Response to London's Lost Garden

http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac293/mastershipwright/versailles%20demesne%20de%20Marie%20Antoinette/


The model of garden archaeology and restoration that is offered by the work shown in the link above, is one that might lead us to question current methodology, approach, attitude and aspirations in relation to statutory agencies' consideration of Sayes Court Gardens to date. I am not aware of there being much if any considered interest by the statutory agencies in the opportunity this site provides, such as the commissioning of a special study, which surely the site warrants? So if anyone is aware of public agencies expressions of considered interest to date it would be great to hear about it. This is not meant as a cynical criticism of agencies who are publicly charged and publicly funded to enhance and promote heritage but more of an invitation for there to be more openness to, or even to share existing openness to other approaches and assessments with the general public. Despite numerous assertions of community participation there is still a tendency towards hostility to the participation of the "general public", still very much a "top down", "we know best" "what we say goes" attitude towards what is, rightfully, everyone's heritage and cultural capital that everyone holds a stake in. We can however take heart from the publication of PPS5 http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/1514132.pdf in light of which Convoy's Wharf development will serve as a case study of the efficacy and integrity of the agencies who have formulated and define their public stance through the release of such policy. Another model of practice that may be applicable to Convoy's Wharf is the current project for the Hoo peninsula being led by Sarah.Newsome@english-heritage.org.uk. Finally, it would be interesting to know what percentage of Heritage funds are deployed in areas of social deprivation and what the positive benefits of such spending are. Albury street was a very successful scheme of restoration, where some of the houses had been gutted and remained roofless for years. Now all of these buildings are listed grade II*, and providing employment opportunities for young people working on heritage tours of Deptford. http://www.culturesnap.com/ There seems to be no limit to what can be achieved where the creative and political will exists. Perhaps what may help is the independent scrutiny/study by an academic body perhaps one that has a Europe wide experience and perspective (and taste!) and that is also free of the emotion that besets those of us who live and feel that we belong to this extraordinary part of London and that we tend to express in relation to outside perception and attitudes to the place. There was a good study done by Ricky Burdett that was commissioned by Lewisham. It may be a little out of date but there were some very good ideas there and given that it was paid for by Lewisham Borough it ought to still be an active document and therefore "on the table' when it comes to determining this current proposal by Hutchison Whampoa. Enough already!

Open House 1774

A Visit with George III to His Majesty's Dockyard at Deptford 1774

Those of you who have enjoyed the visits to John Evelyn's garden through the portal http://londonslostgarden.wordpress.com/  may have noticed a gateway in the dockyard wall from Mr. Evelyn's land to the dockyard. Although the day is a little hazy come through the gate, and we will take a tour of the King's Yard as it was in 1774, and walk from London's lost garden to London's forgotten dockyard. So many feet have walked the paths through the yard, many of them illustrious. Lets leave the royals aside and say that in their time they each visited at least once to witness the launching of their ships. The names of the greatest are easily remembered, Elizabeth's great mariners, slave traders and pirates, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins. Captains Cook and Bligh, Nelson (and some say Lady Hamilton) the roll call is long, so follow closely, its easy to get lost, to slip through time and space when there are five hundred years of history to recount. Remember it is now 1774, the yard has already served the nation for 261 years. It is now in its Hanoverian prime, and  the layout will hardly change at all for the next 236 years or so. 

Our guide http://www.british-history.ac.uk tells us, 
that Deptford is described in the "Ambulator," in 1774, as 'a large and populous town, divided into Upper and Lower Deptford, and containing two churches." The place was of old famous for its naval shipbuilding yard, "Deptford is most remarkable for its noble dock, where the royal navy was formerly built and repaired, the yard is enlarged to more than double its former dimensions, and a vast number of hands are constantly employed. It has a wet dock of two acres for ships, and another with an acre and a half, with last quantities of timber and other stores, and extensive buildings as storehouses and offices for the use of the place, besides dwelling-houses for the use of those officers who are obliged to live upon the spot in order to superintend the works. Here the royal yachts of our Tudor and Stuart sovereigns were generally kept.

