Deptford...

• has been continuously settled for 2,000 years.

• occupied a crucial position on the major Roman road from Dover to London. The Dover Castle pub on Deptord Broadway (destroyed by an unexplained explosion in 1991) was once a large 14th century pilgrim's inn, the Christopher. By the Tudor period Deptford was the last coach stage out of London and very vulnerable to highwaymen and footpads.

• has been owned or controlled by William The Conqueror's half-brother, two chief barons of England, the Earl of Suffolk, the Earl of Lincoln, Henry VIII's wife Jane Seymour and the famous diarist John Evelyn.
  
  
• saw four rebel armies pour across its ancient bridge - the Peasant's Revolt (1381), Jack Cade and the Men of Kent (1450), the 2,000 Cornish rebels who were slain on Deptford Bridge (1497) and Thomas Wyatt's anti-Catholic mob (1554).
  
• was the site for Henry VIII's Royal Naval Dockyard and remained the cradle of the English Navy for over 300 years.
  
  
• was home to the Guild of Trinity House which became the most important association of English mariners, controlling the Thames and providing lighthouses all around the English coast.
  
  
• was the base for the most famous English expeditions, including those led by Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and Captain Cook. Drake's ship the Golden Hind remained moored off Deptford as a floating snack bar and tourist attraction for 100 years.
  
  
• was the home until 1961 of the most important naval victualling yard. The yard's biscuit bakery introduced the first factory assembly line in the world and the world's first monorail opened in 1826 to transport stores around the site.
  
  
• was where Peter the Great, the first Czar ever to leave Russia, came to learn shipbuilding in the first of many attempts to westernise Russia.
  
  
• was an important base for Samuel Pepys, first and only Secretary to the Admiralty, who built up the English navy to world-ruling proportions.
  
  
• was the terminus for the first urban railway in the world and has the oldest surviving urban railway station outside central London.
  
  
• was chosen by Ferranti, pioneer of electric power generation, to build the first large-scale power station in the world (demolished in 1992).
  
  
• was inspiration for Margaret and Rachel McMillan and the focus for the development of their innovative educational methods.
  
  
• was stamping ground for Kath Duncan, one of Britain's finest political speakers and activists, who led the unemployed in the 1930s.
  
  
• was the victim of Britain's worst V2 incident in which 168 people died.
  
  
• successfully ousted the National Front in the late 1970s, especially through the Battle of Clifton Rise and the mass response to the tragic New Cross fire of 1981.

These and many other fascinating facts about Deptford can be found in "Turning the Tide" by Jess Steele. For information on how or where to buy the book, contact Jess Steele at Deptford Forum Publishing