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.

View from Seager Distillery Tower

Yesterday, we got a privileged view of Crossfields Estate from the viewing gallery atop the second tallest building in Lewisham, the 27-storey Seager Distillery Tower, thanks to London Open House. Click pics to enlarge.

On the pic above if you locate St Paul's Church, you'll see behind it to its left, the vast Convoys Wharf site where it is proposed to surround the "m" shaped listed Olympia building (built in 1846) with towers taller than the Seager Distillery and buildings which will dwarf it (see the model below from Convoys public exhibition in July). Behind St Paul's to the right, the 16 storey tower and 10, 8 & 5 storey luxury residential blocks are shooting up at Paynes & Borthwick Wharf. Of the 257 flats being built here, only 44 will be "affordable" housing.*

Model of potential 'massing and density' at Convoys Wharf with Olympia building in the middle (July 2012). 

Another public exhibition was supposed to take place in September 2012.

A surfeit of sun (though welcome) on the other side of the viewing gallery prevented us from getting a decent pic of the towers at Loampit Vale ('Renaissance'), where 788 new homes are being built (of which 149 are "affordable")...

See also the Deptford Dame and Caroline's Miscellany.

* See the Deptford Dame's new post on the Paynes & Borthwick Wharf development.

Open House weekend

It's Open House time again – a chance to have a nosey round both new and old buildings and spaces all over London. There's a small exhibition at Deptford Lounge where you can pick up a free brochure which lists all the places to visit this weekend.

Otherwise check online for venues: in Deptford there are five places to visit – Lewisham Arthouse, Margaret McMillan Park, Seager Distillery Tower, Tidemill Academy & Deptford Lounge, and The Laban. One of these somewhat familiar spaces promises a view of Deptford not usually on offer.

There are ten places to look around in Greenwich, another five in Lewisham, nine in Southwark...and of course a lot more beyond local boundaries. www.londonopenhouse.org

Meanwhile, if you don't get any further than the Deptford Lounge, the exhibit there foretells Lewisham's plans for the high street – hoist the anchor and brace the mainsail, me hearties.

London Open House

It's London Open House this weekend 17 & 18 September. There is so much going on (770 venues) that trying to find things on the website is quite a daunting prospect. Narrowing the search down to Lewisham produces a list of 25 venues in the borough. See here, or pop over to the Deptford Dame who has highlighted a few. There are another 26 venues/tours in Greenwich.

We were quite intrigued by the tour of Deptford Town Centre landscapes – the bumpf says of the Deptford Market revamp: "In the space of a few months market trade is up with locals now enjoying an enhanced and welcoming space including strategically placed seating, lighting and tree planting." Not a word about the agonisingly long time it took, the amount of trade stall holders lost during that time, how the brand new paving is now as dirty as it was before, or how the stall holders are using the space contrary to how the designers envisaged...Still, the two parks are now very very nice – for that we may be glad!