully excavated and repaired.
See:
http://www.hermione.com/

4.Deptford was instrumental in securing and maintaining Britain’s worldwide influence, leading the world in industrial design, naval architecture and military technology. The position of Master Shipwright at Deptford was the highest ranking of all the royal naval yards.

5.Maritime technology including the construction of docks and basins was exported from Deptford to its immediate neighbours on the Thames, to the outlying royal yards such as Chatham and across the world. Expertise from Deptford was employed to create the basin at Chatham, the port of Dover and even as far as Australia, where Capt. Sir William Denison, who had built the basin slipways at Deptford, went on to built Fort Denison in Sydney.

6.The success of the dockyard at Deptford gave rise to the wider establishment of Deptford town, and it has been claimed, to the maritime status of Greenwich.

7. The dockyard at Deptford is a significant site not only for the United Kingdom but especially for countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Voyages of discovery by Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher, Vancouver and Cook as well as success in numerous naval battles including the Armada and Trafalgar were made possible by the technology and expertise of the infrastructure and dockyard labour at Deptford. As well as the ‘discovery’ of the antipodean nations, the first transports enforced and voluntary departed from Deptford. Deptford’s expertise contributed to the raising of the Russian navy for Peter the Great in the eighteenth century and for Catherine and Potemkin in the nineteenth century.

8. Deptford is yet to receive the benefit of statutory heritage policy formed in relation to naval dockyards, indeed it may be described as socially excluded from specifically targeted maritime and naval policy created by English Heritage in 1998, 2005, 2007 and 2011. Studies show that areas of social deprivation benefit from investment in their heritage environments. Heritage environments contribute significantly to the wider development of local economies.
See:
1998 http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/thematic-survey-navy/
2005; http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/conservation-bulletin-48/cb4816naval.pdf
2007/ 2011: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/dlsg-maritime-naval-buildings/maritime_and_naval_final.pdf
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/power-of-place/powerofplace11.pdf

9. A debt is owed to Deptford by the present inheritors of the statutory heritage agencies for multiple failures by the heritage agencies in the past, including the loss of the Great Tudor Storehouse of 1513 in 1954 and the demolition of the last of the c.1712 storehouse in 1984.

10. Deptford deserves the right to fair and equal access to statutory heritage protection applied to royal naval yards elsewhere in order to secure the economic benefits, the social benefits and the enjoyment of the cultural capital of its heritage environment. Research indicating the presence of phenomena such as the persistence of urban deprivation in particular areas of cities, suggests that poverty and social exclusion may be related to properties of the spatial structure of the physical form of the city.
See:
http://www.space.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/projects/exclusion/

Inaugural Sculpture for the Great Basin

Summer 2017
Following the successful excavation and re-opening of the Henry VIII's Great Basin at Deptford and celebrating its five hundred year anniversary, the first in a series of sculptures has now been installed.

11 U.S. Marines died at Deptford Dockyard

An interview by David Venditta
Of The Morning Call
May 26, 2003

Edward W. McElduff's ship hit two mines on its way to the Normandy coast early on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

The explosions hurled the 22-year-old Navy ensign from the charthouse to the deck below, smashing his back and neck into a rack of rifles and submachine guns.

He was seriously injured, and would be injured again.

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His experiences led him to become a Catholic priest after the war.

Now 81, retired and living in Palmerton, he will mark the 50th anniversary of his ordination on Friday.

Today, Memorial Day, McElduff remembers his role in World War II and his most traumatic moments. They came several weeks after D- Day, while his damaged LST, or landing ship tank, was moored at a small naval base in England.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * *

They had tied us up at a place called Deptford on the Thames River. It could only accommodate two ships. There was another LST alongside of us, so close you could step across to it.

The Germans were using buzz bombs, V-1 rockets, or "Doodlebugs." They were a frightening thing. You'd hear the engine roar, then it would suddenly stop, and you'd wait a couple of seconds, because that was when it was falling with its ton of explosives.

We were in what was called Doodlebug Alley, one of the bombs' major routes. They were dropping all around us, day and night, coming out of nowhere.

So this one night in July or early August, I was the only officer aboard, because I was the officer of the deck. The crew was in their quarters below.

The officer of the deck on the other ship had been in my Officer Candidate School class at Northwestern University. His name was John something, I can't remember.

