Naval Dockyards Society conference: 500 years of Deptford and Woolwich Royal Dockyards

The five-hundred year anniversary of the founding of Royal Dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich was the theme of the annual conference organised by the Naval Dockyards Society at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich this weekend.

To mark this historic milestone and draw attention to the plight of these sites that risk being forgotten, the NDS lined up a series of speakers who gave presentations on different aspects of the dockyards.

Local MP Joan Ruddock opened the conference, and voiced her support for the Sayes Court Gardens and Lenox schemes being put forward by Deptford Is.. to recognise the significant heritage of the site.

Chris Ellmers is president of the Dockland History Group and was instrumental in setting up the Museum in Docklands in 2003. His presentation examined the private shipyards at Deptford and how they related to Deptford Dockyard over the period from 1790 to 1869. He pointed out that attention is almost always focused on the Royal Dockyard, but that Deptford also has a very rich history of shipbuilding at private yards. Merchant sailing ships, innovative steamers and early iron ships were also built in these dockyards and during the Napoleonic War the private shipyards also built and repaired naval vessels.

Peter Cross-Rudkin from the ICE Panel for Historical Engineering Works spoke about John Rennie, who was effectively the consulting engineer to the Navy from about 1806 onwards. He was involved in planning and designing works at Deptford and Woolwich, as well as Chatham, Milford Haven and Sheerness. The dock gates and parts of the river wall at Convoys Wharf (above) were designed by Rennie.

Archaeologist Duncan Hawkins (above, at one of the open days on the site) who led the excavations at Convoys Wharf presented his findings so far. He noted that while few artefacts were found at the site, the nineteenth-century slipways, entrance to the Great Dock, and the Dockyard basin were in relatively good condition.

Mark Stevenson is English Heritage's archaeology adviser for national planning for South London, and he spoke about archaeology and development management in the context of the developments that have taken place in Woolwich Dockyard and those planned for Deptford.

Finally Chris Mazeika and William Richards (owners of the Master Shipwrights House) presented a paper on the Dockyards Officers Terrace at Deptford (above). Their presentation focussed on the Dockyard Officers' Terrace, tracing its early history from a WWII bomb damage map, plans from the 1930s and a photograph taken around 1900. By analysing these resources and comparing them with earlier naval records as well as further photographic and cartographic evidence, they established that a terrace was present as early as 1623 and survived in part until the post-war period.

This discovery prompts the question as to whether the terrace at Deptford is the first palace front terrace in a royal naval dockyard. 

They also showed a fly-through 3D model of the site showing the location of the former terrace. 

The Greenwich Industrial History blog has also published a report on the conference.

King's Yard archaeology 'insufficient' evidence for statutory protection

Efforts made to extend the statutory protection to the docks and other underground structures remaining at Deptford's former Royal Dockyard have been dismissed by English Heritage, despite the fact that archaeological investigations at the site are not yet complete.

Excavations are due to continue until May

The body responsible for deciding whether to schedule or list heritage structures and ancient monuments has concluded that the four elements of the site that were submitted for consideration – the Great Dock, the Great Basin, the 17th Century Mast Pond and the Officer's Terrace – are not worthy of protection because 'insufficient evidence of the survival of nationally important archaeological remains'.

Deptford Is… in receipt of the EH report, released last month, which was furnished by the Heritage Protection Team at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The deadline for a formal request for it to be reviewed – with grounds – is 16 May 2012.

Deptford Is… disappointed and puzzled that EH has decided there is insufficient evidence of survival of national importance. The report does not take account of currently available data and admits "we are aware of on-going archaeological excavation…but the results of these investigations have not yet been collated."

English Heritage was asked to review its previous decision made in 2010 not to schedule the site, in the light of new archaeological information and because the decision was believed to based on erroneous assumptions and incomplete information. And although this review has concluded once again that the main elements of the site do not qualify for statutory protection, it does acknowledge that the river wall, which had previously been dismissed, is in fact worthy of assessment for listing after all.

Part of the river wall which is to be assessed for protection

EH also admits that some of the information on which it based its previous decision not to schedule was incorrect. It is our belief this 2012 review of the 2010 decision contains yet more errors.

The report conclusion states: "Based on present evidence we do not believe that the site meets the criteria for scheduling. However, further attention ought to be given to the river wall as mentioned above."

Reasons for Designation Decision:
Four elements of Convoys Wharf – the Great Dock, the Great Basin, the C17 mast pond and the site of the Officer’s Terrace – are not recommended for scheduling for the following principal reasons:
• Survival: insufficient evidence of the survival of nationally important archaeological remains;
• Potential: because of insufficient archaeological evidence of survival at present it is not possible to assign firm archaeological potential to these elements at Convoys Wharf.
• Documentation (archaeological): existing investigations are keyhole in nature and inconclusive. Good below ground survival cannot be assumed, nor can the extent of these elements of the dockyard be defined without much better archaeological evidence.

You can download the 10-page document here.

Deptford Is… intending to discuss the report with all interested groups in order to make a joint response, but in the meantime, readers and supporters can do their bit in the coming week or so by writing to MP Dame Joan Ruddock to request that she herself makes representation (by 16 May 2012) to the DCMS to get this decision reviewed yet again. We will endeavour to apprise Ms Ruddock of the relevant details with which to provide sufficient grounds.

