This really smashing picture has been passed to us by someone who would like to know more about it - and can we say that we have no idea who owns it, where it is or how it got to the person who sent it to us - so, sorry, if it belongs to you - we will remove it if you want, or happy to share any information about the subject matter with you.
It apparently shows the Greenwich Peninsula's west bank by moonlight - we think soon after 1850. Any ideas about any of the features shown on it. It seems to be taken from somewhere around Delta Wharf - and to show a boat builders yard, Cowden. In the distance is Greenwich Hospital and - I am told Our Lady Star of the Sea. Other buildings appear to be the telegraph cable works of what would have been at that date probably Glass Elliott.
5 comments:
A view of Greenwich Reach from the Thames by moonlight, with the Hospital, Enderby House and the Telegraph House
By Henry Pether.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/henry-pether-a-view-of-greenwich-reach-5586356-details.aspx
Gosh thanks Ian. The thing in the picture which really stuck me was the boatbuilder - it seems to say Cowden. In the past I have been right through the rate books - parish and sewer rates - from 1800 and have not seen that name. Nor do I remember it from the file of leases at Morden College - who were almost certainly the landowners (I am asking their archivist to check).
Mary
Mary..
I think it may be Cow*n*den, or even something longer than that, rather than Cowden if you view the Christies picture in their 'blow-up' mode...
Looks like "C.W COWNDEN"
The name crops up in military rolls (ancestry.co.uk via google)
A bankruptcy of a Charles Cownden, shipbuilder in 1851
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/21260/pages/2929
Charles Cownden was again named in a bankruptcy with an Andrew Wentzell of a ship builder, "Wentzell and Cownden" in 1856
May be the C.W. of the company name.
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/21840/pages/232
Ian - David - thanks very much and that is very helpful. I never thought to find a shipbuilder on the Peninsula I didn't know about. However I am 99% sure he isn't in either rate book and Elizabeth has checked the Morden College data base again today for me. Very odd. I will check dates for Courtney who was on a Norfolk College owned site - but a bit later than this - and Nathan Thompson who was on Bay Wharf - but that is Morden College owned. There were some others - like Stewart - but they are all much later. Hmm - will think
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