Petts Wood to the Aldgate Tap

In which I make the journey from the SE corner of Greater London to the City, via a few pubs and a short stop to enjoy some rather splendid views of the Thames.At the end of the last post I was hopping aboard a train at Chislehurst station, making the short one-stop trip to Petts Wood.The Pett family gave their name to this little corner of London. They were prominent shipbuilders between the 15th and 17th centuries who leased the woods in this region as a source of timber. One of the warships which they built, the Sovereign of the Seas, provided a name to the local Wetherspoon's pub where I'd shortly find myself.Petts Wood was a largely rural area until the 20th century, with the railway station, shops, cinema and housing estates arriving in the 1920s and 30s. The local pub was the Charrington Brewery Daylight Inn. Named in honour of local resident William Willett, who devised the idea of daylight saving, a one-time legal restriction stated that no other pub could be built within…