Millwall Mapped - exactly where was the Old Den?

In 1993, Millwall FC moved from the Old Den in New Cross to the New Den not far away to the north of Surrey Canal Road. The ground was demolished and housing replaced it. Thanks to the wonders of the National Library of Scotland's  map collection it is possible to show the precise location by overlaying an old map on a current street plan (use the site's 'transparency of overlay' feature). 

As you can see, John Williams Close now occupies the stadium's former whereabouts. You can work out easily enough where the goalmouths were too - the Cold Blow Lane end by Bannister House and at the Ilderton Road end by Gasson House. 

Blackheath Modernist Houses Walk

Designer and author Stefi Orazi has produced 'Perambulations', a series of  risograph walking guides to modernist houses covering different parts of London (and indeed Brussels). As a lockdown treat we explored Blackheath with map in hand, an area known for 20th century housing from Span Developments 'as well as several individual houses by Britain’s most revered modernist architects including Peter Moro, Patrick Gwynne and Walter Greave'.

(detail from map)

Yes we saw lots of cool modernist buildings and some very grand older ones too. But the real adventure to be had from following somebody else's map is that it takes you to places you haven't seen before. I thought I knew Blackheath reasonably well but there were whole streets and estates I was unaware of.

Morden Road SE3

Sometime Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan lived at 17 Montpelier Row SE3 in the 1970s. Looks to me like the picture below may have been taken at back of the house.

(The latest in the Perambulations series covers West Dulwich and Forest Hill) 

A Roman Stone Coffin in Deptford

You can spend many hours browsing round the old Ordnance Survey maps of London and elsewhere that the National Library of Scotland has made available, free of charge.

A feature of the 1893 map is that it includes some archaeological information, along with contemporary street plans. According to this map, a stone coffin was found in Deptford's Nelson Street, now Vanguard Street, in 1868.

A local Oxford Archaeological Unit survey, conducted in 2006 in relation to Reginald Square, has a bit more information about it:

'The line of Roman Watling Street, the road from Dover to London, is believed to have crossed the River Ravensbourne at Deptford and then followed the modern Deptford Broadway... The Dover Castle Inn excavations found evidence for Roman occupation on the north side of Deptford Broadway... A Roman building with a tesselated floor was found near the corner of Deptford Broadway and Deptford High Street during sewerage work in 1886... A probable Roman stone coffin was found in Vanguard Street, south of Deptford Broadway.. in 1868'.

Private Widdle Social Club in Brockley

A night of 'comedy, music and alcohol in pleasant surroundings' this Saturday 27 September at Brockley Social Club (240 Brockley Road) with 'The Private Widdle Social Club': 'Malcolm Head and Trevor Lock will provide top line comedy, with dancing from Dolly Doowop, plus music and the legendary Amy Winehouse Memorial Meat Raffle! All this plus an open spot and the random moments that only happen at Private Widdle. Make this your Social Club Broccolites at an introductory membership offer of £7!'.  The Private Widdle Social Club started out in Deal in Kent, and is 'named after the character played by Charles Hawtrey, in the Carry On films. Hawtrey was Deal's most notorious resident: geriatric; drunk; depressed; foul-tempered; gutter-mouthed and gay as a yellow duster' (read the great 'All the Devils are Here' by David Seabrook for more on that). 

At their Facebook page they very helpfully provide a map of South London for people to find their way to Brockley 'it's between Boho types and here be dragons...', and not too far from 'People who like nice food live here'. The map is from Tom Phillips' Definitive Stereotype Map of Central London (Buzzfeed 2014): 

Marathon Medal Map

Images of London on the medal from today's London Marathon. One side shows the route with South London landmarks identified on it including Greenwich Park, the Cutty Sark, 02 Arena, London Eye and Surrey Quays.

The other side shows a view down the river from east of Tower Bridge, with the Shard, London Eye, City Hall and various buildings around Tooley St/London Bridge identifiable.

