| Shooter's Hill | |
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Shooter's Hill
Shooter's Hill shown within Greater London |
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| OS grid reference | TQ435765 |
|---|---|
| London borough | Greenwich |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | London |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | SE18 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| EU Parliament | London |
| UK Parliament | Greenwich and Woolwich |
| London Assembly | Greenwich and Lewisham |
| List of places: UK • England • London | |
Shooter's Hill (or Shooters Hill) is a district and electoral ward in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. It lies east of Blackheath and west of Welling, south of Woolwich and north of Eltham. With a height of 434 feet, it is one of the highest points in London. Shooter's Hill also gives it name to the the A road which passes through east to west and is part of the A207 road, the A2 road, and also Watling Street.
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It reputedly takes its name from the practice of archery there during the Middle Ages, although the name is also commonly linked to its reputation as a haunt for highwaymen and was infamous for its gibbets of the executed ones as referred to in 1661 in Samuel Pepys diary. The name is also linked to the Second World War, where it was the site of an array of anti-aircraft guns which protected London. Eltham Common was the site of Shooter's Hill police station (now closed). Eltham was allegedly the only town in England with two fully functional police stations (the other in Well Hall Road), having been placed there due to the lawlessness associated with that area.
Celia Fiennes, who in 1697 proceeded out of London along the Dover Road, wrote in her diary of stopping at "Shuttershill, on top of which hill you see a vast prospect ...some lands clothed with trees, others with grass and flowers, gardens, orchards, with all sorts of herbage and tillage, with severall little towns all by the river, Erith, Leigh, Woolwich etc., quite up to London, Greenwich, Deptford, Black Wall, the Thames twisting and turning it self up and down bearing severall vessells and men of warre on it".
As the name also implies, the district is centred upon a hill - one of the highest points in London 129 metres (423 ft) [1] - offering good views over the River Thames to the north, with central London clearly visible to the west. Oxleas Wood remains a public open space close to the top of the hill; there is also a golf-course and one of the last remaining areas of farmland in inner London, Woodlands Farm (now an educational charity).
Shooter's Hill Road stretches eastwards from the heath at Blackheath up and over the hill, initially as part of the A2 road and then the A207. The road follows the route of Watling Street, a Roman Road linking London with Roman settlements in north Kent. This was used as a route for horse-drawn mail-coaches linking London with Dover.
Byron's Don Juan is waylaid while romantically musing on Shooter's Hill when he first arrives in London (Canto XI). Charles Dickens mentions carriages "lumbering" up Shooter's Hill in A Tale of Two Cities, and refers to a public house there in The Pickwick Papers. The district is also mentioned in Bram Stoker's Dracula, in H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and by Thomas Carlyle. On 11 April 1661, diarist Samuel Pepys mentions passing under "the man that hangs upon Shooters Hill" (probably a highwayman hanged and left to rot as a warning to other criminals - at 'Gibbet Field', now part of the local golf-course).
In chapter three of the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, the character Evey Hammond describes her childhood, spent on Shooter's Hill.
It must be noted that there are other Shooter's Hills that some of the above may refer to, eg Bram Stoker's "Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead" would require exceptionally good eyesight.
The distinctive Victorian Gothic water tower at the top of Shooter's hill is a landmark that can be seen from far around. Other local landmarks include Severndroog Castle, a folly designed by architect Richard Jupp in 1784 and built to commemorate Commodore Sir William James who, on 2 April 1755, attacked and destroyed a pirate fortress at Suvarnadurg along the western coast of India.
Another water tower (of 130ft) is further down Shooter's Hill. This was originally built in the 1890s to designs by Thomas W. Aldwinckle to supply water to the 'Brook Fever hospital', which was demolished in the 1990s, to be replaced by a housing development. The tower is constructed of a plain brick pillar ornamented simply with bands of terracotta tiles and windows like arrowslits. It is not listed, but it has just been cleaned, repointed and underpinned for conversion into a family home. It is the centrepiece of the housing estate.[2]
In 1749, 'The Bull' public house opened just west of the summit of the hill, and was used as a refreshment stop by the coaches, although not the Royal Mail which had an interchange of mail bags at the Post Office by the Red Lion on the London side of the hill.
English engineer Samuel Brown developed an internal combustion engine that used hydrogen as a fuel and tested it to propel a vehicle (arguably one of the earliest automobiles) up Shooter's Hill in 1826.
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