Deptford, Kent
Historical Description
Deptford, a parliamentary borough in the counties of Kent and Surrey, and in the administrative county of London. The borough is conterminous with the parish of St Paul, and includes Brockley, Deptford, Deptford New Town, and New Cross. The town of Deptford stands at the influx of the Ravensbourne rivulet to the Thames, and on the London and Greenwich railway, immediately W of Greenwich, and 3½ miles SSE of London Bridge. It is the Depeford of Chaucer, whose pilgrims went through it, and it took that name, of which the present one is a corruption, from a deep ford in the Ravensbourne, long ago superseded by a bridge. It was at one time a small fishing village, but it sprang into a town from the establishment of a royal dock at it in the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. It was visited by Elizabeth in 1581, to see Drake in the ship with which he had just "compassed the world," and was the place where the Czar Peter studied the science and practice of shipbuilding. It suffered desolation by fire in 1552, by Wyatt and his followers in 1553, by the plague in 1665, and by a high tide rising 10 feet in the lower streets in 1671. It presents a crowded and irregular appearance, but contains well-built streets and many good houses. A castle was built at it by Gilbert de Magnimot, soon after the Conquest, but has disappeared. A mansion, called Sayes Court, succeeded the castle, was long held by the family of Saye, passed in 1651 to John Evelyn, author of the " Sylva," was then famous for its fine garden and a fine holly-hedge, suffered great damage from temporary occupancy by the Czar Peter, figures graphically in Sir Walter Scott's novel of " Kenilworth," and was at length swept away and gave place to a workhouse. The original bridge over the Ravensbourne was a wooden structure, was rebuilt of stone in 1628, and reconstructed of cast-iron in 1829. The Trinity House, now the Trinity Board, was first established here by Henry VIII.; it held its meetings in an old hall taken down in 1787, and removed then to Water Lane, Thames Street, and afterwards to the present building on Tower Hill. The royal dockyard became so enlarged as to occupy 31 acres, and to include two wet-docks, three building slips, two mast-ponds, a mast-house, and other appurtenances; but it was closed as a government establishment in 1869, and a large foreign cattle market, fitted with every convenience for the sale and slaughter of animals arriving from abroad, was erected on its site by the corporation of London in 1871. The Deptford victualling yard is the most extensive in England, where provisions for the navy are manufactured or stored. There are several private shipbuilding yards and engineering works. South of this busy low-lying riverside part of the borough rise the pleasant hills upon which the residentiary part of New Cross and Brockley is situated. Here are the handsome schools belonging to the Goldsmiths' Company. An open space called "Hilly Fields " was in 1894 made a public recreation ground. The town includes two parishes-St Paul, area, 1574 acres; population, 101,286; and St Nicholas, area, 111 acres; population, 6887. St Paul's Church was built in the time of Queen Anne, has a west end spire, and contains a mural monument by Nollekens to Admiral Sayer, and two grand monuments to the Finches. St Nicholas Church was rebuilt in 1697, remodelled in 1716, has a much older embattled tower, and contains monuments to Fenton, Pett, Shelvock, several Brownes, and others. There are several other churches and places of worship for all denominations of dissenters. Particulars of the ecclesiastical parishes, including the values of the livings, &c., are given in the article LONDON. The Earl of Winchelsea, who commanded at the Armada, Sir T. Smith, the ambassador of James I. to Russia, and Cowley the poet, were residents.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Maps
Online maps of Deptford 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.