About the Royal Arsenal History Website (RAH)
Introduction
Welcome to the Royal Arsenal History website, where we strive to promote and preserve the rich history of the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich and Thamesmead.
My name is Steven Peterson, and as the author of this website, I am passionate about uncovering and sharing the hidden stories of this historic area.
Uncovering the Secret City: Exploring Arsenal Hidden History
Growing up in Thamesmead in the late 1980s and early 90s, I had a passion for exploring the east end of the Royal Arsenal. During the summer holidays, I participated in a camping adventure scheme run by the metropolitan police called Thamesmead Adventure, located in the Royal Arsenal north proof butt area near the danger building remains.
I was fascinated by the Royal Arsenal's ruins and would spend my free time digging up live bullets, empty shells, grenade shrapnel, and cannonballs. I wanted to know the ins and outs of the Royal Arsenal and spent my time exploring and mapping each area out in my head, from bomb shelters to railway tracks to the odd-shaped triangle blast mounds of the danger buildings. It was the ultimate adventure, exploration and excavation, looking for the next unusual find with no answer to what it was, buried under decades worth of wilderness. I can only describe it as "a lost city", later confirmed as "what once was" one of the largest and most dangerous secret factories in the world.
From Ruins to Reveal: Unearthing the secret Past of Thamesmead
In 1995, I attended the Woolwich walk when the Royal Arsenal was open to the public for the first time ever for one day on the western side of the Royal Arsenal. I always had an interest in the history of the area, there were so many features from the Royal Arsenal left in Thamesmead, such as Tump 53 and Tump 39 and the firing range walls at butts wood near Waterfield school (Woolwich Poly today). Most of the Royal Arsenal ruins were located behind Twin Tumps way in the royal arsenal wasteland towards Woolwich. No one could tell me the answers I needed about the royal arsenal's connection with Thamesmead, there was no mention of it in schools or local libraries.
RAH Website creation: A tribute to Ray Fordham
My initial research started on Thamesmead east firing ranges and the Tumps (magazines). I took a day off work and decided to answer some of my own questions at the Greenwich heritage centre where I met Ray Fordham. Ray was so helpful with the information that I needed, I decided to create this website on his behalf the next day. Ray Fordham worked in the Royal Arsenal since he was 16 until the day the royal arsenal closed its doors in 1994. Sadly, Ray Fordham passed away in 2021, and I dedicate this website to him.
Preserving the Past: Royal Arsenal Woolwich Historical Society
Concerned employees, including Ray Fordham, formed the Royal Arsenal Woolwich Historical Society (RAWHS) and set about ensuring the preservation of some two shipping container loads of artefacts and records. It's not widely known that the Royal Arsenal has a historical Society that amongst many other things and events for 40 years, sadly it wound down in 2017 and is no more.
This website is now the last hope of recoding history before its forgotten and is now over ten years old. I have been adding information collected and passed over to me by Ray Fordham over the last decade, so that this information can be passed on to future generations. I must add a special mention and thanks to Ian Bull, who has been a huge help in answering many questions on my research, especially in the Royal Arsenal Railway areas. Ian has provided excellent video presentations and maps. He was also a member of RAWHS and works with me to help save and promote RAH. Along the research journey, myself, Ian and Ray produced a number of RAH events and local history tours.
Today RAH consists of myself, Ian Bull and all our RAH Facebook members.
Saving and Promoting History with Social Media
From researching Thamesmead's hidden history, I realised that there was a need for a larger audience and a platform to share the history with the public. In 2012 I decided to create the Thamesmead SE28 All Stages Facebook group, this is still active today and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ThamesmeadSE28
This new Facebook group was an opportunity to bring the Thamesmead community spirit to life as it seem to have lost its spark and disconnected. This was a great success and provided a place for people to share their memories, experiences and photos of the area, as well as learn more about its history and bring the community together.
Today, the group has over tens of thousands members and has amassed thousands of photos and countless posts since its creation. The Facebook group's search tool is also a great resource for researching Thamesmead's history and serves as a local research archive.
A few years later, I created the Royal Arsenal History (RAH) Facebook group, which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/royal.arsenal.history.
This group is dedicated to capturing history before it is lost and provides a valuable resource for family research, rare videos, photos, and documents covering 500 years of history from Woolwich Arsenal to Thamesmead and local areas. Today, this group has thousand of members to help out with any research
A New Book: The Town of Tomorrow; 50 Years of Thamesmead
A Labour of Love in 2019, I worked tirelessly for months with Peter Chadwick, Ben Weaver to create the 50th Anniversary book I wanted to see, incorporating the experience from Thamesmead All Stage Facebook group, personal experiences growing up and including as much Royal Arsenal History I could. Sourcing rare photos and proof reading captions. From researching the Royal Arsenal and Thamesmead, I had enough information for more than one book. The book was a success and a very special thanks was added at the back of the book for my efforts.
In 2022, I launched the RAH YouTube channel at
https://www.youtube.com/@royal-arsenal-history to share rare Woolwich Arsenal history and Thamesmead-related content with a wider audience.
Unearthing the Secret City
The ultimate goal of the RAH Facebook group is to collect enough information and photos of the Royal Arsenal to unearth "the Secret City" and map each photo to each area, assigning map overlays on streets in order to bring forgotten history to Woolwich and Thamesmead. The group aims to help identify and preserve remaining Royal Arsenal features and buildings, cataloguing the Royal Arsenal's history and bringing to public attention the importance of the Royal Arsenal.
The story of the Royal Arsenal is one of endeavour, ingenuity, innovation, and human industry through the experiences of the ordinary women and men, the military, the craft-masters, and the innovators, who together made the Royal Arsenal known across the globe.
From this history, a new town called Thamesmead was created from the remaining Royal Arsenal wilderness, and we aim to document how this town has evolved over time.
Thank you
Thank you for visiting our website and I hope you find the information provided here interesting and informative.
I encourage you to join our Facebook group and YouTube channel for more updates and to contribute to the preservation and promotion of the Royal Arsenal's history.