In 1621 four tenements in Rope Yard Rails, facing the ropeyard and backing onto the gardens of Goldsmiths Almshouses, were given to the poor by Richard and Ann Simms.

In 1679 a bequest of Sir William Pritchard gave the old market house at the northeast corner of the ropeyard to the poor. The Vestry rented it out and used the money to acquire adjoining land to the tenements and added another three houses. This assembly became known as the Parochial Almshouses.

In 1731 the almshouses were demolished and replaced by a parish workhouse.

The workhouse closed in 1841 on the formation of the Greenwich Poor Law Union in 1836 but, in 1842, an initiative by the Revd William Greenlaw led to its site being redeveloped as a row of nine parish almshouses. They had been paid for mainly by Thomas Clark of Walworth, a former resident of the town, and Miss Reed of Woolwich Common.

The new building was 2-storeys high and modestly Tudoresque in appearance, with accommodation similiar to that in the Goldsmiths Almshouses. The central almshouse was allocated to the schoolmistress at St Mary's National School.

In the late 1880s the parish purchased the Goldsmiths Almshouses. By this time the neighbourhood had deteriorated and become a slum, dominated by prostitution, although the almshouses managed to stay respectable.

During WW2 (1939-1945) the almshouses suffered bomb damage, as did much of the surrounding area. They were marked as part of the slum clearance area.

Current status