A look at Blackheath gem, Woodlands
BY DR MARY MILLS
There is more than one place in Greenwich called Woodlands, and the one I am going to write about here is in Westcombe Park and adjacent to Mycenae House, the local community centre. Woodlands was the original house on the site, and today it is occupied by the Greenwich Steiner School.
We have so many beautiful old houses in the Greenwich borough and anywhere else Woodlands would be a star attraction. It’s a listed ‘Georgian villa’ designed by George Gibson on a site described as ‘uncommonly beautiful.’
It was built for John Julius Angerstein in 1776. He was an immensely rich City businessman closely involved with the development of Lloyds of London. He may have been the son of a wealthy German family living in Russia, or he may have been the secret child of the Empress of Russia and a British banker – who knows? He was also an art collector and Woodlands was designed to house some of his collection.
When he died his pictures became the basis of what is now the National Gallery.
We know of the links many City businessmen had to Afro-Caribbean slavery and Angerstein is no exception. The National Gallery has commissioned a vast amount of research on his role in this – and like everything with Angerstein it is much more complicated than it would appear. A page on their website outlines his links both in the business world and that of marine insurance, as well as his involvement in philanthropic work among the ‘black poor’ and the development of Sierra Leone.
After John Julius’s death his family remained at Woodlands and many of the things we have today named for the family was the work of his son, John. This includes the Angerstein Railway: people might remember the problems last year when the railways tried to close the little foot crossing over the line.
Later the house was sold and was passed through a variety of occupants. After the Great War the house became a nunnery – The Little Sisters of the Assumption. They built the other big house on the site – the one which is now the community centre. In the basement walls are little niches for candles and holy water. In the mid-1960s the nuns moved out and the local community centre on Shooters Hill Road was demolished to make way for the dual carriageway. So Greenwich Council bought the two houses – designating the more recent building as the new community centre.
Once Woodlands was owned by the council, the ground floor became an art gallery, and for a long time it was very successful. However, years of austerity and funding cuts led to its closure. Upstairs was the local history library and archive.
In 2003 the archive was moved out of Woodlands down to the Arsenal site to be part of a borough museum, and then transferred to the Greenwich Heritage Trust. It then closed down because the buildings were wanted for a theatre. There is some archive access – but very, very limited – and with no means of browsing.
It is difficult to remember just how good a resource the library at Woodlands was. Over the years I visited many local borough archives and they are very mixed, from the interested and competent to the resentful and unhelpful. I always said that ‘Woodlands’ was easily the best in London.
Since 1998 I’ve published eight books – all, except one, self published – and five of them are on the industrial history of Greenwich. Another book, on Deptford Creek, is nearly finished. Without that research resource Woodlands provided, writing them wouldn’t have been possible. The staff there were terrific. Naming names is a bad idea – they were all great. I would, however, like to remember the late Barbara Ludlow. She had started to research the past of the Greenwich Peninsula and I hope I have been able to successfully continue her work.
Mary Mills’ books are available at amazon.co.uk
