Schedule 3 – Areas of Archaeological Priority protected by Policy URB 21 Archaeology and shown on the Proposals Map

Source: Greater London Archaeological Service

APA1 Thames alluvial floodplain
The extensive peat and clay deposits across North Southwark and North Lewisham are up to 12m. thick and record the geological and environmental history of south-east England for the past 12,000 years. Environmental changes include the loss of the European land-bridge c. 7,000 BC and the clearance of the once extensive woodland. These deposits contain a range of prehistoric evidence including:

Upper Palaeolithic/early Mesolithic flint scatter sites;
Late Mesolithic and early Neolithic flint scatter sites and remains of associated woodlands
Middle and later Bronze Age sites, including the remains of tracks, timber platforms, ‘camps’, and vegetation clearance.

APA2 Thames and Ravensbourne terrace gravels
The terrace gravels fringing the Thames are commonly associated with evidence of successive prehistoric communities, including enclosed fields and open settlements.

APA3 Watling Street and the ‘Deep-ford’
This road, probably first used in the 1st. century AD, is still in use as the A2 and has clearly influenced development along its route. The Roman road followed the southern limit of the local Thames gravel terrace and crossed the Ravensbourne via a ford. This may be the ‘deep ford’ from which the place name Deptford appears to be derived. A Roman settlement, possibly with Iron Age antecedents, was established close to this ford, on the banks of a creek which provided tidal wharfage. Mid-Saxon burials have also been found here, indicating the presence of a community which pre-dates the better known medieval village (see also APA 10 Deptford – The Broadway and Tanners Hill).

APA4 London-Lewes Road
The London-Lewes Road was part of the Roman arterial system, connected London with the South Coast and is possibly preserved in surviving public rights of way and street alignments. Otherwise this road is absent from the modern topography of Lewisham, despite its significant role as the boundary between the modern boroughs of Croydon and Bromley and the historic counties of Kent and Surrey.

APA5 Bell Green
A small Roman settlement adjoins the London-Lewes road close to the fording point across the River Pool.

APA 6 Lewisham and Catford/Rushey Green
Lewisham was the dominant manor estate, with sub-manors at Catford, Bellingham, Brockley, Sydenham, Shroffolds and Bankers. A common economic dependence on the water power of the Ravensbourne and close proximity of settlement eventually resulted in Lewisham and Catford merging to form a continuous ribbon of settlement.
Lewisham is named after the Anglo-Saxon ‘Leofsa’s settlement’ whilst Catford is derived from ‘the ford of the wild cats’. Its other local name of Rushey Green refers to the damp land adjacent to the Ravensbourne.
Late Saxon alien priory were unusual, yet by the 10th century a monastic cell existed at Lewisham, held by St. Peter’s of Ghent as part of its main estate at Greenwich. The Domesday account of Lewisham, probably refers to the Priory’s estate in both Greenwich and Lewisham, it is clear that the waters of the Ravensbourne were already powering a number of mills. The early estate was probably located in the vicinity of the medieval parish church dedicated to St Mary (Listed Grade II*) on Lewisham High Street. During the 18th century Lewisham High Street was lined with fashionable houses of the merchant classes.
The location of the Domesday water-mills can today only be speculated on, but probably formed part of a dispersed agricultural community. It is possible that many were to continue in use until replaced during the medieval period or caught up in the rapid industrial growth of the 18th and 19th centuries. By this time the many mills operating between Lewisham and Catford, created a ribbon of settlement running north-south to the east of the Ravensbourne. The Riverdale Mill built c. 1828 on the site of an earlier 15th century corn mill survives as part of a recent office development. All other mills, such as the Armoury Mill, later known as the Silk Mill, which was producing small arms until 1818 and then spun silk and gold thread for the braid on military uniforms and ceremonial dress until 1937, have been demolished. A wide range of products were produced locally including steel tools, leather, mustard, as well as corn and flour.

