The Greenwich Phantom

Christmas Dinner Christmas Day

2008-11-21T07:52:00.002Z

Anon asks

"I wonder if you know any pubs or restaurants that are open in Greenwich on Christmas Day for lunch. Everything in Blackheath is incredibly expensive."

The Phantom replies:

I guess the problem is that few people want to actually work on Christmas Day if they can help it - and if they do, they want to be well-remunerated for it. I did it once and I hated it so much I swore I'd never, ever do it again. So restaurants do charge more on that day.

Right-ho - no Blackheath venues, then, which, I confess cuts down the list of really good eateries.

It's been an interesting time trying to find out what will be open. I started with the places I'd actually choose to eat at for Christmas lunch, and worked out from there.

The Plume of Feathers, from its website, at least, has a Christmas menu but doesn't appear to be serving on the day itself. Inside, too, is shut between the 23rd December and 2nd Jan. The Rivington closes Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Ditto the Greenwich Union. The Hill is open - but full. I was only able to find the test page for the Ashburnham Arms's website and they weren't answering their phone, but if they're doing something, it may well be worth a look. The Cutty Sark uses that bloody awful telephone answering service supplied by beer comparison websites which I refuse to subscribe to, as does the Yacht, so I don't know what they're up to.

The Guildford would be my top choice. And it would have been anyway, even if all the others weren't closed. I love that place - and the food. The proprietor is great - sincere and passionate about his place. The Christmas menu is here and comes in at £24.95 - I don't know if there's a Christmas Day supplement - but it seems pretty reasonable to me for three courses. Nougat ice cream bombe. Mmmm.

If you're cool with Greenwich Inc, The Spread Eagle is open on Christmas Day, for both lunch and evening meal. Their menu is here and costs £35 or £42.50. Also the Bar du Musee, which has a choice of menu at £33. I confess I find the place soulless (it began so promisingly, but as it's been taken over and enlarged and enlarged, until it's developed an almost warehouse-like feel.) but plenty of people like it. The Trafalgar Tavern, which I would have expected to be a dead cert, is closed.

So there you have it -the bad news and the good news. The bad being that practically nowhere's open - the good being that the one place that personally I would choose over all the others is open.

Good luck and Merry Bookings...

LOCOG events

2008-11-20T16:01:00.003Z

I've just found out about the 'presence' (their words, not mine) of LoCOG at the Pavillion Tea Rooms tomorrow (Friday 21st November) and Saturday. It's too late to stick it in the Parish News and be sure it's seen in time so it's on the main blog.

To be honest timing seems a bit vague - I think it's from 2pm but can't be sure from what I've been sent.

What IS interesting is this, though:

"Greenwich Council are organising a public meeting to discuss all Olympic and Paralympic activity in the borough between 7pm-9pm on Thursday 4th December at the Indigo at the O2 Centre with Seb Coe, Cllr Chris Roberts, and a panel of experts to answer your queries. It is a ticketed event, but tickets are free, and they are obtainable from clare.chapman@greenwich.gov.uk tel 0208 921 6191."

We need to keep up the pressure, guys. We'll never be able to prove that the Olympic organisers would have been as careful as they could be without concerned groups and individuals forcing their hands but making as much noise as possible will hopefully bring enough attention to the issue that they will be obliged to do the right thing.

From what I heard yesterday on the news, they're still determined to keep the equestrian events in the park. It's our job to make it hard for them to mess up. To keep our eyes so firmly set upon those in charge that they don't do sneaky things like setting up two companies - the first one to 'deliver' the Olympics, the second to 'clear up afterwards' (guess which one goes to the wall when they go over budget...) To make sure that Royal Parks don't lose their nerve and cave in to pressure over heritage, envirnomental and cultural matters when dates get close and tempers get hot. To never let them get away with ANYTHING that will damage our park.

Conker Canker

2008-11-20T08:34:00.001Z

Warning. This could get nerdy, folks...

Sarah's worried. She asks:

"Say, you don't know about this thing with the chestnut blight? I'm really worried about the trees in the park, a lot of them seem to be hit by it. Do any scientist types know if it's something that will move on, or will it kill the trees?"

The Phantom replies:

You alarmed me there, Sarah. So much so that I went out yesterday to check every chestnut tree I could find in the park. Of course it had nothing whatsoever to do with the lovely sunshine or the threat of cold-and-nasty for the next few days. This was Science. Obviously.

According to the BBC website, the alarming-looking 'bleeding canker' which is a nasty bark fungus, and the leaf-miner moth which make the leaves wizen and drop off, only seem to affect Horse Chestnut trees* but given the close proximity of horse chestnuts to the historic sweet chestnut trees* I wanted to make sure. I don't think they're connected genetically (I believe that the edible ones are more closely related to beech trees) but I'm no expert.

The blighted trees had reached Chatham and the Medway by 2006 which is when the BBC site's dated, so I checked the RHS for symptoms to look out for. There are icky pictures of particularly bad cases on the BBC site.

As far as I can tell, the leaf miner just saps the trees, and makes them sick, but they can recover. And as it's been a wet summer, they may have gone away anyway. The bark blight is the real baddie - and some forestry types seem to think it could be the next Dutch Elm Disease. There's a rather alarming - if short on detail - map here that shows instances of the disease.

