Charlton

1:33pm Wednesday 20th June 2007

Sitting proudly overlooking the Thames, Charlton is nowadays best known as the home of a Premiership football team.

However, the suburb's history goes back a long way before 1905 when Charlton Athletic was founded.

Traces of an Iron Age community were unearthed in the 1920s when a hill fort was excavated in what is now Maryon Park. Evidence was also found at the site of earlier Stone Age people.

The name Charlton is believed to derive from churl town', meaning a settlement of churls, or free labourers.

Charlton was essentially a Kentish village until the 1930s and still retains some of its village charm today.

This is especially evident around Charlton House, its former manor house. Built in the early 17th century by Adam Newton, the mansion is one of the finest examples of surviving Jacobean architecture in the country and unique in London.

Adjacent to the house are the parish church, stables, summer house and Charlton Park the surviving part of the original grounds.

A seventeenth century cottage (Poplar Cottage) remains in Charlton Road as a reminder of Charlton's rural past.

An industrial zone, known as New Charlton, developed along the riverside in the 19th century. By the 1930s the area was thriving, but has since declined with most of the factories closing down.

Now a London suburb within the borough of Greenwich and surrounded by pre-war and post-war development, Charlton has excellent views of the Thames and Docklands.

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