this view from the river shows the landing place in front of the  storehouse. The landing place, was open until the 1930's. The storehouse was begun in 1712 by Joseph Allin, Master Shipwright, responsible for the rebuilding of the Master Shipwright's House in 1708. Imagine walking up these stairs from the Deptford foreshore, following in the footsteps of the Georgian monarchs, navy dignitaries, and so many of the work force. The fine stone causeway is there if you care to notice, and doubtless the steps too, just bricked up. 

At the top of the stair there is a fine gate to greet the monarchs at the launching of their ships  and look closely and see the great flagpole, perhaps once it was a ship's mast. 

The Royal Dock, or "King's Yard," as it was locally called in former times, was esteemed one of the most complete repositories for naval stores in Europe. It covered not less than thirty acres of ground, and contained every convenience for building, repairing, and fitting out ships-of-the-line—those veritable "wooden walls of Old England" with which we were familiar before the introduction of armour-plated vessels.

If we had come here and stood on this spot 200 years ago, in 1574, we would still find the double dry dock, crossed by two bridges, with its capstans as tall as a man (and some female shipwrights!) close by the Master Shipwright's House where it has stood since Tudor times. In another 200 years time after launching ships for the Armada, ships for the establishing of the colonies in America and Australia ships for Captain James Cook and after that ships for Nelson's battles including Trafalgar ,the dock will still be here quietly sleeping under a temporary warehouse structure just waiting to be discovered and excavated. 

 Artificers in wood and in iron had here large ranges of workshops and storehouses; and here the hammer and the axe were scarcely ever idle, even in times of peace; but where, during the prevalence of war, they were plied incessantly "in the construction of those floating bulwarks for which England is, or rather was, renowned, and which carry a hundred and twenty guns and a thousand men to guard her shores from the invader, or to bear her fame with her victories to the remotest seas of the ocean."

Looking across the roofs of the Master Shipwright's House to the storehouse, "better than anything at Chatham". Be careful not to blink because between the powers that will be, the heritage experts and planning officials, will see fit to permit this magnificent building to be partly demolished in 1954 and completely demolished in 1984. 20,000 bricks from the Tudor storehouse will be taken to repair Hampton Court. The early 18th century plum stocks will go to repair Tilbury Fort. Enjoy the storehouse now, one of the finest edifices to grace the London Thames. Oddly fifty years after demolishing Henry VIII's Great Storehouse, the remains will be scheduled as an Ancient Monument.

The yard was occupied by various buildings, such as two wet docks (one double and the other single), three "slips" for men-of-war, a basin, two mast ponds, a model loft, mast houses, a large smith's shop, together with numerous forges for anchors, sheds for timber, &c., besides houses for the officers who superintended the works.

The okum boys have been chided by the Timber Master for playing the dangerous game of scrambling across the masts recently arrived from Riga and now pickling in the mast pond. 

Lets go inside the newly refurbished Officers' Terrace, originally built around 1670 and now refashioned with sash windows and parapets. Through the grand door in the corner of the terrace the wife of the Clerk of the Cheque has lately returned from Spitalfields with silks that she is showing to the Master Attendant's wife. They are having tea, lately brought from Seurat, with some of the women who have contracts to supply the navy with canvas, nails and other requisites. They are telling old dockyard tales about Samuel Pepys' visits to the dockyard and his philandering with Mrs Bagwell. The Master Shipwright's Assistant's wife has arrived from next door and suggested they walk in the garden and play "I love my love with an A because......" just like Lady Castlemaine, KIng Charles II's favourite mistress and her friends would play whilst staying at the Navy treasurer's house in the dockyard.

The finest machinery in the world is said to have been employed in Deptford Dockyard for spinning hemp and manufacturing ropes and cables for the service of the navy. The large storehouse on the north side of the quadrangle was erected in the year 1513. This may be said to have been the commencement of the works at Deptford, which under successive sovereigns gradually grew up and extended.

