Standing in Granny’s footsteps.

Have you ever visited a place and stood on the same spot as one of your ancestors. You look around yourself and either its as they would have seen it or as in my case its now totally disfigured. Three generations of my family were costermongers/fishmongers on Beresford Square, Woolwich. Recently I visited Woolwich and from memory and old photographs I was able to stand exactly where their stall stood. But Woolwich is not as it was. Behind me to the west on the high pavement the Salutation Arms and Salutation Alley had been replaced by a supermarket and retail units. On the east the signs on the buildings are gone but the buildings are still there with a pub the Ordnance-Old Gun Pit the only sign of the past. The square is pedestrianised to allow food stalls and clothing stalls to replace the traditional fishmongers and green grocers' stalls and to the south is the entrance to Greens End and Powis Street.

But to the north is the most altered scene. The Royal Arsenal main gate is now isolated from the Royal Arsenal site by a dual carriage way of the new Plumstead Road. The road has taken up the space that was the high brick boundary wall Avenue H houses inside the boundary and Avenue H itself. Now there is a new boundary that allows you to see into the Arsenal site a few remaining buildings refurbished as offices, pubs and restaurants. They are now overshadowed by multi-story residential buildings of modern construction clad in materials that do not reflect the bricks, stone and slates of the historic listed buildings.

Gran, Great Gran and Great x 2 Grandad are probably all turning in their graves.