It was about 11 and we were talking, and I said, "I'm gonna get a cup of coffee," and he said, "Well, I'm gonna check something," and he went to check it.

I had just left the galley, where I went for the coffee, when a buzz bomb dropped right on the aft part of John's ship. The blast blew me down a passageway about 30 feet, and I was reaching out to try to stop myself from going over the side. My back hit the railing, making my injury from D-Day worse. I grabbed onto the railing.

A fire started over the ammunition. I was badly hurt -- my spinal column is wrecked from that -- but I had to get the fire out. The crew was trapped down below, so I worked while they were freeing themselves. I got the hose unfurled and the water going, and by then the guys had cleared themselves out.

So they took over fighting the fire, and I went over to the other ship to see what I could do about casualties.

The captain was aboard that ship, but his quarters were pretty well blown open. I heard groaning and had to get some debris off him. I tried to pull him back, because I was afraid more debris was going to fall on him.

But I couldn't find any substance to him. The concussion was so much, his bones were shattered into small pieces. When I held him, it was like holding a soft mass.

He looked like a rubber man.

I didn't want him to die without someone there with him.

Within three minutes, he died in my arms.

The next thing I remember, I looked at the life raft on my ship and saw parts of my friend's body on it. I assumed it was John, because he had been standing with me and I hadn't seen anybody else.

I took my utility knife out and scraped his remains off of the life raft into a paper bag. Anything I could find of him, I put in the bag.

I didn't want to leave him on the raft.

Someone came up to help me, and I said, "No I'll do it, I want to do it myself."

What I intended to do with the remains, I don't know, probably drop them over the side. I might have done that. It would have been a logical thing. The rise and fall of the Thames River is rather remarkable, so the remains would have ultimately gone out to sea. That would have been appropriate.

But I had a great deal of pain, and I think it was overwhelming me.

After I got done scraping, I put the knife back in my belt.

And then I blacked out.

World of the man

I was scrappy when I was a kid. I had to be.

My dad was a career Navy man, so we moved around a lot. My mother and younger sister and I followed him all over the world -- Hawaii, the Philippines, Panama, the usual places where Navy families would go.

I went to about 12 or 13 grammar schools. Every year I was the new man on the block, so I was challenged, and I got in a lot of fights. When we lived in Norfolk, Va., at the naval base, one day I beat up the admiral's grandson, and my sister beat up the captain of the yard's daughter.

My dad was an Annapolis grad with a sideline: He wrote music. He sold material to Irving Berlin. Some of his music was recorded by Nelson Eddy. At Naval Academy football games, they still sing one of his numbers, a stirring little fight song.

Dad was loaded with talent. He played piano, he was a pilot, he was a deep-sea diver, he was a New York state gymnastic champion before he followed his brother into the academy, where he couldn't participate in sports because he was already a pro: He had played basketball with the original Celtics.

After he graduated, he met my mother in Philadelphia, where she was in supply work at the Navy Yard. She was in the first group of women ever to be enlisted in the Navy, back during World War I.

I was born in Manhattan. In school I was a fast sprinter -- held records on both coasts. After we moved to Brooklyn, I boxed for the Knights of Columbus.

When I was 15, a sophomore in high school, I wanted to get into the world of the man, so I said I was 17 and joined the New York National Guard. It was a horse outfit, the 101st Cavalry on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. I had to learn to ride, and well.

The horses were big and came from the West half-trained. We had to break them in to cavalry maneuvers, which wasn't easy. And because I was small and light, I jockeyed for I Troop when the various troops had horse races.

My dad used to kid me: "Who was in charge today, you or the horse?"

I've hated horses ever since. I don't want anything to do with them.

Trouble with an eye

After I graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, Calif., in 1940, I went to Long Beach Junior College.

My dad foresaw war with Japan. I don't know why the admirals or the politicians didn't. He told my mom in February of 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor: "We'll be at war with Japan. So if you want to stay here in California, fine, or you want to go back to your hometown of Philadelphia. But maybe you ought to do it reasonably soon."

Shortly after that, we did move to Upper Darby, outside Philadelphia.

I went to St. Joseph's University for a brief period, studying physics, and then the Naval Academy in the summer of '41. But I had trouble with my left eye. It wasn't 20-20, it was 18-20. That was a big no-no back then. I lasted only about five months because of my eye.