The ladies are now walking in the gardens and the Storekeeper's wife is showing some plants to the Surgeon's wife that she insists have been growing there since the time John Evelyn had his famous garden at Sayes Court. (the Clerk of the Survey's wife whispered that next she'll be telling us that the plants came from Evelyn's garden, or that they were planted by Charles II himself!) They've now gone inside the banqueting house at the foot of the garden and lots of laughter is coming from there, so lets continue our tour of the yard.

The old storehouse, which was a quadrangular pile, appears to have consisted originally only of a range on the north side, where, on what was formerly the front of the building, is the date 1513, together with the initials H R in a cipher, and the letters A X for Anno Christi.

Let me show this drawing I have with me. It will be done by the kind gentlemen who, in 1954, will demolish the earliest naval building in the country, "for economic and strategic reasons" it has a ring, a certain echo to it that phrase. Anyway, the drawing shows Henry VIII's cipher HR and the date 1513. It is set below this flame headed gothic arch in hand wrought Tudor brickwork. As it is being demolished one fellow by the name of J. H. W. Haywood will be moved to write "it may eventually be regarded as the work of an artist craftsman having very few equals" In fact, eventually it will end up in a lobby being used as a notice board and no one will even remember what it is or why it is even there. 

 The buildings on the east, west, and south sides of the quadrangle were erected at different times; and a double front, towards the north, was added in 1721.

 Another storehouse, parallel to the above, and of the same length, having sail and rigging lofts, was completed towards the close of the last century; and a long range of smaller storehouses was built under the direction of Sir Charles Middleton, afterwards Lord Barham, about the year 1780.

Look there! the ghost of John Cleveley, raising his brush in devotion, to record for perpetuity the magnificence of Deptford!

In Charnock's "History of Marine Architecture" 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."

We are accustomed in the yard to Royal visits, indeed the Duke of York resided here for a while in the Navy Treasurer's house. 

Deptford dockyard, in its time, received many royal and distinguished visitors; the earliest of whom we have any record was Edward VI., who thus tells us of the provision made for his reception:—"June 19th, 1549. I went to Deptford, being bedden to supper by the Lord Clinton, where before souper i saw certaine [men] stand upon a bote without hold of anything, and rane one at another til one was cast into the water. At supper Mons. Vieedam and Henadey supped with me. After supper was ober a fort [was] made upon a great lighter on the Temps [Thames] which had three walles and a Watch Towre, in the meddes of wich Mr. Winter was Captain with forty or fifty other soldiours in yellow and blake. To the fort also apperteined a galery of yelow color with men and municion in it for defence of the castel; wherfor ther cam 4 pinesses [pinnaces] with other men in wight ansomely dressed, wich entending to give assault to the castil, first droue away the yelow piness and aftir with clods, scuibs, canes of fire, darts made for the nonce, and bombardes assaunted the castill, beating them of the castel into the second ward, who after issued out and droue away the pinesses, sinking one of them, out of wich al the men in it being more than twenty leaped out and swamme in the Temps. Then came th' Admiral of the nauy with three other pinesses, and wanne the castel by assault, and burst the top of it doune, and toke the captain and under captain. Then the Admiral went forth to take the yelow ship, and at length clasped with her, toke her, and assaulted also her toppe and wane it by compulcion, and so returned home." This royal record of a mimic naval engagement on the Thames appears in the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum, and is quoted by Cruden in his "History of Gravesend." 

Walk with us now across the bridge at the mouth of the dry dock. As we cross in time and space, you will witness Sir Samuel Bentham, younger brother of Jeremy, pointing out alterations to be carried out to the dock gates and entrance. Samuel raised a navy for Potempkin and Catherine the Great, taking many artificers from the Deptford yard, in a long tradition of co-operation between Russia and England since Peter the Great's visit here in 1698. 

