Calling first-time buyers to Telegraph Works, Greenwich: The historic transatlantic cable factory being turned into new homes

 

A little-known factory that sits near the Greenwich Docks once played an instrumental role in US-UK relations. Now developers are hoping it’ll establish a new relationship between this neglected former industrial site and first-time buyers in London. 

 

Around £120m has been invested to build 272 new homes on the site. The 1.2 acre stretch of land was first built on in the Tudor period when it served as Queen Elizabeth I’s gunpowder store, keeping the English fleet well-stocked for when they met the Spanish Armada in 1588. After a brief flirtation with manufacturing whaling boats, it re-opened as a submarine cable manufacturers in 1857 and became known as the Telegraph Works. The workers there laid the first transatlantic cable under the Atlantic Ocean, which carried the first formal message between Queen Victoria and US President James Buchanan the following year – it took around 17 hours to transmit.

 

 

But over the years, a number of upgrades were made and, by 1900, the cable could deliver 120 words per minute. By the time WWII had broken out, there was a private undersea line to transmit top-secret messages between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. 

 

 

After a brief switch to fibre-optics, Telegraph Works was bought by Weston Homes and Cathedral Group to convert the site into new homes. Situated just north of central Greenwich next to the Meantime Brewery, it’s also close to the Blackwall Tunnel. Cable shops and warehouses will be replaced by 256 one, two and three bedroom apartments and penthouses measuring between 550sqft and 1,200sqft, an avenue of 16 three-bedroom family houses and a landscaped area in the middle, comprising a tree-lined grove, allotment, butterfly garden and picnic area.