View report page

14
To the Metropolitan Board of Works.
The Memorial of the Board of Works for the Lewisham District.
Sheweth—
That having regard to the rapid increase in the population of
Lewisham, Ladywell, Hither Green, Catford, and Perry Hill,
within this District, and to the extensive building operations
which are continuously going on, or for which large tracts of land
have been laid out, a movement was some time since set on foot,
by certain influential ratepayers, for providing Public Recreation
Grounds for this neighbourhood.
The proposal met with the approval of the great majority
of the inhabitants, and also received the cordial approval and
support of the Trustees of the Lewisham Parochial Charities.
That your Memorialists, fully appreciating the advantage to
the inhabitants of the part of the District in question of wellselected
Recreation Grounds in their midst, have determined to
avail themselves of the provisions of the Metropolis Management
Amendment Act, 1856 (sect. 11), empowering Metropolitan
Vestries and District Boards to take ground to be maintained as
Open Spaces 01* Pleasure Grounds.
That your Memorialists are impressed with the imperative
necessity of at once taking steps to secure a suitable site for such
object, owing to the great rapidity with which the land in the
neighbourhood is being covered with houses, or secured for the
purposes of building speculations.
Your Memorialists had before them, some short time since,
a proposal to take the Priory House Estate for the purpose of a
public Recreation Ground, but before the necessary arrangements
could be made the same was purchased as a building estate, and
is now laid out with roads for building.
That a suggestion was subsequently made for acquiring an
Estate known as the Rosenthal Estate, but in this case, before the
land could be secured, it was made the subject of speculation, and
the Board felt that they could not agree to the increased price
required for the ground.
That your Memorialists have had under consideration a proposal
for acquiring lands known as the Ravensbourne site and the
Lewisham Park site, consisting of lands stretching along the course
of the River Ravensbourne from Catford to Ladywell, well sheltered