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a triangular shape closely resembling that of a map of India. The
resultant area is 18.32 square miles, giving a population density of
18.58 persons per acre.
With the exception of the Kidbrooke/ Shooters Hill region which
is mainly clay, the sub-soil of the greater portion of the Borough
consists of gravel and sand and, throughout the whole of the
area, the altitude varies from a few feet below high-water mark on
the Marshes up to 416 feet above sea level on Shooters Hill.
It is a steady climb at every point from the low lying land
adjacent to the Thames to the raised plateau of Blackheath where
extensive views of London and the river obtainable from this
escarpment are incomparable. This strip of land between Blackheath
and the Thames, invaluable for defensive purposes, was to
become the future site of Greenwich and, undoubtedly, the particular
significance of its topography was not lost upon the
Romans. With the high and low tides and gravelly shores the
Romans recognised not only the fishing potentials at Greenwich
but that with the peculiar horse-shoe bend their early primitive
shipping would be protected and its repair facilitated. When they
cut and paved their dead-straight road from Dover to London via
Canterbury, this area's strategic importance became even more
obvious for trade or trouble could reach London only by way of
the river or the road and these two all but met at Greenwich.
In the days of Caesar, Greenwich, which in Latin was described
as Grenovicum viridis sinus a viridariis and in Saxon, Grenawic,
i.e., the flourishing village in the pleasant green hollow, was in the
Roman province of Britannia Primo and all evidence points to the
fact that the present Royal Naval College stands on a site where
once stood handsome Roman villas and courts.
Notwithstanding that documented history of Greenwich appears
to begin only during King Alfred's reign when he was Lord of the
manor (circa 900) there is evidence that Greenwich has been
inhabited for over 2,000 years—certainly Crooms Hill is pre-Celtic
whilst Maidenstone Hill and Shooters Hill along with many other
place names, are clearly of Celtic origin. Charlton is a corruption
of Ceorl-tun, the Romano-Celtic "freeman's village". Recovered
coins and fragments of pottery show an almost continuous 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 Lew-sham, Woolwich, Mottingham and Combe, was
granted bv Elstrudis. daughter of King Alfred, to the Abbey of St.
Peter at Ghent "for the safety of her soul", a grant which was con-