APA 7 Deptford – the Strand, Sayes Court and the Royal Naval Dockyard
In the Domesday account for Deptford (Greenwich), the manor was owned by Gilbert de Magimot, who is said to have built a castle at Deptford. The ‘stony foundations’ recorded on Deptford Strand in the 17th century may have been part of this building. The manor passed to the de Says family in the late 12th century, providing the alternative name of Sayes Court. A wooden medieval manor house was in existence by at least 1405 and rebuilt on the same site in 1568. Late in the 16th century the manor house was separated from the estates attached to it. The manor house passed by lease to the Evelyn family in the 17th century, whilst the land eventually passed to Henry VIII in 1535 and has been held by the Crown ever since.
The initial basis of the local economy was probably fishing, and there are 13th, 14th and 15th century references to fishermen and fisheries along the Strand shore, probably referring to inshore weirs or kiddels. However, shipbuilding is known to have begun in 1420 with the rebuilding and fitting of royal ships.
Henry VIII founded a Royal Dockyard for the construction of his ships around the nucleus of a storehouse for naval supplies that has been built in 1513, and which survived virtually complete until the Blitz of 1940-41. The remaining walls were demolished in 1953, and the undercrofts filled in with rubble. A plan of 1623, which was annotated by John Evelyn, provides a particularly informative view of the early dockyard and its relationship to St Nicholas Church and The Creek.
The Royal Naval Victualling Yard replaced the Red House stores on the north side of the Dockyard in 1742. The Dockyard was to expand throughout the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, despite problems of silting on the Thames. Between 1830 and 1844 the Dockyard was used solely for ship-breaking. Shipbuilding was to return and despite proposals in the 1850s to extend further, the dockyard finally closed in 1869, although the Victualling Yard continued in use until 1961. Throughout this period state-sponsored ship building encouraged the nearby growth in private shipbuilding.
Apart from the construction of naval vessels, Francis Drake’s The Golden Hind was dry-docked within the Dockyard on its return from circumnavigating the world in 1551. In 1698 Peter the Great, Czar of Russia was trained in shipbuilding and naval architecture at the Royal Dockyard whilst staying at Sayes Court. Captain Cook’s two ships Resolution and Adventure were equipped for his second voyage to the Pacific in 1772-1775, Resolution being again equipped, together with Discovery for his last voyage in 1776-1779.
The site of the Royal Naval Dockyard, now known as Convoy’s Wharf, is today a large wharf with warehouse facilities owned by News International Ltd. Extant remains of the Dockyard include the shed constructed c. 1846/47 to cover Nos. 2 and 3 slipways (Listed Grade II), the early 18th century Master Shipwrights Apartment (Listed Grade II) erected in 1700, river walls which show the location of the entrances to the slips and docks and the timber slipways exposed on the foreshore. However, by far the greater part of the Dockyard survives as buried archaeological structures.
The lease on Sayes Court manor house descended by inheritance to John Evelyn in 1652. Evelyn developed his practical and horticultural skills through the design and construction of extensive gardens at Sayes Court, which are shown in a surviving plan of 1653. Evelyn, inspired by his earlier tour of gardens in Italy, France and Germany, drew on the experience and innovations developed at Sayes Court in his many influential publications on gardening and horticulture, including Sylva, or a discourse of Forest Trees, in which he refers specifically to planting trials at Sayes Court. The manor house was taken over as the parish workhouse in 1729 and then substantially altered in 1759, perhaps retaining some of the original structure. It was finally demolished c. 1930. Part of the Sayes Court Gardens now lies within a public park, and recent archaeological investigations reveal that evidence of Evelyn’s ponds survives on adjoining properties.