(this was my marshall's medal - runners had the same design with a gold colour)

1890s (?) map of Brockley/New Cross/Nunhead/Lewisham

A friend gave me this old Brockley-centred street map. It is printed one-sided on folded card, so was presumably a stand alone map to carry in the pocket rather than part of a book. But it is clearly one of a collection as it refers to other sheet numbers for adjoining maps.

But when was it printed? I am guessing late 19th century, probably 1890s. Most of the streets, railways and parks familiar to us now are already laid out, including Telegraph Hill Park which opened to the public in 1895. Strangely St Catherines Church in Kitto Road isn't shown, this too opened in 1895, so unless it has been mistakenly omitted the map must date to around that time (perhaps when the park had been laid out but the church not yet completed).  There are also other significant gaps, with hardly any roads shown in Brockley west of the railway line - no St Asaphs Road for instance. The houses there can't be any later than about 1910.

You can click on the map to enlarge. The section below shows the still extant Brockley footpath before the houses that now surround it were built, heading alongside Nunhead cemetery, following the line of Merttins Road and then across undeveloped ground to Brockley Road, then towards Ladywell via the grounds of Brockley Hall (a large home demolished in 1931). Note too the bandstand and cricket ground on Hilly Fields, now more often used for children's football.

A few other curiosities I noticed on main map (no doubt you will spot others):

- the bottom half of Drakefell Road was called Penmartin Road - now it's all Drakefell all the way down (apparently it was renamed in 1902, which again suggests this map dates to 1890s);

- part of Peckham Rye was still Homestall Farm - this was bought by London County Council in 1894 and incorporated into the park, with the farm buildings demolished in 1908; 

- there was a children's playground in the grounds of Goldsmiths.
- there was a fireworks factory by Honor Oak Park Station.

The existence of this coloured street map with a grid pattern at this early date may surprize those who have heard the popular myth that no such London maps existed prior to Phyllis Pearsall's  London A-Z in the 1930s.

London Bookshop Map

The London Bookshop Map has mapped 110 independent bookshops in London, with those south of the river including Bookseller Crow (Crystal Palace), Kirkdale Bookshop (Sydenham), Review (Peckham), Rye Books & Chener Books (East Dulwich), 56a InfoShop (Elephant and Castle), Book Mongers (Brixton), Dulwich Books, Herne Hill Books and more. You can also download a phone app of the map from the site.

Geological Map: New Cross at the seaside (50 million years ago)

The British Geological Survey 'Geology of Britain' viewer is an interactive map showing the different rocks under our feet. You can enter in a place of interest (here New Cross Gate), zoom in and out, and choose to show just the bedrock or the superficial deposits on top of it.

The geology of London has helped shaped the city, influencing the location of roads and buildings, and of course providing their raw materials of bricks and stone. Interesting to see for instance that the line of the New Cross Road broadly follows the boundary between the 'Lambeth Group' bedrock of clay, silt and sand (shown in orange) and the sandier 'Thanet Formation' bedrock (shown in blue)

This also tells us about the deep history of the area. Both 'Lambeth Group' and 'Thanet Formation' were formed long before humans more than 50 million years ago. The former were formed in periodically-flooded swampy, estuary areas while the latter were formed under shallow seas. So in that time maybe what is now New Cross was the seaside!

The Commons

The 1805 Ordnance Survey Map shows some of the unenclosed common land of SE London. Peckham Rye Common covered a much larger area than the current park. The land to the south of what is now Lewisham Way, between Deptford and Brockley, was Deptford Common.

The Well to its South East was presumably the Lady Well (hence obviously Ladywell). Oh and the Folly in Peckham was 'Heaton's Folly' on what is now Heaton Road, about which I'll have to write another time. The dotted line down the middle marks the Kent/Surrey border I believe - Surrey to the left, Kent to the right.

Those commons were enclosed and largely built on in the 19th century, notwithstanding some remaining parks and green spaces. Are their different kinds of commons today, and indeed new forms of enclosure? That is something that is being explored by New Cross Commoners, a new group looking at 'commoning' in the local area (something they describe as 'a process of coming together and doing things together that differs from the private and the public/State controlled ways of doing things'). They are meeting and discussing contemporary theorists of the common, such as Massimo De Angelis, as well as having excursions to possible examples of common practice such as Sanford Housing Co-op and the Creekside Houseboat community.

Here's a map some of them started on during a workshop at New Cross Learning (the old library) - presumably in this schema Fordham Park and Sandford represent some kinds of common but the Supermarket (Sainsburys) represent some kind of enclosure. Some interesting ideas, though with their own contradictions. For instance does replacing a properly funded and staffed library, run by the Council, with a volunteer led project llike New Cross Learning represent enclosure (the loss of a public service) or commoning (the creation of a new kind of common space)? Or a bit of both? Is a common future prefigured only in 'alternative' spaces or in the social labour of the supermarket where people from all over the world encounter each other and the products of global human effort (albeit in the context of a profit-driven corporate supply chain)? Discuss!

Check out their blog for information about future activities.

If contemporary radical theory is your thing you might also be interested in a talk coming up at Goldsmiths in New Cross on on 19 March 2013, with  New York-based wrtier Jodi Dean introducing her book 'The Communist Horizon' which aims to chart 'the re-emergence of communism as a magnet for political energy following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the stalling of the Occupy movement'.

The event takes place  in Rm 309, 3rd Floor, Richard Hoggart Building, 19:00 – 21:00 (organised by Centre for Cultural Studies, free, all welcome).

Big Bat Map

The Bat Conservation Trust's Big Bat Map is just that - a place to log sightings of bats, or to go to if you want to find places where you might see them.

I've already added a Telegraph Hill top park sighting and I can see that David Larkin of Quaggy Waterways Action Group has added Broadway Field, Deptford as a hot spot for sightings ('Footbridge over concrete channel some 100 metres south of DLR station. Leads into recreation ground. Also look out for Common pipistrelles - can be detected and seen flying under bridge').

There must be lots more SE London sightings to report though, so get going.

Telegraph Hill Festival Map

The Telegraph Hill Festival (SE14/SE4) takes place from 13 March to 1 April 2012, with a full programme of arts, music and other events. I love the map of the area that has been produced for the festival by Polish artist Anna Wojtczak.

London Anagram Map

Like this London Anagram Tubemap - the South East London section includes No Screws (New Cross), Aleph and Tentacles (Elephant and Castle), Yes Quarry Us (Surrey Quays), Lame Wish (Lewisham), Wing Cheer (Greenwich), Fib Port Dredged (Deptford Bridge), and Blood Rending (London Bridge).

(full map is here)

South London Black Music Archive

Opening tomorrow at the Peckham Space presents 'The South London Black Music Archive, an exhibition by artist Barby Asante that aims to celebrate, preserve and investigate South Londoners’ personal relationships with moments in black music history. Peckham Space will be transformed into an ‘open archive’ mapping objects which represent and explore the personal stories which comprise the fascinating history of the influence and evolution of black music in South London. Welcoming contributions from the public, this archive will include items such as books, magazines, concert tickets, posters, stories, records and CDs gathered and displayed with the reverence of museum pieces. Asante’s selected objects highlighting seminal moments in this history will share the same platform as visitors’ objects and stories depicting their own experiences through music and memorabilia [all donated items are returnable at the end of the exhibition].

One of the founding items of the South London Black Music Archive will be a ‘limited edition’ vinyl specially produced for the project as a result of the artist’s collaboration with young people from the Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT) mentoring programme. This artwork was created in association with Regeneration & Community Partnerships, Tate Modern with an exclusive record sleeve by graphic design collective Åbäke. Copies will be available from record shops across South London and at Peckham Space for the duration of the exhibition. It will feature Asante’s own take on the BBC’s ‘inheritance tracks’ for which members of LOT were asked to contribute songs that inspire them. Songs chosen include tracks by Adele, Michael Jackson, Edvard Grieg, Nigerian singer Prince Nico Mbarga, Bob Dylan and Lauryn Hill which will be represented as a soundscape alongside recordings of the young people telling the stories and explaining their selections'.

