Monthly Archives: July 2020

Where Arsenal F. C. Began

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When we pass the sign displaying ‘Arsenale’ on the road from Fornaci di Barga to Castelvecchio Pascoli in the Garfagnana I am always wistfully reminded of a part of London I know rather well. It’s Woolwich with its former Royal Arsenal, the armaments powerhouse of the British Empire, now being redeveloped as a prime residential area.

‘Arsenale’ is one of the four contrade or quarters of Barga, the others being Ponte di Catagnana, Catagnana and San Quirico. I don’t know whether its name alludes to a former armaments factory. The Woolwich ‘Arsenal’, however, has a long history connected with the testing and manufacture of the lethal weapons of war. Its origin dates from the 17th century and by the time of the First World War its area had expanded to over a thousand acres and it employed over eighty thousand people. Ceasing production in 1967 the Arsenal finally closed in 1994 when the Ministry of Defence moved out.

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(Women workers at the Royal Arsenal during World War One)

The area used to be top-secret and was not marked on any Ordnance Survey maps. I remember we had to sign the Official Secrets act when we visited the Arsenal in a specially hired bus since the area was so extensive. Later I would explore the abandoned site with its decaying armaments factories ammunition proofing sheds and explosives research laboratories. Regrettably I have few photographs in a pre-digital age of the complexities of the area except for these. They have become ever more valuable to me. Spot the large hangars, the rifle testing tunnel, the anti-Hitler casements (an attack up the Thames was imagined) and the remains of the Royal Arsenal rail network.

I also penned this poem in recognition of the strange wonders the domain held me when it was still in its derelict state.

 

THE OUTER ARSENAL 1985

 

These steep arched banks, like iron-age forts, protect

the engines of war. Through white-tiled tunnels

(for in making bombs one cannot neglect

pureness) we reach a field of wrecked funnels.

 

Past the birches gulls land on the tump, spread

gently like a park’s ornamental pond.

At its centre, the island of the dead:

a walled garden stilled by alchemy’s wand.

 

Wasteland runs riot: spinneys and briars

grow from Victorian ruin and sprout fruits;

while above a lark sings in heaven’s choirs

on the tarn’s a confutation of coots.

 

This land was ours and we could walk it free:

reclaim love from war before new blight’s scree.

 

Since those days most of the old Royal Arsenal site has been redeveloped for housing as part of Thamesmead’s expansion. Gone is the abandoned area with its characteristic tumps, moated mounds once storing explosives. There is little evidence of the former railway network which serviced the various armaments production centres.

Much of the wall surrounding the complex has gone because of road widening. In their place new housing and commercial centres are springing up – certainly a more positive aspect when compared to the area’s previous dedication to destructive weapons.

However, the original part of the Royal Arsenal has been preserved for its historical value. It contains several buildings of some worth.

The main gateway is now separated from the rest of the arsenal by a widened road and stands alone as part of Woolwich Market.

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Here is my photo taken of when it was being isolated from the arsenal it prologued. Note the former wall which joined it to the site.

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Crossing the road and entering the depot’s grand avenue the following features attracted my attention:

The elegant Royal Brass Foundry of 1717:

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Dial Square is where what was to become Arsenal Football club played its first game.

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I was particularly taken by the mock cannon balls adorning the portico of the building here.

The Main Guard House dates from 1787 and provided accommodation for an Artillery detachment.

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The original Royal Military Academy designed by Vanbrugh in 1718 once served as the Royal Arsenal Officers’ Mess. I tried to take photographs of this building’s interior but was requested to leave by a security guard. Presumably it still houses top-secret activities!

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The riverside guard rooms of 1815 mark the arsenal’s main entry point from the river. It was here that the body of ‘Lulu’, the Prince Imperial, son of Napoleon III, was brought after his death in the Zulu wars. Queen Victoria on her visit to Woolwich insisted on being brought to this very spot. You can read more about this in my Facebook entry at https://www.facebook.com/fpettitt/posts/10214823717241037.

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By the guard houses is a group of Gormley-like statues by sculptor Peter Burke called ‘assembly’. I think they just about respected social distancing!

There are several other historic buildings many of which have been converted into luxury riverside flats or community centres. It’s good to know that redundant historic structures are now being recycled to other uses instead of being demolished as they formerly would have been.

I walked part of the London stretch of the 184 mile long Thames path which passes various various piers, one of which had been re-utilized as a Thames river-bus stop.

The path took me to the new housing development of Thamesmead. As Battersea is now renamed ‘South Chelsea’ by resident snobs so West Thamesmead is now called ‘Broadwater Green’ perhaps to dispel its former notorious past as the scenario for Stanley Kubrick’s controversial ‘A Clockwork Orange’.

Many of the 1960’s brutalist pseudo-Corbusier blocks of flats have now been demolished and replaced by more friendly housing. Some of the high rise buildings, which made our yachting sorties on the lake fronting them somewhat dodgy because of their wind deflection propensity, still remain, however.

