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Deptford in Surrey County England History and GeographyDEPTFORD, a town partly in the eastern division of the hundred of BRIXTON, county of SURREY, but principally in the hundred of BLACKHEATH, lathe of SUTTON at HONE, county of KENT, 4 miles (E.) from London, containing 20,818 inhabitants. This place, according to Henshall, was at the time of the Norman survey, called Moreton, or town in the marsh; it was afterwards, from its contiguity to Greenwich, called West Greenwich, and Depeford Stronde, from a deep ford on the river Ravensbourne, of which the mouth forms the small ?stuary now called Deptford creek. Edward III. frequently resided here, in a place called the Stonehouse; but the town was of little importance till the time of Henry VIII., who, for the better preservation of the royal navy, established a dock-yard, and, in the 4th year of his reign, incorporated the society of the Trinity House, by the title of the 'Master, Wardens and Assistants of the guild or fraternity of the most Glorious and Undivided Trinity, and of St. Clement, in the county of Kent,' confirming to them the ancient rights and privileges of the company of Mariners of England, together with their possessions at Deptford; and farther grants were afterwards made by Queen Elizabeth and Charles II., which were confirmed by James IL., in 1685. In 1671, an inundation took place here, by which a prodigious quantity of cattle was destroyed in the marshes; the cables of ships at anchor were broken, and the water of the Thames rose to the height of ten feet. The houses in the upper part of the town are in general neat and well built; the streets are paved, and lighted with gas, and the inhabitants are amply supplied with water by the Kent Water Works Company. The main support and consequence of Deptford arises from its excellent docks. The royal dock-yard includes a space of about thirty-one acres of land: here the ships of the royal navy were formerly built and repaired, and here the royal yachts are still generally laid up. The old Store-house, which consisted only of the building on the north side of the present quadrangle, was erected in the year 1513. A spacious store-house, parallel with this, and of the same length, was completed about the year 1796; and a long range of smaller store-houses was built in 1780, under the direction of Sir Charles Middleton. This yard contains three slips for building second and third-rate ships, a double and a single wet dock, a basin, and two mastponds. Here are also a large smithy for making anchors, &c., mast-houses, sheds for timber, a mould-loft, various workshops, and houses for the officers. The establishment consists of a master shipwright, master-attendant, store-keeper, clerk of the checque, clerk of the survey, surgeon, &c., the whole being under the inspection of the Navy Board. In the reigns of James I. and Charles I., the treasurer of the navy resided here. A short distance north of the king's yard, by the side of the river, and in the parish of St. Paul, stands the victualling-office, built in 1745, on the north side of the ancient range of store-houses, called the Red House, and new store-houses have since been added. Besides which it has an extensive cooperage and brewhouse, slaughtering-houses, houses for curing beef, pork, &c., bake-houses, and other buildings. Near the victualling office is Deadman's dock-yard, belonging to the Evelyn family, in which ships of seventy-four guns have, at different times, been built; and there are two other private docks in the parish of St. Nicholas. The only branch of manufacture carried on to any great extent is that of earthenware, known by the name of Deptford-ware. There are works for the refining of gold and silver, and a laboratory for the making of sulphuric, nitric, and oxalic acids, and other chemical productions, by a process which, though it has been practised for some years in France, was only introduced into England in 1827, by the present proprietors of these extensive works, which occupy an area of more than fifteen thousand square yards, and comprise a range of building two hundred and seventy feet in length, containing, exclusively of other apparatus, from twelve to fifteen furnaces, and affording employment to from thirty to forty persons, mostly natives of France: the peculiarity of the chemical process consists principally in the use of retorts made of platina, instead of glass, in the distillation of the acids, and in the substitution of sulphuric instead of nitric acid in the solution of the metals. The Grand Surrey canal passes through the upper part of the parish of St. Paul, from which there is a branch to Croydon. The bridge over the Ravensbourne, anciently of wood, was rebuilt with stone in 1628, by Charles L, and has lately been widened at the expense of the county. Another bridge has recently been erected over Deptford creek, near its junction with the Thames, by a company called the Deptford Creek Bridge Company, thus forming a direct communication between the lower part of Deptford and Greenwich. The town is within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates, who