London Neighbourhoods
Deptford, UK
Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Dockyards. This was a major shipbuilding dock and attracted Peter the Great to come and study shipbuilding. Deptford and the docks are associated with the knighting of Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth I aboard the Golden Hind, the legend of Sir Walter Raleigh laying down his cape for Elizabeth, Lieut. James Cook's third voyage aboard HMS Resolution, and the mysterious apparent murder of Christopher Marlowe in a house along Deptford Strand.
Though Deptford began as two small communities, one at the ford, and the other a fishing village on the Thames, Deptford's history and population has been mainly associated with the docks established by Henry VIII. The two communities grew together and flourished during the period when the docks were the main administrative centre of the Royal Navy, and some grand houses like Sayes Court, home to diarist John Evelyn, and Stone House on Lewisham Way, were erected. The area declined as first the Royal Navy moved out, and then the commercial docks themselves declined until the last dock, Convoys Wharf, closed in 2000.
Plan and Book:
Deptford: See and Do
Deptford was part of the pilgrimage route from London to Canterbury used by the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and is mentioned in the prologue to "The Reeve's Tale". The ford developed into first a wooden then a stone bridge, and in 1497 saw the Battle of Deptford Bridge, in which rebels from Cornwall, led by Michael An Gof, marched on London protesting against punitive taxes, but were soundly beaten by the King's forces.
A second settlement, Deptford Strand, developed as a modest fishing village on the Thames until Henry VIII used that site for a royal dock repairing, building and supplying ships, after which it grew in size and importance, shipbuilding remaining in operation until March 1869.
Originally separated by market gardens and fields, the two areas merged over the years, with the docks becoming an important part of the Elizabethan exploration. Queen Elizabeth I visited the royal dockyard on 4 April 1581 to knight the adventurer Francis Drake. As well as for exploration, Deptford was important for trade – the Honourable East India Company had a yard in Deptford from 1607 until late in the 17th century, later (1825) taken over by the General Steam Navigation Company. It was also connected with the slave trade, John Hawkins using it as a base for his operations, and Olaudah Equiano, the slave who became an important part of the abolition of the slave trade, was sold from one ship's captain to another in Deptford around 1760.
Deptford Dockyard was established in 1513 by Henry VIII as the first Royal Dockyard, building vessels for the Royal Navy, and was at one time known as the King's Yard. It was shut down from 1830 to 1844 before being closed as a dockyard in 1869, and is currently known as Convoys Wharf. From 1871 until the First World War it was the City of London Corporation's Foreign Cattle Market. In 1912, The Times reported that over 4 million head of live cattle, and sheep, had been landed. Other notable shipyards in Deptford were Charles Lungley's Dockyard and the General Steam Navigation Company's yards at Deptford Green and Dudman's Dock, also sometimes referred to as Deadmans Dock at Deptford Wharf.
The Docks fell into gradual from the 18th century; the larger ships being built found the Thames difficult to navigate, and Deptford was under competition from the new docks at Plymouth, Portsmouth and Chatham. When the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815 the need for a Docks to build and repair warships declined; the Docks shifted from shipbuilding to concentrate on victualling at the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard, and the Royal Dock closed in 1869. From 1871 until 1913 the shipyard site was the City of London Corporation's Foreign Cattle Market, to which live animals were brought by cattle boat from four continents and from whence came about half of London's meat supply.
Deptford experienced economic decline in the 20th century with the closing of the docks, and the damage caused by the bombing during the Blitz in the Second World War – a V-2 rocket destroyed a Woolworths store in New Cross Gate, killing 160 people. The dock were targeted as they were home to an Army Supply Reserve Depot in the First and Second World Wars. Post-wartime high unemployment caused some of the population to move away as the riverside industries closed down in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The local council have developed plans with private companies to regenerate the riverside area, and the town centre.
Replica of HMS Endeavour at Darling Harbour, Sydney
HMS Endeavour
It was at the Deptford Naval Dockyards that the 1764 collier Earl of Pembroke was refitted in 1768 for a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean and to explore the seas for the surmised Terra Australis Incognita or "unknown southern land". Lieut. James Cook, who led the expedition which would go on to explore the coasts of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia, spent some months planning his three voyages in Septford. Endeavour was paid off in September 1774, being sold in March 1775 by the Royal Navy to shipping magnate J. Mather for £645. Mather returned her to sea for at least one commercial voyage to Archangel in Russia.
HMS Investigator, Ian Hansen
HMS Investigator
HMS Investigator, the survey ship in which Matthew Flinders explored the Australian coastline, had connections to Deptford Dockyards. Built in Sunderland as the collier Fran in 1795, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1798. She was refitted as a discovery ship at Sheerness between 27 April and 24 May 1798, before being sent to Deptford Dockyard on 6 August where the Navy armed her with 22 carronades to serve as an escort vessel, and renamed her HMS Xenophon. In 1801 she was converted to a survey ship at Deptford under the name HMS Investigator. In 1802, under the command of Flinders, she was the first ship to circumnavigate Australia. Attached to the expedition was the botanist Robert Brown, the botanical artist Ferdinand Bauer and the landscape artist William Westall.
Investigator set sail from Spithead for Australia on 18 July 1801, calling at the Cape of Good Hope before crossing the Indian Ocean and sighting Cape Leeuwin off South West Australia on 6 December 1801. Flinders left the now decommissioned Investigator as a storeship hulk at Port Jackson and attempted to return to England as a passenger aboard HMS Porpoise. She returned to England in 1805, two years later she was ewxlassified as a prison hulk. The Navy sold her in 1810 and she returned to mercantile service under the name Xenophon. She was probably broken up c.1872.