Obviously the leaves are mostly all dropped just now, so it was hard to tell whether they'd died because they'd been chomped or because it was winter. I could only look out for the nasty Bleeding Canker. I must have looked like some loony, staring up into trees, peering closely at the bark and muttering to myself but I couldn't see anything that didn't look like it shouldn't be there (save the odd parrot...)

So yes - I think that it's something to be on the lookout for - but personally I couldn't see any problems up there yesterday. And because it only affects Horse Chestnuts (as far as I can find out) I don't think it's an immediate danger to the 300-year old Sweet Chestnuts.

*The Phantom's Scientific Chestnut Identification Field Guide:

Horse Chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum, if you want to get down, dirty and latin...)

The classic conker trees - you can tell the difference by looking at the leaves - they're much bigger and look sort-of hand-like (to me, anyway...) They have 'candles' in the spring - pink and white, and they come up with big shiny, inedible conkers in autumn, in little hard green spiky cases. They're the ones you bake in vinegar and tie on bits of hairy string then smash into other kids' vinegar-baked arsenals (though you're probably not allowed to do that kind of thing any more due to H&S regs...)

They're nothing to do with:
Sweet chestnuts (Castanea sativa)

Those big, gnarled-trunk jobbies that are getting in the way of an easy Olympics. The leaves are more spindly with crinkly edges, and even youngish trees look knobbly. But the big difference is in the nuts - they're edible for humans. The cases are much spikier and look softer.When they're on the tree, they look almost 'fluffy' from a distance. Don't be fooled. Wear gloves to pick them up - they're buggers for ripping your hands to shrebbons trying to open them.

If you can get there before the hoardes of Chinese grannies who suddenly appear out of nowhere armed with giant carrier bags every autumn, you can gather them and roast them on the obigatory 'open fire...' (make a cross in the bottom with a knife first or they explode.)

Dig This

2008-11-19T08:19:00.004Z

Jane asks:

"There is a large area which has been demolished in Greenwich High Road between the abandoned pub and the petrol station near the corner of Blackheath Hill. Roughly opposite the’ Golden Chippy.’ Something very old has obviously been uncovered there as the foundations are visible and it looks like they have been carefully excavated. I would be very interested to know what this find is. I have asked people who live locally and have searched on the internet, but can’t find any information."

The Phantom replies:

The problem with finding up-to-date news about digs, especially where commercial construction firms have been obliged by law to bring in the archaeologists before they can actually build anything, is that the information is pretty sensitive stuff. They have to get the historians in, but they're hoping against hope that nothing of interest will be discovered - it's not only very, very expensive for them to do at all, but if something fab is found (as with the tide mill at Lovell's Wharf) then the building work can be held up for months - or even years - as the place is investigated.

In some cases, the find is so important that the entire design of the new place has to be changed - off the top of my head, I'm thinking about the extra thick glass panel that had to be built over the medieval charnel house at Spitalfields or, even more extreme, the entire layer-cake of new levels that had to be built under the Guildhall to envelop the Roman Amphitheatre. That one held up proceedings for years.

The last thing that companies want is for the public's imagination to be captured. So although digs have to be done, they starve them of any publicity they can - and I'm not entirely sure that the information isn't formally classified. Maybe someone can clarify that for me?

Certainly I can find no record whatsoever of any commercial digs at all in London that have been carried out in the past couple of years by the Museum of London Archaeological Service, though digs are clearly going on all over the shop. (The Olympic site at Stratford is a bit of a special case - in that instance, they're desperate for any good publicity they can get...)

So yes - I've been applying a spectral eye to the gaps in the gates at that site myself (I'm assuming it's part of the water works (?) but what it used to be is anyone's guess) but I have no idea what they've found. I always find the best people to ask are the actual workmen on sites like this. I generally prefer the Bob-the-Builder types than the real archaeologists - they're usually happy for an excuse to chat - but I've never seemed to be passing whenever there are people there to grill.

Maybe someone here knows what's being dug up - it's just possible local historians will have been involved and can give us some clues (if you fancy spilling some beans, guys, your anonymity will be preserved, as always...)

However, in the meantime, I have found an interesting site that you may enjoy while we're waiting to hear some news. It seems that after two years, official site reports are published by the Museum of London Archaeological Service; here is the list of Greenwich results.

Happy digging...

Lamp Posts (2)

2008-11-19T07:55:00.001Z

Well. Whaddaya know?

There I was, walking past those very 'brazier' holders outside Devonport House yesterday, when I actually noticed them. Brand new lamps - obviously part of the general tart-up of the grounds there - just not clocked before. So - those strange spiky bits were just brackets for lanterns after all. No braziers. Boo.

Still - they look pretty good, don't you think? I especially like the little crests on top (not very clear in this pic). Greenwich isn't all going to the dogs...

Lamp Posts (1)

2008-11-18T08:20:00.000Z

Call me tragic. I've started realising just how fab our lamp posts are. Well - some of them, anyway. The ones that come from another time, when they weren't just there to perform an illuminatory function, but to be decorative as well. I was wandering through the ORNC yesterday and it suddenly hit me, the sheer variety of the things. Some stand sentinel at entrances, others are simple columns with traditional Victorian-looking lanterns on top. Presumably most of them used to be gas lamps.

There are giant versions, just outside the Painted Hall and the Chapel, with massive bulbs inside them, and tiny curly iron ones that, despite their ornate styling, we walk past and hardly notice - like this sweet little lamp round the back, near the porter's lodge in the car park.