Arriving in front of the Master Shipwright's House through the shimmering haze coming off the river, ascending the early dockyard watergate stairs is Elizabeth,

"On the 4th of April, 1581," writes Lysons in his "Environs of London," "Queen Elizabeth visited Captain Drake's ship, called the Golden Hind. Her Majesty dined on board, and after dinner conferred the honour of knighthood on the captain. A prodigious concourse of people assembled on the occasion, and a wooden bridge, on which were a hundred persons, broke down, but no lives were lost. Sir Francis Drake's ship, when it became unfit for service, was laid up in this yard, where it remained many years, the cabin being, as it seems, turned into a banqueting-house: 'We'll have our supper,' says Sir Petronel Flash, in a comedy called Eastward-hoe, written by Ben Jonson and others, 'on board Sir Francis Drake's ship, that hath compassed the world!' It was at length broken up, and a chair made out of it for John Davis, Esq., who presented it to the University of Oxford." It is recorded that Queen Elizabeth not only partook of a collation on board Drake's ship, and afterwards knighted him, but that she also consented to share the golden fruits of his succeeding adventures. Miss Strickland observes, with reference to this record, that "as some of Drake's enterprises were of a decidedly piratical character, and attended with circumstances of plunder and cruelty to the infant colonies of Spain, the policy of Elizabeth, in sanctioning his deeds, is doubtful." 

She gave orders that his ship, the Golden Hind, should be preserved here as a memorial of the national glory and of her great captain's enterprise. For long years, accordingly, in obedience to her royal command, the vessel was kept in Deptford dockyard until it fell into decay, when all that remained sound of her was converted into a chair, which was presented to the University of Oxford, and is still kept in the Bodleian library. The chair was thus characteristically apostrophised by Cowley:—

"To this great ship, which round the world has run,
And match'd, in race, the chariot of the sun,
This Pythagorean ship (for it may claim,
Without presumption, so deserved a name,
By knowledge once, and transformation now),
In her new shape this sacred port allow.
Drake and his ship could not have wished from fate
A happier station, or more bless'd estate!
For lo! a seat of endless rest is given
To her in Oxford, and to him in heaven."

Not now but in a future time, a different boat will come alongside the yard wall, and carry away the storehouse bell and clock tower that had measured so many thousand dockyard hours and chimed at the launching of so many ships, downriver to stand, marooned in the car park at Thamesmead and hear only the rattle of shopping trolleys.

And in another future time a different boat may fetch the bell and clock tower back to where it belongs carrying with it, the will and imagination to make of Deptford what it deserves, what it is owed even, given the five centuries of service to the nation this small stretch of the Thames will achieve. The twentieth century will prove to be unkind to the dockyard. United States marines returning from service in WWII Europe will die here when their amphibious landing craft are hit by German buzz bombs. Whilst a majority of buildings will survive into the 1950's, some more than four hundred years in existence, the following thirty years will see the loss of the Tudor Great Storehouse and the magnificent storehouse begun by Joseph Allin in 1712. The remainder of the Officers'Terrace from the 1600's will be demolished after WWII, ancillary buildings such as stables, timber seasoning sheds, mold lofts, boat houses, smithies and anchor forges will all be swept away. The great civil engineering works by Sir Samuel Bentham, John Rennie and George Ledwell-Taylor will remain, awaiting discovery just immediately below the modern concrete and tarmac surfaces. Until that time we hope you enjoy your 1774 walk through the dockyard of George III, courtesy of the National Maritime Museum. You can continue your journey around the dockyard and Deptford's history by following the link below,

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45272.
Coming soon............A walk through the King's Yard 2013............

Henry VIII's Ships in the pond at Deptford c.1513

Some of the ships listed as riding in the Great Basin of Henry VIII's Royal Dockyard at Deptford in the Indenture of c.1513. From the Anthony Roll, Pepys Library.

