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.
Gurdwara Sahib Woolwich
The first Wesleyan Methodist congregation in Woolwich was established in 1789 by a carpenter at the Warren, Thomas Murrell. A chapel was built on Woolwich New Road, a site that is now occupied by the east end of Equitable House. As this chapel was soon outgrown, in 1812 a plot on the north-west side of William Street (now Calderwood Street) was leased from the Powis Estate. Building started in 1814 and the church was completed two years later at a cost of ₤4,594. In 1817 a Sunday school for 400 children was built immediately to the east of the chapel. This building was replaced in 1889–90 by the current building designed by Walter Whincop, after a legacy was left by a former Sunday school superintendent. The new building would also house the Soldiers' Institute, the Methodist church being an official garrison chapel for nonconformists.
The Soldiers' Institute closed after the Second World War and church attendance dwindled to around fifteen in 1977. A redevelopment scheme for the site was blocked by Greenwich Council after the chapel was listed in 1973. In 1977 the two buildings were put up for sale and shortly afterwards acquired by the local Sikh community to be converted into a gurdwara, which has been its function ever since. During the harvest festival ("Visakhi"), thousands of Sikhs march in procession ("Nagar Kirtan") through Woolwich, starting at the Gurdwara Ramgarhia in Masons Hill and finishing at the Gurdwara Sahib in Calderwood Street.