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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
hundred yards of the “Lord Howick” tavern, which stands at the S.W. 
corner of the Dock Yard. Then, with a sweep to the S.E., passing by the 
railroad foot-bridge and the top of Prospect Place, we approach the west 
corner of the Marine Barracks, overpassing Godfrey Street a few yards. 
Prom this point we make a straight line, taking in the oak trees of the 
garden of “ Bose Mount” (east of Pelliper Boad), over the “ Green Hill” 
to the Observatory. Prom here another straight line runs to about the 
middle of the wall of Charlton Cemetery : a bend to the N.W. now brings 
us to the corner of Charlton Park : then along the high-road to Charlton 
village, round the “ Pair Field/* by St Paul’s church, along the bank of 
great trees running first northward and then more to the east, and finally 
striking the Greenwich road at or near the toll-gate from which we started. 
Within this boundary will still be found in many places old trees which formed 
part of the wood, and some names yet subsist which recall the nature of 
the ground, as Wood Street, Woodland Terrace, the Woodman, &c. A 
road, it will be seen, winds through the Hanging Wood from Woolwich 
Common to the Greenwich highway. This, I think, passed by the “ South- 
west-Gate Guard” to Little Heath, on to Upper Woodland Terrace, and 
thence between the two hills figured on the map, of which the most eastward 
is now covered with houses, embracing Trafalgar Street, Prospect Place, &c., 
and the other still in its original form of a grassy knoll. 
Prom the old newspapers of the last century we gather many notices of 
depredations in and about Hanging Wood. A series of paragraphs relating 
to Woolwich, collected from the public journals from 1690 to 1844, and 
now deposited in the British Museum, is a fruitful source of such relations 
and of every kind of news regarding this locality.* Under 1732 we read : 
“ On Sunday morning the Bev. Mr Bichardson, going from Lewisham to 
preach at Woolwich, was attacked by a foot-pad in Hanging Wood, who 
robbed him of a guinea, leaving him but two-pence, and then made off.”— 
(fol. 1). In January 1762 : “Several people have been robbed this week 
in Hanging Wood near Woolwich.”—(fol. Ivo.) 1782: “Three men 
robbed a Boatswain of a man-of-war, near Hanging Wood, of his watch and 
ten guineas, but some gentlemen coming up, they took to the Wood,” &c. 
(fol. 3). 1812: “ On Tuesday last a poor boy was murdered in a wood 
near Woolwich by a ruffian who, having robbed his master and being 
pursued, fled for refuge to the wood, where being seen by the boy, the 
latter screamed with terror of him, on which the villain seized and strangled 
him.”—(fol. 4). 
The cliff which runs from the top of Upper Woodland Terrace in a N.W. 
direction is very full of fossils. The deposit overlies the Sand bed. 
Examples of the shells &c. found here and in the neighbourhood, including 
those of the Chalk, may be seen at the Geological Museum in Jermyn 
Street or in the Museum of the Boyal Artillery Institution. Much .valuable 
information on the subject is contained in the 4th Yol. of the Transactions 
of the Geological Society, by Dr Buckland and others. Mylne's Geological 
Map of the neighbourhood of London should also be consulted. 
* Pressmark, “579, 1. 19, Newspaper Paragraphs relating to Woolwich: folio.” As we shall 
often have to quote from this volume, we will for brevity use the initials “ N.P.,” adding the 
folio. 