Peter Pomegranite




Great Bark

Lesser Bark

Christopher

Mary Rose

John Penn Marine Engineers, Deptford and Payne's Wharf

A new understanding is emerging on the origin of the building occupied by John Penn Marine Engineers on the Thames at Deptford. It has always been thought and asserted that the building was constructed specially for John Penn's company. However other projects occurring prior to Penn's occupation may shed light on a different story. Richard Hartree's volume on John Penn's Works states that the company moved to Deptford in the mid 1840's. This date corresponds with the understanding currently emerging based on new research into the site and building of Payne's Wharf.

It is just possible to discern a series of high arches and a parapet 
on the river elevation of this 1841 water-colour of Deptford Pier.


This research begins with the Deptford Pier and Improvement Company constituted in 1836. Preparatory survey work in the area by Horton Ledger occurred in 1835. In 1836 Deptford Pier is described as "now in progress'. In 1839 the Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal reads "to alter and amend the act to provide additional property" suggesting that property has already been acquired.  The act referred to was a Local Act passed in Parliament giving permission to purchase land in order to build a railway spur that was intended to take Steam Boat passengers from the river to Deptford Station,
"from the Deptford end of the road, a branch is to extend to the the new Deptford Pier, now in progress; so that passengers, on landing at Deptford, may at once be carried into the heart of London, with all their luggage, at a comparatively trifling expense, and free from all the dangers and vexatious delays of the Pool of the Thames." (Percy and Timbs 1836)

The incredible scheme for Deptford Pier, drawn by Horton Ledger, showing the Royal Dockyard to the right of the image. 

The cast iron wharf wall is a construction of 1838 and described in detailed plans of the period by Colonel George Landmann, the chief architect/engineer on the Deptford/Greenwich railway. If the cat iron wharf wall is contemporaneous with the Italianate arches then Colonel George Landsmann would be the most likely candidate as architect of Payne's Wharf. However, Cubitt is also known to have used sheet iron wharfing at Brunswick Wharf.

William Tite built the Brunswick Wharf buildings  for a steam boat to railway terminal serving the same function as the proposed Deptford Pier Project at the time the Deptford Pier was being proposed.  Tite's Gosport Station is shown opposite. There is a marked similarity between Lewis Cubitt's King's Cross terminal and Payne's Wharf. Cubitt was surveyor to Deptford Parsh of St. Nicholas. It is also remarkable that Cubitt used laminated timber to construct the first roof spans, these were later replaced by iron. Payne's Wharf's original Diocletian windows were also in vast arched laminated timber frames. These original frames, cited in English Heritage's Grade II listing of Payne's Wharf, were removed and destroyed by the present developer Lane Castle. We were able to salvage parts of the frames for safe keeping and these were studied by the industrial archaeologist Malcolm Tucker of Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society. 


John Penn and the Cubitt Family
The relationship between the Cubitt family and Penns is complex. William Cubitt's design for a prison treadmill was constructed by John Penn's in 1823 (Centre for Kentish Studies Q/AGw/16/3  1823). Benjamin Cubitt became foreman of works for Penn's company. Benjamin also proposed a railway from Cold Blow Farm over Trundley's Lane and across the Grand Surrey Canal through Grove Street to Deptford Wharf ending at the west of the Wet Dock at Deptford Strand. The Journal of Transport History 1995 Vol 2-3 page 48 refers to a wharf at Deptford on the Thames being built by 1852 for the Brighton and South Coast Railway. Joseph Cubitt worked for SER in 1846 on the Ashford Canterbury Ramsgate and Margate line. The history of the emerging railways is far too complex to cover here, suffice it to say that there is considerable evidence of the Cubitt family's involvement in the early railways in the area of Deptford, New Cross and the Thames, in particular Brunswick Wharf where identical cast iron sheet piling was used to construct an identical wharf wall. A good source for disentangling the Cubitt's and the railway companies involvement is the wikipedia entry on London Bridge Station. William Cubitt participated in the creation of Deptford Pumping Station with Bazalgette. It has been said that what William Cubitt ordered Bazalgette carried out.

