Royal Arsenal - London - Places of Interest

Look at street maps of London and you’ll see an area between the south bank of the River Thames, Thamesmead West and Woolwich Arsenal that has been left completely white. This ’secret’ part of London was the home since 1671 of the Royal Arsenal, Britain’s largest centre for the manufacture of military equipment and munitions and also the place where Arsenal Football Club began, hence the club’s nickname The Gunners.

The ownership of the whole 76 acre site was transfered in 1997 from the Ministry of Defence to the London Development Agency and the site is being converted into 4,200 homes, leisure facilities including restaurants, bars and shops, cinemas and light industrial use that should all be completed by 2015. In 2001 a new £15 million Royal Artillery Museum, named Firepower was opened. I haven’t been there yet but it looks pretty impressive, they’re currently on a winter opening schedule of only three days a week.

The Royal Arsenal expanded greatly due to the Crimean and First World War’s and at its peak employed 80,000 people. It was a group of these workers who formed the football club Arsenal. In the 1720’s a collection of workshops called Artificers Court and Basin Court were built on the site and in 1764 a sundial was put up over the entrance to what became known as Dial Square. This still survives today.

In 1886 some armaments workers formed a team called Dial Square and played their early games on Plumstead Common not far away. On Christmas Day 1886 they voted to change the name to Royal Arsenal and the team carried on as that until 1891 when they became Woolwich Arsenal, finally becoming just Arsenal Football Club when they moved to the Highbury area in 1913. When Arsenal moved to their new Emirates Stadium in 2006 they asked the Royal Artillery Museum if any guns were available to be placed at the new stadium’s entrance. The museum suppiled two 32 pound smooth bore cast iron guns on iron carriages that were made at Royal Arsenal in 1859.

The new Royal Arsenal development should be a big success. Its directly across the river from London City Airport and a short trip down stream from Greenwich, Canary Wharf and North Greenwich where the Dome is. Its certainly not a glamorous part of town at the moment, but if you see how areas further west along the river have changed in ten years, it could be once the regeneration is finished in 2015. One thing that might spoil the new neighbourhood is that its right near Belmarsh maximum security prison which opened in 1991 and houses lots of Britain’s terrorist and high security prisoners.

If you want to see where the greatest football club in the world originated take the SouthEastern train from Charing Cross to Woolwich Arsenal station.