There are those that light the two little fountains in the green bit just outside King Charles Block (the bit that used to be parade-ground) and discreet varieties lighting the inner courtyards, just dim enough to be frankly rather creepy at night.

And fab streetlights aren't just found at the ORNC. Those lamps up Greenwich Church Street are fantastic - especially if you look at them from St Alfege's churchyard, through the tree branches. Or in Gloucester Circus (they have curious little copper bits around them) - no wonder the place (or half of it, anyway) keeps being used in films. Or round by the gates to the park.

In fact, gates are a fantastic place to see good lamps. Here's a rather fuzzy set I snapped in the fog last year, that lead to the Queen's House. I did get a pic where there wasn't a car going past, but I rather like the red lines in this one.

I'm highly intrigued by the gates that lead into the grounds of Devonport House - they have what looks suspiciously like old braziers in them. Surely not..?

No, you're probably right - I'm just getting overexcited again. But you can't beat a good brazier. Maybe I should start a Braziers For All campaign. The local herberts would love it...

I think I shall start an occasional series on street furniture. Contributions always gratefully accepted...

Sundials (3)

2008-11-17T07:28:00.004Z

Don't recognise this? No, nor did I. That's because this one, despite being one of the oldest (perhaps the oldest) locally, is in the courtyard of Morden College and most of us never get to see it. It was sent to me some time ago (thank you, Anon) and I'm afraid it's taken me this long to get round to it...

I know virtually nothing about the architecture of Morden College. The frankly tedious volume The History of Morden College, which I thought would end all my woes when I found it but is actually most useful as a cure for insomnia, says very little indeed about the building - more about the trust itself. Sadly it's almost all I have on the subject and, although the far more readable Neil Rhind touches on it a bit, he refers readers back to The History.., which looks as though it was being written at the same time as his own Blackheath Village & Environs (2). I daresay he was being polite, leaving it to their own historian, but I wish he hadn't been.

Admittedly the early political history of the college is fascinating (and if wagging tongues are correct, later political history too...) though perhaps not for a day dedicated to sundials.

And here is today's Sundial in context - on the South side of the quadrangle- sensibly set up to get the most hours of sun, though it doesn't look as though it was part of the original plan. Apparently, although it says 1695, it was actually erected 30 years later in 1725 "for keeping the clock which often goes wrong."

It seems generally agreed today that Sir Christopher Wren didn't build the place (as some tried to claim over the years...) - it was more likely his master mason for St Paul's Cathedral, Edward Strong, but I can guarantee he didn't create the sundial as he died a year before it was made. Whoever did make it had an eye for cute.

It's a pretty little thing - all curly and Dutch-looking (a very popular style then) and handily set up on a chimney, though looking at the damage on the face, it could do with a spruce-up. The little golden sun looks particularly battered.

And here is, presumably, the clock that was always going wrong. It looks like it would have been part of the original building, but I can't be sure.

1725 makes it five years before John Harrison would have created his first marine clock, so accuracy was a real problem - and a red-hot issue across the heath at Greenwich. All kinds of people were coming up with timekeeping inventions, hoping theirs was the most accurate to win the prize offered by the King.

The local dogs must have been delighted that the guys at Morden College decided to go with a sundial when they were getting a timepiece rather than that nutty idea some bright spark had of poking one dog at a certain time to see if the other one yelped.

Sundials have their drawbacks - not least the whole cloudy-day bit, but given what was on offer at the time, it seems a good choice. And even when it isn't usable, it looks good.

Has anyone noticed if they ever open Morden College to the public, like Trinity Hospital does? Open House Day? Charity fetes? Guided Walks?

Holiday Geology

2008-11-15T08:46:00.000Z

While I was going through my bookshelf, cataloguing it for the new page, a piece of folded card fell out which I'd totally forgotten about, but which, for its size, is a remarkable find.

Called, fairly unexcitingly, Holiday Geology Guide- Greenwich, it looks as though it's a children's thing - and yes, I guess it is intended for kids. The dinosaurs on the front, champing their way through primordial undergrowth where the Observatory is now, leaving a little gap for the Meridian line and with the ORNC and Canary Wharf in the background, are very kiddie-ish - but if you look on the back, they're all genuine possible previous inhabitants of Greenwich (no gags, now, about where the dinosaurs reside today, eh?)

If you fold it out, there's a sort of 3D-in-2D cut-through map of Greenwich from a couple of angles, showing what's underneath it, geology-wise, how and when it was made and highlighting the really interesting bits, the best of which has to be the Greenwich Fault Line, created, apparently, at the same time as the Alps. How cool is that?

Even better, there are little notes on each of the main stone buildings memorials and other features, which tell you where the materials for each come from, including good stuff to look out for (little fossils, for example - snails, sea-lilies, corals, squid - or bits of them at least.)

The back pages continue the theme with photos, graphs and text, all actually interesting.

This is a single sheet of A3 card. But the information it holds punches well above its weight. I've included a widget for it from Amazon, because I've just learned how to do it, but it's not the best place to buy it unless you have an order over ten quid. I got mine from the Visitor Centre, and it works out cheaper if you can drop by.

The Phantom's 1000th Postday

2008-11-14T08:03:00.000Z

Heavens! Where did that come from? One minute I'm thinking about starting a little blog about Greenwich, the next thing I know I'm been blathering on for just over two years and a rather alarming 1000 posts...