Map showing Benjamin Cubitt's railway to Deptford Wharf

William Cubitt's Ipswich Steam Navigation Company ordered steam engines from John Penn's for two ships. When the company collapsed Penn was still owed money for the engines and a court case ensued. Could it have been the case that the works commenced at Deptford Pier, comprising the six grand italiante arches, reminiscent of the railway architecture of the period, Blackwall, Gosport, King's Cross, were offered to or purchased by John Penn's in settlement of debt owing to them? The direct correspondence between the 1828 cast iron pier of Brunswick and the extant pier at Deptford suggests a strong link between the two projects. Architectural similarities between the Cubitt project of Hayes Galleria Wharf and Payne's Wharf, a stable block at Buckingham Palace where Edward Blore fashioned the south eastern elevation, requires further consideration before definitive conclusions as to exactly who the architect of Payne's Wharf was can be drawn. Perhaps more striking in similarity to Payne's Wharf is the image of the disused railway station at Gosport by William Tite. If Paynes Wharf is the work of Thomas Cubitt, architect of the east front of Buckingham Palace, given his death in 1855 this would place the construction of Payne's Wharf within the prospective period of the Deptford Pier Junction Railway 1835 to the mid 1840's coinciding with any number of events, including the extension of Deptford Pier to include the Bridge House Estates land abutting Upper Watergate, the takeover of the London and Greenwich Railway by SER in 1844, Benjamin Cubitt's construction of the railway to Deptford Wharf. Perhaps the collapse of William Cubitt's Ipswich Steam Navigation Company, and the competition exerted by William Bush and Henry C Bingham's ambitious plan for Deptford Steam Ship Docks, provided Penn with the opportunity to expand his works to Deptford and accrue some return from what was owed him?


From John Herapath November 28th 1836,
"In consequence of the number of persons going to the Steam vessels and back again we have a little railway of 750 yards at our terminus in Deptford to the Deptford Pier which is now in execution..." (Herapath 1836:271) The same magazine reports the passing of a bill in the Lords for the railway to convey passengers from London Bridge to Deptford Pier in fifteen minutes "and the pool and its dangers and delays avoided." (Herapath 1836:192) "The first iron pile was driven in the presence of all the directors and it was hoped the whole would be complete in eight months.(Herapath 1836:238)

Premises formerly known as the Three Tuns Public House in Butcher Row, St. Nicholas, Deptford were purchased by John Penn from Thomas Norfolk on 21 November 1859 ( ACC/1712) These premises may have been leased to John Penn as early as 1841. See also, Lease Trustees of the Holwell Charity to John Penn  (ACC/1712/16  1 Oct 1841) Authority of the Trustees of the Holwell Charity to John Penn to pay purchase money to their solicitors, John and William Hawkins of Hitchen with Messrs Hawkins receipt for purchase money  (ACC/1712/22  22 Feb 1862-14 Mar 1862) Plan showing boundary line between the freehold and leasehold properties at Greenwich  (ACC/1712/44  Jun 1876)

  In 1843, a legal case is lodged against the Deptford Pier and Improvement Company.

In a list of steam boat piers below London Bridge published in 1863, Deptford Pier is still listed. Yet by 1846 the Deptford Pier Improvement company were in Court again over calls to pay interest on shares. By 1846 after some ten years of efforts Deptford Pier Junction is abandoned.

It would seem that given the material evidence of the cast iron wharf wall, and the vast italianate arches with their timber laminated diocletian windows, and the statement that teh first piling for the Pier was driven into the ground in the presence of the Company directors, it is very likely that Payne's Wharf is a relic of the efforts by the Deptford Pier Junction Railway to establish the railway terminus for the purpose of transporting Steam Boat passengers swiftly into London Bridge station from the newly built railway at Deptford. Whether the architect was a member of the Cubitt family, or even George Landsmann himself, who had built the London and Greenwich railway, it is yet to be determined. What is undeniable is that the facade of Payne's Wharf allows us to embark on a journey into the ambitious minds of the early Victorian entrepreneurs.   