Convoys archaeology on satellite mapping

Despite a time lag of six months or more, the first aerial views of the excavations at Convoys Wharf have appeared on Bing maps.

The status of the excavations on the aerial view, shown below, suggests it dates from about the time of the first public archaeological tours of the site last October.

Copyright: Bing Maps

Below you can see a picture of part of the 1774 Deptford Dockyard model, which has been annotated to show the locations of the docks and buildings that are revealed in the satellite photo. (Click on either of these photos to make them bigger and read the annotation).

With this photo and the evidence we have seen in more recent excavations - plus of course the many areas of the site that have not yet been fully excavated, including the double dry dock, it is clear that the extent of archaeology on the site is immense, and the case for proper listing and protection of the dockyard structures is overwhelming.

Copyright: National Maritime Museum

The significance of Deptford's dockyard basin

Museum of London Archaeology has published brief information on its website about the continuing excavations at Convoys Wharf. The latest post focuses on the Dockyard Basin, one of the most important below-ground structures on the site which lacks any kind of statutory protection.

MOLA says:

"The excavations... have unearthed several phases of the Dockyard Basin. This large pool probably began as a natural pond at the confluence of the River Thames with the small stream identified earlier in the excavation. Historical sources suggest that the basin was adapted to moor several of the King’s ships in the early 16th century and later used to season masts. By 1688, the Dockyard Basin (or ‘Wett Dock’) was hexagonal in plan, with slipways on the west side and a canal connecting it to the river. Once the ships were largely complete, they were launched into the basin to be fitted out.

"Excavations have identified a timber revetment wall that probably dates to the 18th century when the basin was remodelled. The revetment was held in place by large horizontal timber beams, called land ties, on the landward side.

(copyright MOLA)

The east wall to the canal linking the basin to the river, built in 1814 to John Rennie’s design. The recess to the right of the depth gauge would have housed an iron and timber gate. The wall replaced an earlier timber version, seen in the background of the image.

"The early 19th century saw a dramatic increase in the size of warships and the four slipways at the edge of the basin shown in the c1774 model had been replaced by two much larger stone slips by 1868. These stone slipways were protected from the weather by an open-sided cover building, now known as the Olympia building (listed Grade II). The cover building is one of only two structures visible above ground that date to the Dockyard period (the other being the Shipwright’s House outside the boundary of the site).

(copyright MOLA)

The same canal wall looking west from the landwards side; this side of the wall would not have been visible when the basin was in use as it was below ground level.

"The excavation has revealed the evidence for two phases of canal walls linking the basin with the river. The later phase, built in brick and stone in 1814 to a design by John Rennie, is shown in the first of these images with the earlier timber version, just beyond, to the east. Depth gauges were identified in both phases of walls – Roman numerals cut out of copper plate and nailed to the timber wall and carved into stone in the later phase."

But the extent of the excavations being carried out on this enormous site, which has huge significance for the nation's maritime heritage, are woefully inadequate. While the condition of the underground structures that have been uncovered has been found to be variable, it is impossible to state conclusively – as developer Hutchison Whampoa is doing – that these heritage structures cannot be saved. Only a tiny percentage of the dockyard has been excavated, yet the developer is dismissing any suggestion that these major structures be incorporated into the masterplan, instead proposing 'preservation in situ' which essentially means that no foundations will theoretically be allowed to damage the remains, but they will still be buried below a permanent building.

The current masterplan for Convoys Wharf completely disregards English Heritage guidelines on maritime & naval buildings (2011), which highlight works by John Rennie as worthy of a high grade of protection and describe sites such as the basin, basin slipways, basin slipway covers and caisson gate infrastructure as 'sites of collaborative genius'.

In the case of Convoys Wharf, these below-ground structures are all works by eminent Georgian and early Victorian engineers.

Deptford was the first of the royal naval dockyards to have a wet dock or basin and this technology was exported to outlying dockyards such as Chatham in about 1650. Under the administration of Sir George Carteret, Deptford's skilled workmen and naval dockyard officers built the wet dock at Chatham.

The basin is also where John Evelyn carried out the first diving bell experiments, where Cook hoisted the pennant on board the Endeavour in 1768, where Bentham built the dry dock in 1802 with Edward Holl, where in 1814 John Rennie rebuilt the basin entrance with the latest caisson gate technology, where Capt. Sir William Denison built the slipways to the basin with slipway covers built by George Baker &Sons, where George Biddel Airey tested the effect of a ship's magnetism on navigation instruments, and from where in WWI and WWII, supplies were sent out to troops stationed around the world.

The developer's design team has also ignored English Heritage London area committee comments from 2003 and 2005 which requested that the Olympia building be visible from the river. Hutchison Whampoa has dispensed with the Richard Rogers proposal, which was to create a public plaza on the site of the basin – the current masterplan all but cuts the Olympia building off from the river, preventing the building and its importance to the site and the former dockyard from being properly understood, and making a mockery of PPS5 guidelines on planning for the historic environment.