I've been trying to work out what would be a good thing to do to celebrate being 1000 (or commiserate with myself for no longer having a life...) and, alongside vowing to get out more, I've decided to add a page to the blog. The pair of which may turn out to be mutually exclusive...

I often get asked where I find information about Greenwich - where to find resources, out-of-print books/maps etc. The bottom line is that it's legwork - but I thought I'd try to cut out some of that legwork for you by giving you a lowdown on what's on the Phantom Bookshelf - what's out there and where to find it. (Hint for tomorrow - take a trip to the Amnesty International Booksale that Ros has just reminded me about...)

You'll currently find the page here, but when a moment appears in The Phantom Webmaster's stupidly busy schedule (which includes celebratory dinner for me tonight, tee, hee...) there will be a direct link from the front page.

This project is going to take me months, I'm afraid. I've been working on it for some time now, and I'm only about a third of the way through the stuff I own, let alone the stuff I know about. So if you're interested in that sort of thing, keep checking it regularly - I will add to it as I go along. There are several sections, but each one is in alphabetical order by author.

But I'm not doing any more cataloguing for today. Today, I'm scoffing my 1000th Postday-Cake courtesy of Daisy Bakes, getting ready to celebrate chez Phantom Webmaster tonight - and raising a glass of Theatre of Wine champagne to all of you lovely folk who join me every day on my murky trips through this fantastic town.

Cheers!

Selling Up...

2008-11-13T15:39:00.004Z

...buying down.

Jonathan's considering the unthinkable. Leaving.

"I am looking at selling my flat in Greenwich at the Anchor Iron Wharf development to move in with my partner who lives in Sydenham. Not the best time to sell, I know, and if my flat was bigger we would probably moving here."

(Is it really that small? I know you're young and in love - but - hell - this is Greenwich...TGP)

"Now, I know nothing about estate agents having never sold a property before and having bought my property (initially) through a key worker, part-buy, part rent deal, so I was wondering if you could ask your readership for any recommendations based upon past experiences with local estate agents? Can you help?"

The Phantom replies:

I'm not sure I should be helping you with this, J - but I guess that when True Love beckons, even Sydenham doesn't seem so bad.

But to Estate Agents. I don't like to recommend any of them, frankly, but if you've got to use one, I'd say stay local - they specialise and know the area. The only truly local one left, now that James Johnston have gone over to the Dark Side and joined a national, is John Payne (as far as I know - am I wrong on this?) They're not all nice in there - one particularly snooty individual in a branch I won't name took one look at me and told me there would be nothing in my price range (I hadn't actually told her a price at that point...) but all the other people in the company bent over backwards to help and I think on the whole they are very good (as estate agents go...)

Of the others - and there seem to be utterly hundreds of them (including the very oily-named 'Property Wealth' - am I the only one that thinks that name sucks?) - I don't really know. Perhaps everyone else can chip in here?

I shall be sorry to lose you, Jonathan...

Illustrious On The Move

2008-11-13T09:21:00.004Z

From Benedict, for all those (especially Dazza who so wanted to see her) who missed Illustrious leaving town. Here she is being guided downstream by a tug - I guess it's too, ahem, hit-and-miss to allow her to try to get through the barrier on her own. (It's the 'destroyer' bit that's the clue...)

By the time she'd reached the ORNC she'd drawn quite a crowd. Sadly I wasn't one of them - but it's a fab surreal-looking pic, isn't it.

Thanks, Benedict...

King William IV 'Hotel'

2008-11-13T08:28:00.000Z

Traflagar Road, SE10

After that little flurry about the dodgy leaflets through the door a couple of weeks ago for 'sales' of sundry bargain electrical goods, for one night only, no questions answered (which, BTW, has prompted an investigation from Trading Standards) I find myself turning to its host venue - the lovely-from-the outside King William IV Hotel.

Benedict sent me some pics ages ago, which I've dug out to show you what I mean. This place is lovely (refurbished 2003) if you can see past the teenage drunks hanging around outside and don't peer too closely in the upstairs windows at the rows of bunk beds that form the 'hotel' part of the title.

If you actually look up, rather than just seeing the sagging posters in the ground floor window, there are fancy mouldings, carvings, fruit and flowers, faces - even the brick's been tarted up. There's a curious oval moulding on the side - I assume it was once a brewery sign. The mouldings have been painted - which I rather like. Inside it's spacious, and decorated in Victorian style - striped wallpaper, giant mirrors, a fab wooden bar and yucca trees. If you just peered through the glass you'd think you'd found some gastro pub in Hamsptead. Which is exactly what Benedict did.

"It was the first pub I went into in Greenwich years ago and very nearly put me off moving here," he admits.

Ay, there's the rub. It's just not that nice. Ok - it's not The Old Friends which really was rancid (and still has strange lights glowing from behind the metal grilles and from the broken windows upstairs - there's life in there, folks...) - or even that nasty Wetherspoons at the DLR which seems to have blokes in the middle of a fight whenever I go past (I recently chose to walk home rather than wait for a bus in a giant pool of blood - ick ) but it's a hell of a lot rougher than it looks.

I guess it's what it is. A cheap hostel with added beer, pool and telly, which, since it has no pavement outside to speak of (hardly its fault, I'll agree) means walking the Gauntlet of Doom past scary drunk people if you have to go past late at night. It's hardly a destination venue.

