In 1887 Bostall Farm was bought by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society and run to provide vegetables for the Co-op shops and food for the Society’s horses and pigs. By 1899 it had been decided to buy some neighbouring land, Suffolk Place Farm, and develop it all for housing. This 1893 map shows the two farmhouses. This 1914 map shows the district with large areas built up. In the period 1900-1914, 1,052 homes were constructed.
The Bostall Estate was constructed by the RACS Works Department, which moved in its entirety from the Society’s headquarters in Woolwich to the site. Some necessary natural resources were available on site: sand, ballast, chalk and water. The chalk was mined on site.
In 1914, when the estate was complete, the workshops were dismantled, the shaft to the chalk mine was capped with a steel grill and the Works Department moved back to their headquarters in Powis Street, Woolwich.
The final addition to the mine was made in 1914 when an entrance was dug at the side of Federation Hall (the works canteen which was still extant in 1975) to enable the underground tunnels to be used as a WW1 air-raid shelter. The mines are now closed but the Kent Archaeological Society paper has a plan showing them to have been quite extensive and close to Federation Road, possibly where the caravan park now is.
Source: Kent Archaeological Society.
Everyone loves a hidden tunnel. For more see William Lyttle, the Mole man.
Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk
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