Local Landmarks
The Albany Theatre, a community arts centre with a tradition of "radical community arts and music" including holding 15 "Rock Against Racism" concerts, has its roots in a charity established in 1894 to improve the social life of Deptford's deprived community. The original building, the Albany Institute, was opened in 1899 on Creek Road, changing its name in the 1960s to the Albany Empire. It was burnt down in 1978, but rebuilt on Douglas Way, with Prince Charles laying the foundation stone, and Diana, Princess of Wales opening it in 1982.
Creekside, a regeneration area beside Deptford Creek, is used for educational and artistic purposes, such as the Laban Dance Centre, which was designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, and opened in February 2003; and the Art in Perpetuity Trust (APT) gallery and studio space. A record label, Deptford Fun City Records was set up by Miles Copeland III, brother of Stewart Copeland, in the late 1970s as an outlet for Deptford bands such as Alternative TV and Squeeze. Close to Deptford Creek is a Deptford pumping station, a Victorian pumping station built in 1864, part of the massive London sewerage system designed by civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette.
The area has several pubs, including the Dog & Bell which has a reputation for serving a range of cask ales; and The Bird's Nest which has live music, film and art performances from local bands and artists. The town hall of the former Metropolitan Borough of Deptford, built in 1905 with decorative sculpture by Henry Poole, lies just outside Deptford, on the New Cross Road in New Cross. It was purchased by Goldsmiths College in 2000.
There are several green spaces in the area, the largest being Brookmill Park, Deptford Park, Ferranti Park, Pepys Park and Sayes Court Park. In 1884 William John Evelyn, a descendant of John Evelyn, sold ground then being used as market gardens in Deptford, to the London County Council for less than its market value, as well as paying toward the cost of its purchase. It was officially opened to the public as Deptford Park on 7 June 1897.
Deptford railway station is one of the oldest suburban stations in the world, being built (c.1836-38) as part of the first suburban service (the London and Greenwich Railway), between London Bridge and Greenwich.
St Nicholas' Church, the original parish church, dates back to the 14th century but the current building is 17th century. The entrance to the churchyard features a set of skull-and-bones on top of the posts. A plaque on the north wall commemorates playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer in a nearby house, and buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard on 1 June 1593. Frizer was pardoned for the killing on the grounds that he acted in self-defence. There is also St. Luke's, another historic circular church, dating from 1870. It is the daughter church of the parish of St Nicholas'.
In the 18th century St. Paul's, Deptford (1712–1730) was built, acclaimed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England as one of the finest Baroque churches in the country. John Betjeman is attributed as referring to the church as "a pearl at the heart of Deptford". It was designed by the architect Thomas Archer, who was a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, as part of the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches with the intention of instilling pride in Britain, and encouraging people to stay in London rather than emigrate to the New World. Adjacent to the church yard is Albury Street, which contains some fine 18th-century houses which were popular with sea captains and shipbuilders.
Notable Residents
Among people associated with Deptford are the lizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, was killed during an alleged drunken brawl in Eleanor Bull's house in Deptford Strand in May 1593; diarist John Evelyn (1620–1706), who lived at Sayes Court, and had Peter the Great (1672–1725) as a guest for about three months in 1698; Sir Francis Drake, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I aboard the Golden Hind in Deptford Docks; and Emperor Norton (Joshua Abraham Norton), the San Francisco eccentric and self-proclaimed "Emperor of the United States", who was born in Deptford in 1818.
Other people who have lived in Deptford include the first governor of the East India Company and ambassador to the court of Russia, Thomas Smythe, whose magnificent house was destroyed by fire in 1618; early members of the Chartist movement, John Gast and George Julian Harney; the Cleveleys, John Cleveley the Elder and his sons John and Robert, a family of marine artists who also worked as tradesmen in the Dockyard. Another artist born in Deptford is Henry Courtney Selous, who is known for The Opening of The Great Exhibition, painted in 1851.
Dire Straits
1 Farrer House, Crossfields Estate, Deptford, London
In the summer of ‘77, an English teacher from Newcastle-Upo-Tyne, Mark Knopfler, started a rock group at home in a council flat on the Crossfield Estate in Deptford. He brought in his brother David, a Deptford social worker, to play guitar, and his flatmate John Illsley on bass. John was then working in a timber yard and studying at Goldsmith’s College. The fourth member, drummer Pick Withers, had been “doing session work, just for tobacco. He was starving to death,” according to Mark Knopfler. Dire Straits started off organising their own concerts around south London, printing the tickets themselves, or playing for charity. Rock writer Charlie Gillett put them on his Sunday show on Radio London, a record contract followed. The band was initially known as the Café Racers.
Members of rock group Squeeze also lived on the Crossfield Estate in the late 1970s, along with Mark Perry, founder of the punk fanzine Sniffin Glue and punk rock band Alternative TV. The DJ and music journalist Danny Baker lived near the Crossfield Estate, where he was born and brought up.
Children's author Robin Jarvis wrote two trilogies of books: The Deptford Mice (and a couple of spin off books called The Deptford Mouselets series) and The Deptford Histories, set in and around Deptford and featuring many of its landmarks.