Poor Old William IV. Not only is he the king that just gets forgotten in between George IV and Victoria (he's known as 'the sailor-king;' I confess I tend to call him 'the boring one,' even though he had a mighty colourful not-so-private life, about which I will talk another day) but he even tends to get short-changed when he is remembered.

In Greenwich we have a second-hand statue in a very suspect pose and a dodgy pub as souvenirs of Sailor Billy. Still, as Benedict points out, where else can you get a night's sleep for seventeen quid?*

I'm not conviced this splendid fellow supporting one of the pub's ornate exterior columns is actually respresentative of King Billy, but he does have a fantastic moustache.

*Try St Christopher's Inn at the Station. Unexciting, but only £15...

Feeling Flush

2008-11-12T12:00:00.006Z

Methers has just lifted my heart by directing us to an article in the Londonist which imparts the brilliant news that the pumping station at Crossness is to recieve £1.5m to help restore it to glory.

I'm so excited by this news (The press release can be found at Greenwich Industrial History's Blog ) But though the Crossness Trust may have swanky board members, the day-to-day restoration is carried out by a team of volunteers who spend their lives crawling around sewers blocked with rust, a century of crap, and the sand that was used to prevent them collapsing when they stopped being used, cleaning them out and trying to get them working again - and they're the real heroes of this.

You only have to look at the single engine they've restored to its original condition to see a) how bloomin' beautiful something that should by all rights have been a purely functional piece of engineering is and b) how far they've still got to go. And none of them are getting any younger.

This picture demonstrates. In the middle, the fabulous cathedral-like atrium of painted ironwork. To the right is the shiny steel of newly-restored steam engine. To the left is the bit they haven't got to yet. My inclusion of the random hard-hatted head at the bottom is deliberate of course. It's Art. Obviously.

What? You haven't been there yet? Shame on you. Go to a steaming day as soon as you can (and make sure it's a steaming day and not just an ordinary visit. Far more fun.) You'll find dates here. But don't expect the little coloured glass lantern in the Londonist feature. I'm pretty sure that that's actually the Abbey Mills Pumping Station on the north of the Thames. But hey - that's great too - and the Londonist feature itself is fab - I particularly like the last sentence...

The Peninsula Before...

2008-11-12T08:37:00.004Z

When I first got hold of this map (sorry about the rubbish scan...) I had to stop for a moment and work out what was missing. We're so used to seeing the A102M carving its way up through the peninsula that I found myself mentally superimposing it onto this old streetplan (from about 1902.)It's easy to forget that the motorway didn't crash its way onto the Greenwich Marshes until the 1970s.

What we're looking at here, though, is the old main road to the tunnel - Tunnel Avenue - that sleepy little back road that now just consists of 1930s and modern houses south of Blackwall Lane; factories to the north, but which would have originally had a vibrant community of shops and services (not to mention two gasholders) and probably would have been as congested as the motorway gets today, with a combination of horse-and-cart ensembles and motor vehicles.

I always find it amazing that you don't need to look at ancient maps to see real differences in Greenwich's history. Just look at all those fields, for example - many of them would have been allotments - there's an Ordnance Survey map from about the same time that shows them specifically. There's a whole bunch of roads (which would have been newly-built then) that were swept away to make the flyover. And the collection of buildings where the Heart of East Greenwich will be, have already been demolished, built over and demolished again since this map was made.

But there's some that remains the same. The little Angerstein Railway, for example, which I always get a little thrill to see trundling its way through tracks I forget are there and which, frankly, I find staggering still exists. I'm not sure what's happening to it in this map - it appears to turn into a dotted line - perhaps it's because it's the bit that's shared with the passenger track.

But all that's for another day...

A Lusty Sight

2008-11-11T14:52:00.004Z

Mike very kindly sent me this moody shot of HMS Illustrious AKA 'Lusty,' who's currently moored at Greenwich. I understand that her crew were taking part in the Lord Mayor's Show and Remembrance Sunday (today is, after all, 'proper' Remembrance Day) at the weekend.

I couldn't resist popping down to see her myself by daylight just now. She's just enormous - but then I suppose she is invincible...

Sundials (2)

2008-11-11T07:40:00.004Z

We've not had a sundial for a while, so today, I bring you some of Greenwich's newest (though we don't really seem to have any really old ones - publicly-viewed, at least, maybe there are some private ones someone can tell me about...) solar clocks.

These are on the new block at Trinity Hospital, right at the back of the garden, which, considering what new blocks of almshouses normally look like these days, they haven't made a bad fist at. Modern, but at least with some kind of nod to the style of the original. That end of the garden was really only where they had the compost bins, so they didn't lose much in the way of horticultural delights. And I'm told that the old block, despite its being extremely pretty, was very cramped, cold and dark, not to mention damp. I bet there's been a stampede for the new wing by the '21 retired gentlemen..'

I even like the plaque on the side that reminds us that the place is funded by the Mercers' Company in the City. I don't know how many mercers are still in the City these days (I have a jewellery-making friend who got quite excited to be invited to a dinner held by the Goldsmiths Company, thinking they'd meet loads of like-minded metal workers, and there were only about two there - the rest were bankers) but the main thing is that they're obviously still pretty wealthy and looking after sundry elderly people around Britain.

The only thing I find rather sad is that I never once saw then delightful little arched door that opens from the Thames entrance into the ancient courtyard of the historic block open this year. It just gathered last year's Autumn leaves and made the place look very neglected. Maybe I was just there at the wrong time, but I miss that little secret view.

