Queen's House: culverts and air ducts

During 1985 the Queen's House underwent considerable refurbishment, with an extensive culvert system being found along with a slightly later and quite unusual air duct system. This text is from the Museum of London (GRN85: Durnford, P, 1985 Queen’s House basements, archive report. MoL):

A watching brief took place in the N half of the basement during refurbishment of the 17th-century Queen's House. Doorways, sills and brick floors relating to the 17th-century building were revealed but the majority of the original levels seem to have been destroyed, probably in the early 18th century when an extensive drainage system was inserted. The drainage system consisted of brick-built ducts which drained to the NW of the building and the 'principal drains' of which formed an almost complete circuit. An air duct system, post-dating the drains, was also recorded; it was fed by a stoke pit found in one of the rooms close to the main entrance of the basement. It may be dated to the mid-late 18th century. By the early-mid 19th century, most of the drainage system had fallen out of use, its arched brick capping broken through and the ducts infilled. The air duct system had also been modified, if not abandoned. The disuse of these systems occurred at a time when the Royal Hospital School first occupied the house and made many alterations: some of the brick partition walls and other features of these alterations were located. A concrete floor (now removed) then covered most of the basement.

Site record: GRN85
Site name: Queen's House, National Maritime Museum
Site location: Romney Road, greenwich, SE10
Borough: greenwich
Year: 1985
Latitude: 51.4812822 Longitude: -0.0038444
TQ38527752
Organisation: HBMC
Type of fieldwork: watching brief
Archaeological periods: 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, 20th century

Conduit house at Queen Elizabeth's Oak - new photo

A stunning new Victorian photo has just emerged that shows - partially but clearly - a conduit house close to Queen Elizabeth's Oak. The picture was buried amongst hundreds of National Maritime Museum seafaring photos, simply titled "Royal deer in Greenwich Park". The date could be anywhere during 1860-1890, because wet collodion plates continued largely unchanged during these three decades. Wet collodion can often be identified by the odd tonal rendition of colours - it does not give a panchromatic response as modern monochrome emulsions do. The tones of the seated woman's clothing are very strange, strongly suggesting this type of photography (unfortunately her head is lost by blur during the exposure of several seconds). This is significantly earlier than the bulk of historic photos of the park which were made possible by technological advances during 1900-1910. Look at the right hand edge of the photo:

↑ Click for a larger version (443k 1280 x 1259)

This may look like just a blurry old photo, but photographs of the conduit houses inside the park (many of which had been demolished by 1900) are vanishingly rare. Photography was still in its infancy at this time; the image above is a rare beast to stumble across.

East Lane Reservoir, Park Vista

A large Tudor cistern - East Lane Reservoir - was originally located in what is now Park Vista, opposite the mouth of Feathers Place. A rather untidy patchwork of post-medieval houses, including a vicarage, now occupies this strip of land. With the kind permission of all the householders we have diligently searched for remains of the fabric of the conduit house - whose appearance we reliably know as early as 1670 - but without any success; rebuilding has simply been too extensive and invasive. Remains of an arched vault were seen in the roadway close to these properties during gas main repairs in the 1980s, though sadly no photographs were taken at the time.

The 1620 view towards the palace from the park just shows what must be the structure - there is some artistic licence used, but the four-gabled roof is still discernible:

The (approximately) 1670 view is a lot clearer:

Hawksmoor's drawing of 1720 shows the conduit house very well - he calls it Queen Elizabeth's Conduit. It appears to have been quite a substantial structure, and may well have been extremely similar to the lower Coombe Conduit House in West London that supplied Hampton Court Palace in Tudor times. A small stream of water issues from the front and dribbles into the road:

↑ Hawksmoor's drawing of 1720 - click for larger version (261k 1000 x 842)

↑ The lower house of Coombe Conduit, which supplied water to Hampton Court Palace in Tudor times; click for larger version (614k 768 x 1024). Photographer unknown - please contact me for a credit or deletion if it's you.

The arrangement of any associated subterranean vaults or passageway at the East Lane Reservoir is unknown, and it has yet to be proved that the brick vault seen in nearby roadworks was contemporaneous with the conduit house or simply redundant cellarage. It received water via lead pipes from conduits both inside the park and also to the east, outside the park walls.

