Visiting the Royal Arsenal – and other important Arsenal sites south of the river

In this guest post, Arsenal fan and author of Tears at the Bombonera, Christopher Hylland, retraces the roots of Arsenal around Woolwich and Plumstead in South-East London. This post originally appeared in the Arsenal Norway fanzine.

For the best part of the last decade, I have been wanting to visit the Royal Arsenal and other sites around Woolwich which played their part in the foundation of the football club three generations of my family came to support. Whilst my English family come from North London and I have no familial link to the south-east of the capital, I felt it was time to visit a place that’s central to my relationship with football.

For me, I felt compelled to make a pilgrimage to the areas of Woolwich and Plumstead in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It was a way of paying respect to the area that gave birth to the football club that has dominated my life since 1995, the only consistent throughout the last 25 years.

In 2012, a book called Woolwich Arsenal FC: 1893-1915 (The Club That Changed Football) was released. The authors – Tony Attwood, Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews – appeared on podcasts and promoted the book online. I was sold. The same year Mark Andrews released his solo project, The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal. These two books made me want to visit the old stomping grounds of the workers of the Royal Arsenal factories, the people who made up the playing staff and the crowd in attendance at the various places The Arsenal played before our move to Highbury.

Note: in 2018 Mark Andrews, Andy Kelly and Tim Stillman released a third book called Royal Arsenal: Champions of the South (available at Legends Publishing).

In early March 2020, I travelled from Oslo to London to watch some football and to catch up with friends from school and a mate I’d met when living in Buenos Aires. I was already staying south of the river so my journey to Woolwich on the Monday wasn’t too long. Ironically, part of the reason The Arsenal ended up moving north of the river to Highbury in 1913 was that Woolwich was inaccessible around the turn of the 20th Century. Not only were the club at a huge disadvantage when compared to their London rivals, it wasn’t financially viable long-term. Something had to give.

Arsenal nearly became history

Having avoided relegation in the 1909/1910 First Division, Woolwich Arsenal were in dire straits and threatened with bankruptcy. Attendances were falling due to a number of concurrent reasons. Other clubs came into existence in south London at the same time as fewer people were employed in the armaments’ factories (production of torpedos, for example, had been moved to Scotland). The money wasn’t coming in as it had done before and the League were demanding assurances that the club would be able to fulfill its fixtures in the soon-to-start 1910/11 campaign (much like Bolton and Bury experienced at the start of the 2019/20 season). 

In April 1910, seven thousands shares in the club were issued to try and help the club stay afloat. Tottenham Hotspur bought one share and Glasgow Rangers bought two in an attempt to help keep the club operating. But the scheme failed and the future looked bleak.

A man named Henry Norris (later Sir Henry) stepped in. He was Mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Fulham and owned Fulham FC in the Second Division and had been following events in Woolwich. When the share-issue failed, he made his move. Norris had wanted to merge Fulham and Woolwich Arsenal to create Fulham Arsenal FC, so desperate was he to have his team play in the First Division. The League decreed that because it would be Woolwich Arsenal being wound up, their place in the first division would be given to someone else and Fulham Arsenal FC would have to play in the second tier (as Fulham FC had done in the 1909/10 season).

Back to the drawing board for Norris. An alternative was to move Woolwich Arsenal FC to Craven Cottage: Norris would then have two teams playing at his ground on alternate Saturdays. With the pressure of assurances from the League mounting, at the last minute Norris ensured that Woolwich Arsenal would stay at the Manor Ground for the 1910/1911 season: a season that saw the club finish 10th. Two years later the club did move, not to Fulham but to Islington and Arsenal Stadium at Highbury. Had it not been for Sir Henry Norris, we all would’ve supported other clubs and any pilgrimage to Woolwich would be meaningless.

107 years later

Luckily for me, transport links have improved since 1913. I made my way by bus from East Dulwich to Woolwich Arsenal DLR station. This was one of the places on my list of sites to visit as it was here, in the Royal Oak pub (since knocked down), that the club adopted the name Royal Arsenal. The club had already played their first match on 11th December 1886 on the Isle of Dogs under the name Dial Square FC. Captained by 23-year old David Danskin, Eastern Wanderers were beaten 6-0.

From the Woolwich Arsenal DLR station I walked to the site of the Royal Arsenal factories. Crossing Beresford Square where the Woolwich market comes to life every weekend. On the northern edge of the square is the old gatehouse entrance to the Royal Arsenal. The building now stands isolated with a busy road separating her from the rest of the factory site. But the building is grand nonetheless and if you look closely you will see the crest showing three cannons pointing west; a crest that could easily pass for an early club crest. This was the crest of the Board of Ordnance, the equivalent to today’s Ministry of Defence.

