See ‘Greenwich Magistrates Court’

According to the 32nd report (part II) of the Charity Commissioners (1838), the surplus land around the Queen Elizabeth’s College was divided into six lots in 1771 and let on building leases. The ‘piece of ground called 1st lot next Queen Elizabeth College’ was let from Michaelmas 1773 for 59 years to Robert Maitland’s representative at a ground rent of £4-6s.8d. The house (Maitland House) as built shortly thereafter remained essentially unchanged for nearly a century and three-quarters but the grounds were successively reduced. First Langdale House (or Place), now 136-138 even Greenwich High Road, was built in the late eighteenth century; then in the 1850s and 1860s successively Lambard Villas (three pairs of houses, no longer surviving, to the West in Greenwich (High) Road), Lombart Villas, a short terrace at the rear in Ashburnham Road (Place) now nos. 44-49 and finally the whole of Langdale Road. The House was replaced after World War 2 by a small council estate, Maitland Close (q.v.). According to Diana Rimel, Robert Maitland lived at King's Arms, Coleman Street, London. InApril 1783, according to Rimel's account, he leased two houses from John Gorham, a company surveyor managing the 1771 re-development of the former Queen Elizabet College lands.

A pair of cottages on the South side of Greenwich (High) Road immediately to the West of the Jubilee almshouses has the name ‘Martin’s Terrace’ on their wall and they were presumably the original Martin’s Terrace. By the time that Greenwich (High) Road was renumbered the Terrace constituted a row of eight houses numbering 1-8 from the West and were re-numbered 74-78 (evens) Greenwich (High) Road and the name Martin’s Terrace was abolished. Nos. 84-88 evens have since been demolished for the extension to the Jubilee Almshouses which explains why the name now appears on the left-hand pair of houses instead of, as formerly, the middle pair of a row of eight houses. Scattered housing existed along this stretch of Greenwich (High) Road from the 1820s (Crutchley’s map of 1828) but the name was not yet established by 1851 (Mason’s directory). By 1862 there was a continuous row of houses (including Young’s Cottage (q.v.) next to Devonshire Road (Drive)) on the evidence of Standford’s map.

A former police section house on the West side of Catherine Grove built in the grounds at the rear of the then Blackheath Road Police Station. A plaque to the left of the front door states ‘R.I.B.A. London Architecture Model, 1946’. In the electoral registers it is at first not separately distinguished from the police station; from 1952 to 1956 it is listed as ‘Blackheath Road Police Station and Section House’, from 1957-to 1963 as ‘Blackheath Road Police Section House (the Police Station itself having moved to Burney Street in 1956) and from 1964 (qualifying date 15 October 1963) it was been listed as Maurice Drummond House. The Section House closed in 1996 and the following year the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District leased the property to the Knights Institute of Sport for use as a short/medium term hostel. The Institute was a registered charity with the object of providing education, sports and arts development to young people. The property was subsequently developed as a hotel.

The numbering of Blue Stile was always confusing (and still is – see Blue Stile) but Melville House was usually numbered ‘2’. This suggests that there had been another house between it and Straightsmouth but by the renumbering in 1875 at the latest it formed the corner house with Straightsmouth on the left. It was renumbered 171 Greenwich (High) Road and was destroyed by a V2 in 1944. The building that replaced it is curiously numbered 169a and there is no longer a 171. For a while in the early 1860s, Melville House was called Landsdowne House (q.v.).

A private housing estate developed by Fairview New Homes plc in the early 1990s consisting of one and two bedroom apartments, two and three bedroom houses and three bedroom town houses. It is situated on the south side of Blackheath Road between Ditch Alley and Lewisham College and set behind the Prince Albert and Berryman’s Printers. It occupies derelict land formerly the westernmost part of the Penn Engineering Works (Thames Iron Works) excluding the larger part until recently Broomfields Bakery. A small apartment block faces Blackheath Road but most of the development fronts a curving private road accessed only via Blackheath Road called Crosslet Vale.

