A hand-coloured lithograph of the 500-ton steamship 'Triton' (1845) with the General Steam Navigation Company Works beyond on the right, the Phoenix Gasworks on the left and the original three-span Creek Bridge that carried Bridge Street (now Creek Road) over the River Ravensbourne (Deptford Creek) in between. Henry Richardson's brief history of Greenwich (1834) notes that in 1823 an Act of Parliament was obtained for the lighting of Greenwich by gas and this began on 7 August 1824. He identifies the area supplier as the Phoenix Company of Bankside, with their gasometer for the district in Bridge Street. The gasworks building shown was presumably built practically on the same site. The Creek Bridge was built in 1812-15, replacing a lightly constructed footbridge that had opened in October 1805. Previously there had been a ferry from near the west end of Lamb Lane (now Barsdley Lane) on the Greenwich side. The road bridge was widened in 1881 and the centre span converted to double-bascule lifting form in 1913. This was badly damaged in Second World War bombing and the whole replaced by the modern lifting road bridge opened in April 1954. The General Steam Navigation Company - founded by John Hall and the Brocklebank brothers in 1824 and their Deptford yard in 1825 - ran passenger services from London to the east of England coastal ports and Leith (Edinburgh); also to Bordeaux and Mediterranean ports.