Then I enlisted in the Navy as a white hat, a sailor, and they sent me to Officer Candidate School. I got commissioned in '43 as an ensign. They gave us a preference sheet. I wanted to be in the Atlantic Fleet on a small ship, which means the amphibious force. That's where I wound up.

I was sent to a landing ship tank. LSTs were bigger than a destroyer. You could put a monster amount of material on their tank deck and on the upper deck. They were the kind of ship that won the war, because they provided all the supplies and all the men.

I picked up the ship in Boston, and we went to Little Creek in Virginia for shakedown. The total complement was nine officers and about 110 men.

We went over to Europe early in '43. I was navigator and small boat officer. We got ready for the big event, the invasion of France.

Wandering in Normandy

In the early morning darkness of June 6, 1944, LST 981 was carrying British Royal engineers and some American engineers to the beach. I was in the charthouse, one level up from the upper deck. There was a ladder going down.

The ship hit two mines under the surface, one right after the other. It was literally lifted right out of the water.

I was blown from the charthouse to the bottom of the ladder and into a gun rack with Thompson submachine guns and rifles. I was in excruciating pain.

When you're young, you think nothing is ever going to happen to you. It was always going to happen to the other guy.

I was thinking, "I couldn't believe this happened to me.'

We got towed back to England, and I went into a British naval hospital. The doctor pointed to the floor and said, "That's a spot for you, right there."

I'm seeing these guys without arms or legs or insides, and I said, I can't take this. So I left there.

I had a friend in town, and I stayed there and was nursed.

When I got back on my feet again, I decided I wanted to go over and see what the war looked like.

I had Army clothes and a helmet with "USN" on it. I would have looked exactly as if I was in the Army except for that. I hopped a ride across the channel, then I got on the so-called Red Ball Express, trucks that would run up to the front with supplies.

Nobody said a damn thing to me.

I wandered around Normandy on my own, slept by a hedgerow for three nights.

And I did meet up with some American troops, who viewed me with great suspicion, which I guess they had reason to do: What's a Navy man doing here?

I ran out of food. Some of the infantry guys I met supplied me with rations.

There was a sniper somewhere near where I was, and he fired at me about three times. Maybe it was a French civilian who didn't want to see us there. I fired a burst from a submachine gun, and he took off, or I hit him.

Then I figured, the hell with this, I'm going back. I've seen as much as I want to see.

I got a ride back to the beach in a truck, and I went back to the ship.

Miniature ships at Pearl

After the buzz bomb hit and I was hurt the second time, I went up to London and stopped at an American Army hospital. They gave me a shot and some painkillers.

Our LST was wrecked, it had no power. We were towed back to the States, across the Atlantic in tandem with another LST by a seagoing tug called the Choctaw. It took 37 days.

There were dead rats in our water, so it was contaminated, so we had no water. We got the desalinization machinery working enough to keep body and soul together.

We lived in filth. If you wanted to bathe, you had to throw a bucket over the side and just clean yourself off with sea water.

The British had given us some rations, which were horrible. A lot of it we had to throw over the side because it wasn't edible.

In New York, the ship was repaired. Then we went out to the Pacific, and that was kind of uneventful because the war had wound down.

My dad was in the Pacific, too, as captain of the attack transport USS Pickens. During the invasion of Okinawa, the assault commander's vessel was hit by a kamikaze, so my dad said, "This is no time to worry about who's got date of rank. My God, we've got to get these guys on the beach quick."

He took charge, and the landing was successful, for which he got the combat Legion of Merit, which is quite an award.

I left my ship in Guam because I was reassigned, and went to Pearl Harbor, where I worked in the plotting office at CinCPac -- Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet. It was difficult for me, because of my back injuries. I had to climb up on a plot and crawl across it to move the miniature ships.

But I didn't want to be a wimp. I never wanted to be a wimp.

Giving the Lord a try

When I got back to the States, the war was over, and I didn't know what I was going to do. I volunteered for a cruise up to the Arctic on the Midway, which was a large carrier just built, for test- flight operations.

Up in the Arctic, I had a lot of time to think. It was boring, cold, and the days were long and dark, and I started to reflect.