The Admiralty survey of 1780 describes it thus:

an Building, but which is now converted into a stable, but appeared by the old surveys to have had a great reservoir in the loft of it, for all the waters in the east side of the park. This reservoir stood opposite the end of East Lane [now Feathers Place], and among other places afforded a supply of water to the yards and houses of the officers of His Majestys Works near the Crane

I'm not really convinced by the idea of a reservoir in the loft - ie the first floor (UK) or the second floor (USA). Until more contemporary evidence emerges, a high-level tank (probably lead-lined and constrained by masonry) will remain as pure speculation. A modestly-sized cubic tank with sides of 2m holds 8m³ of water, which weighs 8 tonnes. Increase the sides to 3m (27m³), and suddenly the weight increases to 27 tonnes. While the Tudor engineers could have built a structure strong enough to carry the weight, the idea of a "great reservoir" at first floor level seems slightly implausible; extensive use of a carefully-chosen building stone would have been required to withstand the weight, as seen in larger churches and cathedrals. Something like Hampton Court's Coombe Conduit seems more likely; water pressure up to first floor level in Placentia was mainly achieved by having conduit houses on the slopes of the park and adjacent hillsides at a higher level than the roof of the palace.

↑ Click for a larger version (491k 1024 x 609)

 ↑ Seen from the Thames, approx. 1755

SubG: approved by National Monuments Record

Our coverage of the Hyde Vale Conduit has recently been accepted by the National Monuments Record and their website PastScape as an authoritative source of information. To see the record, please click here - you will need to scroll down and click the plus symbol next to "More information & sources". After many years of work in and around Greenwich, this is a small but significant acknowledgement of our efforts.

A 1905 cutting - Interesting Investigations

An interesting 1905 newspaper cutting turned up recently - many thanks to Graham Dolan. Unusually, it describes the contemporary external appearance of the staircase access in Hyde Vale, which agrees with our photo discovery of the same that can be seen here. Stone's investigations are well known, but here we are given the identity of one of his co-explorers: the subterranean vicar Rev. S.M. Bardsley.

↑ Click to enlarge (122k 429 x 1051)

Miscellanea at the Royal Naval College

↑ Click for larger version (550k 1012 x 597)

A diverse collection of items discovered during 1999-2008 are included in this round-up of subterranea from the former Royal Naval College, now Greenwich University. Although all the sections of passageway (we define passageway using the caving description - any subterranean space a human can move through) have been covered over with tarmac etc, it's nevertheless important to document them all. There is one outlying item located in Woolwich - number 7 in the list and citations below.

Many thanks to MOLA for allowing me to quote their text.

A 17th century truncated wall, running north-south was revealed, along with the 18th century foundations of the Queen Anne Quarter. Further 18th century walls and culvert were also observed.¹

The first watching brief involved the monitoring of a drainage trench on the east side of the Queen Mary Quarter. Part of a wall from the 17th century "Captain Guy’s House" was revealed, which had been truncated by the construction of the Queen Mary Block in 1698, the foundations of which were also exposed. Part of a 19th century culvert was also exposed.²

During the second watching brief six geotechnical test pits were monitored in the car park east of the Queen Mary Quarter. The remains of an 18th century culvert were excavated, overlain by 18th and 19th century demolition and dump layers.²

The watching brief took place in the courtyard of the complex, revealing fragmentary chalk foundations truncated by later culverts of 17th and 18th century date, and to the west of the building, wall footings of the 17th century overlaid by 18th century fills.³

The structural features revealed were all associated with the initial construction of the building between 1699 – 1708. Two such features were walls and the third was an internal cess pit, the first observed of this period in the Greenwich Hospital complex.⁴

At the eastern end of the trench was a deep late 17th century brick lined cess pit, almost certainly part of "Captain Sanderson’s House." At the western end of the trench was the corner of one of the large cess pits built in the 1730s to serve the Queen Mary Quarter.⁵

Most of the trenches have revealed recent made ground deposits. Brick foundations near the King Charles Quarter however, may be of 17th/18th century date. 19th century culverts were also present.⁶

The watching brief revealed the foundation walls of the Royal Dockyard buildings: the Engine House and Lathe Shop (area 1), the Iron Foundry (area 1), Boiler Makers (area 1) Punching and Pattern Shop (area 2), the Shop for Marine Engine (area 1) and tunnels which bisected the site.⁷