During the 1930s, the corner site of Royal Hill and London Street (now Greenwich High Road) west as far as West Greenwich Library was cleared for a new town hall for the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich. The resulting building is a striking example of the modern architecture of the period, not to everybody’s taste but generally conceded to be an excellent example of the type by Clifford Culpin of Culpin & son. Inspired by Dudok’s Hilversum Town Hall in the Netherlands, it is built of unadorned red brick with a strongly horizontal emphasis but with a slender clock tower 165 feet tall at the corner with an observation platform near the top, now no longer open to the public. Closed in 1964 when the new London Borough moved the site of its principal administration to the altogether grander Woolwich Town Hall, it was renamed Meridian House and converted to educational uses and for government offices. An unobtrusive extra storey set back was added at this time.Early post 1964 tenants included Greenwich College, Alpha-European School of English, the Inland Revenue (HM Inspector of Taxes, Greenwich District) and the Benefits Agency as a Job Centre. Although the address is Greenwich High Road, the main entrance is in Royal Hill. The Borough Hall and the Minor Hall, respectively in Royal Hill and Peyton Place are integral with Meridian House.

A 1992 redevelopment on backland on the North side of Blackheath Road with an entrance between nos. 35a and 37. Two bungalows face one another, The Mews House on the left and Mews Cottage on the right, linked by their respective garages to form three sides of a square. The sign at the street end of the entrance says ‘No. 27, Mews Cottage’ but the Post-code directory and electoral register suggest that both houses are un-numbered.

Originally the Greenwich Tabernacle, a Congregational chapel dating from 1801, possibly by D.R. Roper according to the statutory list (it is a Grade 2 building). It became part of the Miller Hospital in 1921 which closed in 1976. It is now a mortuary and the local coroner’s office. The hospital (and hence the House) was named after the Rev. John Cale Miller (1814-80), Vicar of Greenwich, 1866-80 as a memorial to him when it opened in 1894. See also Greenwich Tabernacle.

A locally listed detached house on the West side of (Greenwich) South Street about half-way between Devonshire Drive and Blackheath Road. According to the local list the house dates from the early nineteenth century. The name was abolished on 22 April 1870 and the house re-numbered 94.

One of a pair of houses to the right of Catherine House on the north side of Blackheath Road; see Brighton Cottage for more details. In 1878 it was renumbered 33 Blackheath Road.

A Grade II listed pub on the corner Brand Street (East side) and (Royal) Circus Street a short block away from (Greenwich (South) Street, Darrell Spurgeon in his ‘Discover Greenwich and Charlton’ and the Statutory List agree that the pub dates from the mid-nineteenth century, somewhat later than the rest of Brand Street. The area was part of the Morden College Estate (Q.v.), hence the name of the pub.

The former name of what is now no. 77 Greenwich South Street. The Morden College mark is on no. 81 (nos. 71-81 from a single terrace). See also Morden House.

Recorded in the 1841 census returns as a school. Almost certainly it is the same as Morden House School, not otherwise recorded.

The Greenwich Theatre (q.v.) in London Street, later called the Prince of Wales Theatre, changed its name again to Morton’s Theatre, after its then proprietor Charles Morton. It is first recorded under this name in Kelly’s directory for 1890 and finally in 1901. It then became Carlton’s Theatre.

J. Muir & Co., Bookbinders occupied 64-68 Blackheath Road.

Green Lane was that part of the present Royal Hill nearest South Street (as far as Prior Street/Point Hill). On the renumbering plan of 1881, the nearest house from South Street on the right was Myrtle Cottage which was re-numbered 113. Since then, mostly by 1874 (evidence of the OS map) half-a-dozen more houses have been built on a small nursery nearer South Street.

By an act of parliament, 4 Geo. 1 cap 5 (private), of 1718 (an act for repairing the highways leading from the stones- end of Kent Street in the Parish of St. George’s, Southwark in the County of Surrey to the Lime-kilns in East-Greenwich near Blackheath, and to Lewisham Church, being Tunbridge Road, in the County of Kent), trustees were established, subsequently known as the Trustees for the New Cross Turnpike Roads. Their job was to maintain the roads from Tabard Street (formerly Kent Street) via the old Kent Road, New Cross Road, Deptford Broadway, Deptford Bridge and Blackheath Road, to the foot of Blackheath Hill (formerly Lime Kilns), and from New Cross via Lewisham Way, Loampit Hill and Loampit Vale (all formerly Tunbridge Road) to Lewisham, and to charge tolls for 11 years. The date of this act is sometime given as 1717; it received the Royal assent on 21 March 1718 and therefore ‘1717 old style’ when the new year began on 25 March. The 11-year period for charging tolls and the roads covered were extended by a succession of further acts, namely 6 Geo. 1 cap. 26 (1720), 11 Geo. 2 cap. 36 (1738), 24 Geo. 2 cap. 58 (1751), 5 Geo. 3 cap. 87 (1765), 21 Geo. 3 cap. 100 (1781), 42 Geo. 3 cap. lxiii (1802), 49 Geo 3 cap. cxxviii (1809) and 7 Geo 4 cap. cxxv (1826), after which the tolls were extended by general legislation. All tolls on New Cross Turnpike roads were abolished on 1 November 1865. The present Greenwich High Road was turnpike by the 1738 act above from its junction with the existing turnpike (junction with Deptford Bridge/ Blackheath Road) ‘to the stones-end in London Street… being about half a mile in length’. London Street was that part of Greenwich High Road from South Street to Stockwell Street. ‘Stones-end’ here (and in ‘the stones-end of Kent-Street’ above) means the end of a paved (metalled) roadway. As Greenwich High Road from Blackheath Road to South Street is almost exactly half a mile, it would appear that the whole of London Street was already fully paved by 1738 (this also is the implication of ‘street’ which still carried the connotation of paved like a Roman ‘strata’ – contrast Greenwich ‘Road’ though this name does not occur officially until well into the nineteenth century and variations on ‘the turnpike road from Deptford to Greenwich’ were used before that).

