Definitions
Miss Oregon from - well, Oregon, actually, asks:
Is Blackheath considered part of Greenwich? The books I have seem to include it in the area. My good friend there tells me a story of how it came to be called Blackheath; maybe you have another story? (Learning is good.)
The Phantom Replies:
What an interesting question. Is Blackheath considered to be part of Greenwich ? Hmm. I would say an resounding "no."
Not by the post office - they have different post(zip)codes - anything SE10 is Greenwich; anything SE3 is Blackheath.
Not by the local councils - I can never remember the boundaries but at least some of Blackheath is operated by Lewisham Council; Greenwich Town, unsurprisingly, is under Greenwich Council's control.
Not by the good burghers of Blackheath themselves - they are very fiercely "their own men" and would probably be rather horrified to be lumped in with slightly-downmarket-in-comparison Greenwich.
But there are some grey areas. Westcombe Park, for example, LOOKS like it should be Greenwich - after all it's 'our' side of the heath -but has a Blackheath postcode.
Let's have a show of hands here. If you live in Westcombe Park, do you consider yourself Blackheath, Greenwich - or, indeed, Westcombe-Parkian (and are you applying for devolution in the near future?)
Come to think of it, even within Greenwich we have different areas (albeit some of them Easte-Agent-speak) - the Ashburnham Triangle, for example, or The Peninsula. Blackheath too, has its individual areas - The Cator Estate, or the areas fringing on Shooters Hill or Lewisham.
Me? I'm happy to appropriate and include anything around our area that is lovely and of interest to people from Greenwich - whether it's "officially" Charlton, Blackheath, Deptford or further afield. I don't care as long as it's get-at-able and enjoyable...
As to how Blackheath got it's name - to my embarrassment I did know and I've forgotten. I am sure someone will enlighten you, but in the meanwhile I will consult Neil Rhind's splendid book about the Heath and get back to you.
Is Blackheath considered part of Greenwich? The books I have seem to include it in the area. My good friend there tells me a story of how it came to be called Blackheath; maybe you have another story? (Learning is good.)
The Phantom Replies:
What an interesting question. Is Blackheath considered to be part of Greenwich ? Hmm. I would say an resounding "no."
Not by the post office - they have different post(zip)codes - anything SE10 is Greenwich; anything SE3 is Blackheath.
Not by the local councils - I can never remember the boundaries but at least some of Blackheath is operated by Lewisham Council; Greenwich Town, unsurprisingly, is under Greenwich Council's control.
Not by the good burghers of Blackheath themselves - they are very fiercely "their own men" and would probably be rather horrified to be lumped in with slightly-downmarket-in-comparison Greenwich.
But there are some grey areas. Westcombe Park, for example, LOOKS like it should be Greenwich - after all it's 'our' side of the heath -but has a Blackheath postcode.
Let's have a show of hands here. If you live in Westcombe Park, do you consider yourself Blackheath, Greenwich - or, indeed, Westcombe-Parkian (and are you applying for devolution in the near future?)
Come to think of it, even within Greenwich we have different areas (albeit some of them Easte-Agent-speak) - the Ashburnham Triangle, for example, or The Peninsula. Blackheath too, has its individual areas - The Cator Estate, or the areas fringing on Shooters Hill or Lewisham.
Me? I'm happy to appropriate and include anything around our area that is lovely and of interest to people from Greenwich - whether it's "officially" Charlton, Blackheath, Deptford or further afield. I don't care as long as it's get-at-able and enjoyable...
As to how Blackheath got it's name - to my embarrassment I did know and I've forgotten. I am sure someone will enlighten you, but in the meanwhile I will consult Neil Rhind's splendid book about the Heath and get back to you.
Labels: Not-Quite-Greenwich
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:43
11 Comments:
Didn't the name come from the fact that many of those that died from the Black Death are buried there..?
I always thought that Greenwich started at the walls of the Park, and as soon as you go downhill on each side.
It stops at the flyover on one side and just past Up The Creek on the other.
I don't know how that falls in with the postcodes, but that's my idea of Greenwich anyway.
