Thursday 21 January 2010

New East Greenwich...

....Now not even Old New East Greenwich but Greenwich Peninsular. As part of my ride every road project, I cycled up to the Pilot Inn, a Fullers House, on a little remnant of a road that used to be Ceylon Place, though I doubt it's still called that. Nice to note that it is a bike friendly establishment - though really bike friendly pubs should be up a good hill (work up thirst) so that leaving the pub requires the least amount of effort and the greatest amount of wheeeee....

Ample bike parkingAnd above and just to the left of the door, there is a plaque, giving the date it was built and where it was built....Ceylon Place, New East Greenwich, 1801
It was good of C17 builders to think of putting a return address on the building, in case it ever managed to get lost. Though if you look for it on maps.google.com you won't find it any more. They call it River Way, not that it goes to the river. (Much like Kay Way, the truncated mouth of Straightsmouth in West Greenwich. Shouldn't Ways go somewhere when you could call it River Close - from rue close, which gives us a bit of a clue that it's a dead end for motorised traffic? And, coincidentally, the river is close.

Rather mysteriously, though, it doesn't seem to appear on Wyld's ''A New Topographical Map Of The Country In The Vicinity Of London, Describing All The New Improvements, Metropolitan Boroughs And Parish Boundaries c1872'.'' Nor is New East Greenwich anywhere to be seen. So 71 years after it was built, all that was mapped was a couple of buildings to the east of Over Brickfield.


1 comment:

Mary said...

Rather belatedly I found your write up of Riverway from 2010. I don't know why the Wylde map could only find the Overstreete brickfield - as Peter Overstreete had been dead many years by then. However, trust me, there was a large mill there, as well as housing, the pub, and a 'big' house on the riverside. Sad that you didn't find any of my many posts on the subject, but still .................... Currently writing it up in much more detail. Hope you review what will be a self published book (again) and self publishers depend on reviews for sales.