Woolwich (parish)
Woolwich, also known as Woolwich St Mary, was an ancient parish containing the town of Woolwich on the south bank of the Thames and North Woolwich on the north bank. The parish was governed by its vestry from the 16th century to 1852, based in the Church of St Mary until 1842, after which in the purpose-built Woolwich Town Hall. The parish adopted the Public Health Act 1848 and was governed by the Woolwich Local Board of Health from 1852. When the parish became part of the district of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855 the local board was treated as if it were an incorporated vestry. It was in the county of Kent until it was transferred to London in 1889. In 1900 it was amalgamated with other parishes to form the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich and had only nominal existence until it was abolished as a civil parish in 1930. Since 1965 it has been split between the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Newham.
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.