IF, like me, you have always assumed Northumberland Heath was named because of land connections with the Duke of Northumberland, then Erith Museum is the place for you.
Its exhibition on North Heath, as it is known locally, will soon put you right on many things about the village just up the hill from Erith.
For a start, the name comes from the Saxon word for a stream or river humbre and the name means the heath land north of the river.
And there really was a windmill in Mill Road, built in 1819 and clearly visible from the River Thames.
In 1882 the sails were damaged by gales and the mill was capped at the base. It survived until the 1980s, when it was destroyed by fire.
Its only visible remains are a curve of the base wall which can still be seen in a wall in St Paul's Road. But the house which went with it still stands and is used as a repair shop by the Wellington's furniture store.
In 1797, according to records, there were no houses at all in the area but by 1841 there were 24 homes and 100 people. By 1864 there were 490 men and 448 women and it has been growing ever since.
A workhouse for six families was built in what is now Sussex Road, in 1805, paid for by Lords Wheatley and Eardley and General Hulse.
Part of the area is still known locally as Spike Island thought to refer to the spiked wall around the workhouse and its two yards separating men and women.
In 1812 the Enclosure Act resulted in much of the land being parcelled up and owned by people such as Lord Wheatley, Frederick Barne and Lord Wynford.
An aerial photo taken in the 1980s shows how the development of North Heath almost exactly matches the division of the fields at that time.
The exhibition charts the fascinating history of North Heath and its gradual transformation from rural farmland to busy suburb.
Details include local pubs, the history of the British Bakeries plant in Belmont Road from a small local bakery in Erith to the largest in Europe and of the local school, which started in a former tiny private school building in 1872 and is now a new modern school.
The exhibition, which is free, runs until July 28.
The museum, above Erith library, in Walnut Tree Road, is open on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2.15 to 5.15pm and Saturdays from 2.15 to 4.45pm.
July 6, 2001 15:23
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