of Woolwich, it never became part of the Bowater estate. Encroachments and enclosure Because of the rapid growth of both Woolwich Dockyard and the Royal Arsenal, local people were increasingly concerned about losing their ancient rights on the common. When parts of the common were privatized in the 18th century to build houses on, the Woolwich Vestry vigorously defended their customary rights against enclosure, and following the building of two houses on the eastern edge of the common around 1760, they succeeded in preventing the fourth Sir John Shaw from granting any further building leases. By the 1720s the Board of Ordnance was using the Common as a testing ground for mortars, and fifty years later a firing range was set up for artillery practice. At the same time, it was still being used for the grazing of livestock; areas were cultivated for crops and other parts were quarried for gravel, to be used in road building. In 1774-6 the character of the area changed significantly and lastingly with construction of the Royal Artillery Barracks to the north of the common. It was built by the Board of Ordnance on private land owned by the Bowater family, but a section of the common was also added to the construction site as a future parade ground and what is now Barrack Field. The site was largely unbuilt on; the only building was the Jolly Shipwrights inn near the current location of the Second Boer War Memorial. In 1777 Grand Depot Road was formed to give better access to the barracks. A ha-ha was built between Barrack Field and the common in 1778 (it was extended westwards in 1802 and then shifted southwards in 1806–08, bringing more of the common into Barrack Field). By the end of the eighteenth century the common was being used for large military parades, manoeuvres and displays. Between 1796 and 1805 the Royal Military Academy (which had until then been located within the Arsenal) was rebuilt on a new site on the south-eastern edge of Woolwich Common, where it gradually expanded over the course of the next century; this was the first major building development by the Board of Ordnance on the common itself. In September 1801 additional land, to the west of Barrack Field, was leased by the Board of Ordnance from the Bowater family, largely to be used as military training ground (Green Hill and