35 Albury Street the premises of The Irish National League & Club 1911.

The Irish National League was established by Charles Stewart Parnell (pictured) in 1882 and became a major movement for Irish home rule, with branches not only across Ireland but in England - including in South London. In Deptford, support for Irish Home Rule pre-dated the formation of the League. On 2 October 1876 a public meeting in Deptford was attached by anti-Home Rulers, recalled in the T.D. Sullivan : 'They invaded a hall where a Home Rule meeting was being-held; they "stormed" the platform, and made a determined endeavour to capture the Home Rule banner which was there displayed. But the flag was bravely defended, and after some fierce fighting, the attacking party were ejected from the building'. In the 1880s, the Irish National League rallied at Sayes Court in Deptford and the Post Office Directory lists a United Irish National League and Club at 35 Albury Street, Deptford in 1911. The Irish National League (INL) was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded in October 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell as the successor to the Irish National Land League after this was suppressed. Whereas the Land League had agitated for land reform, the National League also campaigned for self-government or Irish Home Rule, further enfranchisement and economic reforms. The League was the main base of support for the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and under Parnell's leadership, it grew quickly to over 1,000 branches throughout the island. In 1884, the League secured the support of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. Its secretary was Timothy Harrington who organised the Plan of Campaign in 1886. In December 1890 both the INL and the IPP split on the issues of Parnell's long standing family relationship with Katharine O'Shea , the earlier separated wife of a fellow MP, Capt. O'Shea, and their subsequent divorce proceedings. The majority of the League, which opposed Parnell, broke away to form the "Anti-Parnellite" Irish National Federation (INF) under John Dillon. John Redmond assumed the leadership of the minority "Parnellite" group who remained faithful to Parnell. Despite the split, in the 1892 general election the combined factions still retained the Irish nationalist vote and their 81 seats. Early in 1900 the Irish National League (INL) finally merged with the United Irish League and the National Federation (INF) to form a reunited Irish Parliamentary Party under Redmond's leadership returning 77 seats in the September 1900 general election, together with 5 Independent Nationalists, or Healyites.

Information from Wikipeadia.com.

Map of Deptford Strond hand drawn by John Evelyn

 John Evelyn lived in Deptford at Sayes Court from 1652. Evelyn inherited the house when hemarried the daughter of Sir Richard Browne in 1652. On his return to England at the Restoration, Evelyn had laid out meticulously planned gardens in the French style of hedges and parterres. In its grounds was a cottage at one time rented by master wood carver Grinling Gibbons. After Evelyn had moved to Surrey in 1694, Russian Tsar Peter the Great studied shipbuilding for three months in 1698. He and some of his fellow Russians stayed at Sayes Court, the manor house of Deptford. Evelyn was angered at the antics of the Tsar, who got drunk with his friends and, using a wheelbarrow with Peter in it succeeded in ramming their way through a fine holly hedge. Sayes Court was demolished in 1728-9 and a workhouse built on its site. Part of the estates around Sayes Court were purchased in 1742 for the building of the Admiralty Victualling Yard, renamed in 1858 after a visit by Queen Victoria as the Royal Victoria Yard. This massive facility included warehouses, a bakery, a cattleyard/abattoir and sugar stores, and closed in 1960. All that remains is the name in a public park called Sayes Court Park, accessed from Sayes Court Street off Evelyn Street, not far from Deptford High Street. The building known as Sayes Court that was destroyed during the Second World War was not the old home of John Evelyn, but the St Nicholas's parish workhouse built on its site in the 1720s. After the New Poor Law made it redundant in the 1830s the building had various uses, including that of an almshouse for Evelyn family servants and estate workers.



Original Map layout of Sayes Court.

When the black and white photograph above was taken from Czar Street c. 1910 it was set in an attractive park, but in the emergency of the First World War it was annexed by the army to enlarge its Supply Reserve Depot at the old cattle market. And in colour.....how it looks now........