Crossing the road behind the gatehouse I arrived at the redeveloped site of Royal Arsenal. The site is vast and around the time of the First World War stretched across an area of 1,285 acres (two square miles) at its peak, an area 50% bigger than New York’s Central Park. Employing 80,000 people, it was known as ‘the Secret City’. By this time the football club had moved from the area, of course, but around at the end of the 19th Century the arsenal employed a large number of people, the very same people who would play for and watch the nascent football club later to become Arsenal FC.

The site was first used in 1512 when Henry VIII commissioned the building of the Great Harry, also known as Henry Grace à Dieu, the King’s flagship. In the 1700s production of weapons and ammunition as well as research and development of new arms took place there. One of the workshops on site was that of Dial Square, so called because above the entrance gate a sundial had been fixed in 1764. The sundial is still there and today a pub called Dial Arch occupies the space. After an hour of walking around the site I popped in here for a pint. When on holiday, 11am is not too early for a beer and the 3.7% Young’s London Original – a fitting name – went down very well. Tourism is tiring.

All of the buildings – most from the early 18th Century – are listed, meaning that they are protected from destruction. The area has been tastefully redeveloped into flats with development ongoing. With a view from the south bank of the Thames, I imagine prices are rather steep. As you walk around the buildings a few information boards are plotted around providing information on the history of the site, and several of them reference the football club’s early days. According to Arsenal historians Mark Andrews and Andy Kelly, however, much of the information is inaccurate. Reading on one of the boards that the football section was formed in 1896, it became clear that the information was not to be fully trusted. Such a shame, because it is a massive missed opportunity. Why not get the Arsenal historians, the people who know what they’re talking about, to write the content for these boards? The site could be used as an outdoor museum with information and images that historians and Arsenal fans alike to be proud of. 

In my opinion, the club has some responsibility to ensure the site which birthed the modern day superclub has, at the very least, accurate information. It was disappointing to see how little information about Arsenal FC’s history was available, not to mention the quality of it (or lack thereof). For example, a small monument and information board opposite the entrance of the old Dial Square gun machining factory are dirty and partially hidden by planted bushes. ‘The gardeners must have been Spurs fans’, someone commented. 

The Royal Arsenal factories – of which Dial Square was but one – represented the birth and the impetus for The Arsenal, as well as the place where tens of thousands of people who watched and played for the club spent the vast majority of their time on a day-to-day basis. Manufacturing weapons at a time of war (ref: the Second Boer War, 1899-1902) didn’t leave much time for leisure pursuits, so the fact that so many chose to spend their time watching Royal Arsenal (later renamed Woolwich Arsenal) hints at an infatuation comparable to that we experience over a century later. 

The tour continues: on to Plumstead

It took no more than 15 minutes to walk from the old Dial Square to the eastern part of Woolwich called Plumstead. At Plumstead Common are a number of other important parts of the Royal Arsenal tour. 

On the corner of the Plumstead Common (if you’re arriving from Woolwich as I had done) you first arrive at a building on the corner of Plumstead Common Road and St Margarets Grove. Once upon a time, this was the Prince of Wales pub, another important piece in the early Arsenal puzzle. Behind the pub, on the common, is where Dial Square Cricket Club would regularly play their matches and it was in the pub that they took the decision to form a football division in October 1886. Seemingly by default the football club adopted the cricket club’s name Dial Square, if only for one game. 

The name was changed to Royal Arsenal in December 1886 and a month later Danskin’s boys played their first homegame on Plumstead Common (and their first game as Royal Arsenal), beating local team Erith 6-1 in on 8th January 1887. Behind the old Prince of Wales pub is an information board talking about the park in general and its conservation of animals as well as a mention for Royal Arsenal FC. 

I made my way to the middle of the common to where the tennis courts and bowling green is today. With the sound of a tennis ball behind lashed back and forth by an old couple with thick east London accents, I tried to picture what a football pitch in the late 1800s would’ve looked like. With no evidence that such an important football match ever took place, it’s not easy. Again, another missed opportunity to mark history.

Another pub, which I unfortunately didn’t have time to visit, was The Star Inn. The pub faces the common and was used as the first home dressing room for the game against Erith. It’s on the list for the next visit.

But I was a bit pushed for time, I had a flight to catch (I should’ve gone on the Sunday despite the hangover). My next stop was Hector Street. It took no more than five minutes to walk to the residential area where the Invicta Ground used to be. I was ticking the old grounds off in reverse order, simply because the logistics were such. 

In one of the gardens in Hector Street you can still see the concrete terracing where fans would have stood between 1890 and 1893 to see the club transition from an amateur to a professional club. I wasn’t sure which house it was so I was trying to look through garden fences to work out where these terraces might be hiding. An old lady, who had come out of her terraced house to check the letterbox, saw me and must’ve thought my actions looked suspicious, because she stayed looking at me through the door until I had gone. Again, had I had more time I might’ve started asking some of the neighbours about it. Again, next time.

