royal greenwich heritage trust

Charlton House: Summer House restoration begins

Neil Clasper2 Comments

 

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Work has begun to restore Charlton House’s Summer House, thanks to a donation from the World Monuments Fund.

The Grade I listed Summer House, attributed to Inigo Jones, once gave panoramic views back along the River Thames to The City of London and has stood empty and unused since the public toilets within it were closed in the early nineties. It has been included in Historic England’s ‘Register of Heritage at Risk’ for many years. Work has now begun to remove asbestos and to clear the building of the modern toilet fittings and masonry partitions to leave it open and available for a wide variety of temporary uses.

Will this old Borough of Greenwich sign go into the Trust’s historic collection?

Tracy Stringfellow, Chief Executive of Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust, said, “Charlton House is one of London’s unsung architectural gems and this work is the first step of a process to re-imagine the house and its grounds to provide enhanced facilities for visitors that befit this historically significant site. It will give the estate a ‘front-door’ where small exhibitions and other temporary events can be staged and the Trust looks forward to working with local stakeholders to begin this journey.”

Architect Charlie MacKeith, overseeing the initial project, says “it is a great privilege to be working with the Trust at the start of Charlton House’s revival. This fascinating little building, currently hidden and locked, has started revealing tantalising fragments of its history even before we’ve started to remove pre-war additions. The reopened pavilion will have a dramatic impact on the park and village”.

The Charlton Champion understands that following the first stage of restoration, RGHT will be looking for ideas for temporary uses of the space – time to start thinking about what you’d like to see in the Summer House!

 

 

 

Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust launches ‘Friends’ scheme

Neil Clasper

RGHT Friends

Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust – the body responsible for Charlton House and Charlton Assembly Room amongst other heritage assets across the borough – have launched a new Friends of Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust scheme. They say:

We want to start a conversation about our heritage and we want you to be a part of it. Through events, exhibitions and activities, our aim is to not only share our beautiful buildings and museum collections but play a more dynamic role in the lives of our local community.

As a Friend of Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust you can enjoy:

• exclusive Friends events

• 10% discount in Charlton Tea Rooms

• 10% discount in our Museum Shop

• subscription to a regular Trust newsletter

• advance information for Trust events and exhibitions

Your donation will support the work of the Trust and ensure we can make the absolute most of the assets we have. We want to share them with you and there’s no better way for you to get involved than to become a Friend.

Membership costs £15 per annum. You can download their brochure here, and  join the Friends of Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust here.

Charlton’s Horn Fair returns this Sunday 

Neil Clasper2 Comments

Charlton’s Horn Fair – banned for an excess of drunken behaviour in 1874 – is back for a second year in its new guise as a family-friendly, heritage-themed event run by Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust.

Taking place at Charlton House on Sunday October 16th from 10am-4pm, the event promises: “…a day for all ages. With activities from Stone Masonry by the Building Crafts College, plaster workshops from Philip Gaches, and our very own WWI Nurse Ivy and Devoted Frank. Amongst all the music and revelry of the day come along and enjoy our range of short talks, food and drink treats, and lots of children’s activities that are on offer”.

What’s happening at Charlton House? Local councillor Gary Parker explains

Darryl Chamberlain3 Comments

Charlton House

Charlton ward councillor Gary Parker has sent us a report on what he’s been up to over the past few months. We’re presenting this in two parts – the first is about his work on the board of the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust, which runs Charlton House.

The Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust was formed in 2014 and I have been a board member since its inception. The special report below highlights the work myself, staff, volunteers and trustees have been involved with recently. The Trust launched a range of leaflets and promotional materials earlier this year, along with their new website where details of all events can be found at www.greenwichheritage.org.

You can also follow the Trust on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, join the mailing list, or sign up to the newsletter online for regular updates. Some recent projects include:

Here Come the Girls – The Heritage Lottery-funded project has been a great success this year. The project introduced Ivy the Nurse, Nell the Munitionette and May from the Progress Estate, 3 local women who share their stories of the First World War with the people of the borough.

Ivy was a Nurse at Charlton House, and the Family Fun Day there in the summer was a huge success. Charlton residents came to meet Nell, the rest of the nurses, and some wounded soldiers in a convalescence hospital recreated for the day. The project continues to tour the Borough with further events in Eltham and Woolwich before the end of September.

Making Woolwich – Generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Royal Artillery Museums Ltd, including the Friends of Firepower, this new gallery for the Greenwich Heritage Centre will tell the story of a Royal Artillery soldier from 1716-2016.

World Monuments Fund – The Trust’s work with the World Monuments Fund continues. Thanks to WMF funding, Donald Insall Associates have now completed the Condition Survey and Measured Drawings at Charlton House. Yale University Scholar, Lily Higgins, recently presented the findings of her research work over the summer to the Friends of Charlton House, Trustees and other invited guests. The Trust are now working on next steps toward a Heritage Lottery Fund application in partnership with the World Monuments Fund.

Other activities – The Trust delivered a programme of heritage events that continue throughout the year including Summer activities for children through August. London Open House takes place this year on Sunday 18 September, from 10am – 4pm supported by the Friends of Charlton House.

