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North Greenwich

North Greenwich

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North Greenwich

"A Slice of Reality" (2000), by Richard Wilson.

The Greenwich Peninsula (via Wikipedia):

The peninsula was drained by Dutch engineers in the 16th century, allowing it to be used as pasture land. In the 17th century, Blackwall Point (the northern tip of the peninsula, opposite Blackwall) gained notoriety as a location where pirates' corpses were hung in cages as a deterrent to other would-be pirates.

The peninsula was steadily industrialised from the early 19th century onwards […] Later came oil mills, shipbuilding (for example the 1870 clippers Blackadder and Hallowe'en built by Maudslay), boiler making, manufacture of Portland cement and linoleum (Bessemer's works became the Victoria linoleum works) and the South Metropolitan Gas company's huge East Greenwich Gas Works […]

For over 100 years the peninsula was dominated by the gasworks which primarily produced town gas, also known as coal gas. The gasworks grew to 240 acres (0.97 km2), the largest in Europe, also producing coke, tar and chemicals as important secondary products. The site had its own extensive railway system connected to the main railway line near Charlton, and a large jetty used to unload coal and load coke […]

The peninsula remained relatively remote from central London until the opening of the Blackwall Tunnel in 1897, and had no passenger railway or London Underground service until the opening of North Greenwich tube station on the Jubilee line in 1999.

Closure of the gasworks, power station and other industries in the late 20th century left much of the Greenwich Peninsula a barren wasteland, much of it heavily contaminated […]

Redevelopment since early 1990s

In addition to the construction of the Millennium Dome, new roads were built on the eastern side of the Peninsula in anticipation of new developments […] Two phases of Greenwich Millennium Village, a mixed-tenure residential development, with a primary school, a medical centre, a nature reserve with associated education centre have been completed […]

Central Park runs through the central spine of the Peninsula, with the Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park further south providing a haven for many different species of bird, plants and insects.

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