When that buzz bomb hit, I was the only topside survivor. How come other guys died, and I didn't?

The Lord had saved me for something. He saved me, and he took care of me in so many other ways.

So I decided, I'm going to give the Lord a try. I decided to enter the seminary.

In the spring of '46, I came back and was discharged. My folks were in Upper Darby. My mother was pleased when I told her about my plans. My father thought I was crazy. He knew I wanted a family, a wife and children, and he said, "How are you going to live without them?" I said I'll try.

I went in the seminary, St. Charles Borromeo, within months. On May 30, 1953, I was ordained at the Cathedral of Ss. Peter & Paul in Philadelphia.

As a priest, I haven't moved around a lot. I've only been in about a half-dozen parishes in 50 years. I spent 20 years at St. Nicholas near Walnutport, and before that, 15 years at St. Richard's in Schuylkill County, halfway between Hometown and Mahanoy City.

I don't mind admitting I kind of hid from reality all these years, until I realized there are certain things that happen to you that you have to acknowledge -- good, bad or indifferent -- whether they're war experiences or anything else.

People would talk to me about World War II, and I didn't want to hear about it. That was history.

But I was only fooling myself partially, because I still suffer from a lot of flashbacks, a lot of bad memories. I couldn't escape everything. You can't when you live in a real world.

You can only run so far, so fast.

I've had a full life, I've missed absolutely nothing, and I'm grateful for that. I'm glad I am what I am, because I love this work.

I want the Lord to give me time so I can serve him and his people, as long as he wants. And I will do that. I want to walk with him. I don't want to be selfish. I don't want to hurt anybody.

I just want to walk with him.

Epilogue

McElduff received a long-overdue Purple Heart in 2000.

A shelf in his apartment holds a model of his LST, a model of a V- 1 rocket embedded with a chunk of metal from the buzz bomb that damaged his ship, and the knife he used to scrape his friend's remains off the life raft.

He has tried but had no luck finding John's last name.

His sister is Pat Garrahan.

Though retired and still pained by his war injuries, McElduff continues to "help out where I can" in the Allentown diocese, and helps the needy in Central America.

He is overseeing the work of charitable clinics in Guatemala and construction of an addition to a maternity hospital in Nicaragua. He raises money for these projects.

McElduff will say all of the Masses on Saturday and Sunday at St. Nicholas Church in Lehigh Township. He'll say the Mass marking his 50 years in the priesthood at 1 p.m. June 8, also at St. Nicholas. An informal reception at the church will follow.
Copyright © 2011, The Morning Call

shipwright's palace: they hear, all day long, and never ending, save on Sunday, the sound of hammer and of saw, the whistling of the bo's'ns and foremen, the rolling of casks, the ringing of bells, and all the noise which accompanies the build- ing and the fitting of ships ; and smell perpetually the tar and the pitch (which some love better than the smell of roses and of violets)

http://www.archive.org/stream/worldwentverywel00besarich/worldwentverywel00besarich_djvu.txt

they hear, all day long, and never ending, save on Sunday, the sound of hammer and of saw, the whistling of the bo's'ns and foremen, the rolling of casks, the ringing of bells, and all the noise which accompanies the build- ing and the fitting of ships ; and smell perpetually the tar and the pitch (which some love better than the smell of roses and of violets)

From Walter Besant THE WORLD WENT VERY WELL THEN. 23

I suppose that the best place in the world for a boy who is
about to become a sailor, as well as for one who loves to paint
ships, must be Deptford, which seems to many so mean and
despicable a town. Mean and despicable to Jack and to my-
self it would never be, because here our boyhood was spent,
and here we played with Castilla ; here we first learned to sit by
the river-side and watch the craft go up and down, with those
at anchor and those in dock. At Deptford, where the water is
never rough enough to capsize a tilt-boat, we are at the very
gates of London ; we can actually see the pool.: we are, in a
word, on the Thames.