According to Darrell Spurgeon in ‘Discovering Deptford and Lewisham’, the Norfolk Brewery existed at Deptford Bridge from the 1830s to 1905 but it may be earlier. The Guildford Arms, Guildford Grove (a Norfolk Brewery tied house until sold to the Peckham Brewery in 1872) has an 1808 deed which refers to Thomas Norfolk, brewer and master of Deptford Bridge. Nothing survives of the Brewery but it was to the west of the Deptford Gin Distillery on the corner of Brookmill Road and the site was absorbed by the latter, by then the Seagar Distillery, when it was extended in the 1920s. Norfolk House, part of the old Seagar Distillery trading estate, in Brookmill Road (formerly Mill Lane) is roughly on the site.

A subsidiary name of North Pole Lane (now part of Norman Road) listed in Mason’s Directory (1852). It is not the same as Norman Road which is also listen in the same directory and it is unclear where in North Pole Lane either were located. In the 1881 census, Norman Cottage (in the singular) is recorded as part of Norman Road which then was that part of the present Norman Road just beyond the railway. Both were named after John Manship Norman who own the land thereabouts.

Like Norman Cottages, a subsidiary name of North Pole Lane (now part of an enlarged Norman Road) listed in Mason’s Directory (1852) but otherwise untraced. During the 1840s North Pole Lane had been extended northward to the railway viaduct, and around mid-century it was called Railway Place.In the 1860s (O.S. map, 1869) it was renamed Norman Road. It is possible that the ‘Norman Road’ of Mason’s Directory was the same as this but this is by no means certain. A further northward extension connected the street to Bridge Street (now Creek Road) by 1877 at the latest (Bacon’s map). Curiously Bacon’s map shows Railway Place and Norman Road as different stretches of the same street though this contradicts the evidence of the Ordnance Survey of 1869. In 1889 the whole street was renamed Norman Road..

The former name of that stretch of Norman Road between Greenwich (High) Road and the railway viaduct and originally a cul-de-sac. Crutchley’s and Morris’ maps (1828 and 1834) both show an un-named very short lane off Greenwich (High) Road, presumably including Rose Cottage (q.v.). According to R.H.G. Thomas’ “London’s first railway”, the board of the London and Greenwich Railway instructed its engineer, G.M. Miller, to build a road from the North Pole PH to the railway arches in 1842 as the footpath by the railway viaduct was virtually inaccessible at that point. It was apparently originally called Faulkner’s Road (q.v.) according to the same source but by 1848 (Wyld’s map) at the latest it was called North Pole Place after the corner pub. It was later extended north beyond the railway viaduct (Railway Place, later Norman Road) and on 21 May 1889, the whole street, now stretching as far as Bridge Street (Creek Road) was renamed Norman Road (q.v.).

A flier for their first production in late 1995 announced that the Praxis Theatre Laboratory had ‘set up shop’ at the North Pole Theatre Club at 131 Greenwich High Road (the North Pole P.H.) ‘London’s new venue for experimental theatre’. The popularity of pub theatres had spread from central London and this was the second in Greenwich and the Triangle, following the Greenwich Studio Theatre, later the Prince Theatre at the Prince of Orange P.H. down the road from the North Pole. It was, however, short-lived. In mid-1998, the North Pole P.H. closed for refurbishment and when it reopened, the function room upstairs that had been the theatre was now a restaurant.