But back to the sundials. The first looks pretty straightforward - a simple stick-with-a-gold-bobble that points to Roman numerals. I confess I've never actually seen the sun shine on it there - it's a bit of a dark road, but I'm sure there are times when it's sunny there - and besides we don't really need sundials to tell us the time any more. They're pretty and that's all I care about.

The second is more of a puzzle to a simple Phantom. The signs of the zodiac on lines which appear to lead to each symbol's 'opposite' sign, and a little gnomon which is so short it doesn't look as though it could cast a shadow on anything unless the light source was immediately above it. I haven't got much of a clue on this. A moon clock or something? Maybe someone who speaks Latin can translate the motto for me?

Whatever. It's a lovely thing - and hooray for lovely things still being used to decorate modern buildings. I'll like it even more if someone can tell me what it all means...

Greenwich Baby Bin

2008-11-10T07:40:00.008Z

Joe has brought to my attention a shocking development in Greenwich Council's policy on children. I know that providing nursery care and school facilities are getting more expensive, and that young people are a drain on council resources, but do they really have to resort to the kind of desperate tactics that encourage vulnerable people to dispose of their babies in a seedy underground toilet?

Greenwich Council's solution to the ever-burgeoning population problem is the deeply sinister "Baby Bin," as seen in the picture above, with its disarmingly 'cute' outline of a chubby little bairn in a nappy, which has been installed in the Gents in King William Walk, with strict - and distressing for some - instructions. No general rubbish to be put in this receptacle; it's clearly intended for alternative 'disposal.'

Brings a whole new meaning to the term 'lavatory cleaner.'

Remembrance

2008-11-09T12:58:00.006Z

Stephen's sent me some truly moving photos for Remembrance Sunday. There's always something profoundly sad about seeing rows and rows of graves of young men but it's when one stops looking at the whole, and begins to see the individuals behind the sea of white stones that they are most powerful.

Stephen says, "Gunner Pierce from Canada probably never met Private Hammond from New Zealand, but for over ninety years now they've been neighbours in a quiet corner of the London Borough of Greenwich."

We know practically nothing about these two young soldiers - save that they died within a couple of months of each other in 1916. Where or how, who knows - but I'll wager it wasn't a pleasant death.

Stephen points out "The very least they could have asked was that they'd not be forgotten," so here, today, let us say their names out loud, honour and remember them alongside the thousands of others, not just in the Commonwealth section of Greenwich Cemetery but scattered across the world. Individuals, each of them.

Like Private J D Thistle who fell on 3rd July 1916 aged just seventeen.

I wish I could say we'd learnt from the past. But today of all days, we must not forget.

Ice Rink

2008-11-09T12:51:00.002Z

Ann asks:

"Does anyone have any idea why the ice rink will not be making an appearance this year and will it be back next year?"

The Phantom replies:

You're not alone in mourning the ice rink. There are lots of stories doing the rounds - ranging from falling out with the ice rink people, through the O2 (if you remember last year, the O2 had a rival rink - ironically, they're not having one this year either - it's going to be a ski slope) - someone even suggested that there were too many sad memories attached to it because of the loss of poor Josh Beasley last year (the ice rink was the last place he was seen...)

I don't know the truth, but my money's on the financial - that they didn't get great ticket sales last year (it was a very wet winter and it got off to a bad start too, if I recall when something broke) and this Christmas is not going to be a vintage spend-fest for anyone. I also have the horrid feeling that they probably lost money on the fabulous but under-used Wheel this summer, a victim, I suspect, to transport problems, credit crunch and the bog-awful summer.

I will miss the ice rink greatly, myself - it was such a jolly addition to the ORNC and really announced the arrival of the festive season. I hope that this year is just a one off and that we'll get it back in the future.

Does anyone know the real reason we're not getting an ice rink this year?

No Decisions Yet

2008-11-07T12:38:00.006Z

Theresa has just directed me to Andrew Gilligan's article in the Evening Standard from about a week ago, which reminds us that no decision has been formally made to hold the Equestrian events at Greenwich Park. It had always been said that it would be a mere formality for the London Olympic Board to rubber-stamp the siting of the games, but some members wanted more time to think about it.

They certainly can't use the excuse that it was 'promised' to the IOC - after all, they've just moved the gymnastics, which would have been held at the O2, and which I was actually looking forward to (I'm not against holding events in Greenwich - just the inappropriate ones) to Wembley.

At least the London Olympic Board are now thinking long and hard over this. If that means that we still get the events, but LOCOG are forced to be extra careful and not to damage anything, then I will consider that a victory.

I don't care about being called a scaremonger. I consider it the job of anyone who cares about the park to force those in charge of the Olympics to do the right thing and look to the future. Even if that future means that the legacy we'd get from the Olympics is literally nothing. Nothing damaged, nothing lost.

It's important to keep talking about this - while the issue is current, then everyone - whether on the side of having the events at Greenwich or not, is thinking about it. And while everyone's thinking about it, LOCOG will have to be at least seen to care.

For your delight and delectation, Phantom Good Friend Simon has created a calendar of 'consultations' about the events. Let's hope that they'll actually be taking opinions at these, as opposed to the Car-Free Day version...

