Woolwich
The civil parish of Woolwich, roughly the area of the present-day wards Woolwich Riverside and Woolwich Common, was formerly known as Woolwich Saint Mary. Until 1842, when the Old Town Hall was built, the vestry met in a room in the parish church of St Mary Magdalene. Woolwich became part of the London metropolitan area in the mid-19th century, although was officially still in Kent at the time. In 1889, with the formation of London County Council, Woolwich became officially part of London. In 1900 the parishes of Woolwich, Eltham and Plumstead formed the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. In 1906 the new Woolwich Town Hall was inaugurated. In April 1965, following implementation of the London Government Act 1963, Woolwich was merged into the London Borough of Greenwich, since 2012 the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The administrative buildings of the borough are in Woolwich.
Woolwich
From the 10th till the mid-12th century Woolwich was controlled by the abbots of St. Peter's Abbey in Ghent. This may have been a result of a gift of 918 from Ælfthryth, daughter of King Alfred and Countess of Flanders, in that case the first recorded grant of English lands to a foreign ecclesiastic institution. As a result of this tenure Woolwich is not mentioned in the Domesday Book; it is thought that the 63 acres listed as "Hulviz" refer to North Woolwich, which was then uninhabited. Some of the Ghent lands passed to the royal manors of Dartford and Eltham as early as 1100; the larger part of the parish, referred to as the manor of Woolwich but in effect not a full manor, became an Eltham dependency in the 14th century. Not included were a riverside quay held by Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, a wharf held by St Mary's Priory, Southwark, and land around Plumstead owned by Bartholomew de Burghersh, 2nd Baron Burghersh, later referred to as the Burrage Estate.