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Two reclining female figures carved in red brick in panel above doorway into Winter Garden.

Colonel John Thomas North 1842-96 was a coal merchant’s son, born in Yorkshire. He went to Peru as an engineer in 1869 at the age of 27, and made a huge fortune in South America mining nitrates which were used for artificial fertilisers. On his return to England in 1882 he became known as the ‘Nitrate King’. He was one of the wealthiest men in Britain, a public benefactor, an extrovert and popular personality, becoming a ‘colonel’ because he financed a regiment in the Territorial Army. When he died in 1896 thousands lined his funeral route. When he returned to England he leased a house at Avery Hill in June 1883, within easy reach of the City, however he soon required a house that was both more impressive and would provide space to display his collection of paintings and sculptures. He bought the house and estate at Avery Hill and commissioned the architect Thomas W. Cutler to ‘make additions and alterations’ to the cost of £40,000 while he was away on a trip to Chile. He was given an estimate of £65,000, but when this became a projected £100,000, North dismissed Cutler and hired his assistant J.O. Cooke. The result, in 1891, was a magnificent 50 room mansion in Italianate style, which included a sculpture gallery, picture gallery, a large winter garden which still remains, electric light and central heating. The Eltham to Bexley road was re-routed so that it ran further away from the house. When the mansion was put up for sale after North’s death no buyer was found. It was eventually sold, for £40,000, but was not lived in again and in 1902 the London County Council bought it, together with some of the parkland, for £25,000. They opened the park to the public in 1903 and later some of the rooms. In 1904 (?1906) it became the first women’s residential teacher training college. In 1908 the college acquired Southwood House to the south of the park, where North had lived while his mansion was being built, and built halls of residence. In the 1970s other subjects began to be taught at the college and the site is now the Mansion Site of the University of Greenwich. Most of the house was destroyed during the Second World War and most of the current buildings on the site are postwar. The gatehouse, entrance hall to the mansion, picture and sculpture galleries (now the library) remain, also the Winter Garden, which is open to the public, and the public park surrounding it.

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Red brick