Autumn Spring Tides

2008-11-07T09:06:00.000Z

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Jack. Jack is still wearing his swimming goggles after visiting the Arches, and with good reason. This, of course is the Five-Foot Walk* which in this picture at least should be the Five-Foot Paddle. Jack's mum Sarah has sent me some pictures which has reminded me to dig out a couple of snaps I took a few weeks ago.

I've slooshed my way along the Thames Path a few times in the past month or so. Is it just me, or has it been unusually often that the river's been so high it bursts over the path? I've got to say that it makes the Thames look magnificent. Even the Power Station seems majestic, somehow, looming out of the water...

...though the waters are stronger than they look. I narrowly escaped a drenching when they bashed against the rowing club's wooden gates in Crane Street. The 'sand bags' were rubbish...

Whatever else, at least it won't get as bad as in what has to be the world's worst disaster movie. I'm referring, of course, to the execrable Flood, which I was conned into seeing as a 'real film' before it became the TV two-parter because I wanted to see the bits set in Greenwich. Quite apart from Robert Carlyle being uncharacteristically uncharismatic, it just made no sense, even within its own fictional world.

I know that disaster movies aren't supposed to represent real life - but would you go to shelter from a major flood in the London Underground? It's a basic physics-thing, folks.

If you're worried about what would happen to your house in case of a flood, check this 'fun' flood map (not 100% accurate - I wouldn't base a house-purchase on it - but it's very intriguing) - double click on your area to zoom in.

In the meanwhile, Jack's keeping well out of the way...

*Five Foot Walk - an early Section 106 - Christopher Wren had to allow the public to continue to walk along the Thames when he designed the Royal Naval Hospital, and, in 1731, this measly five feet was the best they were going to get. I have read that the council are going to be forcing cyclists to walk their bikes along this bit of the path. Seems sensible to me, given its width, though I'd like to see them try to enforce it...

Greenwich's Phileas Fogg

2008-11-06T08:52:00.008Z

I am currently reading a new book about Ruth Belville, the Greenwich Time Lady we talked about last year - review to follow as soon as I've finished it, but once again I'm entertained by the way that everything in Greenwich history seems to intertwine. Stories don't just stand alone, they work with (and against) others, characters in one tale knew characters in a totally different one.

It must be great to live in a house with a blue plaque, and I'm really rather jealous of number 20, Dartmouth Hill who have a splendid one, and clearly, when Benedict took this picture, felt they needed to bring the rest of the house up to the standard of the plaque - which explains the scaffolding.

James Glaisher FRS (1809 - 1903) was a meteorologist who worked up at the Observatory for much of his life, with coming up with ways to measure humidity and co-founding the Meteorological Society all in a day's work. But what he's best known for is his Great Balloon Ascent in 1862, where he flew higher than anyone had ever flown, conducted animal experiments which may or may not upset you, depending on your attitude to pigeons - and fainted before he could do his final measurement that would prove he actually went up seven miles.

Balloons had been around for just under 100 years - and not just as scientific experimental equipment, but for fun, too. The Prince Regent wrote a general letter for Edward Hawke Locker, a commissioner of Greenwich Hospital (and, incidentally, the guy who turned the Painted Hall into an art gallery) for a balloon flight he took in 1805, which requested that they were 'well-entertained' by the local toffs wherever they landed.

But back to Glaisher, who was very serious about this particular flight. He and his mate Henry Coxwell travelled up to Wolverhampton to get the best wind. They got more than they bargained for and at first they thought they might not go up. But as soon as they did, Glaisher busied himself with taking measurements and conducting experiments.

They'd brought a basket of six pigeons up, and he chucked the first one out of the basket at three miles high. It staggered about a bit, then "endeavoured to fly." A second, released at four miles, flew vigorously." The next one, between four and five "dropped like a stone."

In the meanwhile, Glaisher was having a few problems of his own. At first he couldn't read his instruments properly, next he noticed that "I seemed to have no limbs." His head fell onto his shoulder and he couldn't make any of his body work. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he started to hallucinate, although, ever the scientist, he was trying to make observations about his condition. "The perfect stillness and silence of the regions six miles from the earth...is such that no sound reaches the ear."

By calculations they did later, they almost certainly reached seven miles, but by this time the pair of them were out of their heads - and bodies. Hoar frost had formed all over the balloon and they were beginning to get frost bite. They decided they'd probably had enough Science for one day.

They released another pigeon between four and five miles. This one flew in a circle, looked down, came to the sensible conclusion that it was a very long way down and hitched a ride on the top of the balloon. They didn't bother with the other two. One was dead on landing; the other very dazed. When it came-to, it flew back to its loft in Wolverhampton as fast as its wings could take it, set up with seed-party conversation for life.

There's a great account of the whole affair in the New York Times of the trip, and what I love about it is that Glaisher doesn't try to brazen-out the fact that he passed out, but deals with it in the same detached manner as the rest of the experiment.

It certainly didn't put him off trying again. He and Coxwell made numerous ascents, and founded the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1866 - very Jules Verne, don't you think...

So what's all this got to do with Ruth Belville? Well, according to the book I'm reading, the dashing aeronaut also had an eye for the ladies. He went to John Belville, Ruth's father, who was also working at the Observatory and asked for the day off. When Belville asked the reason, he was told it was so the 34 year-old could marry Belville's daughter (and Ruth's' sister) Cecilia, who was 15. Naturally, the father wasn't' best-pleased and the whole thing ended in tears. But that's all for another day...