But what about The Standard? That always felt like it's own area, not Blackheath or Greenwich.
Blackheath was so called because it appeared a darker colour than the green fields beside the Thames which it overlooked - the soil was dark and so were the plants which grew there. (Contrary to local belief, the name has nothing to do with the plague or Black Death.) The soil was poor and was not cultivated, but chalk, gravel and larger pebbles for ballast were dug out of it. This left the deep pits all over the Heath. Some are now ponds and some were filled in with rubble from bomb sites in the Second World War.
In both the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450, the rebels camped on the Heath (a convenient high point overlooking London). The Cornish rebellion of 1497 was defeated in a battle on Blackheath.
The Heath was a lonely place where travellers along the London to Dover road (now the A2) were in danger from highwaymen. But it was also a place for recreation. Fairs were (and are) held here, and many sports were played. In recent years it has been the starting point for the London Marathon.
The Heath became a public open space in 1871, and is now administered by Lewisham and Greenwich Councils since it falls within both boroughs.
so those big holes over there on the right side of the Park were dug out for ballast? Interesting.
When I was a kid we told each other (based on pure speculation and made-up fact) that they were ack-ack emplacements from the war.
Kids, eh? :)
As a Westcombe Park resident I'd say that although the post office thinks we are Blackheath (SE3) we've always considered it Greenwich.
To expand on the post by"grahamed" I'd say there are some natural-ish boundaries that define Greenwich:
Deptford Creek to the west, The A102 to the East, and the A2 to the South. I know this makes the Standard and St Johns Park Greenwich, but they feel more like Greenwich than Blackheath.
Greenwich is Greenwich. (and is SE10).
Blackheath is Blackheath. (and is the western side of SE3)
Quite simple, really. And Westcombe Park's just a sub-bit of Blackheath, the name of the housing development which went up in the late 19th century.
The only point of ambiguity is the splodge of SE10 which comes under Lewisham Council's control, just south of Blackheath Hill. What's all that about?
Or you could always spend hours of fun trying to define where Kidbrooke starts and Blackheath ends.
But on the whole, our postcodes are pretty much cast-iron definitions of where you are.
grahamed - Greenwich stops and Charlton begins at the railway bridge over Woolwich Road, *not* the flyover. Lombard Wall, Charlton, is named after a now-defunct boundary, and there's an old Charlton parish boundary marker in the wall of a house on Charlton Road.
Incidentally, the post office have us all simply as London.
Isn't Blackheath a corruption of Bleak Heath? I only have Wikipedia to back me up on this but it seems more likely than some of the other proposed orgins.
Bleak Heath.......Sounds awefully like a a South African tourist speaking......
Well said Inspector! Lets keep a close watch on the boundaries of Charlton against expansionist ambitions of Se3 and SE10. Just say NO when you read "Charlton Upper Slopes convenient for Blackheath Standard". Its nice to have them as neighbours, but we don't want them taking over. :)
I saw a "Charlton Slopes" home advertised in an estate agent's window advertised as being "convenient for Westcombe Park and Charlton stations", which basically means "is in between both and is too far from either of them to be truly useful".
(Charlton Slopes is a tossy estate agent term for the block of streets between Wyndcliff Road and Eastcombe Avenue).
I was brought up in Westcombe Park in the late 50s and 60s and although this was long before the A2 road ran parallel to Westcombe Hill, it was still the "wrong" side of Blackheath. As a child I knew residents of SE3 and SE10 born in the 1880s and Greenwich was thought rougher than Westcombe Hill, which was rougher than anywhere south of the Standard! The Standard pub itself had a very dodgy reputation! But in those days Greenwich Town too was anything but refined. Very south London - great people largely "watermen", dockers and men and women working in the surprising number of local factories.
The line here between SE3 and SE10 is the railway bridge across Westcombe Hill just east of Westcombe Park station - but anywhere north of The Standard was always thought to be "attached" to Greenwich and, certainly, that was where people went to shop and enjoy a knees-up on a Saturday night.
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