The Hope Cottage in Devonshire Road, now Drive, recorded in Kelly’s directories for 1860 and 1863 as two down from no. 13 was in the 1865 edition called Oak Cottage and shown next to no 15; the occupier recorded remained unchanged. In a very curious way this parallels the change in Hope Cottages in Greenwich (High) Road which are recorded as Oak Cottages in the 1871 census returns. In this case a phonetic error on the part of the enumerator seems the most likely explanation but an error seems much less likely in the Devonshire Road (Drive) case. The change seems genuine and may have been done to distinguish it from its Greenwich (High) Road’s namesake. It was destroyed in the War and Plymouth House now occupies the site.

Early in 1999 a congregation with the name of the Oasis Christian Centre (Kensington Temple) began to meet in the basement of St. Mark’s Church Hall with its entrance in Ashburnham Place. A notice above the door indicated that a Sunday service was held at 11:00 am and a prayer vigil each Friday fortnight. A different congregation appeared to use the same premises on Sunday afternoons (see ‘Powerhouse Evangelical Ministry’). The church was later taken over by a 7th Day Adventist congregation.

A council estate dating from 1956 containing 42 flats in three blocks; two of these are three-storey blocks of flats and the third is an eight-storey block of two-storey maisonettes. These were built on the site of, and take their name from, Maitland House which was damaged in the Second World War and compulsorily purchased for demolition by the Council in 1952. Two more blocks to the west of the three are part of the estate but are numbered as part of Greenwich High Road (nos. 106-120 and 122-134A evens). When the Ashburnham Triangle Conservation Area (ATCA) was first established in the 1980, the Maitland Close properties, along with neighbouring Lambard House, and a number of other council properties of similar relatively modern age, were excluded from the ATCA. This exclusion was rectified for all the other properties when the ATCA boundaries were revised by the Council in 2008. The Ashburnham Triangle Association argued strongly that continuing to exclude Maitland Close from the ATCA, especially when all other similar anomalies were being ended, was discriminatory and socially devisive. The Council Planning Board agreed with the ATA, and voted in July 2008 to 'reccomend Maitland Close's inclusion within the revised ATCA. But when the Council eventually published the map of the revised ATCA, Maitland Close remained excluded., Subsequent attempts by the ATA to reverse this final anomaly have been ignored by Greenwich Planning and Council authorities.

On a plan in Kimbell’s “Greenwich charities” (1816) of a property in the ‘High Road to Greenwich’ willed in trust to the Blue Coat Girls School (see Harp’s Mead), the western boundary is marked by a path with a gate at the High Road end. The path is not shown as projecting beyond the property (as the path at the other end is); it is measured as 99 feet and marked ‘F’ on the plan. The corresponding legend reads: ‘Gate or Manor Way’. It is as near as can be ascertained at the point of the turning off Greenwich (High) Road called successively Faulkner’s Road, North Pole Lane and now Norman Road (qq.v.)

The name given in the 1871 census returns for St Mary’s Place (the terrace on the east side of Greenwich (High) Road mid-way between Wellington Grove (Burgos Grove) and Blackheath Road). Unlike ‘Oak Cottages’ and ‘James Place’ (qq.v.), this does not seem to be due to the mis-hearing by an enumerator but rather to a popular if unofficial local usage.

When the Miller Hospital closed in 1976, part of the site was redeveloped, mostly for housing. The part immediately to the west of the Royal Kent Dispensary building and incorporating it, however, was redeveloped for institutional purposes, as a home for disturbed children. It was named after Melanie Klein (1882-1960), an Austrian who settled in Britain in 1926 and was naturalized in 1934. She was a follower of Freud and applied his principles of psycho-analysis to children. It did not flourish as a home and had been empty for a while when it was sold in 1994 to the Beaver Housing Trust. Together with some adjacent housing it was renovated for use as student accommodation for the University of Greenwich, under the name Binnie Court. It was then purchased by developers, and rebuilt as flats,

A terrace of four houses forming a curve which leads in Blissett Street. Re-numbered on 22 April 1870 as 115-121 (Greenwich) South Street.

A small industrial estate on the east side of Norman Road just north of the railway viaduct and including arches in the latter; it is owned by Railtrack Property (formerly BR Property Division) and has been railway property since the 1830s Though, from the 1860s until destroyed by a V1 in 1944, the street frontage was occupied by a terrace of houses.