sit daily, and hold a petty session for the division weekly on Saturday; and within that of the court of requests for the recovery of debts not exceeding 40s., held at Greenwich, of which twelve commissioners are appointed from each parish: the banks of the Ravensbourne are under the superintendence of commissioners of sewers, whose jurisdiction extends from its source to Lambard's wall, near Greenwich. In 1730, the town was divided into the two parishes of St. Nicholas and St. Paul, the former of which, including the old town, is small, the latter extends into the county of Surrey: they are in the archdeaconry and diocese of Rochester, and the livings are both in the patronage of Mrs. Mary Drake and Mrs. Ann Drake Tyrwhit Drake. The living of St. Nicholas' is a vicarage, rated in the king's books at £12. 17. 3½.: the church, with the exception of the tower, was re built upon a larger scale in 1697. The living of St. Paul's is a rectory, not in charge: by act of parliament in 1730, £3500, arising from the duty on coal, was allotted to be invested in the purchase of land for the maintenance of the rector; it was also enacted that the churchwardens, in whom are vested four acres of glebe taken out of the old parish, should pay the rector £70 per annum, in lieu of fees for vaults and burials, except when the corpse is carried into the church. The church, erected in the reign of Queen Anne, under an act of parliament for building fifty new churches in and near London, is a fine structure in the Grecian style of architecture, with a tower surmounted by a spire; the roof of the nave is supported by a handsome range of pillars, and the east window is ornamented with modern painted glass. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, and Wesleyan Methodists. Dr. Robert Breton, in 1672, left £500 for the endowment of a grammar school for the education of thirty children, but a considerable part of the benefaction was lost; the remainder, producing £6. 16. per annum, is paid to a master, who teaches six children of each parish, and who also receives £5 per annum, and £2. 17. for stationery, for teaching five boys of the parish of St. Nicholas, from a bequest by Mr. Thomas Fellows, who in 1753 left £1000 three per cents, in trust to the minister and churchwardens, from which a schoolmistress also receives £5 per annum for teaching five girls; these children are clothed and provided with books. A charity school was founded in 1722, by Dean Stanhope, then vicar of Deptford; a school-house was built on a plot of land given by Mr. Robert Grandsden; it was subsequently endowed with various benefactions for the instruction and clothing of sixty-five boys and thirty girls. Dean Stanhope also bequeathed to this charity £6 per annum, for apprenticing and clothing the children, which was augmented, in 1790, by a bequest of £150, from Dr. Wilson, vicar of St. Nicholas'; the annual income arising from the property belonging to the school is £212, which sum is greatly increased by subscription. There are two almshouses belonging to the Corporation of the Trinity House, for decayed pilots and masters of ships, or their widows; one, which adjoins the church-yard, was built in the reign of Henry VIII., and consists of twenty-five apartments; the other which is situated in Church-street, was built about the close of the seventeenth century, and contains fifty-six apartments: it forms a spacious quadrangle, in the centre of which is a statue of Captain Maples, who, in 1680, contributed £1300 towards the building. Here the brethren of the Trinity House hold their annual meeting on Trinity-Monday, when they attend divine service at St. Nicholas' church. The parish of St. Paul has the right of presenting one pensioner to certain almshouses at St. Clements near Oxford, founded by Edmund Boulter, Esq. A dispensary, open to poor invalids belonging to the town and the neighbouring parishes, and a savings-bank, have been established: here is also a mechanics' institution. The Gun Tavern, lately pulled down, is said to have been the residence of the Earl of Nottingham, who was Lord High Admiral in the reign of Elizabeth. Sayes court, the ancient mansionhouse of the manor of West Greenwich, so called from its having been possessed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the family of Say, became (in consequence of his marriage with the daughter of Sir Richard Browne, who then held it under the crown,) the residence of John Evelyn, Esq., the celebrated author of the 'Sylva,' who, after the Restoration, obtained a lease of Sayes court and the demesne lands, for ninety-nine years. The poet Cowley resided here while composing his six Latin books on plants, in which work the fine gardens belonging to Mr. Evelyn are supposed to have afforded him great assistance. Mr. Evelyn also lent the use of this residence to the Czar Peter, while pursuing the study of naval architecture, in 1698, in the neighbouring dock-yard: the mansion was pulled down in 1728, and the work-house erected on its site. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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