APA8 Deptford Creek
The mid to late Saxon settlement and medieval village of Deptford Green, St Nicholas church, the site of the East India Company Dockyard and Sebastian Ferranti’s Power Station, were all located adjacent to the creek mouth, historically formed one of the two early Deptford settlements, but are now part of the modern Borough of Greenwich. The western bank of the Creek within Lewisham is associated with archaeological remains which detail the history of flood defence, water supply and secondary riverside industries. The earliest developments include the tide mill north of Deptford Bridge, which is known to have been operating from at least the 12th century. The King’s Slaughterhouse was built by the first half of the 16th century. Other industries moved in to the area including the 17th century copperas works and a variety of local 18th century potteries, pipe clay factories and tanneries. From the late 18th century the Deptford Creekside area was known as the ‘City’, representing a local cultural subdivision, socially separate from the rest of Deptford and subject to its own rules and customs.
The archaeological evidence for this APA includes buried evidence, but also the extant river wall. Surviving wooden walls have inherent historic interests, but are also particularly fragile habitats which support the ecology of the urban post-industrial creek, which makes a special contribution to local bio-diversity.

APA 9 Upper Deptford
By the late 17th century John Evelyn was building houses on land on the west side of Butt Lane, which later became Deptford High Street. These were required to meet the demand for housing as the local population increased with the expanding Dockyard. This population pressure played a significant part in the division of Deptford into two parishes. The southern part became a new parish with a new church, the Baroque Church of St. Paul (Listed Grade I), which was erected in 1713-30 along with an extraordinary rectory which was triangular with octagonal rooms and turrets at each corner. The main period of growth in housing occurred in the years 1650-1730, with a further boom in 1770-1800. Consequently Butt Lane and streets such as Albury Street (Listed Grade II*) were developed to provide housing for dockyard artisans and tradesmen.
A recent RCHME survey has assessed the survival and character of pre-1800 houses. A type of urban vernacular housing, in which timber framed construction methods were employed later than is common, has been found to survive extensively within the area of Deptford High Street, with other examples occurring along Deptford Broadway and Tanners Hill. The design of these buildings provides significant evidence of the social development of Georgian London, which has implications for towns in England and in North America. In addition to the extant historic fabric of the buildings, excavation has revealed the survival of associated pits and wells to the rear of the properties and it has been found that cellars may survive even when all trace of the superstructure has been lost.

APA 10 Deptford – the Broadway and Tanners Hill
The early history of the creekhead settlement adjoining the Watling Street ford (APA3) persists into the early medieval period. Excavations on the site of the former Dover Castle public house produced evidence of dense and continuous settlement from at least the Norman conquest. The settlement at the Broadway operated independently to that at Deptford Green, which adjoined St. Nicholas Church. It’s physical independence was sustained until the 18th century, when the southward expansion of housing along Butt Lane eventually reached the Broadway, which then became subject to the changed described in APA 9. Upper Deptford, Brook Mill, mentioned in the deeds of 1588, used from 1701 to pipe water from the Ravensbourne to the manors of Sayes Court and East Greenwich, was the precursor to what was known successively as the Ravensbourne Water Works and the Kent Waterworks Company, before the formation of the Metropolitan Water Board in 1903. On the south side of Watling Street, houses are known to occupy the junction with Brookmill Road in the second half of the 14th century. The area around Tanners Hill was the location for early industry, including 18th century potteries.
The longevity of settlement in this location is unique within Lewisham. The archaeological record includes not only the buried remains, but also the extant built fabric of the early surviving houses.

APA 11 Lee
The Lee place-name is associated with former woodland or a woodland clearance. Of the three principal manors, Lee retained its rural character until the encroachment of 19th century sub-urbanism and was a popular rural location for 18th century City business men. The ruined 15th century ragstone tower (Listed Grade II) of the medieval parish church of St Margaret survives in the old burial ground. The early moated manor house, latterly known as Annesley’s House was located some distance away to the north of the High Road. The remains of medieval tenements are likely to occur along Old Road and along the line of Brandram Road, which linked the church to the manor house. Fragmentation of Annesley’s House estate provided land for 17th and 18th century houses. Lee Place, which was built in the early 17th century and demolished in 1825, was the home of Christopher Boone, a London merchant who established the Almshouse and Chapel (Listed Grade I) on the High Road, which bears his name. Pentland House (Listed Grade II) was built in 1661, on what was previously part of the Lee Place estate. The Manor House built in 1771 is further considered in APA 19.

