Welcome back, Deptford Anchor

The best pic we've seen so far, by CircusFit on Twitter

We haven't written about the Deptford Anchor since 2013 when a campaign began soon after it was removed. A petition was launched in late 2015 by the Deptford Society, which we linked to in our sidebar – but without any help from us the petition attracted hundreds of signatures within a few months.

Another week has gone by since this pic was taken – the installation of a plaque is awaited before the fencing around the site can be removed. 

Campaigners are already planning a celebratory 'sea shanty' procession down the high street this coming Saturday 3rd February, assembling at 12 sharp at Villages Brewery in Resolution Way and setting off soon after noisily singing shanties (song sheets provided) to head down to the anchor for a spirited toast to everyone who helped bring it back. (See the Facebook event). Expect a "salty sea farin' knees-up, all inclusive, home-spun, raucous fun Deptford Shanty Crew celebration".... 

Meanwhile, there are two exhibitions about the anchor in Deptford Does Art at 28 Deptford High Street, close to the anchor site. On the ground floor Deptford Is Forever are showing a 'visual campaign archive', which reveal their links with local community initiatives The Lenox Project and Sayes Court. Both those projects grew out of a previous campaign by Deptford Is to get the massive legacy of the historic Deptford Dockyard recognised in the plans for Convoys Wharf by site owners Hutchison Whampoa – a campaign which this blog covered extensively in 2013 and up until the developer got planning permission from the Mayor of London in 2014. 

In the downstairs gallery at Deptford Does Art is the final year show of (now graduated) MA Landscape Architect student Max Barnes, who was inspired to make work about the Deptford Anchor by visiting tutors at Greenwich University, Bob Bagley & Roo Angel – the founders of Sayes Court. Barnes imagines the anchor being dragged from its storage place on Convoys Wharf back to the high street, gouging out the tarmac as it goes to create a fantastical new environment. The show closes on Sunday 4th Feb so catch it while you can. 

There are also two talks this weekend in the basement gallery where Barnes has created the context for a new take on the redevelopment of Convoys Wharf, aka Deptford Dockyard.
• Friday 3rd Feb at 7.30pm The Lenox Project
•  Saturday 4th at 3pm, Sayes Court.  

From what we can glean on the Deptford Is Forever website, various 'artistic' street interventions over the years helped publicise the petition till it reached over 4,000 in November 2016. Deptford Is Forever seem to be the naughty artistic wing of an otherwise respectable Deptford Society. But it seems the Council had started to take notice when the petition hit around 3,300. At least that's the figure mentioned in the Feasibility Study they saw fit to commission a few months after the petition had already hit that figure. 

We also note that the campaigners seemed to spend most of 2017 in delayed and protracted talks with the Council, because although the Mayor had agreed the anchor could return, the Deputy Mayor was very averse to it being installed in a position where it could actually be seen. A little bird tells us Cllr Alan Smith, who now seems to have quite a reputation for exaggerated and ill-founded expertise, also claimed it wasn't even a real anchor, and that the entire area was full of high power cables just waiting to explode on touch. It seems he expounded these fears on the basis that his wife once worked for UK Power Networks (and not because his own administration had a proper and authoritative conversation with the utility operator in question).

But all that is by-the-by now, as last week our bit of ol' iron was finally brought back and re-installed on a generous bed of cobbles – seemingly a bigger area than the visuals shown in the planning submission of July/August 2017. The old anchor (thought to originate in part from the 1860s) has been thoroughly cleaned up and the chain has been welded together, presumably for health and safety reasons. It can no longer be dragged out into the street by a passionately inebriated person as Ben Graville's pic shows here. 

©Ben Graville

There is no longer a plinth for the public to sit on, but it seems the campaigners acknowledged that the plinth could not be returned. The anchor was removed because of the anti-social behaviour of the street drinkers who congregated there in the latter days of its previous existence, so the Council were unlikely to allow it to happen again.

Meanwhile, 28 Deptford High Street is a Council-owned building that was originally part of the regeneration plans that saw the anchor removed in 2013, so it seems fitting that the anchor campaigners have found a temporary home there at the same time as the anchor returns. 

