A striking row of Georgian cottages surrounded by modern architecture
BY MARY MILLS
In the midst of all the new housing developments on the Greenwich Peninsula is a road – River Way – which once extended down to the riverside. Now it just a green space, and along one side are the Georgian ‘Ceylon Place’ cottages and the Pilot Inn – the only old buildings amongst a great sea of new structures.
The row of cottages were built between 1801 to 1804 to house the families of workers from the newly-built East Greenwich Tide Mill situated by the river, which used tide power to grind heavy industrial materials. The pub was also built around this time, as well as a large house, and the whole development was called New East Greenwich. A plaque with the name and date of this are built into the pub wall. The mill and the house survived for about a hundred years but now only the cottages and pub remain.
At that time the area was largely marshland and it was probably a very lonely place. The river itself would have been very busy and full of great ships – East Indiamen and many others coming to and from the new West India docks.
George Russell, who built the cottages and who was a major financier of the Mill, had made his money out of manufacturing soap and his works, near Blackfriars Bridge, was the biggest in the country. By the 1790s he could afford to retire, and had bought a big house at Longlands, near Sidcup, and also this piece of riverside land in Greenwich.
Russell’s foreman, Thomas Taylor, made bricks on the site – and this dirty, smelly activity began to worry Philip Sharpe, the marsh bailiff employed by the local landowners. One day in April 1796 he met Taylor at the site and an argument developed. Taylor said ‘Damn your eyes Mr Sharpe, if you come here I will polish your teeth and stop your eyes with mud, Sir!’ He followed this up by ordering a teenager standing nearby, John Bicknell, to push Sharpe off the river wall. Bicknell, who later became the Greenwich Town Clerk, did as he was told. Sharpe made a hasty retreat, no doubt well covered in Thames mud!
Soon after, Mr. Russell applied for official permission to build a wharf and causeway into the river. This causeway was inexplicably destroyed as part of ‘tidying up’ in preparation for building the Millennium Dome, now the O2.
The name ‘Ceylon Place’ can be explained by contemporary national events. In 1802 Ceylon (the British colonial name for the island nation now known as Sri Lanka) was ceded to the British Crown as part of the Treaty of Amiens. At the time it was cause for great national rejoicing, and the name of the cottages must be a commemoration of the treaty.
In the more than two hundred years since the cottages were built there have been many changes in the area around them. Until a few years ago their neighbours included a gas works, a power station and a structural steel business. All of them have now gone Рto be replaced by a huge new community in many, many new flats. The people who have lived in the cottages were ordinary local people Рwatermen, gas workers, and eventually artists. It was a small community with a mission hall, shops and a caf̩. In the late 1990s they became famous for the video of Park Life featuring Blur and the ever wonderful Phil Daniels.
As part of tidying up the area for construction of the Dome, which opened on 31 December 1999, it was planned to demolish the old cottages but local people protested and English Heritage listed them – based, I’m proud to say, on my research into the area.
Mary Mills’ books about the history of the local area are available on amazon.com