Moses Merryweather moved his manufactory of fire engines from central London to Greenwich Road (now Greenwich High Road) in 1876. Most of the buildings date from then though a new street frontage was given in the 1930s. The fire engine factory closed in 19_ and the buildings were used by the Greenwich Business Centre (Skillion Centre, q.v.). They were demolished by Galliard in a redevelopment of the whole site in 2008 (???).

Opened in December 1884 and named after the Rev. John Cale Miller (1814-80), vicar of Greenwich 1866-80 as a memorial to him. It incorporated the Royal Kent Dispensary. It was substantially extended in the 1920s; became part of the National Health Service in 1948, was linked with Greenwich District Hospital as the Miller Wing and was finally closed in 1976. See also ‘Miller House’, ‘Greenwich Tabernacle’ and ‘the Royal Kent Dispensary’.

Plan of the cities of London and Westminster 1800 [2”: 1m.] D & H no. 221

Modern London and its environs, prepared expressly for the Post Office London Directory for 1845 by E.S. Mogg. [London]: publ. for the proprietor, E.S. Mogg, may 22nd 1845 [1.5”: 1/2m.] D & H no. 390 (1)

One of a short row of houses between Catherine Grove and Catherine House on the north side of Blackheath Road; for more details see Brighton Cottage. It is the only house in the row unlisted in either Mason’s directory (1852) or the Deptford directory of 1853 which may indicate it was unfinished at the time but more likely it meant it was temporarily unoccupied at the time. It was renumbered 29 Blackheath Road in 1878.

Sir John Morden (1623-1708) built Morden College (architect Christopher Waen) in 1697 as almshouses for ‘decayed Turkey merchants’ (traders to the Levant who had fallen on hard times). It still exists as a home for elderly people and the Foundation is administered by Trustees appointed under Morden’s will, originally from the Turkey Company (1708-1826), then the Honorable East India Company (1827-1884) and since 1884 appointed by the Court of Alderman of the City of London. It was richly endowed with properties in East and West Greenwich (now mostly sold). In the Triangle, the College once owned much of the East side of Greenwich South Street, parts of Blackheath Road (including Catherine House) and Catherine Grove. Its properties were identified by ‘marks’ similar in character to fire insurance marks and these can be seen on 1 Catherine Grove and along Greenwich South Street (49, 61/63, 65, 71, 73, 75, 77 and 81 – not all readily visible).

A house on the East side of (Greenwich) South Street just South of (Royal) Circus Street, latterly a school. When the street was renumbered on 22 April 1870, it became no. 21 but was subsequently pulled down and the terrace extended northward. The redevelopment of Thornton House (renumbered as 17 (Greenwich) South Street) as 17-27 necessitated the further renumbering of the rest of the street ten higher. Two terraced houses replaced Morden House, now numbered 31 and 31a. The Morden College Estate (q.v.) owned most of the East side of (Greenwich) South Street and the College’s marks (similar to old fire insurance marks) remain on nos. 49, between 61 and 63 and on 81 Greenwich South Street. No 77 (formerly 67) was called Morden Cottage before renumbering.

A plan of the Parish of St. Alphege, Greenwich in the County of Kent from an actual survey by W. R. Morris. [6”: 3000]

Recorded in the 1881 census returns as a school. It was numbered as 21 South Street and so was definitely the same as Morden House.

According to the legend on the parapet of imposing side of the Mill, it was founded in 1790, though no part of the present buildings date from then. The earliest surviving part of the complex is a two-storey office building fronting the road (now no. 23 and until recently a ladies’ fitness club) dating, on the evidence of rate books, from 1802. The three-storey building next door and a building behind are also part of the office site for the Mill. To the right of no. 23 is a gated entrance to a courtyard with two mills, the East Mill (1817) at the rear and the West Mill (1821) to the right; ancillary buildings enclose the courtyard to the left. The dominating silo (1897) behind the East Mill and facing Deptford Creek is by Sir Aston Webb, architect of the east front of Buckingham Palace fronting the Mall, and of Admiralty Arch. Webb was also responsible for renovating other parts of the Mill from as early as 1879. The earliest traceable owner is Charles Ritchie (1802); by the 1820s it was owned by John Carpenter, and by William Carpenter in the 1830s. The Mumfords, the brothers Samuel and Peter, acquired the Mill in 1848, relocating from another Ravensbourne mill at Catford where they had been since around 1837. The Mill descended through several generations though the firm remained ‘S. & P. Mumford’. No major structural additions were made in the twentieth century and an eastward extension has been demolished. This was a reservoir and later a boiler house and extended into an adjacent timber yard, later a ‘cash & carry; car park behind a petrol filling station. The mills converted from stone milling to steam roller milling between 1879 and 1897 and the engineer responsible for the plant was Henry Simon. The Mill closed in the mid-1960s being unable to achieve the economies of scale of the likes of Rank-Hovis-McDougall ( before that it had survived by specialising in the manufacture of cake flour). The premises were briefly then used by a malt product manufacturer but by 1969 they were being used by a variety of light industrial concerns and increasingly by none. This Grade 2 listed building has subsequently been converted to housing.