The 2013 street regeneration funding (from the Mayor of London's Outer London fund, not from Lewisham's own coffers) went to refurbishing the flats upstairs at no.28, but seemingly ran out when it came to doing up the shop, which had previously been a much-needed community Law Centre. The shop lay empty until money was found for refurbishment in 2016, then lay empty again until the Council put out a tender in 2017, having changed its planning use from A2 Financial to A1/A3 so that food and drink could be consumed in a retail environment. Unfortunately the refurbishment stopped short of providing a proper kitchen...

Deptford Does Art, who have been placing local artists' work in pubs and other venues in the area for a couple of years, fulfilled Lewisham's brief to provide a commercially viable community hub at No.28 DHS, but they weren't the first winners. Several groups applied, including a consortium of local community projects and activists headed up by the Deptford People Project (who have been providing free food to the homeless for some years). 

No one actually knows who won, but whoever they were, they pulled out, and Deptford Does Art were consequently invited to take on the premises, and do the best they could with a draconian lease, hardly any discount in rent or business rates, as well as no kitchen and no disabled access! They offer craft beers, wine, coffee and speciality teas, as well as vegan cakes and savoury bites, and are open Wed-Sun, 12-10.30pm. Local artists are queuing up to show their work.

Deptford Does Arts's rosta of artists is unlikely to include the kind of contemporary artist who used to show at Hales Gallery and Cafe, which older residents will remember with fondness, as the cafe had such a beautiful back garden; such lovely outdoor spaces are in limited supply both then and now. The gallery downstairs put on shows that Charles Saatchi was known to visit and buy from. 

Who can remember when Hales Gallery got too successful for Deptford? For some landlords on the high street, the continual promise of gentrification wasn't happening soon enough. Hales Gallery, for instance, needed to capitalise on the interest they had in the artists they represented and were desperate to be in a more fashionable location (and a larger space) to continue their ambitions in the international art market. Hales Gallery moved to Shoreditch in 2004.

They were not only ahead of the game, they had also benefitted from all the public funds going into the area. As a member of Shaftesbury Christian Centre (aka Bear Church), Hales owner Paul Maslin took advantage of grants and charity exemptions. Then he sold No.30 to Jennings the bookmaker who immediately sold it on to Corals, which precipitated a free-for-all for bookies wanting to take over the high street and a campaign we ran in 2011 against Betfred. Paul Maslin is one three Councillors for New Cross Ward (covering the area in question). 

Time Out mag covers the Deptford Anchor

Time Out rarely covers South London stories (for instance, Charlton Lido was left out of their recent article on London open air pools), but the anchor graffiti post we blogged at the beginning of August must have caught their eye – plus the previous stories on the Deptford Anchor being removed.

The new free Time Out's editorial style is very jaunty and they couldn't resist including as many nautical puns as possible in this piece. You'll be hard put to find a copy of Time Out in Deptford, and the story has failed to make it onto their website, so if you haven't picked up a copy in town, click on the pic above to read.

Deptford Anchor: is this the new smiley face?

Not your usual anchor, this. It's not part of anchor mythology. It's sort of close to a modern anchor. You may have noticed it has no "arms". In fact it has no "stocks". What ordinary folk might instinctively call 'arms' are called "stocks", and actually the anchor has "arms" but they're the arched bits either side of the bottom of the "shank" – the stem.

Unsurprisingly, this anchor without stocks is known as 'stockless', and is very different to the anchor we have come to prize as part of Deptford's heritage (a gift from Chatham Dockyard), that stood for 23 years in the place where this graffiti has arrived. The old and classic anchor design was superseded by the 'stockless anchor' in 1821, the first significant departure in anchor design for several centuries.

Meanwhile, the Deptford Anchor has disappeared, possibly never to return. Since it was practically the only thing left to remind Deptford of its own history, its absence has been much lamented. We particularly enjoyed Laura X Carlé's reconstruction of it at the recent Festival of Neighbourhood at the South Bank last weekend (see the Deptford Dame's report)...The artist invited visitors to write their feelings about the Deptford anchor on post-it notes, and by the end of the weekend, the sculpture was covered in coloured notes.

We particularly like this one...

Since the the original (albeit not Deptford Dockyard original) anchor was removed, its whereabouts are unsure. It is apparently stored in a warehouse in Convoys Wharf, courtesy of the site's developers, Hutchison Whampoa. This company is owned by the 17th richest billionaire in the world (Li Ka-Shing), and Hutchisons are perhaps the last people to be left in charge of Deptford's heritage. If you'd like to know what English Heritage think about the developer's plans, please read Deptford Is...

