WOOLWICH COMMON, SE18
London Archive Chronicles

I had gone to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlton with Milo as a part of the Lockdown Trails subproject. Milo makes people smile, especially when he starts to roll on the grass. The boy knows how to have a good time. When we got to the hospital, he did just that, rolled on the green grass and stayed there, on his back, and his paws towards the sky, looking at me with his tail waving and a silly grin on his handsome face. He then wanted to say hello to a man who, judging by his uniform, I took to be a nurse or a doctor. The man told me that he had just lost his dog and he thought he wouldn’t be able to get another. ‘But maybe I will, maybe I will’ he said, giving Milo a belly rub.  

It had been one of those days of the late spring that already smelled like summer. After the insecurity of coldness, which is present in all the efforts to stay warm and cosy, the fresh, gentle air felt like hope.  I guess that is what I photographed when I took this shot. Hope. I saw it in that warm shade of blue of the sky and the glow on that barren, pale bark of the tree.  

I looked up the location of this photograph afterwards. I stood on the pavement, next to the hospital. On the other side of the road was Woolwich Common, towards which the lens was turned. This image would then be of Woolwich Common.  

What do I think of when I think of Woolwich? I have thought it a bit grim. A peripheral, large area that is not terribly safe or nice. The local news often reports about crime. I have been to the council building to get parking permits as well as to the new library. My flatmate went there because, back then, the closest Wilko to us was in Woolwich. She wanted to get some soil to repot her plants. There are lots of new buildings by the river. A ferry. The high street like any other small-town high street in the UK. The same shops, from Clarks shoes to Specsavers. Some Victorian buildings with their carved stone signs in the centre that always surprise me. Once I fell asleep on a night bus after a fun, wine-filled night in town, and ended up in Woolwich. It rained and I remember it being hazy grey. I was drunk and tired. I felt like crying when trying to find the right bus stop, which I eventually did, after a length of time that in my state felt dramatically long. That said though, I have found the streets there confusing and been waiting on the wrong bus stop even when I have been sober in the daytime.  

I also remember going past the old Royal Herbert Hospital building on Shooters Hill Road, now in residential use, and the woodlands nearby on a bus a long time ago. The scenery was such a surprise and the impression of the commanding frontage stayed in my mind for a long time. My research tells me that it was the first military hospital in England, and it was built following the health reforms campaigned by Florence Nightingale in the late 19th century. 

Much of Woolwich’s past has to do with the military. There was the Royal Dockyard, one of the most important shipyards in the 17th century. The Royal Artillery Barracks is a commanding sight and still in use. There is the Royal Arsenal Heritage site which is also the starting point to a self-guided historic walk. The King’s Troops (horses) were relocated in the area recently and can sometimes be seen walking on Blackheath.  

Woolwich Common is also linked to this military heritage. The locals used it as a pastureland for their cattle, for collecting wood for fuel and building material as well as for turf-cutting for fuel until the 18th century. The land was then owned by the Crown, being part of the manor of Eltham. From the 1720’s onwards the land began to be used for military purposes, like artillery practice, and at the beginning of the 19th century, the Crown sold it to the Military. During WW1 the northern edge of the Common was the site of the Signals Experimental Establishment which experimented in wireless telegraphy as well as produced communication mechanics for the military. The work and the experiments continued after WW1. From 1949 it was used for the early developmental work for Blue Danube, Britain’s first atomic bomb. The establishment closed in 1963 after being deemed uneconomic. A more recent entry to the happenings of the Common is the grass fire in July 2018 which took 125 firemen to tackle.  

Woolwich Common is still owned by the Ministry of Defence but is in public use.  
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I haven’t had many reasons to go to Woolwich and the ones that I have had, I haven’t relished. When the time comes to repot my plants, I will be going to the Wilko in Lewisham or Charlton, not in Woolwich. However, this ill feeling towards Woolwich might have just changed. One of the clicks during my online research led me St George’s Garrison Church site, next to the Royal Artillery Barracks. It was opened in 1863 and was badly damaged by bombing in WW2. It is currently being restored. There is something about these kinds of projects that I find captivating. Both the grandness and the destruction of the past are visible and incorporated in the contemporary constructs of restoration. They are incomplete and imperfect, and thus honest as a symbol of healing in a community. In these kinds of places, I feel something similar to hope. 

(originally published 09.06.2021)

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© Carita Silander

SOURCES  AND FURTHER READING:
https://friendsofwoolwichcommon.org.uk/history/
​http://www.royalherbert.co.uk/history.php
https://www.stgeorgeswoolwich.org
​https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk/

'Nelson' on the stocks on the Woolwich Dockyard. Engraving, 1815

Launch of the 'Royal Albert' screw steamer from Royal Dockyard, Woolwich. Lithograph, 1854

The 474 electric tram to Woolwich Road. Photograph, 1907

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Aquatint, 1821. Images courtesy of the London Picture Archive.