Bathway Quarter

Woolwich Town Hall is a fine example of Edwardian Baroque in the London area. The Grade-II* listed building has two monumental façades, the main entrance facing Wellington Street. The imposing entrance of Portland stone has a colonnade and "broken" pediments. Its 40 m high clock tower can be seen from afar. Next to the town hall the former site of the Grand Theatre awaits redevelopment. The façade of the Polytechnic block on Wellington Street consists largely of a Brutalist L-shaped building that continues on Polytechnic Street (various architects, led by George Trevett, 1962–63; nominated for demolition in 2016). The eastern part of the street consists of several late-Victorian commercial buildings from the 1890s. The corner building, formerly the London and Provincial Bank, and the adjacent building, now boarded up, were both designed by Henry Hudson Church. The south side of Wellington Street, with the new Public Library and council offices, is not part of the Bathway Quarter.

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  Main façade Town Hall
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  Clock tower from afar
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  Demolition Grand Theatre
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  Late-Victorian façades

The south side of this street is dominated by the Victorian brick and Portland stone façade of the Woolwich Public Baths (H.H. Church, 1892–94). The building had five entrances (separate entrances for women and first and second-class men) and contained two large swinging pools, 52 slipper baths (private baths), a wash house and a laundry. The baths were modernized around 1960 and closed in 1982, after which it was used as a community centre and then as a students' union of the University of Greenwich. After the departure of the university from Woolwich, it has served as an administrative building and a rehearsal studio for drama students. Until recently, all the buildings on the north side of the street were part of the municipal enclave. The Magistrates' Court building (John Dixon Butler, 1911–12) had its main entrance on Market Street. The neo-classical building next to it was the rear elevation of the Woolwich Public Library, designed by H.H. Church in 1897 and built in 1900-01. Adjacent, a soup kitchen of 1913-14 was converted into a reading room for the library in 1979. The library closed in 2011 and was relocated consequently at The Woolwich Centre, opposite the town hall on Wellington Street. For the building on the corner of Polytechnic Street, see below.[15]

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  Public Baths
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  Detail Public Baths
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  Former Magistrates' Court
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  Rear elevation Public Library

The failed Market House of 1810 was replaced by the Police Court in 1840, and then by the Magistrates' Court in 1910. The Police Station next door made room for the Public Library, designed by H.H. Church in 1897 and opened by Lord Avebury in 1901. It features a busy façade of red brick and Portland stone with a large bay window. The plinth of red Aberdeen granite contains a commemoration stone with a dedication and the names of the Woolwich Board of Health, which helped establishing the library. The Old Town Hall further down the road was almost identical with the Police Court, but unlike the latter it survived: a handsome classical structure with a pediment below which "Town Hall" is inscribed (Th. Kinton & G.H. Graham, 1841–42). On the opposite corner with Polytechnic Street stood the Duke of Wellington public house, which in 1935 had to make room for a new lecture hall of the Woolwich Polytechnic. The hall was designed by the head of the Polytechnic building department, James H. Anderson, with classic proportions and Bath stone detailing to mirror the Old Town Hall across the street. Further east and slightly set back, a large detached house from 1808 was owned by the architect Henry Hudson Church who enlarged it in 1860. In 1891 Church incorporated it in the original building of Woolwich Polytechnic. The house survived numerous proposals for rebuilding "like a small nut in a large lump of toffee". The brick-and-terracotta Polytechnic building has lost its western bay, two Baroque turrets and other flourishes. Behind the façade, Church's house can still be admired, as well as an 1892 gymnasium with an open wooden-trussed roof. For the corner building, see Thomas Street below. The north side of Calderwood Street is not included in the designated conservation area.[16]

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  Old Public Library
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  Old Town Hall
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  Polytechnic Hall
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  Oldest Polytechnic building

The red-brick gable of Woolwich Town Hall stretches along the southwestern section of Market Street. The Italianate clock tower near the Wellington Street corner rises up 40 meters and has rich ornaments in white stone. The side entrance of the town hall further down the road is ornamented with military and maritime symbols. Adjacent is the red-brick west façade of the Woolwich Public Baths, simpler than the main façade on Bathway, this section being the second-class part. The façade of the former Magistrates' Court (John Dixon Butler, 1911–12, now a residential building) takes up the northwestern section of the street. On the east side of Market Street only the former police station (J.D. Butler, 1909–10) and a row of early Victorian houses are included in the Bathway Quarter conservation area. Other buildings such as the Woolwich Central Health Centre and the Jobcentre Plus are not.

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  Town Hall clock tower
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  Town Hall entrance, detail
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  Former Magistrates' Court
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  Victorian houses & police station

The largely post-war Woolwich Grand Theatre was demolished in 2015, the vacant site offering surprising views of the back of Woolwich Town Hall. Adjacent to the construction site, a modest town hall annex was added in 1929–30.[17] A tapering square brick chimney (25 m tall) towers over the former wash house and laundry of the Woolwich Public Baths. The cream-coloured tiles on the lower part of the building date from a 1959-60 modernization campaign. North of Bathway, a richly-ornamented corner building designed by H.H. Church in 1892 served as the county court, which by that time also made use of the Old Town Hall, further north. The building is of red brick dressed with stone and terracotta decorations. Its Dutch gables are repeated in the almost simultaneously-built Public Baths. The east side of the street is entirely occupied by former Polytechnic buildings. From north to south: the Polytechnic Lecture Hall (J.H. Anderson, 1935–36), the Art and Science School (H.H. Church, 1898), and the Brutalist L-shaped building that continues on Wellington Street (various architects, led by George Trevett, 1962–63). The latter building will be demolished in the Island Site plans, while the Art and Science School is to be adapted for residential use; its entrance opposite Bathway will give access to the future entertainment area inside the block. The sculpted entrance of Portland stone is enriched by a bust of Athena and attributes of music and architecture.[18]

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  View from Calderwood Street
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  Town Hall annex building
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  Old county court building
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  Art and Science School

On the corner of Wellington Street stands the former London and Provincial Bank, now a bookmaker's shop (H. H. Church, 1891–92). The Earl of Chatham public house was begun around 1805 by the Powis brothers, who were brewers themselves, but rebuilt in 1898, probably after a design by Church. Adjacent to it is another Brutalist extension of the Woolwich Polytechnic (various architects, led by George Trevett, 1963–64), then two 1930s school buildings (J. H. Anderson, 1937, and Figgis & Munby, 1931), and on the corner of Calderwood Street the Rotunda building. This building was designed by T.P. Figgis and A. E. Munby. The grand building in Portland stone with a full-height circular hall lit by a domical lantern, was ceremonially opened in June 1917, in the middle of war.[19] In the Island Site plans the 1960s building and the one from 1937 will be replaced by new commercial and residential buildings; the other buildings will be restored with the exception of the Earl of Chatham, which is the only building not owned by the Powis Street Estate.[20]

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  Former bank, now Jennings
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  Earl of Chatham pub
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  Polytechnic building
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  Rotunda Building