If the anchor stayed on the Convoys Wharf site, it would surely look small next to the new buildings that are proposed: the main tower being 48 storeys, the others 38 storeys and most other buildings 12 storeys. Most buildings in Deptford High Street are 2-3 storeys. It's a human level. Double click this diagram to get an idea of how inhuman you can get..

Meanwhile, more 'anchors' are appearing on the new paving at the site of the old anchor....

Thanks to Paul for tip off, and to David for first and last photos.

The story of the clocktower

Removal of the Deptford Dockyard clocktower to Woolwich for repair in 1983, 

later given to Thamesmead town centre in 1986 © Deptford Forum Publishing

Since the recent removal of the Deptford Anchor was met by cries of dismay by some Deptford citizens, we resorted to Jess Steele's Turning The Tide for historical account. Alas, no mention of the anchor, but something as, or perhaps more, relevant...

"From a window of Daubeney Tower on Pepys Estate in 1981 you could see Rupert Murdoch's empire expanding in old Deptford. The 18th century storehouse, built around the original storehouse of Henry VIII's Deptford Dockyard, was being demolished to make way for more low-rise warehousing for Convoy's newsprint importers.

In a glorious position on the old building, looking outwards to the river and inwards towards Deptford, was a clocktower. Known locally as Nelson's Clock, it had survived all the upheavals of the 19th century, remained a landmark of the Foreign Cattle Market, and even graced the road transport depot which had replaced the market by 1931.

The clock cupola was saved from being pulverised, in the general demolition, by the GLC who had it removed first to Woolwich for repair, and then in September 1985 to the Ranger's House on Blackheath for £60,000-worth of restoration.

Just a few weeks before the abolition of the GLC in April 1986, Deptford's clocktower was donated to what the Mercury optimistically labelled the "exciting town centre at the vibrant focal point of Thamesmead".

The clock was described by a GLC spokesman as "a landmark for the people of Thamesmead to remember us by". He did not list the landmarks by which the people of Deptford would remember the GLC: Pepys, Trinity and Sayes Court Estates, the decaying Crossfield and the stolen Albury St cherubs. Instead, in response to the campaign by Rev Graham Corneck of St Nicholas' Church, and Deirdre Wood, GLC councillor for Greenwich, County Hall said: "Our plans to give the clock to Thamesmead went through several committee meetings and we heard of no objections. The people of Deptford did have their chance."

If the people of Deptford were used to dealing with committee meetings and massive bureaucracies, we would have caused havoc in the planners' offices long ago.

The clocktower in its Thamesmead location looks like any other shopping centre feature. It has no plaque saying where it comes from, no date to give shoppers an idea of their privilege; if asked most would probably say it was a reproduction. Deirdre Wood asked Ken Livingstone for an agreement that "if Deptford were in a position to put the clock back on one of its buildings, we would be able to have it back". Are we ready yet?"

This was written in 1993. Twenty years later, on April 16th 2013, the "Deptford Anchor" went to Convoys Wharf to be stored. No one seems to know if it was ever part of Deptford, but a great many acknowledge its powerful symbolism. Will it stay there?

If we got the clocktower returned from Thamesmead, shouldn't it go to back to its original place in the Dockyard? Or perhaps both historic items could grace the brand new development at Convoys Wharf, to be dwarfed by 3,500 (mostly) luxury flats and three tower blocks (up to 42 storeys), in a "new town centre"?

Or perhaps the clocktower could come back and be repositioned in place of the anchor, in the present town centre (actually not the original high street, which was in Church Street, how far do you want to go back in Deptford's staggered history?), and be guarded in the same way the clocktower in Lewisham town centre is.

If you were to open a can of beer at Lewisham clocktower right now, a neighbourhood constable would quickly appear to stop you and take your drink from you. It is one of those zones where you're not allowed to drink on the street. As is the designated zone in Deptford High Street where the anchor used to stand...

Extract from pp 222 & 223 of Turning The Tide, A History of Everyday Deptford by Jess Steele, published by Deptford  Forum Publishing, 1993.

The clocktower at Thamesmead (Wikicommons)

http://crossfields.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/goodbye-to-anchor.html