I was pleased to note that a new Thamesmead was rising with ample green, a multitude of trees and the preservation of many of the tumps and canals which characterised the old Arsenal site. It was quite lovely to enjoy the warmest of suns in this landscape of willows, lakes, coots and swans.

Lesnes Abbey Woods

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London’s Green Chain walk connects over three hundred parks and open spaces in the south-eastern part of the metropolis. It extends from Erith in the east to Crystal Palace in the west with branches to Thamesmead, Nunhead, Beckenham and Charlton  and offers a great chance to stroll in surprisingly rural parts of one of the world’s great cities linking up with other paths such as the Capital Ring.

(see also my post in Italian at https://longoio3.com/2019/07/10/londra-selvaggia/)

Originally set up in 1977 to protect open spaces from being built on the Green chain is a walk I know rather well since a branch of it starts near my home in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Though never done completely in one go I’ve covered all the route taking different sections at different times. During the recent UK heat wave I decided I’d head for one of its most idyllic stretches. There is a marvellous compendium of woods stretching from Frank’s Park near Erith to Bostall Woods including Oxleas, well-known for its bluebells and Lesnes Abbey with its spectacular wild daffodils.(For pictures of these see my post at https://longoio3.com/2020/04/06/daffodils/)

London’s Coronation church, Westminster Abbey, is known throughout the world. However, in pre-reformation times the city had many other abbeys which are now sadly either in ruins or have completely vanished.

Ruined Lesnes Abbey is on the Green Chain walk and is surrounded by an extensive forest appropriately called Abbey Woods.

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1178 saw the foundation of the Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Thomas the Martyr in Lesnes by Richard de Luci, chief executioner of England. It was built as a penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, in which he was involved.

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(Murder of St Thomas a Becket)

In 1179, de Luci resigned from his office and retired to the abbey, where he died three months later and was buried in the chapter house.

It is interesting to note that the first part of the pilgrim route known in Italy as the Via Francigena passes from London to Canterbury where pilgrims visited Saint Thomas Becket’s tomb, a journey that gave rise to Chaucer’s wonderful book of tales and Pasolini’s film. Lesnes abbey never became a large community and Cardinal Wolsey closed it down in 1525 by a law for the closure of monasteries with fewer than seven monks. It was one of the first to be suppressed after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1534. The abbey is surrounded by parkland and an ornamental garden known as the monks’ nursery.

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(Pilgrim statue carved from a tree trunk in Lesnes Abbey)

I especially like the way the Abbot’s symbol, the shepherd’s crook, is weaved into various elements of the monks’ garden:

Even though Lesnes Abbey is in a state of extreme ruin, its various sections can easily be distinguished.

The church:

church

the principal cloister:

cloister

the chapter house:

chapter

the refectory:

the dormitory and the library in which the Lesnes Missal, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, was located.

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Every time I visit Lesnes Abbey I think of those lines from Shakespeare’s seventy third sonnet:

‘Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang’.

However, I’m glad to say that once a year the parishes and clergy of the Roman Catholic deaneries of Bexley and Greenwich organise a procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the Abbey ruins, bringing them to new life. The procession would have been in June this year but has unfortunately had to be cancelled because of the pandemic.

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I continued my woodland walk passing various interesting features: the chalk pit which once supplied building material but is now securely fenced off because of the danger of its very steep slopes:

The fossil beds where one can spend a happy time uncovering sand sharks’ teeth dating from the cretaceous era:

A large pond, with an unfortunate tree collapsed upon it.

The path is well sign-posted and maintained.

Eventually I emerged from the cool woodland and found myself entering a broad heath and the heat again.

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Why certain idiots travel miles to find a crammed place on a beach flouting every health and safety measure imposed during this pandemic crisis when near to their home they can find the most beautiful and unpopulated open spaces I shall never know!

PS If you read Italian there’s more on Lesnes Abbey with extra pictures in my post at:

Le Abbazie di Londra e i loro Scandali

 

 


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
London’s Lake District

			
						

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On Midsummer’s eve I took the Metropolitan line train to Rickmansworth planning to walk to Uxbridge via the canal footpath. However, I grossly misjudged the path’s length: it can take a walking time of over eight hours. Instead, I tasted the delights of the town’s surroundings with its canals, rivers and lakes.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


(Rickmansworth Metropolitan line station with its display of former times)


Rickmansworth high street still keeps something of a village atmosphere.




 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


At one end is the town’s attractive flint-knapped parish church.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


Its churchyard contains some very old ‘barrel’ tombs such as were described at the start of Dickens’s ‘Great Expectation’ when Pip meets the escaped convict in Cooling marshes.


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Also of interest are the very art-nouveauish sculptures on the town’s war memorial.




 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


Rickmansworth is also encircled by much low-lying water and marshland but unlike Cooling marshes they are rather less menacing.