In the meanwhile, if you're gagging to see what Greenwich would have looked like from a balloon, Stanfords do a curious map of London as seen from a balloon in 1851. Enjoy.

America Began At Greenwich

2008-11-05T08:36:00.003Z

Aw - c'mon - I may be parochial - but I'm not totally unaware of what's going on in the world...

So today, folks, in recognition of what has to be one of the most important elections the US (and hence the rest of the world - we don't get to vote, but we do suffer or benefit from whatever the outcomes of elections are) has ever seen, I bring you a rare, slim volume from 1976 with the mildly provocative title America Began At Greenwich.

Published by the long-defunct Poseidon Press, which was based in Turnpin Lane, (there seems to be a publisher in America which has picked up the name) the booklet is by Nigel Hamilton, who you may recognise on your shelf if you haunt second hand bookstores - his other books, Guide to Greenwich, Royal Greenwich and Greenwich in Colour are relatively easily available second hand. He's long-since moved from writing Greenwich books for a tiny press in an alley by the market to in-depth biographies of major figures such as JFK, Bill Clinton and Field Marshall Montgomery for heavyweight publishers Random House, but Greenwich was what he cut his literary teeth on.

Just 34 pages long, the pamphlet gives a general overview of the part Greenwich played in the discovery of the New World - from the voyages of Drake, Ralegh and Frobisher, bringing back loot, through the sailing of the Mayflower, just upstream, from Rotherhithe and the granting of a charter in 1606 by King James to colonise Virginia (Jamestown, geddit?) all the way to the laying of the Greenwich-made Atlantic Telegraph by the Great Eastern, a ship so enormous the Thames couldn't take her bulk and she had to be launched sideways.

It's a useful, interesting little volume, and if you come across one as I did - nestled with a bunch of random maps, guidebooks and postcards in a 50p box by the door of a second-hand bookshop in Eastbourne, snap it up. Hand on heart, though, I wouldn't be beating the door down to pay £48.52 for the only copy I found on Abebooks just now. There will be a copy at the Heritage Centre - hop on the bus - your wallet will thank you.

London Events

2008-11-04T07:51:00.001Z

Regular readers will know by now that I'm not the world's most enthusiastic events lister. I do try to keep the Parish News section up to date, but frankly - well - I always seem to be, ahem, a few posts behind.

So I have nothing but admiration for fellow-blogger Ianvisits who has made the brave decision to create a listings directory for the whole of London. He's aiming to try to list the really quirkly things that mags like Time Out often miss and I wish him the best of luck keeping it up. Of course he'll be covering Greenwich - and I hope he continues to tip me off about really good stuff. ;-) (hint, hint, Ian...)

I will keep the Parish News Section going - but frankly I recommend Ian's events which make mine look disturbingly rubbish.

Find it here - and enjoy.

The Brooking Collection of Architectural Design

2008-11-03T08:34:00.001Z

One of the things I notice most when I go to things around the capital - and indeed the world, is that I almost always manage to find some link with Greenwich. It's so - well - omnipresent - that there always seems to be something curious I haven't heard of before comes out of a day trip elsewhere.

And so it was with a trip I took on Friday to the Guildhall Art Gallery, a place you should visit if you get the opportunity. It houses some incredible works, many to do with the history of the City, and not a few of those gems you see incessantly reproduced on birthday cards - the sort where you think 'blimey - I had no idea that was there...'

I hadn't actually gone for the art (although I tagged onto a free 'highlights' tour which was well worth joining) or even the Roman amphitheatre which lurks eerily in the bowels of the building. I had gone to see a current exhibition of stuff which used to be in the City but now resides elsewhere, The City Beyond the Square Mile.

I had thought that the best Greenwich would do out of the exhibition would be a mention of the glorious stained glass from the Baltic Exchange, now rather stunningly displayed in the Maritime Museum, but then I saw a curiously dusty-looking little case with sundry items in, such as letterboxes and architraving, with an even dustier-looking (curious - the exhibition's temporary and has only been open a couple of weeks) note next to it.

The Brooking Collection of Architectural Detail was started by Charles Brooking, at the age of 12, in 1966, in his parents' shed in the back garden (I wonder if he and Robert Opie get together from time to time - they have much in common.) It is, much like the Opie Collection, a gathering together of the sort of stuff people throw away until it's too late and we realise we've lost something visceral from our common history. In Charles Brooking's case, that stuff is architectural detail - doorknobs and knockers, letterboxes and hinges, skirting and architrave, staircases and stained glass.

He's been collecting and cataloguing it ever since but it long ago became a tad too big for his dad's shed. In 1986 the Dartford campus of the University of Greenwich (yes, I, too am still trying to work out just what Greenwich University is doing in Dartford, but in this case, I don't care) offered to take the collection and turn it into a museum, but it all went a bit pear-shaped in 2002 when the university sold the site.

So - guess where it languishes today? In storage at the Pepys Stable Block in the Old Royal Naval College. Apparently professionals and students can still gain access, but it's not open to the public any more. Tsk. The label in the exhibition states, vaguely, that there, "it's hoped that a national archive of period detail will be established for the use of architects, historians and the general public."

We'll see.

There's one bright spot though. Charles Brooking still has his own museum, presumably in his latest garden shed, at Cranleigh, Surrey which is open by appointment, by phoning 01483 274203.