Open House London : the Lenox Project at the Master Shipwright's House

Master Shipwright's House viewed from the river garden

The Master Shipwright's House opens its doors this weekend for London Open House. Joint hosts The Lenox Project have invited a team of re-enactors to bring a flavour of the period when the building was part of Deptford's Royal Naval Dockyard. The original Lenox was launched in 1678; the Grade II listed house was built later in 1708 on the site of an earlier building. A large wall separates the house and gardens from the old dockyard site now known as Convoys Wharf, where the only other surviving above-ground building from the time of the dockyard is the Olympia Shed (viewable from the site entrance on Princes Street – or from the river!).

The Lenox at Greenwich by Richard Endsor

You'll be able to visit selected rooms inside the house, enjoy views of the river, watch the re-enactors demonstrate how life was lived at the time (including the loading and firing of period firearms and cannon), catch up with the Lenox Project's progress and meet the historian who's documented the extensive research on which the project is based. On Saturday you may also chance to see the Thames Sailing Barge Parade making its way from Tower Bridge to West India Dock or catch a glimpse of a tall ship (part of Sail Greenwich 2016).

17th & 18th September (Saturday 10.30am–5pm, Sunday 10am-2pm)
Master Shipwrights House, Watergate Street SE8
No booking required, entry is free but, as with all the more popular Open House listings, there may be queues.

Also in the vicinity on Saturday, The Lenox Project's sister project Sayes Court Garden CIC will be running a (briskly paced) walking tour at 2pm, in association with the Landscape Institute. The tour starts at Sayes Court Garden in Grove Street SE8 3LN, the only surviving part of John Evelyn's original garden which inspired the creation of the National Trust, as well as modern ideas about sustainability and horticulture. Booking required.

For other places to visit in Lewisham go to the Open House London website.

Deptford Gardens Festival + Open House London at the Shipwrights' Palace

Two local events this Saturday 20th September:

Deptford Gardens Festival at Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden, 12-6pm
Celebrating all things green in Deptford, a day of music, games, performances and creative workshops. Assembly who run the garden are joined by urban fete & fun providers Madcap Coalition, plus gardeners from the Wonky Prong (Crossfields), Deptford High Street Community Garden (Coffey Street) and Sayes Court Garden CIC, the team hoping to build a Horticultural Centre of Excellence at Convoys Wharf. And...The Purple Ladies, Hula Hoop Workshops, Treehouse Art Lab Workshops, Ping Pong with Serve & Return, art installations, and pizza direct from the Assembly oven!
Entrance to the garden at Reginald Road

Open House London at The Master Shipwrights House, 10am-5pm
If you haven't yet taken advantage of the annual opportunity to have a look round this famous Deptford building, now's your chance. See this post from the Deptford Dame to give you an idea. The Lenox Project CIC put on quite a big show here last year with firing cannon, re-enactors and art stalls. This year they'll be exhibiting their restored cannon, providing tea and cakes and talking up their project – an added bonus for Open House visitors who will also be able to view plans and images of the Royal Dockyard in the riverside residence. Watergate St SE8 3JF. See the listing here.

Other Open House buildings in and around Deptford include Lewisham Arthouse, the Richard Hoggart Building at Goldsmiths College, The Seager Distillery Tower, the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, Deptford Green School, Deptford Lounge, and Fordham Park. 

Open House London gives public access to 800 fabulous buildings – both old and new – all over the city for one weekend only. Pick up a FREE brochure at Deptford Lounge.

Deptford Anchor spotted, among other things...

This is where the Deptford Anchor is, and where it will probably stay.

It's in the Oympia Shed at Convoys Wharf, courtesy of Hutchison Whampoa. Covered in cobwebs and pigeon shit. Why?

The council officer in charge of regeneration of the high street told us over a month ago that it will probably end up being 'part of a new development' – so here it is, in the hands of the least likely people to care about the history and heritage of Deptford, but who have probably got the best security.

The anchor's safe here, that's for certain. This place is so secure that visitors to London Open House at Convoys Wharf on Saturday had to SIGN IN with an exact time, and stay within the bollards and not stray off-piste or else they'd get a severe telling off, and then SIGN OUT with an exact time when they left.

That was apparently due to Health & Safety, yet not every visitor was given the flyer that carried the disclaimer that Convoys Wharf Properties and Hutchison Whampoa had absolutely nothing to do with you breaking your leg crossing the massive blue electrical cable that crossed the bridge to the pier where you could buy coffee and tea (and not much else) off a sole trader for £2 a hit and imagine what it would all be like when built.

Probably not very nice, since the imaginary tall buildings behind you might triple the wind factor on the pier. Oddly, we tripped ungainly on the electrical cable cover, which was exactly where the outgoing and incoming Directors of Hutchison Whampoa Properties European Division (Messrs Benyon and Hayden) spent most of their time on site....both armed with cameras, taking pictures of each other to pass the time on their trip hazard watch.

The signing in and out for visitors was probably very useful for Hutchison & Whampoa to claim they had completed yet another public consultation and be able to give figures, whilst manipulating all the actual consultation they did.

For instance, they asked visitors what we would like to happen in the Olympia Shed as though they had no ideas of their own. They did have some ideas, but as we understand it, English Heritage have firmly suggested the fabric of the building cannot be interfered with too much, although this wasn't fully explained. This is almost the only bit of the site they are not allowed to build on (so far), but now they've been told they can't turn it into the glass palace they envisaged last time round.

They intend to make a profit out of it somehow, so God knows why they were asking Open House visitors, who may be less likely to offer up the sort of ideas that could come from others less interested in architecture, such as a duplication of the Millennium Dome (cinemas, music venues, restaurants). Open House visitors might have chosen more heritage-related ideas, but we shall never know, since even when you put your name down just to be updated, you never are.