The Thames is not, I believe, the largest river in the world;
the great Oronoco is broader, and, I dare say, longer ; the Nile
is certainly a greater stream. Yet, there is no other river
which is so majestic by reason of its shipping and its trade.
For thither come ships, laden with palm-oil and ivory, from the
Guinea Coast ; from Norway and Riga, with wood and tallow ;
from Holland, with stuffs and spices and provisions of all kinds ;
from the West Indies, with rum and sugar ; from the East
Indies, with rice ; from China, with tea and silk ; from Arabia,
with coffee ; from Newcastle, with coal. There is no kind of
merchandise produced in the world which is not carried up the
Thames to the port of London. And there is no kind of ship
or boat built to swim in the sea, except, I suppose, the Chinese
junk, the Morisco galley, or the piratical craft of the Eastern
Seas, which does not lie at anchor in the Thames, somewhere
between Greenwich Reach and London Bridge. East-Indiamen,
brigs, brigantines, schooners, yachts, sloops, galliots, tenders,
colliers, hoys, barges, smacks, herring-busses, or hog-boats all
are here. And not only these, which are peaceful ships, only
armed with carronades and muskets for defence against pirates,
but also his majesty's men-of-war, frigates, sloops of war, cut-
ters, fire-ships, and every kind of vessel employed to beat off
the enemies of the country, who would prey upon our com-
merce and destroy our merchantmen.

On that very day when
Jack came was there not, lying off Deptford Creek, the Re-
doubtable, having received her stores, provisions, and ammuni-
tion, and now waiting her captain and her crew ? and I warrant
the press-gang were busy at Wapping and at Ratcliffe. Beside
her lay the sloop-of-war Venus, the Pink, and Lively, and off
the dock mouth was the Hector, lying in ordinary, a broad can-
vas tilt or awning rigged up from stem to stern. So that those
who look up and down the river from Deptford Stairs see not
only the outward and visible proofs of England's trade, but also
those of England's greatness.

Or, again which may be useful
to the painter one may see not only at Deptford and at Red-
riff, but above the river, at Wapping, Shadwell, and Blackwall,
every kind of sailor ; they are mostly alike in manners and in
morals and one hopes that to sailors much is pardoned, and
that from them little is expected but they differ in their
speech and in their dress. There is the phlegmatic Hollander,
never without his pipe ; the mild Norwegian ; the fiery Spaniard,
ready with his dagger ; the fierce Italian, equally ready with
his knife ; the treacherous Greek ; and the Frenchman. But
the last we generally see since it is our lot to be often at war
with his nation as a prisoner, when he comes to us half starved,
ragged, and in very evil plight. Yet give these poor French
prisoners only warmth, light, and food, and they will turn out
to be most light-hearted and merry blades, always cheerful and
ready to talk, sing, and dance, and always making ingenious
things with a knife and a piece of wood. Perhaps if we knew
this people better, and they knew us better, we should be less
ready to go to war with each other.

Those who live in such a town as Deptford, and continually
witness this procession of ships, cannot choose but be sensible
of the greatness of the country, and must perforce talk con-
tinually with each other of foreign ports and places beyond the
ocean. Also because they witness the corning and going of the
king's ships (some of them pretty well battered on their return,
I promise you) ; and because they hear, all day long, and never
ending, save on Sunday, the sound of hammer and of saw, the
whistling of the bo's'ns and foremen, the rolling of casks, the
ringing of bells, and all the noise which accompanies the build-
ing and the fitting of ships ; and smell perpetually the tar and
the pitch (which some love better than the smell of roses and
of violets) they cannot refrain from talking continually of
actions at sea, feats of bravery, and the like. All the towns-
people talk of these things, and of little else. And, besides,
in these years there was the more reason for this kind of con-
versation because we were always at war with France and Spain,
fighting, among other things, to drive the French out of America,
and so to enable the ungrateful colonies to make us, shortly
afterwards, follow the lead of the French. Every day there
came fresh news of actions, skirmishes, captures, wrecks, burn-
ings. The Channel and the Bay of Biscay swarmed with French
privateers as thick as wasps in an orchard. There was not a
lugger on the coast of Normandy but stole out of a night to
pick up some English craft ; every fleet of merchantmen sailed
under convoy, and every sailor looked for death or a French
prison unless he would fight it out unto the end.

