Abbey Wood is an area in southeast London, England, straddling the border between the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Bexley. It is located east of Charing Cross.
Toponymy
The area takes its name from Lesnes Abbey Woods, located to the east, which once belonged to the monks of Lesnes Abbey.
Development
The Abbey of St Mary and St Thomas the Martyr at Lesnes (or Lesnes Abbey) was founded in 1178 by Richard de Luci, Chief Justiciar of England. The Abbot of Lesnes Abbey was an important local landlord, and took a leading part in draining the marshland. However, this and the cost of maintaining river embankments was one of the reasons given for the Abbey's chronic financial difficulties. It never became a large community, and was closed by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525, under a licence to suppress monasteries of less than seven inmates. It was one of the first monasteries to be closed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1524, and the monastic buildings were all pulled down, except for the Abbot's Lodging. Henry Cooke acquired the site in 1541 and it eventually passed to Sir John Hippersley who salvaged building materials, before selling the property to Thomas Hawes of London in 1632. It was then bequeathed to Christ's Hospital in 1633.
Abbey Wood railway station was opened in 1849, immediately to the north of the area now known as "The Village", built where Knee Hill became Harrow Manorway. Contemporary maps show Knee Hill as a minor track compared with a more major pathway through the centre of the existing woods. The Village consisted of a dozen or so cottages, and two pubs, the Abbey Arms (next to the railway station) and the Harrow Inn (demolished in 2009). The Harrow Inn which was located on the Kent side of Abbey Wood was the place where live bands would play in their hall; it was also the scene of a nightly migration as drinkers would relocate to the Abbey Arms each night, as Kentish closing times used to be 10.30pm whilst the Abbey Arms, which was in London, closed at 11 o'clock.
Abbey Wood was suggested as a site for a cemetery serving east London at a time of burial crisis in the capital. When the station was new, Edwin Chadwick proposed the closure of all existing burial grounds in the vicinity of London other than the privately owned Kensal Green Cemetery northwest of the city, which was to be nationalised and greatly enlarged to provide a single burial ground for west London, while a large tract of land on the Thames around southeast of London in Abbey Wood was to become a single burial ground for east London. The Treasury was sceptical that Chadwick's scheme would ever be financially viable, and it was widely unpopular. Although the Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 authorised the scheme, it was abandoned in 1852.
The Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society (RACS) owned two farms on the hillside to the south of The Village; between 1900 and 1930, the RACE built the Bostall Estate. Once known as "Tin Check Island" after the Society's dividend system, and known locally as "The Co-op Estate", this has streets named after Co-operative themes (Alexander McLeod, the first secretary of the RACS, Rochdale, Robert Owen, Congress), a school and shops but, like much social housing of the period, no public houses. The housing is largely traditional of the "two-up, two-down" design, in distinctive yellow London brick, with gardens to the front and rear.
Between 1955 and 1959, the London County Council built the Abbey Estate starting with one road south of the railway and later extending on the northern side on former Royal Arsenal marshland. Predominantly conventional brick houses with gardens, at first there were no shops or pubs, later equipped with a few shops and pubs together with schools and open spaces were added. Transport was non-existent at first until one bus, the route 180 was added after the building of Eynsham bridge. The estate was first used to rehouse people from Dockhead and Peckham then London's East End. The main through-road is Eynsham Drive.
In the mid-1960s,the Greater London Council began building the first phase of Thamesmead on more ex-Royal Arsenal land, north-east of Abbey Wood station. The original railway level crossing was replaced by a flyover.
Abbey Wood benefited from the opening of the DLR station at Woolwich Arsenal, whilst the next stage in the development of the area was the construction of Crossrail, a development tipped to encourage the growth of local house prices. Crossrail, renamed The Elizabeth line, opened in 2022, with travel times of 11 minutes to Canary Wharf and 25 minutes to Bond Street.