This is one of numerous showcase brochures I created for Berkeley Homes. Royal Arsenal Riverside is a prime redevelopment of what was once one of the centres for equipping the Royal Navy. I wrote several pieces for different properties there, along with one showcasing the heritage of the site.
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Royal Arsenal Riverside
Everywhere you look at Royal Arsenal Riverside, sympathetic restoration combines with attractive modern architecture and thoughtful use of outdoor space to create a bright, stylish whole.
Today, you can look forward to a great future living in Royal Arsenal Riverside, but the site itself also has an amazing story to tell.
For many centuries, it was the royal armaments centre for the country, beginning with Woolwich Dockyard before growing to host armaments factories and stores, testing grounds, artillery barracks and more.
Notable buildings included the Royal Brass Foundry for making brass guns, the Royal Military Academy and the Royal Laboratory, for military research and development. Many of them remain today as Grade I and Grade II listed buildings, incorporated into the new development via sympathetic renovation and restoration.
The site’s heyday was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – around 80,000 workers were based here during the First World War. One initiative from those days continues to flourish elsewhere in London; the Woolwich Arsenal football team, now Arsenal Football Club – the ‘Gunners’.
Its heritage is still apparent amidst all the attractive modern living opportunities at Royal Arsenal Riverside, from the cannon and other artefacts, the preserved cobblestones and the magnificent Foundry gates, through to the cannonball design motifs and informative on-site signage. And for a more detailed delve into history, take a look at the fascinating on-site museums – the Greenwich Heritage Centre and the Firepower Museum.
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