The people of London are strangely incurious many there
are who know nothing about the very monuments standing in
their midst and so that they can read every day the news
from France and Spain, they care little about their own country.
Therefore Deptford, which lies at their very gates, is as little
known to them as if it were in Wales. Some, it is true, come
every year on St. Luke's Day to join the rabble at Horn Fair,
landing at Rotherhithe, and walking to Charlton with the pro-
cession of mad wags who carry horns on their heads to that
scene of debauchery and riot ; and once a year, on Trinity Mon-
day, the elders of the Trinity House assemble at the Great Hall
behind St. Nicolas's, and after business go to church, and after
church, dinner at the Gun Tavern on the Green. And the ships
of the royal navy come and go at the royal yard almost daily.
Otherwise Deptford hath no visitors.

I do not say that it is
a beautiful city, though, as for streets, we have the Green and
Church Street ; and as for monuments, until late years there were
the great House and gardens of Saye's Court, now lying deso-
late and miserable, partly enclosed in the King's Yard and
partly given over to rank weeds and puddles. Here it was that
the great Peter, Czar of Muscovy, once lived. There are also the
two churches of St. Nicolas and St. Paul, both stately buildings,
and temples fit for worship, the latter especially, which is like
its sister churches, built about the same time, of Limehouse,
St. George's, Ratcliffe, Hoxton, Bethnal Green, Hackney, St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields, Camden Town, and others majestic with
its vast round portico of stone and its commanding terrace.

Then there are the two hospitals or almshouses, both named after
the Holy Trinity, for decayed mariners and their widows. To
my own mind these monuments of benevolence, which stand so
thickly all round London, are fairer than the most magnificent
king's palace of which we can read. Let the great bashaw have
as many gilded palaces as he pleases for himself and his se-
raglio ; let our palaces be those which are worthy of a free
people, namely, homes and places of refuge for the aged and de-
serving poor, and those who are quite spent and now past work.

I suppose there are few places richer and more fortunate
than Deptford and its neighbor, Greenwich, in these founda-
tions. At the latter place there is the great and noble Naval
Hospital, now inhabited by nearly two thousand honest veter-
ans ; they will never, be sure, be turned out of this, their stately
home, until England hath lost her pride in her sailors. There
is Morden College, for decayed merchants ; there is Norfolk, also
called Trinity, College, for the poor of Greenwich, and of Der-
singham, in Norfolk ; and there is Queen Elizabeth's Hospital,
for poor women. So, at Deptford, we have those two noble
foundations, both named after the Holy Trinity, one behind
St. Nicolas's and the other behind St. Paul's, the latter espe-
cially being a goodly structure, with a fair quadrangular court,
a commodious hall, and gardens fitted for quiet meditation and
for rest in the sunshine during the latest trembling years of life.

I do not think that even Morden College itself, with its canal
in front and its stately alleys of trees, or Norfolk College, with
its convenient stone terrace overlooking the river and its spa-
cious garden, is more beautiful than the Hospital of the Holy
Trinity beside St. Paul's Church, Deptford, especially if one
considers the stormy, anxious, and harassed lives to which it
offers rest and repose. They have been lives spent on the sea ;
not in the pursuit of honor won at the cannon's mouth and by
boarding-pike in fighting the king's enemies, but in the gather-
ing of wealth for others to enjoy, none of their gains coming to
themselves. The merchant captain brings home his cargo safe
after perils many and hardships great ; but the cargo is not for
him. His owners, or those who have chartered the ship, re-
ceive the freight ; it is bought with their money and sold for
their profit. For the captain and the crew there is their bare
wage ; and when they can work no longer, perhaps, if they are
fortunate, a room in a hospital or almshouse, with the weekly
dole of loaves and shillings.

The tract of land (it is not great) lying at the back of Trinity
Almshouses and the Stowage, contained by the last bend of the
creek before it runs into the river, is rented by two or three
market-gardeners, and laid out by them for the production of
fruit and vegetables.

As these gardens lay retired and behind the houses, no one
ever came to them except the gardeners themselves, who are
quiet, peaceful folk. About the orchards here, and the beds
of asparagus, pease, endive, skirrett, and the rest of the vegeta-
bles grown for the London market, lies ever an abiding sense
of peace ; and this although one cannot but hear the continual
hammering of the dock-yard, the firing of salutes, and the yo-
hoing and roaring of voices which all day long come up from
the ships upon the river. I know not how we came to know
these gardens, or to find them out. I used to wander in them
with Castilla, when we were little children, with Philadelphy
for nurse ; we took Jack Easterbrook to show him the place as
soon as he came to us ; we thought, I believe as children love
to think of anything that the gardens were our own, though,
of course, we were only there on sufferance, and because the
gardeners knew we should neither destroy nor steal.