The club only spent three years here. In 1893, Invicta’s landlord demanded a higher rent taking advantage of the club’s growth and success. The club couldn’t pay the new rent demanded, almost double the original rate, and instead bought the Manor Ground where it had played between 1888 and 1890. The club – now called Woolwich Arsenal, after changing the name at the end of the 1892/93 season – would develop the Manor Ground, adding a main stand and terracing for the average 6,000 crowd.

The Manor Ground and the Sportsman Ground were my next stops. Another 5-10 minutes’ walk from Hector Street, the two sit side by side at Plumstead Marshes. The Sportsman Ground is now a prison (HMP Thamesmead), whereas the Manor Ground is an open, marshy plot of land waiting to be redeveloped by the same company that redeveloped Royal Arsenal, the Berkeley Group. There is nothing to see here, but paying a visit now and then again in a few years will be interesting, if anything to see the area change. Hopefully, the developers learn from mistakes made at their Royal Arsenal Riverside site and take the opportunity to talk to Arsenal historians this time around to mark the site of the Manor Ground appropriately.

Royal Arsenal FC played at Plumstead Marshes for six months. The Sportsman Ground took its name from the Sportsman Pub which was used by the players. When it flooded in 1888 they moved next door to Manor Field, later renamed Manor Ground, using another pub for dressing rooms, the Railway Tavern. Despite the name change (from Manor Field to Manor Ground), it was still just a field and spectators would climb on to the mound of earth which covered sewer pipes to watch the game. Moving to the Invicta Ground allowed the club to provide better facilities, namely a stand, terracing and changing rooms for the players. But they’d only be away for three seasons before coming back to the Manor Ground.

Having taken a few pictures (essentially of nothing, just an empty wasteland), I made my way back to Woolwich Arsenal DLR. I had time for a quick pint in the Plumstead Radical Club, a place where a number of former players were members and where some club events were held. The building adjoins a restaurant which used to be the Lord Derby pub, another historic building in the club’s past which has changed hands and become something else.

Walking into a members only club at midday on a Monday, you don’t expect to meet many people. I didn’t know it was a members only club so when I ordered a pint of John Smith’s the barman asked if I was a member. Saying I wasn’t from the area, just visiting for the day, he pulled my pint and we had a chat. I told him I was doing a pilgrimage of the area as an Arsenal fan to which he replied that he supported a different team in North London. ‘What do you think of it around here?’ he asked, with a smirk on his face. I don’t think he was expecting me to compare the area with Upper Street and the rest of Islington Borough, our new home, but I dodged the question skillfully. 

From Plumstead Radical Club through Plumstead’s council estates, I made it back to the DLR to take a train to the airport. Today’s trip was over but a renewed interest in the history of our club and a motivation reignited to re-read the history books in my bookcase and any new books on the topic. Ahead of your next trip to the super-modern Emirates Stadium, consider a two/three-hour tour of where it all began, because without our stint in Woolwich and Plumstead and the trials and tribulations of that era, which English club would you be supporting today?

If you should want to make the same trip, here is a suggested itinerary:

1. Assuming that you arrive at Woolwich Arsenal DLR, take a step back from the station and picture the Royal Oak Public House which occupied that land previously
2. Walk across Beresford Square to the Royal Arsenal gatehouse before crossing the road to the new development of Royal Arsenal Riverside
3. Walk around the old munitions site and down to the Thames reading the information boards (take all info with a pinch of salt!): all of this area was a part of the Royal Arsenal site
4. Have a pint and/or lunch at Dial Arch pub, walking through the gatehouse to the old Dial Square workshop where many of the club’s first players worked
5. From Royal Arsenal, walk to Plumstead Common, approaching from St Margarets Grove/Plumstead Common Road to see the old Prince of Wales pub (If you take Burrage Road, you’ll see the Lord Raglan pub is on the way. It was here that “the original first year records and minutes were destroyed by the club’s first centre back Richard Price while engaged in drunken revelry,” as Mark Andrews writes)
6. Pop in The Star Inn on Plumstead Common Road, opposite the common: Arsenal’s first home changing rooms
7. Walk to Hector Street: on the corner of Hector Street and Mineral Street is where the Invicta Ground was between 1890 and 1896
8. Walk to the site of the old Manor Ground and Sportsman Ground (where HMP Thamesmead prison is today)

If you’re interested in more Arsenal history, follow…

Tony Attwood on Twitter: @UntoldArsenal

Andy Kelly on Twitter: @Gooner_AK

Mark Andrews: @RoyalArsenalMRA

Tim Stillman: @stillberto 

Arsenal History: @ArsenalHistory_

http://www.thearsenalhistory.com

http://www.thearsenalhistory.com/?p=10713 Mark Andrews’ and Andy Kelly’s original trip around Woolwich which provided the inspiration for my walking tour

http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk