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The ancient woodland of Shooters Hill and its accompanying residential locality lie between Plumstead and Eltham. The road
of the same name was part of Watling Street, the Roman road to Dover, and now forms a section of the A207. At 432 feet, the
summit is one of the highest points in Greater London. The name was first recorded in 1226 and probably derives from the use
of the slopes for archery practice but others suggest a link with highwaymen. Henry IV ordered the clearance of trees bordering
the road in an unsuccessful bid to protect travellers from ‘violent practices’. In the 18th century several aristocrats
and knights cleared parcels of woodland to erect grand houses with landscaped gardens, now all lost. In Castle wood, Lady
James commissioned the gothic folly Severndroog Castle in 1784. From the mid-19th century a village began to develop on the
hillside, soon gaining a police station, church and school. Early 20th-century amenities included an ornate octagonal water
tower (see image below), a fire station that has recently been converted into flats – one of which retains the firemen’s
pole – and in 1927 the Memorial hospital. George Wimpey laid out the Shooters Hill estate in the 1930s but most of the
higher parts of the hill were saved from further development by the London County Council, which made a series of acquisitions
between the wars to create a public open space that is now designated a site of special scientific interest. Oxleas wood and
Woodlands Farm were threatened by plans to construct a link road to a proposed east London river crossing but these were abandoned
in 1993, following a long-running conservation battle that ended with victory in the European Court. The demographic profile
of Shooters Hill ward is closer to that of the country as a whole than the rest of the borough, except that its non-white
minorities make up a fifth of the population, compared with less than a tenth for England generally.
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