The town is the administrative seat of Three Rivers district council whose name pays homage to the confluence of the three rivers which meet in the borough. They are the Gade, described by me in my post at https://longoio3.com/2020/06/19/cassiobury-park/, the Chess, which flows down from Chesham and merits further exploration and the Colne whose course I followed in my walk south of the town.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
  


The river Colne arises in Hertfordshire and flows into the Thames at Staines. It has a particularly close relationship with that pioneer work of the Industrial Revolution, the Grand Union Canal, and supplies its water. Indeed, throughout much of my walk I followed the canal to my left and the river to the right.


Much of the canal is bound by long boats which represent homes for many lucky people. The towpath side is often enhanced with colourful gardens by the long boat denizens. 


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


Sharing the canal with them are a motley crew of water birds, in particular Canada geese, swans, coots, ducks and even a few great crested grebes. Of interest is the fact that Charlotte Potter, the brilliant young soprano singer who has enchanted Bagni di Lucca with her summer concerts in the grounds of the Villa Webb, filmed her scene in ‘Endeavour’, ITV’s hit drama on this canal. It was Charlotte’s first TV role and acting debut and she posted on my FB page a photo of where the scene was shot (Stocker lock) with the comment ‘It’s beautiful!’


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


What stands out in the Colne valley is the necklace of lakes, former gravel pits which have now been filled with water. The pits supplied the Great Wen with much of its building material. For instance, Wembley stadium was built with material from these pits.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


I followed a path through three of these lakes and found myself in an enchanted country where water and earth shimmered together in an awe-inspiring landscape. The day was not too hot and the clouds played reflective games with this liquid territory. 


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Although it was the week-end and urban London was only a short step away I hardly met anyone during my four-hour walk and those persons I met were invariably courteous and friendly – absolutely essential when the path is narrow and one has to remember to socially distance oneself.


There are various highlights to look out for on this walk: the magnificent weeping willows:


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the canal locks with a delighful lock-keeper’s cottage beside one:


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


the very long boardwalk, a triumph of ecological thinking over the marshiest parts of the lake shores:


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


the largest reed bed in the London area:


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and, of course the flora and fauna:


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


It’s incredible how a former industrial excavation area and transportation hub can now have transformed itself into one of the most delightful and extensive parklands in the western part of London. I wish the same could be said of the open-cast coal mining in the UK or the terrible destruction wrought by marble quarrying in the Apuan Alps!

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Where Alexandra Began

			
						

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This week-end, one year after her mother sadly died, my wife and I visited the church where her parents were married seventy three years ago. 


We took the tube to Saint John’s Wood. The Grade II listed station preserves its original fabric including the Underground’s last wooden escalator illuminated by one of three surviving art-deco sets of bronze escalator uplights. The ‘way out’ sign is also unique. I’m so glad these features have been kept!




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We walked past Lord’s cricket ground to reach our destination.


Dedicated to Our Lady, the church was one of the first Roman Catholic places of worship to be built following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. 


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The building was funded by two sisters, Louise and Jessie Gallini, from the inheritance left them by their father, Giovanni Gallini. Born in Florence he had come to England as a refugee and had a very successful career as dancing master and impresario in London. (Among his friends were J. C. Bach and Haydn). I felt, since Sandra’s own father was also born in Florence and moved to London for his work, that this was a lovely coincidence. 


The church of Our Lady was designed by John Joseph Scoles, a Roman Catholic architect, in what John Betjeman described as ‘Regency’ gothic style. 


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(A old print of the Church of Our Lady)


It has a mellow brick exterior and a facade with a rose window: 


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an entrance porch flanked by a rose bush: 


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and a garden with the statue of the Virgin: 


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My first impression in entering Our Lady’s church (only recently re-opened to worshippers with one-way system and social distancing to be respected during this pandemic) was that of a beautifully airy and luminous early neo-gothic building with a elegantly vaulted nave flanked by aisles of equal height. 


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Indeed, Our Lady reminded me of those hall churches in northern Germany with the light coming from the side windows rather than from any clerestory.


The church is filled with several examples of contemporary art. These include fine glass panels representing scenes from Christ’s life:


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The font:


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and the main altar in the apse.


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However, Our Lady was not always like this. Its original plain appearance became richly embellished in the Victorian era as seen in this photo. 


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The ornamentation was stripped back this century returning the church to its simpler, original atmosphere and enhancing its fine vaulting. Undoubtedly there will be some who will regret this change, especially the removal of the original High Altar and its replacement by something more contemporary. 


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Not having experienced the church as it was at the time of Alexandra’s parents’ wedding I can say little. I do feel, however, that it would have been better to have the East window displayed instead of covering it up. 


We met Fr. Kevin Jordan the very personable parish priest and Sandra showed him a copy of her parents’ marriage certificate written in Latin.


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It becomes ever more essential in these rather socially disconnected times to visit those places which have played such an important part in our parents’, indeed, our own lives. They are truly holy places twice over.