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tinuous Roman settlement from 41 B.C. to 423 A.D. and Saxon
burial mounds and barrows dating from the 6th century are still
to be seen in Greenwich Park.
As far as can be ascertained, the first mention of the name
Greenwich occurred in September. 918, when the Manor, which
included Lewisham, Woolwich, Mottingham and Combe, was
granted by Elstrudis, daughter of King Alfred, to the Abbey of St.
Peter at Ghent 'for the safety of her soul', a grant which was confirmed
by King Edgar in 964 and again by Edward the Confessor
in 1040.
At the time of the Doomsday survey, Greenwich proper (as
distinguished from the Hundred of Greenwich) was 2 sulings, a
measurement of land peculiar to Kent, being about 400 acres in
extent, one third of which was domain land, the remainder being
held by 24 villeins. The area had a sufficiency of beech and oak
trees to support 10 pigs and there were 4 water mills worked by the
Thames or the Ravensbourne.
Under the title of HULVIZ (hill-reach), Doomsday Book
records, inter alia, 'a wretched tract of country' occupied by eleven
bordars or cottagers who, altogether paid 41 pence annually. This
area, subsequently to become known as Woolwich, was, in Edward
the Confessor's time, held by one William Falconer 'to be hawked'
and it may well be that Harold, portrayed on the Bayeux tapestry
with a hawk on his wrist, diverted himself in such a fashion on
occasions in this neighbourhood since he held one of the two
Manors of Greenwich. At the time of the Doomsday survey
these two Manors had been welded into one and were under the
control of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half brother to William the
Conqueror.
Village life, which survived the Romans' departure and the
coming of the Jutes in the mid 5th century, was predominantly that
of men whose business was with the sea and ships with the profession
of waterman as its most important occupation. Indeed, it is
hard to visualize that, even up to one hundred years ago, the river
rang with the shipbuilders' hammers and fishing fleets were sail ng
regularly from Greenwich, a busy little attractive Thames-side
town, to the North Sea, Iceland and Greenland, thus emphasising
the economic as well as the historical influences which its excellent
roadstead has had on the life of the inhabitants in the area. Such
was the importance of this portion of the river that during the reign
of King Ethelred (1011 A.D.) the whole Danish Fleet lay off Greenwich
for three or four years whilst the army was for the most part
encamped on Blackheath. This army ravaged the whole country
and sacked the City of Canterbury, from whence they brought
Archbishop Alfege to his martyrdom on 19th April, 1012.