IKEA car park - gas sports

 

I see from various online newspages and blogs that the Council Planning Committee has decided to allow flats to be  built on the site which has been used in recent years as the car park for the Ikea store in East Greenwich.   It has been a car park for some time although before IKEA was built it wasn’t tied  to any particular shop . I guess some of us will remember when the ‘Teletubby’ Sainsbury’s was on that site but they didn’t manage the car park – that was down to a difficult to contact agency. The result was that that car park was the  centre of most of the crime in East Greenwich -  I remember only too well the police reports of this major crime spot for the area But I shouldn’t run ahead with the past of that particular piece of land.

I thought it might be interesting to look at the history and background to the site of Ikea and its car park. So, first, more generally,  let's get back  to the 1960s - when I first moved to Greenwich. It was very different then when there were a lot of very big factories in Charlton, and on the Peninsula.  Most  of them had their own sports clubs where workers could go and play football , or whatever. These  clubs were a major social feature and  as well as a huge range of sports many of them held had weekly socials and dances. There were many exchanges with workers from other factories –sporting league tables as well as lively social events.

All round the area there were sports fields - large green spaces in between the factories and the houses - something we never hear about when people talk about the horrors of the industrial  past.. Some of these still exist – one of  them is  Siemens old sports field  -now very much used as the extension car park for Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlton Park Lane.. Usually these sports fields would have more space than that taken up by football pitches and that would be let out to workers as allotments. I could go on about the whole allotment movement at length and we do have few left - but most of the land which was used by local people to grow their own vegetables is now under supermarkets and warehousing.  A loss not only of cheap fresh food but also of fresh air and exercise.

So let's look at the background for this piece of land which is now the IKEA car park. On the oldest maps I have it is just a piece of marshland in Horn Lane – the old road , still there, parallel to Peartree Way. In the 1890s it was part of an ‘ammunition works’ which I guess is the Dyer and Robson firework factory which I've written a bit about in the last few weeks.

In the 1890s the gas works was extended at its southern end by the purchase from Frank Hills’ descendants of his chemical works to be their Phoenix Wharf. In 1902 a further stretch of land was added specifically for allotments  and  “organised recreational games’ to be managed by the Council of the Metrogas Amateur Sports Association. This was then the new sports ground for employees at East Greenwich Gasworks.  South Met Gas Co’s older works already had their own arrangements -for instance the West Greenwich gas works in Thames Street used the gas holder site in Roan Street for sports. All South Met’s gas works had an ‘institute’  where various well appointed recreational facilities were available to workers. The East Greenwich Institute was however nowhere near the new sports ground but close to the main entrance in Grenfell Street.

Metrogas Sports Association undertook some activities as an ‘umbrella’ organisation covering all works . For instance In 1902 they held their Annual Dinner in a Fleet Street Hotel. Around the same time they made the arrangements for an boxing tournament against the north London  gas works embodied in the Gas Light & Coke Sports Association. This north London club’s football team was also to meet a team drawn from South Met. gasworks. Metrogas also selected cross-country runners for the ‘London Business Houses Senior Team Championship’.

The new ground was laid out with young trees in Horn Lane  ‘which will prove a pleasing feature on one of the best-appointed grounds in South London”. Sadly the first sports day held at the new ground was a ‘washout. ‘Excellent arrangements’ had been made but “shortly after the commencement of racing a thunderstorm put an end to proceedings. They had to run the race programme  again a week later.

Early reports of events at East Greenwich Sports ground always seem to start with a report on the weather and sadly too often it appears to be too wet and the ground was too marshy underfoot.  These early  reports seem to be only of races -  sprinting, walking and cycling;  sometimes obstacles.  There is no mention initially of organised games like football, bowls or cricket.  Note however the walking races; something which seems not to happen now. There was nothing like a speed walker,with elbows tucked in and Blackheath rather specialised in them.

