Ferry.

Mystery surrounds the future of the former Erith Town Hall, located on the junction of Bexley Road and Walnut Tree Road. The office building has been mostly vacant for a number of years now. It used to be the base for Bexley council's housing department, although when this was merged with that of Bromley Council in order to save money some years ago, most of that functionality was removed from the building. I believe there are still a handful of people working in the former town hall, but I believe it is only a skeleton crew. I know that over a year ago. Bexley Council tried to advertise the former Erith Town Hall for sale or rent to a third party. It was even suggested that it could be used as a location for television filming. I am not aware that this enterprise actually amounted to anything in reality. I am aware that the building has locally listed status, although how valid this is actually is open to debate. As from what I understand in order to achieve listed status, the exterior of any structure needs to be substantially the same as when it was constructed. The former Erith Town Hall had an additional floor added to it and the roof line raised in the early 1990s, thus largely altering the physical appearance of the office building. Having said that, the building is in a prime location very close to both bus and train public transport, and there is a substantial car park behind the Town Hall building which historically used to be the yard for the original Erith fire station, before it was destroyed by a V1 flying bomb in I believe 1944. I think it would be possible although extremely difficult and expensive to convert the existing building into private apartments for either rent or sale. It is in a prime location looking down Walnut Tree Road, towards the banks of the River Thames and the excellent Riverside Gardens. The only major downside is that it is in close proximity to the very busy Bexley Road roundabout and to the noisy and polluted Bronze Age Way dual carriageway which leads to Plumstead and Woolwich. Nevertheless, I think if sensitively handled the building could become a very desirable place for people to live, also, it is in close proximity to Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, and within a very short walking distance from the large Morrison's supermarket. It would seem sensible to put the building into new use, as it has been mostly empty for such a long period of time, which is contrary to the council's policy of building more and more housing. Comments to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Many local residents are unaware that the area was home to a world famous classical composer during Victorian times. He is now little known, although there have been efforts in recent years to resurrect his memory and his music, but during his life he was extremely influential and travelled the world both composing and performing. His name was Percy Hilder Miles. Although his travels in music caused him to circumnavigate the globe several times, he lived all of his life in the Erith. Unfortunately, his house no longer exists, as I feel if it was still standing it would be operated as a museum by the National Trust or English Heritage. It is said that his music influenced much later film composers such as John Williams. Miles was born in Crayford 1878, he lived nearly all his life in Erith, at 18 Queen's Road. Percy was a child prodigy, composing from the age of 8. He was also a very talented violinist and performed the Beethoven violin concerto with an orchestra at the age of 13. At 15 he entered the Royal Academy of Music and one year  later composed a quintet in A major. Later, in 1917 he reminisced about the work in a letter to his cello-playing brother Maurice: “A thing of mine I have a very warm affection for is the A major quintet...for grace and charm, general euphony, transparency and naturalness, I have never beaten that A major quintet”. It is a short work which reveals the influence of Brahms and Dvorak, both of whom had written viola quintets only a few years earlier. Percy became a Professor of Harmony and Counterpoint at the Academy upon graduation and later became an examiner for the Associated Board. As such he travelled all over the Empire, going six times around the world, including a stint in Australia. Percy never married and sadly he died of pneumonia in 1922 aged just 43. He left behind over 150 compositions, mainly Chamber Music, but also some songs and a few orchestral works and concertos. He is buried with his parents in Brook Street cemetery.