Transpontine: Linkage

Transpontine: Linkage

Hortus Conclusus: The Garden of James Butler Morn, Clerk of the Cheque in His Majesty's Yard at Deptford

The Clerk of the Cheque, also called Clerk of the Prick and Cheque, maintained the muster roll of everybody who worked in the yard, looked after expenses and kept accounts of earnings. In 1776, the Clerk of the Cheque, was James Butler Morn. He earned £200 per annum.  

As a high ranking officer in the dockyard, the Clerk of the Cheque was handsomely accommodated. In 1698, the Clerk of the Cheque's house was the finest in the dockyard. From 1669, the Surveyor of the King's Works with the responsibility of signing off building projects was Sir Christopher Wren. The houses depicted in the image above are post-Restoration and likely to have been constructed in or around 1670. This terrace is identical to a terrace of dwellings for dockyard officers in Plymouth and thought by the late Giles Worsley to be by the hand of Robert Hooke, according to a superb article by Celina Fox, "The ingenious Mr Dummer : Rationalizing the Royal Navy in Late Seventeenth Century England" for the British Library. According to Professor Doctor K.A.Ottenheym "English classical architecture was transformed in the 1670's and 1680's by taking inspiration from Dutch houses." Ottenheym also records that Hooke was inspired by French architecture. (Ottenheym 2007:137) The ground plan of the Deptford officers' terrace expresses the double and single cube rooms characteristic of the work of Inigo Jones and his nephew John Webb. The Clerk of the Cheque's house, situated in the corner of a fine uniform terrace, that would have been familiar to Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, was valued at £946.10. The imposing brick built house boasted eight bays and two staircases. Celina Fox writes about the corresponding terrace in the Plymouth yard stating, "The dwelling houses of the officers built to a French or Dutch influenced design as a single terrace, are the model of orderliness compared with those of other dockyards." (Fox 2007:43) However the Deptford Officer's terrace may be of an earlier date than Plymouth which dockyard historian Jonathan Coad dates to 1692. The Deptford terrace is shown as extant in 1688. The Navy Board Office at Seething Lane, Crutched Friars, is dated to 1674-5, arguably by Christopher Wren and/or Robert Hooke and of similar style. Whilst the individual houses comprising the Plymouth terrace are identical in scale and internal arrangement such as number of rooms, placing of chimneys and staircases and their number, the houses comprising the Deptford terrace share none of Plymouths's uniformity internally. No two staircases or their positions are identical, just as their is no parity to the number of rooms each officer enjoys. Archaeological investigations may reveal more information of interest not only to Deptford but to Plymouth and possibly to other yards. Further archive based research may established the time of build and even the architect and precisely when the buildings were altered in the eighteenth century. The greater part of the terrace at Deptford was demolished to make way for cattle lairs c.1900 for the Metropolitan Foreign Cattle Market, however the Tapp House a Tudor period building, the Pay Office and Clerk of the Cheque's office, clearly identified on Dummer's survey of 1698 as a building of the same period as the terrace, survived until the 1940's.  Below, Clarendon House, by Sir Roger Pratt for the Lord Chancellor 1664-1667.

Above internal arrangement of the Officers' Terrace, showing the Clerk of the Cheque's House in the corner.

Perhaps more than any other, the Officers' Terrace resembles the work of Sir Roger Pratt, great friend of John Evelyn who described Clarendon House as "the best contriv'd, the most useful, graceful and magnificent house in England". His work for the Lord Chancellor, Clarendon House 1664-1667 is at the very least influential in the design of the terrace. The Lord Chancellors's daughter married the Duke of York, then resident in the dockyard at the Navy Treasurer's House, adjacent to the Great Storehouse, and overlooking the Basin wherein rode the King's Ships. As little is known of the internal layout of Clarendon House, the archaeology of the Officers' Terrace becomes even more important than previously thought.