Early  on there are pictures of an otherwise explained event known as “Pork Pie Sunday” but generally events settled down, predictably,  to athletics and team games involving opponents from other local factories. It was however to be taken very seriously because  ‘There is a mistaken idea that .. children have a right to play aimlessly on tlic ground while authorised matches are in progress. “ Thus anything lighthearted or untidy was to be discouraged and I will refrain from mentioning the photograph I have seen, taken in the 1980s, which shows a well known local personality, aged 8, running round the field unsupervised ... tut tut.................

There were however a number of formal events –dinners and the like  -where various men congratulated each other.   – I note an earlier event where foreign visitors were entertained in a marquee to a celebratory lunch –one where the toasts between host and guests took what time than the tour of the works

Produce from the allotments featured in an annual ‘flower show’ held at the Institute. The judges ‘spoke very highly of the flowers and vegetables ..  an excellent show of begonias... a large stall, well filled with flowers and vegetables ... to be sold for the benefit of the Seamen's  Hospital’. Prizes went to the cricket team and the photographic section. Later,in the evening, an “excel!ent entertainment was given by the "Checks" Concert Party” with dancing on the lawn and music from “the Co-Partnership Institute Orchestra”.

As time went on there were regular flower and vegetable shows with a huge list of prizes for vegetables in various categories -rooted beetroot-. ..Cabbage..-IMarrows.-.. beans ... -climber peaa - .. dwarf peas.-..  Shallots. .. parsnip-- and so on.

In January 1997 there was some excitement on the sports ground with what I suppose we should describe as ‘an air crash’.  This was a de Havilland biplane piloted by a Roland Watson of the London Light Aeroplane Club at Hendon. Mr Watson explained that he had been flying around for about an hour trying to return to theairfieldathe Stagg Lane  -but generally being lost because there seemed to be some fog around. He had searched cod a place to land and saw the playing  field and tried to land . Flying low over the site the they machine hit a football boundary post’  and his plane hit the ground and turned over. This was lucky because it meant Mr Watson wasn't hurt at all, got out and walked away.

I'm sure there are many stories to tell about events on the sports ground at East Greenwich over the next 50 of years or so. The most recent press story I can find which relates to the ground is from 1982 . This was a prize giving event which SEGAS apprentices from all over southern England attended. - The most recent sporting event mentioned is from 1963 where what appears to be a County cricket match was held there between the Kent Second Eleven and the Worceseter County side –which says a lot about the standard of facilities there.. 

I assume that the sports club closed with the gasworks although I don’t know that – perhaps an ‘Old Flame’ wil enlighten me.  I am very aware that Metrogas still exists and has a big sports field over in Eltham.

I remember the East Greenwich field sitting there unused with no sign of sports equipment or allotments. There was a strange pavilion building in the middle which was used as offices by a number of regeneration agencies throughout the 1990s –I’m sorry  I have’ t the space here to go into all that - perhaps another time?

Because the site had been part of the gas works was deemed polluted and therefore not acceptable to be used for anything other than commercial buildings. So it was all tarmaced over as a car park . I am sure people will remember the ‘Teletubby Sainsbury's’  which was built there and which was supposed to be a revolution “the building design incorporated environmentally conscious features and gained critical acclaim, being shortlisted for the 2000  Stirling Prize. It was billed as "the first Green supermarket in the world"  Then how it was pulled down after just fourteen years–closely followed by the death of the architect, Paul Hinkin of Chetwood Associates. But that s all another story. 

Then IKEA was built on the site – with its concrete roof garden by way of compensation.

I am going to say and say it once that there were lots of sites like this all over Greenwich - green spaces which were cared for. They provided a space for sporting activities of all sorts - not just football and racing but bowls, and boxing and much else. There were dances and flower shows,. and  a whole social life. Something for everybody.  I remember my disabled Dad running socials at his print works sports club down in Gravesend.  They also provided somewhere where people grew fresh vegetables  --getting an allotment today is virtually impossible . We all moan about young people with their noses permanently in their phones – but really – what else are they to do??