History
From the Great Meadow to the barge builders
Mary Mills Following after Granite wharf – and walking on what is now still Riverside Gardens – we come to the eastern part of the parcel of land, once called the Great Meadow, which Coles Child had leased for development from Morden College. This area was for a long time a brickfield and continued as that into the late 1870s. By the 1880s the wharf adjacent to Granite Wharf had become a depot for the District Board of Works – which would have meant that in effect it was the depot for the local Council. Boards of Works were abolished in 1889 when the Metropolitan Boroughs were set up but the Depot remained next to Granite Wharf until the Council moved down to what became Tunnel Avenue Depot around 1904. The entrance to the yard was from Chester Street (now Banning Street) and there was a ramp, leading from the centre of the yard to a jetty and wharf – probably that was used by dustcarts which had to get to the jetty where rubbish was tipped into barges. This ramp remained there until the site was cleared and rebuilt by the current developer. From about 1914 this area of riverside was called Badcock's Wharf. John Badcock seems to have built and
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maintained barges and lighters there. There had been Badcock family members in Greenwich and also with works on wharves north of the river for a long time. One of the difficulties of writing riverside history is well illustrated by Badcock. There were many firms like them, building barges and small boats, maintaining and building lighters and all sorts of other River related activities. They seem to have left very little in the way of evidence about their past- the historian can put together bits and pieces from official records and sometimes, if you are very lucky, a family historian will emerge with stories about great granddad and his barge yard. But mainly they are just names. The wharf which came after Badcocks was rather smaller than the others. It was called Providence Wharf. Years ago I had an old friend, Jim. He was a sailing barge enthusiast and when he died he left a pile of papers behind of research he had done on a local barge builders – some of them were about a barge called Orinoco and her builders. In 1990 Jim had written. '… a few months it ago it came to my knowledge that the sailing barge 'Orinoco' was built at East Greenwich by a barge builder of the name of HUGHES. From the local history library I discovered that Frederick Augustus Hughes & Co, had been in business as a barge builder at Providence Wharf, River Bank, East Greenwich from 1887 until 1905.' So, I copied out what he had written about Orinoco and added some bits in. I
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went down to see the barge, which was then at Hoo Marina and the resulting article was published in Bygone Kent. Jim had found a Frederick Augustus Hughes, living in New Cross in the 1850s. He was lighterman, who had later become a Custom House Agent while his four sons all went into lighterage. In 1863 his son Frederick was apprenticed to Augustus Edmunds who lived at Carisbrooke Villa, Westcombe Hill, which was on the site of what became Broadbridge Close. Edmunds had a barge building business on the Greenwich peninsula By 1887 the Frederick, the father, had set up as a barge builder and leased Providence Wharf from Morden College - one of the riverside sites developed by Coles Child. Although the business was owned by the father, it the sons were actually in charge. The younger Frederick lived just round the corner in Commerel Street, and later moved to Glenister Road – both very unpretentious addresses. His brother Augustus George lived in Glenluce Road. At Providence Wharf Hughes were known to have built two spritsail barges. One of these was called Combedale – an evocative name for residents of Westcombe Park and East Greenwich. Combedale was built in 1887 probably on the bottom remains of a wreck called Triumph – a common enough practice. Once built Combedale was owned by Tilbury Lighterage and Dredging - company www.weekender.co.uk