Shooters Hill, Kent
Historical Description
Shooters Hill, an eminence, a hamlet, and an ecclesiastical parish formed out of a portion of the civil parishes of Eltham, Woolwich, and Plumstead, in Kent, 1½ mile from Woolwich station and 1 from Well Hall station on the S.E.R. It has pest, money order, and telegraph office. The eminence rises 1 mile S of Woolwich, is an insulated mass of London clay, 446 feet high, was thickly wooded, and called Sheters-Held, in the time of Richard II.; took its present name from bands of outlaws, who anciently haunted its woods to assail wayfarers on a great road crossing it; was the scene of archery and other sports, in the presence of Henry VIII. and his queen Catherine; is traversed by both an ancient Roman road and a great modern one; bears aloft a triangular tower, erected to commemorate the taking of Severndroog in India, and commands a panoramic view, very fine on all sides, and finest on the side towards London. The parish was constituted in 1865. Christ Church is a building in the Early English style, erected in 1855, and restored in 1890. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester; gross value, £150 with residence. Many handsome residences are in the neighbourhood.
Maps
Online maps of Shooters Hill are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Kent newspapers online:
- Kent & Sussex Courier
- Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald
- Dover Express
- Kentish Gazette
- Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald
- Kentish Chronicle
- Maidstone Telegraph
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Kent, 1619 is available on the Heraldry page, as is also The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68.