Your Devoted Frank is a dramatic performance inspired by First World War love letters found in a Plumstead home. The performance, first delivered for Valentine’s Day at Greenwich Heritage Centre, will come to Charlton House on Friday 11 November at7pm. Tickets are available from Charlton House for just £8.

I have been using my professional skills to advise the Trust on fundraising and how to generate income. I briefed Tracey Stringfellow, the CEO, on this recently and there are likely to be some new initiatives coming forward including a potential crowdfunding project – watch this space.

Charlton House continues to be a fantastic community resource and I am working with many others to improve and develop it.

The second part of Gary’s update will follow in a day or two. If you want to contact Gary Parker or any Greenwich councillor, find their details on the Greenwich Council website.

Regenerating Charlton: What to do with the old summer house?

Darryl Chamberlain7 Comments

Charlton summer house

We’ve written before about whether Charlton needs a regeneration plan. We’ve also written about the challenges ahead for Charlton House under its new owners. There’s one place in SE7 where these two themes come neatly together.

You may well recognise the old public toilet opposite St Luke’s Church. It’s been locked shut for about a decade now. There’s a longer and more fascinating history to this building, though – it’s a Grade I-listed summer house, built in about 1630 and designed by Inigo Jones.

If it was in Greenwich, it’d be cherished. If it was in Woolwich, developers would probably have bulldozed it for “investment opportunities”. This is Charlton, though, so it’s just sat there, closed.

Now Severndroog Castle is back in rude health, it’s probably the most neglected historic building in Greenwich borough. It quietly passed from the council to the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust in July 2014 – so it’s now their job to decide what to do with it.

If the centre of Charlton is to be regenerated, the trust is going to have to play a big part in that. It’s recently found a long-term tenant for Charlton Assembly Rooms, which was recently refurbished by Greenwich Council, but what future is there for the summer house?

We’d like to make a small suggestion. This could make a brilliant place for people to try out small businesses. A former public toilet near Loughborough Junction station is being used for just that – and there’s no reason why we think this can’t happen in Charlton.

Cider I Up, Loughborough Junction
The Platform Cider Bar at Loughborough Junction. The building has also been used as a bike market, jewellery shop and cosmetics retailer.

The Platform is a project backed by Lambeth Council and Meanwhile Space.

If you’ve got a business idea, The Platform gives you training and advice, and then allows you to try out your dream in one of three locations – two railway arches and an old toilet at Ridgway Road.

The best-known use for the Ridgway Road toilet has been as a cider bar – it’s well worth a visit if it reopens – but the space has also been used for a farm shop, art gallery, workshops, bicycle market, organic cosmetics shop and jewellery shop.

Perhaps a cider bar next to a pub might not work out (or maybe it would if you avoided matchdays?), but putting the summer house to good use for small businesses is certainly better than leaving it empty. It’s just an idea – and if Charlton’s fortunes are to be revived, it seems like a very good one to us.

What’s the future for Charlton House? Get inside and take a look around this Sunday

Darryl Chamberlain5 Comments

Charlton House

Ever walked past Charlton House and wondered what’s inside? You’ll be able to take free tours one the capital’s best surviving Jacobean mansions this Sunday as part of the annual Open House London event.

The 400-year-old Grade I-listed building features original period detail including wood panelling and plasterwork. The tours are run by the Friends of Charlton House and it’s a chance to get to know a fascinating building whose importance to the area is often overlooked.

It also comes during a period of change for the house, which was spun off by Greenwich Council last year into the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust, along with its heritage centre in Woolwich and some war memorials.

The past year has mainly been spent setting up the trust and finding its feet – we’re told disentangling its computer systems from that of the council has been a challenge. If you look inside, it’ll be obvious that the building is in need of refurbishment, and the independent charity is charged with finding a sustainable future for the house.

The archway in the house’s grounds needs work done to it, and the trust recently got a £35,000 grant to fund a survey of the whole site.

Currently, the house runs as a community centre, and is also home to the borough’s least-used lending library, a Japanese language school, Charlton Toy Library, and the Mulberry Tea Rooms – bafflingly only usually open during weekday day times. It’s also frequently hired out for weddings.

We’ve written before about the shaky publicity given to events there – the trust has taken some steps to address that, although billing Charlton House in a press release for Open House as being in “the heart of Greenwich” suggests the old local authority mindset perhaps hasn’t quite gone away.

The trust also has the old summer house opposite St Luke’s Church (most recently used as a public toilet) and the Charlton Assembly Rooms (the red brick building at the Woolwich end of the village) – so it’ll be a big player in any discussion about the future of Charlton. It hasn’t inherited the stable buildings next door to the house, which remain in council hands.

William Morris Gallery, 2 July 2015
The future? The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, restored by Waltham Forest Council in 2012

What’s the future for Charlton House? Maybe one clue is over in Walthamstow, where the William Morris Gallery – the former home of the celebrated designer – reopened in 2012 after a multi-million pound revamp. It now houses a museum devoted to Morris as well as guest exhibitions. On a sunny weekday visit in early July, it was doing a roaring trade.

Interestingly, Waltham Forest Council still owns the 1740s building and obtained funding as part of an Olympic legacy project. In Charlton, it’s the new trust that’s been left with the mammoth job of finding a new future for the district’s most historic building.

If you want to find out more about the building’s past and present, pop along on Sunday and take a look. As for the future, your thoughts would be welcome below.