A property of this name is shown on the 1915 electoral register at as at 23 Deptford Bridge. Confusingly, another property, called West Cottage, is also numbered 23.

One of several new churches to be established in Greenwich recently. It had no church of its own and held regular Sunday services at West Greenwich House.

A pub of this name was first listed in the Kelly’s Directory for 1865 though a ‘beer retailer’ was listed in the 1860 and 1863 editions. As it was not listed in Mason’s Directory (1852), it would seem that the Norman Arms started as a beerhouse some time in the 1850s and obtained a full pub license in the mid-1860s. The whole area was seriously damaged in World War 2 and the pub was not included in the post-war redevelopment. It was situated on the West side of Norman Road just beyond the railway bridge at no. 84. It backed onto the Phoenix Wharf at Deptford Creek, just downstream of the Pumping Station.

The present Norman Road runs northward from Greenwich High Road veering strongly eastwards parallel with Deptford Creek till it reaches Creek Road. It consisted originally of three separate roads. Firstly, North Pole Lane, known briefly as Faulkner’s Road and originally a short cul-de-sac of ca 1830 by the North Pole PH. In the 1840s, it was extended as far as the railway constructed in 1838. In the 1850s, at the other end Ravensbourne Street was built running south from Bridge Street (now Creek Road). Meanwhile, the middle section was extended northward from North Pole Lane beyond the railway viaduct. This was at first called Railway Place (Wyld’s map, 1851; Stanford’s map 1862) but was renamed Norman Road (O.S. map, 1869). By 1877, the three sections had been linked up into a single street (Bacon’s map) and in 1889 the whole was renamed Norman Road. The name comes from John Manship Norman who is shown on the Tithe map of 1845 as owning most of the surrounding land.

The 1851 census returns records a North Place, North Pole Place.

A pub on the corner of Norman Road (East side) and Greenwich (High) Road dating from ca. 1830 (it appears in Robson’s ‘Commercial Directory’ of 1838 but not in Pigot’s Directory of 1827). It gave its name to North Pole Lane (q.v.), that stretch of the present Norman Road from Greenwich (High) Road to the railway viaduct. A recent inn-sign showed a polar bear in icy waters, suggesting the real North Pole. Although Greenwich has some connexions with arctic exploration (as witness the Bellot memorial near the pier), the association of this pub with it is not at all obvious. Most ‘North Pole’ pubs have a more metaphorical meaning symbolic of remoteness from ‘civilization’. This too ill fits this pub. Although on the edge of the town of Greenwich, it was hardly remote and by the 1830s there was near continuous development along London Street/ Greenwich Road (now together Greenwich High Road) to well beyond the North Pole. This is not the first pub on the site; in 1819 and probably for many years before that, there was a pub called The Duke of Gloucester and the North Pole may be just a change of name rather than a new pub.

The hotel is officially called the Novotel London Greenwich hotel and opened in March 2005. It occupies the north side of Greenwich High Road between Kay Way (formerly Straightsmouth) and Greenwich DLR mainline station. It replaced a garage and a filling station and a derelict building formerly a pub (see ‘The Prince Arthur’) on the corner of Straightsmouth and derelict land to the rear of both. It shares an enlarged forecourt with the station. The principal bar, occupying most of the ground floor street frontage, is called L’Atitude Bar.

Recorded in the 1871 census returns as lying to the West of Hope House where previous censuses and other sources had placed Hope Cottages (except the 1841 census which called them Hope Wharf), it is possible that this was a change of name. However the renumbering plan of 1875 also records Hope Cottages and it seems more likely that ‘Oak’ Cottages is simply an error. As Hope House is correctly recorded in the 1871 census, it must be presumed that its occupants had better enunciation than their neighbors

The Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich held its last Council meeting in its original Town Hall, now West Greenwich House (q.v.), in July 1939. After moving then to its new Town Hall further along Greenwich High Road (see Meridian House), its former premises were called the Old Town Hall for nearly 20 years. It was given ithe name of West Greenwich house, in February 1958.