A Quarrel and Crooms Hill

In my attempts to do something useful about the environment, I went to the Green party meeting down in Greenwich last night. Because I was tired I took a taxi to the pub on the riverside, where the others waited and we had a conversation about various protests. A lady had put together a survey asking what members wanted the Green Party to focus on. One of the options was 'Restoring the NHS'. I wondered if that wouldn't divert from green issues, because let's face it, the NHS is likely to top everything else on people's agendas. A softly spoken lady thought it should be an option, but one of our members couldn't hear her and said so. She was sitting right at the end of the table in a pub with sport blaring out on big TV screens so it was no grand surprise.

The softly spoken lady took umbrage at this, and started to explain at length why it was not OK to expect her to speak up, why we had to hear her somehow. The lady who hadn't heard flushed red,explaining that it was not a case of refusing to listen, but of an inability to hear, and after a few heated exchanges, grabbed her coat and left. I stood up, looked at the membership and said, 'that was unhelpful,' and dashed out after her. A few minutes later she was smiling, mollified though still going home. I came back in, explained that she was fine, and waited for the meeting to end. The soft-spoken lady avoided me, which was wise considering that I'm old enough and ugly enough to recognise bullies, even passive-aggressive ones.

Around a tenner on a taxi to get to the meeting? I kept putting off getting another one, weirdly guilt-ridden about wasting money on the debacle in the first place. I walked through the old naval college/maritime museum grounds and into Greenwich, trying to work out whether to eat there or come home. I still hadn't made up my mind when I found myself on Croom's Hill.

Crooms Hill winds round the west side of Greenwich park, tucked away so tightly that its easy to miss from the top, and go down Blackheath hill instead. I have been down there during the day time and it's pleasant enough. Greenwich Park itself is old and lovely, and it occurred to me that if I wanted a real adventure, surely I could climb over the railings, but the rustling trees suggested not to try, the deep dark of it grew, and the light of the houses, though ample, seemed more evocative than illuminating. I carried on up the hill, all so much prettier than in the day... And the wind moved and the night changed, and the lights seemed farther away, and I stood there thinking; 'Where am I? This is as haunted as f*ck!'

At length I rounded the point where the road curves into the common behind the parkland, and realised that I had made, not exactly a mistake, but perhaps a questionable decision; I was more likely to be pursued by muggers than spectres along here, because apart from the criss-crossing of cars on the roads it was very lonely. There was a figure in a hoody coming towards me. I walked by the road, so that if anyone tried to grab me, I was likely to be seen by several cars. The hoody person caught up.

'Is there a shop near here or anything?' He said.

I pointed to a walkway that led towards another church. 'If you go down there, you'll come to Blackheath,' I said, 'but you may not find grocery shops open now.'

'I just need something to drink,' he said, 'if it's got pubs, that's fine.'

'You're in luck then, loads of pubs and restaurants down there,' I replied. The hoody person nodded and made his way to Blackheath, I kept going until I left the common behind me. At last there appeared a bus stop and I used it; got home and looked up Croom's Hill to find this:

Crooms Hill is thought to be London’s oldest street, first mentioned by name in 918 when the land was granted to the abbey of Ghent. Its name derives from ‘crum’, meaning ‘crooked’, as it was a handy, winding cut-through from the fishing village that was Greenwich to the high fields above, now Blackheath.

Just inside the Crooms Hill gate that leads into Greenwich Park, there’s a Bronze Age cemetery – though it goes unnoticed by most visitors, who have the Royal Observatory in their sights.

Among the many names is one of Greenwich’s first developers, Sir Lancelot Lake, who was knighted at the Restoration of Charles II. He lived on Crooms Hill in a house called The Grange – best known to anyone who passes for its quirky summerhouse, a folly designed in 1672 that juts out into the street.

In fact, there’s great history behind almost every house on Crooms Hill, starting at the top with Ranger’s House, a Georgian mansion that backs onto the park and houses the Wernher Collection of art. It’s a matter of metres until you come across another significant property, the Grade II listed Macartney House. Built in 1676, it’s the only house to sit directly on Greenwich Park and past residents include Major General James Wolfe, the British army officer best known for his victory over the French in Quebec in 1759. His statue presides over the neighbouring park.

From there, mansions catch the eye on both sides of the hill. On the park side, The White House, which once belonged to the Astronomer Royal (handy for the Royal Observatory, designed by Sir Christopher Wren) sits opposite the French chateau-like Manor House, built in 1695 for the Lieutenant Governor of Greenwich Hospital (paint and wallpaper specialists Little Greene attribute their Crooms Hill Fresco design to a historical one that adorns this property).

Keep heading downhill and the park soon takes over on the right, while on the left you’ll pass Heathgate House – the street’s oldest house, built in 1635 (when Charles I was on the throne) – and Our Ladye Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church, built in 1793 to cater mainly for Catholic seamen at the nearby Royal Hospital. Just behind is St Ursula’s Convent, a private secondary school for girls that was founded in the 1870s.

The poet Cecil Day-Lewis raised his family, including Oscar-winning actor son Daniel, at No 6 Crooms Hill, a tall, elegant townhouse which he bought for £5,990 in 1957. Commemorated with a blue plaque, Cecil lived there until his death in 1982.

Before leaving for Spain to fight in the Civil War in the 1930s, George Orwell and his wife Eileen lived at No 24, in Eileen’s surgeon brother’s house. It was here in October 1939 that Orwell had a prophetic vision of war, commenting: “I was down at Greenwich the other day and looking at the river I thought what wonders a few bombs would work among the shipping.” It was while he was living in Crooms Hill that Orwell watched the first real raid of the London Blitz, watching the East India Docks set alight.

At 62 Crooms Hill (although the council mistakenly put the blue plaque on No 26) lived Benjamin Waugh – a social reformer who founded the NSPCC and worked as a minister in the slums of Victorian Greenwich.

And mysteriously, in a 1977 book called The Story of Greenwich by C M Dawson, it is claimed that “Shakespeare was here (his Dark Lady of the Sonnets may have resided in Crooms Hill) and Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl”. Intrepid local blogger The Greenwich Phantom speculates that Shakespeare’s Dark Lady was Emelia Bassano, the first English female poet.