CROWLEY'S WHARF, SE10
London Archive Chronicles
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It was early on a Saturday morning but I jumped out of bed as soon as I realised it was foggy outside.
I have been running underneath this jetty on one of my regular routes for years. Now that socialising has only been allowed outdoors and locally for a while, I have had more opportunities to admire it. This jetty might just be one of my favourite structures in Greenwich, even in London. In the sunless winter mornings and nights, it is imposing as dark waves crush onto it. In daylight, the otherwise steely grey jetty begins to reflect the changing colour palette of the day. However, to give the jetty the attention it deserves, I wanted to photograph it surrounded by fog. As well as being atmospheric, echoing the London of yesteryears, it also sets apart any given object from its surroundings. Hence the hasty departure from the comfort of my pillow and duvet that morning. My research into the history of this site, Crowley’s Wharf, began chaotically —or at least so it felt. I spent one afternoon clicking on the London Picture Archive map and following the leads from the photographs that came up. Another day was spent reading blogs about the area. The history of this site has a link to Quakerism, and not knowing much about it, I listened to a podcast about the movement and its founder and went on to read about its current presence in Finland and elsewhere. As it tends to happen when I am working on anything time consuming, like a dissertation or a photo project, I found several leads I would have liked to follow. Several things of interest, books, ideas, thoughts to ponder, places to visit but with the task at hand I am unable to pursue any of them. It is frustrating, consuming even but I have accepted it as part of the creative process. My sources tell me that Crowley’s Wharf gets its name from Sir Ambrose Crowley, who had a warehouse as well as a mansion on the waterfront from 1704 until 1855. That was when Crowley’s House, as the Jacobean mansion was called, was demolished because it failed to get a buyer. The warehouse was used as a stable and a grazing area for the horses pulling the trams until 1906. Sir Ambrose Crowley manufactured nails, screws and anchors for the Navy. He was a Quaker, and as per his beliefs, his workers had benefits, such as sick pay which wasn’t the norm in those days. His workers were known as the ‘Crowley’s Boys’ because of the way they defended their rights. After Crowley’s death, the business was inherited by his son, and later on by his son’s widow. The company continued to trade in Greenwich until the 1850s. In 1906, the Greenwich power station was built on this site to provide power for the tramways. The jetties were used for unloading the coal that was burned there as well as collecting the ash that burning the coal produced. In the 1920s, burning coal was replaced by using oil and gas. The power station is nowadays a back-up power source for the Transport for London and is still using fossil fuel. The jetty is no longer in use. The events of Greenwich have been well-documented throughout the times. There are many drawings, engravings and paintings of the area well before the invention of photography in 1839, after which the number of visual records multiplies considerably. What do these visions from the past tell us? What can they tell us? They have all been shaped, distorted even, by the biases of their eras. At the same time, however, we have to keep in mind that we too have our biases and blind spots. As of the photograph, those people really were there, as were their surroundings, and their likeness was drawn onto the film. A photograph is a slice of time and space, accurate enough, one might argue, to represent the fraction of a second being captured. A painting, on the other hand, cannot be produced in an instant. It most likely represents the views and ideals of both the painter and the buyer or the patron. The painter, here already implementing the laws of perspective when composing the image, paints the scene as he or she has once seen it or perhaps, bringing a few separate elements together. When I look at some of these paintings and photographs from decades and centuries ago and see a different Greenwich, I often feel a fuzzy sense of nostalgia. I escape into history, even though it isn’t my heritage. I tell myself that there are worse vices a person can have — I suppose this is how everyone defends their defaults. An image, a representation of the real -- what is it, really? A mere projection of ideas? A dialogue between that which is outside of the thinking being and he, she, or they -- the cogito, ergo sum? Or a clairvoyant insight, a revelation, that there is more to the world, to the real, that meets the eye? The eye is so sensuous, easily infatuated. Gullible. And language, insufficient. (originally published 02.04.2021) |
© Carita Silander
Crowley House, photograph by Sir John Gilbert, 1855.
Courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre |
Greenwich Power Station, with the jetties in use, photograph, 1906. Courtesy of the London Picture Archive
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Scene at Greenwich on the River Thames, oil painting by Thomas Miles Richardson Sir, 1822-1826. Courtesy of Laing Art Gallery