 At the time of Dummer's survey, the timber framed Tudor house of the Master Shipwright Fisher Harding was valued at a comparatively paltry sum of £100.11.11. Perhaps it was this discrepancy that prompted Master Shipwright Joseph Allin in 1705 to agitate for a new house of equivalent status. 

Since  Joseph Allin built his new house of eight bays with two staircases, to replace the one shown above in 1698, and overspent his Navy Board approved estimated  budget of £525 by some £300, questions were raised in Parliament and Hansard records mention of the "Shipwright's Palace". 

These high status dockyard houses would have been incomplete without the corresponding high status gardens. The gardens and their buildings which included privies, wash houses and banqueting houses are depicted in numerous plans of the dockyard throughout the centuries. The officers' stables and hen houses were located elsewhere in the yard. Perhaps the richest historic source of information for the dockyard gardens is found in the dockyard model series of 1774 made for George III. The depiction of the Clerk of the Cheque's garden in a plan of 1774 corresponds with that shown in the 40ft to 1inch scale model made at the same time. Research and archaeology carried out at Chatham dockyard concludes that the modellers drew "as accurate a representation of the gardens as of any other feature of the dockyard." Paths and beds depicted on the model have been rediscovered. A complete pond lined with waterproof cement- terraz or pozzolana, was also discovered. (Hall and Lear 1992:135-6)

 The image above shows the officers' gardens in Deptford Dockyard circa 1774. The houses which are  shown in Dummer's survey of 1698 are shown here in their mid eighteenth century guise. They were demolished in the early 1900's to make way for cattle lairs for the Metropolitan Foreign Cattle market. 

The houses are shown here in a photograph taken shortly before demolition.

The houses with their sash windows, door cases, raised parapets and lead rain goods could easily be mistaken for buildings of the early to mid-eighteenth century rather than 'updated' buildings of the mid-seventeenth century.

Remarkably the area that became the Clerk of the Cheques garden has survived without being substantially built on for nearly four hundred years. First seen in Evelyn's annotated map of 1623 the area of land, assigned to the Clerk of the Cheque as a garden, remains a green space through a series of plans dated consecutively 1698, 1740's, 1753, 1774, 1808, 1830, 1868, 1870, 1898, 1930's, 1960's. The Richard Rogers Partnership master plan designated this area as a public open space providing a green link with Twinkle Park. This plan leaves open the possibility of a re-instatement of the Clerk of the Cheques garden. On the officers' gardens in Chatham, Hall and Lear have stated that "the initial designer from within the Board of Works has not yet been identified but as the plans came from London he could have been associated with the group led by Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor." (Hall and Lear 1992:150)

A glance at Chatham Dockyard on google earth reveals several of the officers' gardens have now been restored according to the historic plans and model of 1774. Todd Longstaffe-Gowan's article "Urban Gardening in England" shows several photographs of the Chatham gardens' derelict and overgrown condition. Based on the evidence present in historic maps and plans and the confirmed evidence of the correspondence

between the garden designs portrayed in the models of 1774 and archaeological surveys carried out in the

Chatham Officers' gardens, in Deptford we can be hopeful of finding sufficient archaeological evidence on the site of

the Clerk of the Cheque's garden to re-instate an important characteristic of the dockyard, as well as a rare

and exciting example of garden design of the eighteenth century. Assuming that the Richard Rogers
Partnership masterplan is adhered to by Hutchison Whampoa and that their current proposal to move the 
GLA designated safeguarded working wharf away from the riverfront 

to the area covering the Great Georgian Dock, TPO London Plane Trees and the site of the 
Clerk of the Cheque's garden is rejected by the GLA and Lewisham Planners

the opportunity for one of the most stimulating stretches of the Thames Path in London remains. 

Deptford Docks

Caroline's Miscellany: Branch line to Deptford Docks