Extensions in Deptford

Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in south-east London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Dockyards. This was a major shipbuilding waterfront and attracted Peter the Great ahead of time and psychoanalysis shipbuilding. Deptford and the docks are associated with the knighting of Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth I aboard the Golden Hind, the legend of Sir Walter Raleigh laying by the side of his cape for Elizabeth,Captain James Cook’s third voyage aboard HMS Resolution, and the obscure apparent murder of Christopher Marlowe in a house along Deptford Strand.

Though Deptford began as two small communities, one at the ford, and the extra a fishing village on the Thames, Deptford’s history and population has been mainly associated with the docks expected by Henry VIII. The two communities grew together and flourished during the period later the docks were the main administrative middle of the Royal Navy, and some grand houses in the same way as Sayes Court, home to diarist John Evelyn, and Stone House upon Lewisham Way, were erected. The Place declined as first the Royal Navy moved out, and later the flyer docks themselves declined until the last dock, Convoys Wharf, closed in 2000.

A Metropolitan Borough of Deptford existed from 1900 until 1965, when the Place became share of the newly created London Borough of Lewisham.