The following piece of local maritime history is something that is nowadays largely forgotten, but it formed a vital medical resource in Victorian times. It is the story of some old Royal Navy wooden warships that were repurposed as floating sanatoria for the victims of Smallpox in the late Victorian age. The smallpox epidemic which began in 1881 placed great strain on available hospital beds in London and the South East; it must be remembered that this was decades before any effective immunisation was available to protect against the deadly disease, which has now been completely eradicated. To create more bed space the Metropolitan Asylums Board (MAB) chartered two old wooden warships from the Admiralty; the Atlas, a 91-gun man-of war built in 1860 but never fitted out for use at sea, was to be used for acute cases, and the Endymion, a 50-gun frigate built in 1865, would be the 'administration block' and storeroom.  These were converted at the cost of £11,000. Originally MAB wanted to moor the ships at Halfway Reach, near Dagenham, but the Thames Conservancy, who were responsible for the river, insisted that they be moored off Deptford Creek in Greenwich, near where the hospital ship Dreadnought had been sited. The first patients were admitted on board the 120-bedded Atlas in July 1881. By the end of the epidemic in August 1882, almost 1000 patients had been treated on the ship, of whom 120 had died. A Royal Commission had been appointed to look at the arrangements for infectious disease patients due to growing public concern about the spread of infection to houses in the vicinity of isolation hospitals. Its report, published in 1882, recommended that smallpox patients should be treated in isolation hospitals along the banks of the Thames, or in hospital ships on the river itself, and that their convalescent hospitals should be sited in the countryside at some distance from urban areas. The Commission also recommended that a central ambulance service should be established. Following this report, the smallpox hospital ships Atlas and Endymion were moved in 1883 from Greenwich to new moorings at Long Reach, some 17 miles from London Bridge, adjacent to the Crayford salt marshes on the River Thames. The iron paddle steamer Castalia joined them in 1884.  Built in 1874 by Thames Iron works for the English Channel Steamship Co., she had been intended to run between Dover and Calais.  Designed with a double-hull to prevent rolling and therefore sea-sickness, she had proved unsuitable and had since been moored at Galleons Reach. The owners sold her to MAB in 1883, who refitted her as a hospital ship. Both engines and paddle wheels were removed and the space decked over.  The lower deck was divided into five wards for 84 female patients.  Five ward blocks for another 70 female patients were built on her upper deck, giving the Castalia the appearance of a floating row of houses.  The blocks were placed obliquely so as to catch more light and air. The three ships were moored in a line, with the Endymion in the centre, about 50 metres from the shore, but not connected to it. They were connected to each other by a complicated gangway which allowed for the rise and fall of the tide and for slight sideways movement of the vessels. The Atlas contained the wards for male patients and even had a chapel on deck, which was used for overflow patients during epidemics.  The ship could house up to 200 beds using the main, lower and orlop decks, with isolation wards on the upper deck. New admissions were delivered to the reception rooms on the orlop deck and then taken by a lift to the upper deck. Also on board were the dispensary and sleeping quarters for the medical staff. Conditions were very cramped; the only windows were the former gun ports and the ceilings were very low. The Endymion, as well as being the administrative centre, had a kitchen / galley on the main deck where all the food for the hospital ships was prepared.  The mess rooms for the staff were on the deck below, as were the storerooms. Living quarters for the Matron, the steward, the male staff and some female staff were also on board. Before leaving the ships, the staff bathed, washed their hair and changed their clothes completely. All the ships were heated by steam generated in the hold of the Endymion, connected to the other two by flexible piping (each ship had its own boiler as a reserve, but there were no heating stoves). The Long Reach pier was built to connect the ships to the few service buildings on land. Some of these provided sleeping accommodation, bathrooms and dressing rooms for the nurses and female attendants. The site also contained a laundry and storerooms. A mortuary was built nearby, as well as stables for the horses used to transfer convalescing patients to Darenth Camp, an hour's drive away. There were also a garden and a recreation ground. In 1886 a shed was built to house the engines and dynamos needed for electric lighting. The Electric Lighting Act, 1882, permitted the setting up of supply systems by persons, companies and local authorities, and MAB installed electricity on the Atlas (a fire on the Training Ship Goliath in 1875 had been caused by lighting oil lamps). In 1893 MAB had decided to build a land-based smallpox hospital at Long Reach, but the project was delayed. Building work finally began in 1901, just as another smallpox epidemic erupted in London. By this time the ships were in poor condition and were proving costly to maintain.  They were dangerous, being prone to fire despite being lit by electricity, and were vulnerable to weather hazards as well as collisions with other ships (in 1898 the Castalia was hit by SS Barrowmore, an immigrant ship).  It was difficult to restrain delirious smallpox patients from throwing themselves overboard.  It was also impossible to increase the number of patients the ships could accommodate. The smallpox ships became redundant in 1903 when Joyce Green and the other River Hospitals began to open.  The ships had held 300 patients, therefore a five fold increase in service was expected for smallpox patients (although a major epidemic never occurred again in London).  They had given 20 years of service and accommodated over 20,000 smallpox victims. The ships were auctioned off for scrap in 1904. The Atlas realised £3,725, the Endymion £3,200 and the Castalia £1,120. In a perhaps unusual act of near-sightedness by MAB, the electricity apparatus was also scrapped and Joyce Green Hospital remained lit by gas until 1922. The hospital was closed and demolished in 2000 / 2001. 

Do use Google Maps to find your way around? It seems that the very popular mapping service is having an unexpected effect on place names. The effect has initially taken place in the USA, but as with anything of this nature, where it starts in America, the rest of the world will usually follow. For decades, the district south of downtown and alongside San Francisco Bay was known as either Rincon Hill, South Beach or South of Market. This spring, it was suddenly re-branded on Google Maps to a name few had heard of: the East Cut. The peculiar name immediately spread digitally, from hotel sites to dating apps to Uber, which all use Google’s map data. The name soon spilled over into the physical world, too. Estate agent listings beckoned prospective tenants to the East Cut, and news organisations referred to the vicinity by that term. The swift rebranding of the roughly 170-year-old district is just one example of how Google Maps has now become the primary arbiter of place names. With decisions made by a few Google cartographers, the identity of a city, town or neighbourhood can be reshaped, illustrating the outsize influence that Silicon Valley increasingly has in the real world. How Google arrives at its names in maps is often mysterious. Some appear to have resulted from mistakes by researchers, re - branding by real estate agents, or just outright fiction. Before the internet era, neighbourhood names developed via word of mouth, newspaper articles and physical maps that were released periodically. Google Maps, which debuted in 2005, is updated continuously and delivered to more than one billion people on their devices. Google also feeds map data to thousands of websites and apps, magnifying its influence. In May, more than 63 percent of people who accessed a map on a smartphone or tablet used Google Maps, versus 19.4 percent for the Chinese internet giant Alibaba’s maps and 5.5 percent for Apple Maps, according to comScore, which tracks web traffic. Google said in a recent article that it created its maps from third-party data, public sources, satellites and, often most important, users. People can submit changes, which are reviewed by Google employees. This echoes the local issue residents of Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere have had the people erroneously calling it "Nuxley Village" - a fictional place name that was made up by estate agents from outside the area with no knowledge of the real name. It concerns me that Google Maps may well end up increasing the number of erroneous and downright wrong names ascribed to places, and end up making the situation worse than it currently is. 

The following report is from the Belvedere Police Safer Neighbourhoods Team:- "The team were in Lower Road outside of Belvedere Junior school yesterday afternoon due to concerns raised by the school in relation to ongoing parking issues. We were assisted by traffic enforcement officers from Bexley Council and are pleased to say our presence had the desired effect as there were fewer offences being committed and a significant decrease in anti-social behaviour - we will look to do further activities such as this up until the summer break. Antisocial behaviour can come in many forms and can require support from more organisations than just the police. There are 13 different types of antisocial behaviour that we may be able to help with, including abandoned vehicles, littering or drugs paraphernalia and street drinking. A full list of what we categorise as antisocial behaviour is available on our website. If you have witnessed or experienced antisocial behaviour, you can report it online. If you ever experience this issue or have information regarding an incident, please report it using our online reporting tools at https://www.met.police.uk/, speak to an operator in our Force Communications Room via our online web chat or call the non-emergency number 101. Alternatively, you can stay 100% anonymous by contacting the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or via their untraceable online form at crimestoppers-uk.org". 

Following on from the earlier maritime theme of the blog this week, the end video features a short documentary by Transport for London which shows a day in the life of one of the captains of the Woolwich ferry. The officer in question in this video is the first female Captain in the history of Woolwich ferry service, and she is assisted by the very first female first mate. Although the video was very recently filmed, at the time of writing the Woolwich ferry service is currently in reduced functionality mode with only one of the two ferries in operation, due to planned maintenance work which is being undertaken. Ironically, the Woolwich ferry is in more popular use than ever at present, which I understand is mainly due to the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel, which charges a substantial toll fee to cross the River Thames, whereas by law the Woolwich ferry is free to use. Comments to me as usual at hugh.neal@gmail.com.