Deptford High Street Market

Deptford High Street Market in London is a historic street market famous for hosting Tsar Peter the Great in 1698 when he came to study English shipbuilding. During his stay at diarist John Evelyn's house, Peter caused three hundred five pounds in damages, including flattening a 400-foot holly hedge in wheelbarrow games assessed by Sir Christopher Wren. A plaque at 144 Deptford High Street marks his visit to a Quaker meeting-house on April 3, 1698.

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

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Deptford High Street, SE8

Why did Tsar Peter the Great stay near Deptford High Street in 1698?

Look around you. This market has been in Deptford High Street for centuries, and the energy you feel right now — the haggling, the bustle, the laughter — is the heartbeat of a place once so grand that social researcher Charles Booth, visiting in eighteen ninety-nine, called it the "Oxford Street of the South East of London."

But we're not here for shopping tips. We're here for a Russian story.

See that anchor at the southern end of the High Street? Originally located in Chatham Historic Dockyard, it was installed here in nineteen eighty-eight as a symbol of Deptford's immense maritime past. Deptford Dockyard was one of England's key areas of shipbuilding, first established by Henry the Eighth as the first Royal Dockyard. And it was That dockyard that drew perhaps the most extraordinary visitor this street has ever known.

In sixteen ninety-seven, Tsar Peter the Great launched his Grand Embassy — a Russian diplomatic mission across Western Europe. But here's the thing... he went incognito, under the name Peter Mikhailov. At six feet eight inches, he was one of the tallest men in Europe — a fact Very hard to disguise.

When he arrived in London in January sixteen ninety-eight, his entourage included four chamberlains, three interpreters, two clockmakers, a cook, a priest, six trumpeters, seventy soldiers, four dwarfs... and a monkey he'd purchased in Amsterdam. A Monkey!

Peter stayed at a house in Deptford belonging to the writer and diarist John Evelyn. The house suited Peter because it was close to the dockyards, where he could easily visit ships being built. He would have walked right through This street, past the market stalls, on his way to study English shipbuilding techniques.

But Peter and his crew were... the worst houseguests in English history. The party used Evelyn's portrait gallery for target practice, and every chair in the house was burned for firewood. Sir Christopher Wren, the royal surveyor, added up the bill. It totaled three hundred and five pounds, nine shillings and sixpence — and included three pounds for "wheelbarrows broke by the Czar."

Those wheelbarrows! Peter and his friends had developed some kind of game that involved Peter sitting in a wheelbarrow while being driven at speed through flowerbeds and a very long holly hedge — a hedge that was four hundred feet long, nine feet high, and five feet thick. By the end of the visit... the Russians had flattened the Entire thing.

The English, shocked by the group's behaviour, called them "baptized bears."

And yet... the results were extraordinary. When Peter returned to Russia, a large shipbuilding programme was established. By the end of his reign, twenty-eight thousand men were serving in the Baltic fleet, on forty-nine ships and eight hundred smaller vessels. Before Peter became tsar, Russia had no navy at all.

And there's one more detail right here on this street. Peter's visit to the Quaker meeting-house in Deptford on the third of April sixteen ninety-eight is commemorated by a plaque at one hundred and forty-four Deptford High Street. So keep your eyes peeled as you walk north — a small brass reminder that a Russian tsar once walked among the market stalls... and changed the world.

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