page_title: Blackheath, London
section_title: Meeting point
hierarchical_section_title: Blackheath, London / History / Meeting point
caption_attribution_description: An aerial view of the Heath at Blackheath, London. A minor ridge after a short dip reaching a peak at Shooter's Hill in the east; here the towers of central Lewisham and Croydon are beyond to the south-west (right). The backdrop is the long crest of the North Downs in the far south of Bromley and adjoining Surrey
context_page_description: Blackheath is an area of South East London, England, straddling the border of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Lewisham. It is located 1 mile north east of Lewisham, 1.5 miles south of Greenwich and 6.4 miles south east of Charing Cross, the traditional centre of London.
  The area south-west of its station and in its ward is named Lee Park. Its northern neighbourhood of Vanbrugh Park is also known as St John's Blackheath and despite forming a projection has amenities beyond its traditional reach named after the heath. To its west is the core public green area that is the heath and Greenwich Park, in which sit major London tourist attractions including the Greenwich Observatory and Greenwich Prime Meridian. Blackheath railway station is south of the heath.
context_section_description: Blackheath was a rallying point for Wat Tyler's Peasants' Revolt of 1381, and for Jack Cade's Kentish rebellion in 1450 (both recalled by road names on the west side of the heath). After camping at Blackheath, Cornish rebels were defeated at the foot of the west slope in the Battle of Deptford Bridge (sometimes called the Battle of Blackheath) on 17 June 1497.
  In 1400, Henry IV of England met here with Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos who toured western royalty to seek support to oppose Bayezid I (Bajazet), Ottoman Sultan. In 1415, the lord mayor and aldermen of London, in their robes of state, attended by 400 of the principal citizens, clothed in scarlet, came hither in procession to meet Henry V of England on a triumphant return from the Battle of Agincourt.
  Blackheath was, along with Hounslow Heath, a common assembly point for Army forces, such as in 1673 when the Blackheath Army was assembled under Marshal Schomberg to serve in the Third Anglo-Dutch War.  In 1709-10, army tents were set up on Blackheath to house a large part of the 15,000 or so German refugees from the Palatinate and other regions who fled to England, most of whom subsequently settled in America or Ireland.
  With Watling Street carrying stagecoaches across the heath, en route to north Kent and the Channel ports, it was also a notorious haunt of highwaymen during the 17th and 18th centuries. As reported in Edward Walford's Old and New London (1878), "In past times it was planted with gibbets, on which the bleaching bones of men who had dared to ask for some extension of liberty, or who doubted the infallibility of kings, were left year after year to dangle in the wind." In 1909 Blackheath had a local branch of the London Society for Women's Suffrage.
caption: An aerial view of the heath looking south with All Saints' Church in the centre rear of the heath
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