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Basevi Way, LONDON, SE8 3JU

Tsar learnt his craft as a shipbuilder in Deptford

He is said to be buried in the churchyard of St. Nichols Deptford. But legend has it that he was not murdered in 1593 but escaped charges of treason by fleeing to the West Country and changing his name to William Shakespeare.

The old Deptford Power Station at the entrance to Deptford Creek, taken from Greenwich Pier. Opened in the late 1920s it was decommissioned in 1983 and finally demolished nine years later. Now the site of riverside flats. For what it looks like now see Image

Tsar Peter I of Russia, also known as 'Peter the Great', travelled as a young man to Europe in 1697-98 to study new developments in technology, especially shipbuilding. He lived near the Royal Dockyard in Deptford, at the home of the writer John Evelyn, for much of his four-month stay in England. During their stay Peter and his party caused a great deal of damage, and Evelyn was extremely unhappy. His estate steward reported that they had wrecked the house and garden. Carpets were left filthy with grease and ink, and many paintings looked as if they had been used for shooting targets. Locks and windows were broken, and every one of the fifty chairs in the house had vanished, probably burned on fires! Evelyn was appalled by damage to his prized holly hedges. Peter and his friends had played a game which involved pushing each other through the hedges in wheelbarrows. This statue was erected in 2001 to commemorate the Tsar's visit. The smaller figure is a dwarf-cum-jester.

See Image The site of the grave is not known, but the church register records "slaine by Francis Frezer", and this is supposed to have happened in a house in Butt Lane belonging to the widow of the sub-baliff of Sayes Court - see Image {Source: Leaflet "St Nicholas' Church, Deptford Green".}