Thamesmead

A potted history

The hamlet of Lesnes came to notice in 1191 when a young knight, called Richard de Lucy, was ordered to build an abbey in the area as a penance for the infamous murder of Thomas Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral.

De Lucy was one of the four knights who took his king's lament - "Will no-one rid me of this troublesome priest?" - literally and rode from the court at Eltham Palace to carry out his king's supposed wishes.

In the aftermath, the four knights were each set a task, de Lucy's was to build the monastery.

The problem was that the site selected was close to a marsh, which was prone to frequent flooding from the nearby River Thames and the monks were expected to not only fend for themselves, but also to take responsibility for the river wall to prevent the floods.

The abbey struggled for only a few decades before it fell into disuse with the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, then ruin and eventually legend.

Meanwhile, the local community had made the most of the having an abbey so close by and a small village had grown up less than 500 yards from the grounds.

Abbey Wood struggled for a another few centuries with little development until 1848 when the North Kent Railway drove through the area on its way from Woolwich to Dartford.

A small station was opened in 1850 along with the rest of the line to serve a pub (Abbey Arms) and a village of some 100 people.

By the turn of the century, the co-operative movement bought vast tracts of land and built hundreds of homes for the growing band of munitions workers, employed at the Woolwich Arsenal.

Further expansion came with the construction of a Tram Depot and the provision of two rival services, one from the London County Council, the other from the neighbouring Erith Council. Passengers from Erith to Woolwich had to change at Abbey Wood.

The last tram in London for over 40 years ran from the Abbey Wood depot to New Cross in 1952. The depot was converted to a bus garage, which closed in the 1980s.

With the coming of the railway, the development by the co-operative society and other ribbon development, the local woods became the day trip destination for thousands of Southeast Londoners, who, for a penny fare, could travel from the overcrowded and slum-ridden, Elephant and Castle area, to Abbey Wood without changing.

A huge population of Travellers used to winter on the old marshes, while a number of farms were still in situ until the 1970s.

Part of the marshes was taken over by the military to become an annexe to the nearby Woolwich Arsenal site. It had its own railway, police force and a huge firing range, which was still used until the second world war.

Along the river, at Crosness, the entire sewage outfall for south London used to be discharged straight into the Thames, until the 'Great Stink' of the 1830s forced the Government of the day to consider ways of dealing with the growing effluent problem of London.

The Crossness site was chosen, because of its remoteness from civilisation and was built in a hurry in the 1850s, complete with a steam-driven beam engine, which has recently been restored to its former glory and is the oldest working example in Britain.

The current residents of Thamesmead, some of whom live less than a mile from the works, are less than enamoured with the smells that emanate from the site in the summer.

Eventually, the sewage company hit on a novel idea and mounted hundreds of sprays around the works, which spray perfume into the air on days when the smell is strong enough to peel paint at 50 paces.

In the 1950s, Abbey Wood became a boom town, with both industry and more housing arriving in a development known as the Abbey Wood Estate.

Little further development took place until the 1960s, when the newly-formed Greater London Council, mindful of the need for more housing, took over the marshland which had recently been vacated by the Military and planned a huge development, which was named Thamesmead after a competition in the now defunct Evening News.

Originally planned as a development of 100,000 people and dubbed "the town of the 21st Century" , the initial stages were built of pre-formed concrete blocks, which proved to be hard to maintain and prone to cause damp and condensation.

The marsh was drained into a series of lakes that are interconnected by another series of canals. The fishing is excellent and allow some measure of relief to the starkness of the early development.

By the 1970s, Thamesmead should have been completed. By 1974, just 12,000 people were resident and the project was put on the back burner for three years.

Eventually, after a re-think, the use of concrete was dropped, the planners reverted to good old 18th century brick and the building of high-rise blocks was halted.

Today, Thamesmead is a town of more than 30,000 people and is still only half completed.

With the demise of the GLC in 1986, the town was handed over to a private company called Thamesmead Town Limited, who have hardly endeared themselves to the local community by their high rents and lack of services. Many residents feel that Thamesmead has been ghettoised.

The view from Abbey Wood of Thamesmead is of grey concrete tower blocks. This view was to inspire Stanley Kubrick who chose Thamesmead for the location of his great film "A Clockwork Orange", his nightmare futuristic view of a violent society.

With its stark, square, grey, buildings, Thamesmead was a perfect location and made a fine backdrop to his visual masterpiece.

Facilities for local residents are sparse, to say the least.

Four trains per hour run off-peak from Abbey Wood to London's Charing Cross in the heart of the West End and the station is one of the busiest commuter stations in London with a train roughly every nine minutes.

The old 1850 station was demolished and replaced by a new ecclesiastical-looking structure to keep in line with the Abbey ruins which were excavated in the 1950s and 60s.

Most visitors to Abbey Wood do not come for the abbey, however. The largest camp site in Greater London nestles in a wooded site, known as Co-operative Woods, just off the A206, London to Dartford main road.

The problem for many would-be campers is that they often mistake the Travellers site in Harrow Manor Way as the campsite. In fact the campsite is off Knee Hill, about half-a-mile away!

The whole area is a mixture of very old and very new. It may not appeal on first sight, but the ruins have recently been re-consecrated and regular church services are held on the Abbey site.

There are hundreds of acres of woodland to explore, from Co-operative Woods to Bostall Woods, cricket matches are played in the summer on Bostall Heath and there are plenty of parks on Thamesmead, which is the start of the "Green Chain Walk".

The walk was planned by the outgoing GLC and runs from Thamesmead to Crystal Palace, taking in parks and woods along the way. It is so designed that walkers will be able to enjoy the pleasant 20-mile walk without facing too much traffic.

Marc Anderson, July 1995 - Thamesmead Gazette