More Thamesmead Panoramas: This final set of panoramic images came from my final visit to Thamesmead in November 1994.
I began and ended the day at Abbey Wood station and I no longer remember the route of the walk that I tookm but I think I began by going to the Lesnes Abbey Ruins. After the Norman conquest in 1066 land here was given to Bishop Odo, the half-brother of William the Conqueror and Bishop of Bayeux (and pictured on that tapestry he probably commissioned as a gift to his brother.)
Odo was the man who ran the country for his brother – until he was tried for fraud and disgraced. Odo was forgiven on William’s deathbed. But Lesnes Abbey was only founded in 1178 by the man then in charge of England for Henry II, Richard de Luci. He retired here then, possibly as a penance for his role earlier inspiring the 1170 murder of Thomas Beckett, and died three months after retiring.
The Abbey was always small and was closed by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525 as it had fewer than seven men living there. Much of the stones were taken away as building material with the abbot’s house becoming a part of a farmhouse. The London County Council bought the site and grounds in 1930 and opened it as a public park.
From the ruins I walked to the elevated footpath which leads into Thamesmead South.
The footbridge goes across Abbey Road and to the north gives a view of the tower blocks of Thamesmead across the horizon.
I don’t think I made many other panoramas as I walked towards the river, and this is one I made on an earlier visit. It isn’t a good picture of the clock tower as it doesn’t show the clock!
When Convoys took over the old Royal Naval Dockyard in 1960 to bring newsprint into London they had no interest in its history and despite many objections they demolished the large Great Storehouse and many other old buildings on the site. The clock tower which had been a later addition on the top of this ancient wooden building was saved by urgent pleas and left by the riverside at Convoys Wharf when the building was demolished in 1981.
But it was still just a nuisance to Convoys and they still were threatening to demolish it. The tower was saved by the GLC and taken by boat to Thamesmead and erected here in the middle of a commercial centre.
At some point in my visit I made another visit to the Tavy Btidge Centre and made a few more panoramas.
The River Thames is around a mile and a half away. On a previous visit I had taken another panorama from an almost identical position, but I think this is a rather better composition with the rail lined up carefully with the opposite shore.
These two lines are in the vertical centre of the image and so remain straight. Standing up a little to the right of centre above them is the Barking Creek Barrier.
I couldn’t decide which was the more interesting work of art, the strange yellow sculpture or the graffiti on the wall behind. The wall is the flood barrier to protect Thamesmead, much of which is low-lying.
The Crossness Nature Reserve is to the east of Thamesmead, just past the large Crossness Sewage Treatment Works. When opened in 1865 the the sewage from London south of the Thames was simply pumped into the Thames when the tide was going out, but a large area of land was taken over to treat it before release around 1890.
This is the end of my posts of colour pictures from around Thamesmead in 1994 though there are still a few more in my Flickr colour album for that year – as well as others in the 1994 black and white album.
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