Perhaps the chief reason why we sought the place (because
we had gardens of our own at home) was that, just beyond the
last bend of the creek, there stood, on the very edge of the
steep bank here twenty feet above low-water mark an old
summer-house, built of wood. It was octagonal in shape, hav-
ing a pointed roof of shingle, with a gilded weathercock upon
it. Three sides contained windows, all looking upon the river ;
another side consisted of a door ; and a bench ran round the
room, except on the side of the door. It had once been paint-
ed green, but the paint was now for the most part fallen off ;
the shingle roof was leaky, and let in the rain ; the weathercock
was rusty, and stuck at due east ; the planks of the wall had
started ; the door hardly hung upon its hinges ; the glass of the
windows was broken ; and the whole structure was so crazy
that I wonder it kept together, and did not either tumble to
pieces or slip down the steep bank into the ooze of the creek.
In this summer-house the great czar Peter, when he was learn-
ing how to build ships in Deptford Yard, would, it was said,
sometimes come to sit with his princes or heyducs, on a sum-
mer evening, to drink brandy, to look at the ships, and to med
itate how best to convert his enslaved Muscovites into the like-
ness of free and honest English sailors. We had small respect
for the memory of the czar, but as for the old summer-house,
it was all our own, because no one used it except ourselves.
For us it was a fortress or castle where we could play at being
besieged, the ships in the river representing the enemy's fleet.
Jack would sally forth and perform prodigies of valor in bring-
ing in provisions for the garrison. Or it was our ship, in which
we sustained imaginary broadsides, and encountered shipwreck,
and were cast away, Jack being captain and Castilla the pas-
senger, while I was alternately bo's'n, first lieutenant, or cook,
according to the exigencies of the situation. But very soon
Jack grew too big for these games, and left us to ourselves.
Then we fell to more quiet sport.

It was pleasant to watch
the ships go up and down the river, and fine to see how the
tide rushed up the creek below us, making whirlpools and ed-
dies, and setting upright the boats lying on their sides in the
mud, and trying to tear down the bank on which stood our
rickety palace. We seemed to know every craft, from the
great East - Indiaman to the Margate hoys or the Gravesend
tilt-boats, by face, so to speak, just as we knew the faces of the
naval officers who walked about the town. And, thanks to
Jack, we knew the history of every ship of the king's navy
which came to Deptford, and all the engagements and actions
in which she had ever taken part.

like a medieval walled city........

The dockyard, like a medieval walled city, with its houses, workshops, docks, slips and basin was laid out in the Tudor Period. This Tudor layout is till extant. The streets, roads and ways through the yard will still be present in some form, such as the perpendicular access alongside the docks and slipways and the routes around the basin. Many of the routes of access through the yard have been in existence and use for five hundred years. As many of the buildings and the positions of the major industrial installations such as docks survived from the Tudor period of the yard until the mid 1950's, the early Tudor layout of the routes, roads and railways continued to remain in use.

These routes are as much a characteristic feature of the yard as the dockyard structures themselves. Indeed, they are structures. In 1860 Monsieur Chevallier remarked on and recorded in drawings the granite longitudinal paved roads within Portsmouth yard. He also remarked on and recorded in drawings the early railtracks. The ways through the site at Deptford were fashioned in an identical manner to those in Portsmouth and are shown here in photographs from the 1950's. The tracks that are still present in Portsmouth and railways at Chatham have recently been restored, contributing to the overall historic landscape.

Some of the roads at Deptford have evolved from their Tudor origins and were re-made at the end of the nineteenth century during the tenure of the Foreign Cattle Market. These roads express the evolution of the site. The granite cobbled streets at Deptford yard are currently being unearthed during archaeological excavations.

Current policy highlights the need to preserve and maximise such early characteristics of heritage sites such as these routes, especially where they constitute "spaces between" and contribute to more recognisable assets.

These routes are significant components of the historic environment and the opportunity is there to ensure that their contribution is fully expressed in the new development. It is the responsibilty of English Heritage and of Lewisham Planning to ensure that Deptford is not excluded from the benefits of publicly funded heritage policy.