The major construction on the site was a large barrel vaulted cess chamber known to have been built for Greenwich Hospital in the 1730s. Retaining walls of the 19th century were the most recent features. Trench 2 revealed a number of fragmentary structures, layers and drains dating from the 17th to 19th centuries. Trench 3, to the north, was entirely taken up by another 18th century cess chamber.⁸

A large 19th century drain / tunnel was revealed near the west gate.⁹

Work continued from 2005. Excavations revealed the eastern end of the Chapel Royal of the Tudor Greenwich Palace, c. 1504. The chapel had a tiled floor and stone moulding on its walls and doorways. An integral drain was found below.¹⁰

Following earlier work in 2005, a watching brief was carried out on landscaping works on the lawns west of the King Charles and King William Quarters, on the car park east of the Queen Anne Quarter, and on four tree-planting trenches in the south-east corner of the site. During the stripping of the lawns, only two archaeological features were observed; At the eastern edge of the King Charles lawns a 19th century water tank was recorded, while along both sides of the N-S pathway, W of the King Charles Quarter, were traces of the original retaining walls. In the Queen Anne Outer Court, a brick and stone lined well (dated broadly to the 15th - 16th centuries?) had been truncated by a wall of early 18th century date.¹¹

During the evaluation four trenches were excavated. Trench 1, in the Regatta Café Courtyard, revealed natural gravels truncated by an undated E-W aligned linear feature containing a clay fill and covered by a thin silt layer. This layer was cut by an E-W aligned brick culvert of probable early 19th century date which was sealed by a clay layer beneath modern silt, rubble, and flagstone paving.<sup>12



1</sup> Data cable route, former Royal Naval College SE10 (RNV99) west TQ 3845 7784 east: TQ 3868 7799 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) watching brief January - July 1999 University of Greenwich RNV99

² Queen Mary Block, drain trench and car park, former Royal Naval College, Greenwich SE10 (RNM99) TQ 3867 7795 and TQ 3869 7792 MOLA (Julian Bowsher and Anthony Mackinder) watching briefs June-August 1999 DTZ Debenham Thorpe and Peter Brett Associates (on behalf of the University of Greenwich) RNM99

³ King Charles Quarter, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, SE10 (RNK00) TQ 3850 7793 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) evaluation and watching brief May-November 2000 Trinity College of Music and Greenwich Foundation RNK00

⁴ King William Quarter, Royal Naval College, Romney Road SE10 (RNO00) TQ 3860 7782 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) watching brief May-August 2000 University of Greenwich RNO00

⁵ Queen Mary Quarter and East Gate, former Royal Naval College SE10 (RNM99) TQ 3869 7792 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) excavation and watching brief November 1999- May 2000 The University of Greenwich RNM99

⁶ BT and Gas Trenches, Former Royal Naval College SE10 (RNY01) TQ 3850 7793 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) watching brief January 2001-ongoing The Greenwich Foundation for the Royal Naval College RNY01

⁷ Ruston Road/Woolwich Church Street Woolwich SE18 (WCS01) TQ 4230 7908 MOLA (Rosemary Joynson) watching brief July-August 2001 Countryside Properties WCS01

⁸ Greenwich Armoury, former Royal Naval College SE10 (KIC02) TQ 38468 77908 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) evaluation July 2002 Time Team / Greenwich Foundation KIC02

⁹ Thames Water trenches, former Royal Naval College SE10 (RNW00) TQ 38583 77924 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) watching brief April - September 2002 Greenwich Foundation RNW00

¹⁰ Queen Anne Outer Court, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich SE10 (RND05) TQ 38651 78021 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) excavation September 2005-February 2006 The Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College RND05

¹¹ Landscaping Works, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich SE10 (RNE05) TQ 38560 77915 MOLA (Julian Bowsher) watching brief March 2007 Chris Blandford Associates on behalf of The Greenwich Foundation RNE05

¹² South West Wing, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, SE10 (NAM08) TQ 38575 77581 MOLA (Agnieszka Bystron, Julian Bowsher) watching brief and evaluation April-May, August 2008 National Maritime Museum NAM08

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