Dartmouth House, Dartmouth Row, Blackheath

Image: © Stephen Craven Taken: 10 Jul 2015

This 18th century house, now divided into apartments, is listed grade 2 (list entry number 1080040). It appears to have had several different names: originally it was Dartmouth House, the London home of the Earl of that ilk. But the list description calls it "Southwark Diocesan House" as it was at one time owned by the Church of England (but a local vicar tells me they sold it in the 1970s). It was also known as the "Greyladies College for Women Workers", in institution founded in 1893, by Bishop Yeatman of Rochester and occupying this site from 1907, at which time a chapel was added. The Greyladies were "a society of ladies living together for the purpose of helping in the work of the Church of England under the incumbents of the diocese" at a time when of course they could not be priests themselves. Source: http://chestofbooks.com/food/household/Woman-Encyclopaedia-1/Religion-The-Greyladies-College-For-Women-Workers.html#.VaBAVl9Viko

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