DerekC
Established Member
You've opened a can of worms there, for sure! At the time of the opening of the original Blackwall Tunnel, the area where it emerged south of the river was regarded as east Greenwich, later expressed as East Greenwich, and I still think of it as such; old habits die hard after seventy years! North Greenwich it is not, despite the choice of name for the Jubilee Line station, because there already is (or was) a North Greenwich on the north side of the Thames, around the area where the Geenwich Foot Tunnel emerges and where the DLR first terminated, at Island Gardens. It's an ancient name, and TfL sophistry in mis-naming the tube station doesn't invalidate it.
Interesting stuff and you are right. Based on old OS maps, the ferry which preceded the tunnel was called the "North Greenwich Ferry" and then when the Millwall Extension Railway built its station in 1871 (the viaduct of which was re-used by DLR) its terminus by the ferry was called North Greenwich. I don't know why DLR called its original terminus on more or less the same site "Island Gardens" instead. The latest for Blackwall Point seems to be "Greenwich Peninsula" but the East Greenwich name isn't dead so there is hope yet! Better lobby TfL to change the name of the underground station!! I guess they would argue that extending the Greenwich name north of the river is confusing, but then you could argue the same for Woolwich.