Mycenae House

The building has an unusual history. It was purpose-built in the 1930s as a novitiate house for the Little Sisters of the Assumption, who had taken over neighbouring Woodlands, once the home of Lloyd's founder John Julius Angerstein. It was blessed in 1931 and opened in 1933. When the order left Blackheath in 1967, local historian Cyril Fry persuaded Greenwich Council to buy the house and grounds, saving them from developers, and the building became a community centre the following year.

Today the house has 23 rooms and halls, 16 of them available for hire, with space for anything from two people to 120. The Main Hall is a period ballroom overlooking the garden, used for wedding receptions, family parties, concerts, dances, craft fairs and conferences, and there is a smaller hall for workshops, classes and children's parties, plus meeting rooms, two of them with wooden floors for dance and art. On average around 125 activities a week take place here, run by independent groups alongside the house's own Reach Out Projects social inclusion work and its programme of cultural and social events.

At the centre of it all is the café bar, serving coffee, sandwiches, paninis, cakes, beer, wine and spirits, with free Wi-Fi for remote workers. Mycenae Gardens and the Woodlands Dell outside are a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, open to everyone and cared for with the help of the Friends of Mycenae Gardens.