Here's a grumpy Henry VIII looking to get arrested...

 

Bill came over from London Open House at the Master Shipwright's House to have a gander and frighten the developers. (For a report on Open House at the Master Shipwright's go to Deptford Is...). Bill was part of the original campaign against excessive redevelopment at Convoys that began as soon as the previous owner Rupert Murdoch began putting in plans, that culminated in 2005/6 with Murdoch selling the site to Hutchisons. Deptford Is... are continuing Bill's and others' work through the Build The Lenox and Sayes Court Garden projects.

Here's a NEW misleading model of Terry Farrell's masterplan for the redevelopment of the Royal Dockyard of Henry VIII that was on show at Convoys Wharf. Note the weird disappearing 48 storey building which for some reason is totally see-thru and almost invisible. Do they imagine we will not note its presence when it is built? 

The other two 38-storey buildings are about seven times the height of Crossfields. This is not about providing more much needed housing for London. These are luxury homes. Are there not plenty of them already?

Deptford's FUTURE gets a preview at London Open House weekend at TWO venues

At the Waiting Room coffee house this afternoon some contractors acting as representatives of Convoys Wharf S.A.R.L. (a company registered offshore to avoid tax and legislation) AKA Hutchison Whampoa, popped by to put up a poster about their London Open House day.

After they'd gone, the cafe's lovely proprietors added their own hand-written flash "Check out the development that will affect your area".

It's very kind of Hard Hat to tell us about this, after all, they didn't have to. Surely they don't really want us locals to come to their open day anyway cos otherwise they'd have done a bit more than put up  a poster up in a coffee house.Why not leaflet our doors, surely they could afford that, what with their owner, Li Ka Shing, being the 8th richest billionaire in the world.

Take heed. This may be the last chance you, Deptford citizens, will get to physically view the models that accompany the proposals for Convoys Wharf which currently reside with Lewisham Planning and are due to be decided by the end of this year. (There is still time, then, to add your comments, despite the premature deadline given earlier this year). Please do! Tell them how deceptive their models are! Tell them what you feel!

There will be an Open Day at Convoys Wharf this Saturday 21st September, 11am-5pm. You can go onto the actual site (something you're never allowed to do at any other time) and view the plans concocted by the architects Farrells (the same Terry Farrell who created the MI6 building at Vauxhall, aha). The plans have not changed much since the last exhibition which we reported on in March (see bottom of this post for more Convoys related posts), and you can still view the plans in the Deptford Lounge or online.

But this is an opportunity to get on the site and IMAGINE the 12-18 storey buildings, topped by the 48-storey tower that is accompanied by two 38-storey towers. For reference, the nearest tall building is the new one at Paynes & Borthwick Wharf right next door. That's 18 storeys. If that's not tall enough for you, there's Aragon Tower further down at Pepys Estate, that's 28 storeys (whilst Eddystone & Daubeney are 24). So! twice the height! IMAGINE!

Imagine being surrounded by buildings like we are on Crossfields but with every building being two to three times as tall and then also, nine to ten times as tall. And only 14% of them being "affordable".

Find it on the Open House website here. It seems to have disappeared from the 'Lewisham' listings (which includes Lewisham Arthouse, Glass Mill Leisure Centre and 8 more), so don't search for it by borough! Find it in our own special section: Deptford.

MEANWHILE...RIGHT NEXT DOOR...ALSO PART OF LONDON OPEN HOUSE

Master Shipwright's House

Find it here (listed under Greenwich and Deptford). Sat & Sun, 10am – 4pm
NB: Access may be restricted at Watergate Street by gas works being done for Paynes & Borthwick Wharf. Access also possible via Deptford Green. All complaints:
United Construction.

Next door to the Convoys Wharf site is the 16th century building (later modified in 1708) that was once part of the King's Yard and overlooked the Double Dry Dock. Both were built in 1513 on the orders of King Henry VIII to create the Royal Naval Dockyard which went on to build ships for war and empire (and empire-related piracy), as well as science and exploration, that made Deptford an amazing hub of industry and technology, of making and manufacturing, for four hundred years.

The Master Shipwright oversaw the ships being built in the Double Dry Dock. If you want to know why the building was separated from the yard, come and visit. There'll be plans and photos on show, plus some extras – because this year is the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's founding of the Royal Dockyard. 

On Saturday at the Master Shipwright's House, there will be cannon fire on the hour and costumes in the morning, historians and artists who love Deptford, the actors from Horrible Histories will be on call – and to complement the masterplan delivered by Convoys Wharf next door on the site of the King's Yard, there'll be presentations by the locally grown projects that have found a way to bring Deptford's heritage into the 21st century, namely Build The Lenox and Sayes Court Garden, both of which look to the future whilst taking inspiration from the past, and which, they believe, have a road map that the developers and council should start taking seriously as an alternative to the profit motivated luxury flats plan.

The problem is that Hutchisons (for short) want to sell off individual parcels of land and these home grown projects (Lenox and Sayes Court) really don't fit with that, especially since they need to be situated on the tiny and only bits of open public space left that won't be built on. Both projects have the blessing of English Heritage and the National Trust, but are Hutchison's listening?

If you believe in history that lives in the present, rather than in road names and the names of luxury towers, come and visit the Master Shipwright's House. If you visit the Convoys Wharf exhibition first, why not go on to the Master Shipwright's House and tell them what you thought. And vice versa.

See the Deptford Dame for a review of the last time this building was part of Open House (2010).

Here is a great resource for the government's Made In England campaign durind the Olympics, and number one is Heritage. King Henry VIII. How on earth can Deptford Dockyard be left out of this?

Also see:

June 20: crossfields.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/convoys-wharf-update-planning.html
June 23: crossfields.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/convoys-wharf-update-is-hong-kong-model.html