Albury Street — Officers' Quarter

Albury Street in London features rare surviving early eighteenth-century red-brick terraces built between 1705 and 1715 for Deptford dockyard officers who helped build Britain's navy and train Tsar Peter the Great's shipbuilders. Bricklayer Thomas Lucas constructed around forty houses on the street, originally called Union Street. These homes accommodated sea captains and shipwrights until the nearby dockyard closed in 1869.

London · from the walk “The Tsar's Deptford” · Generated

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Albury Street, Deptford SE8

Why were the eighteenth-century terrace houses on Albury Street in London built?

Take a good look at this street. Walk down Albury Street and it feels like a portal into early eighteenth century London. These elegant red-brick terraces, two storeys tall, were home to the very men who built Britain's warships... and the very men a certain Russian Tsar was Desperate to learn from.

Albury Street was originally laid out between seventeen oh five and seventeen fifteen by Thomas Lucas, a local bricklayer. It was originally called Union Street, named after the Union between England and Scotland that created the United Kingdom in seventeen oh seven. By seventeen seventeen, Lucas had built some forty houses on the site, providing superior accommodation for officers and officials engaged at the dockyard.

Now here's the Russian connection. The yard was visited by Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, in sixteen ninety-eight... just a few years Before these houses were built. Peter went along incognito under the name of Peter Mikhailov, though how incognito can you really be when you're six foot eight — one of the tallest men in Europe, a fact very hard to disguise?

Peter chose Deptford for one reason. The Dutch school of shipbuilding relied heavily on practical experience rather than precise theoretical knowledge and calculations. He concentrated on acquiring valuable technology that had proved frustrating in the Netherlands. The English, by contrast, worked from precise mathematical plans that could be Taught. And that's exactly what Peter needed... because Russia did not have generations of carpenters, riggers and cutters.

So picture this. The future Tsar of all Russia, walking these very lanes, rubbing shoulders with master shipwrights and sea captains... the same men who would later live right Here on Albury Street. Lucas's will mentions houses occupied by five sea captains and three shipwrights. The rate books show that this link with the dockyard was maintained until it closed in eighteen sixty-nine.

And Peter didn't just learn and leave. Although reports differ, Peter was able to garner between sixty and as high as five hundred British subjects that entered into the service of the Russian state. He literally recruited Deptford's finest — shipbuilders, navigators, engineers — and brought them to Russia. When Peter returned, a large shipbuilding programme was established. By eighteen oh three, a fleet was founded in the Baltic Sea, and by the end of Peter's reign twenty-eight thousand men were serving there, on forty-nine ships and eight hundred smaller vessels.

Now, one more delicious detail. There's a legend that Admiral Nelson himself once lived at number thirty-four on this street. A nineteen thirty-two article declared that the house had recently been put up for sale as the old home of Nelson, complete with an internal door that was once a ship's hatch from Hms Bellerophon. But no evidence has been seen to prove or disprove that Lord Nelson stayed there. Still... a lovely story for a street steeped in naval glory.

Look around you. Professor Anthony Quinney of the University of Greenwich describes these remaining houses as among the few survivors in the whole of London from the first two decades of the eighteenth century. From these doors walked the men whose knowledge launched a Russian navy... and changed the balance of power in Europe forever.

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