The South London Black Music Archive runs from 17 January – 24 March 2012 at Peckham Space, Camberwell College of Art, 89 Peckham High Street, London SE15 5RS (in the square by the library). Launch event 17 January 6-8pm, otherwise opening times are Tuesday-Friday 11am-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, closed Sundays, Mondays. Admission Free.


Other events include artists’ talk on 3rd February, 18.45pm at Tate Modern; Daytime Disco 10 March 2011 at the Ritzy, Windrush Square, Brixton. Further details on the website or call 020 7358 9645 / email info@peckhamspace.com

As a starting point, there's this great map 'a growing record of black music landmarks in South London from venues and record shops to street corners and radio stations'.

South London Black Music Archive Map (click to enlarge)

South London Black Music Archive Map - detail showing New Cross, Deptford etc.

South London Black Music Archive Map - list of Peckham. Brixton and Elephant places

I've got a few ideas about some things I could contribute to this exhibition, and some places to add to the map. Among places featured previously at Transpontine there's:

- St Pauls Crypt and lots of other places where Saxon Sounds played in early 1980s.
- Bob Marley and Johnny Cash in Peckham;
- Ariwa Gautrey Road studio;
- New Cross 1970s reggae shops;
- Amersham Arms and other 1960s clubs
- El Partido in Lewisham
- Dennis Bovell's Studio 80

Lots of other places too I haven't got round to writing about yet at Transpontine - the Lazerdrome in Peckham, Ram Jam in Brixton etc. Where else?

In the Neighbourhood

Ork Posters, based in Chicago, produce typograpic map posters of cities across the world. For London they do one for both London boroughs and London neighbourhoods (below):

Of course borough names and boundaries are prescribed and well-established, but neighbourhoods are more subjective and change over time. Here's a detail of the SE London section, featuring among others New Cross, New Cross Gate, Deptford, Brockley and Ladywell. No doubt there could be much discussion on what's been missed out, what shouldn't be there, and where the boundaries should be - that is the nature of neighgbourhoods, no two people carry the same map in their head.  

Incidentally I found out about this map from Adventures of a Frogsbif - a bilingual blog documenting a French student's adventures in London while she studies at Goldsmiths in New Cross: 'London never sleeps. This city is never silent. I live next to a pub backyard, which means that I can hear people talking from noon to 1am, then there's the noise of people talking in my flat, or in the flat next door, or in the other blocks, or down on the green. There's also the constant roar of cars going by, rythmed by police cars and ambulances' alarms freaking me out every half hour. One would think the whole Lewisham population would be dead by now, considering how many people already called the cops these last days' (full post here).

See also her thoughts on British food, and lots of recipes with French alternatives!

South East London 1786

John Cary's 'Actual Survey of the Country Fifteen Miles Around London' from 1786 (at Old London Maps) is fascinating. A few things to note -

- it's 'Rotherhithe or Redriffe' (hence there is now a Redrif Primary School in the area);
- 'Watering Bridge' on the left of the picture is where the junction of Albany Road and Old Kent Road is now, by the Thomas a Becket pub (the place referred to in the Canterbury Tales at St Thomas a Watering);
- today's Queens Road is 'Peckham Lane';
- also on what is now the Old Kent Road there is a 'Halfway House' and a 'Black Boy Lane' (near where Ilderton Road is now?);
- the section of the road coming into New Cross is called '5 Bell Lane' - the Five Bells pub was clearly already there;
- what was the 'Rainbow House' in Peckham?



In the following section, note:

- 'Plow Garlick Hill' - now Telegraph Hill;
- 'None Head' (Nunhead);
- 'Brockley Gn' (Brockley Green) - this was the area around what is now Brockley station;
- 'Loom Pitt Hole' (now Loampit Vale) - this was a quarry.
- 'Fryum Farm Hill' in Dulwich, 'Pigg Hill' (sometimes Pig Hill) in Sydenham and 'Mount Misery' on the way from Lewisham to Bromley. Do any of these hills still have names? The building up of London means we are aware of slopes when we're walking or cycling but we don't really get a sense of the distinct shape of the hills.