APA 12 Sydenham
The name is possibly derived form the Anglo-Saxon ‘Cippas’ settlement’ was a sub-manor of Lewisham and adjoined the former Great North Wood. Evidence of early tenements can be anticipated.

APA 13 Southend
Southend takes its name from its position at the south end of the parish. The small agricultural community appears to have always focussed on the Lower and Upper Mills on the Ravensbourne. There is probably good potential for the survival of early mill structures and associated tenements can also be anticipated.

APA 14 New Cross
The name is derived from the sign of the Golden Cross carried by a well-known medieval coaching house on Watling Street. Recent excavation on New Cross Road has also revealed that sometime after purchasing the manor estate in 1614, the Haberdashers Company established a brickworks, possibly supplying the demand which followed the Fire of London. Counter Hill House built in the 18th century was a boarding school between 1792 and 1837 before making way for Goldsmiths College (Listed Grade II). The site of the Cromacks nursery is evidence of the importance of local market gardens which supplied expanding populations of Deptford and Southwark during the 18th century.

APA 15 Perry Street
The medieval manor house of Sydenham Place, later known as Place House adjoined a small hamlet known as Perry Street which was located along the London-Lewes Road. This small settlement persisted into the 17th and 18th century, before succumbing to suburban estates. Evidence of the medieval manor house and tenements may survive beneath recent housing development.

APA 16 Brockley Jack
The site of a 15th century roadside inn located along the road originally built by the Romans. Since demolition, only buried evidence is likely to survive.

APA 17 Brockley Priory
Briefly the site of a Pre-monstratensian abbey which was founded in 1182, but moved to Bayham, Hampshire in 1199-1208. Excavation has revealed part of the refectory and artefacts of 14th to 18th century dates. This suggests a later use of the abbey buildings and further potential for archaeological evidence.

APA 18 Blackheath and Blackheath Village
Blackheath, which is divided by Watling Street, is a traditional place of assembly, the scene of medieval and Tudor pageantry, violent confrontation and dissent. The nature of assembly changed in accordance with prevailing society. In 1381 Wat Tyler assembled his peasants here, and it was here Henry VII defeated the Cornish rebels in 1497. By the18th century Non-Conformist religious meetings addressed by Wesley occurred on the Heath, which by now also provided a setting to the elegant houses built for the Georgian upper middle classes. The early examples form a haphazard group. They include Percival and Spencer Houses (Listed Grade II*) on the west side of the Heath built in 1689 and terminating at the east side with the Paragon built in 1794. Blackheath Village was a speculative development which started in the 18th century on the site of a small hamlet known as Dowager’s Bottom.
Apart from the built heritage, there is considerable potential for buried, albeit ephemeral evidence of the various assemblies that have taken place over the centuries.

APA 19 The Manor House, Lee
The Manor House (Listed Grade II*) was built in 1771 and owned by the Baring banking family between 1796 and 1901. The layout of the gardens (Registered Grade II) is essentially 18th/19th century with a winding path surrounding a sweeping central lawn and descending to an artificial pond. A late 18th century ice house also survives beneath the western boundary.

APA 20 Beckenham Place Park
Beckenham Place (Listed Grade II*) was built by John Cator c.1773 close to the site of a much earlier manor house. The 18th century mansion was set in parklands, and both survive as a historic entity, although the public golf course intrudes on the historic character and the lake is now little more than a damp depression. Furthermore, there survives evidence of an earlier agricultural landscape from which the 18th century parkland was conceived. Numerous extant features can be identified including field boundaries, wood banks, semi-natural woodland, coppiced and pollarded standards as well as areas of ridge and furrow.

APA 21 Wells Park
A small survival of the once extensive Sydenham Common. Mineral springs were discovered at the site of Wells Park in c. 1640 and Sydenham became a minor spa which declined in the early 19th century.

Map SCH1