Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Lewisham Boundary Marker by Hilly Fields


Spotted this last weekend in Tressilian Road by the junction with Montague Avenue opposite north west corner of Hilly Fields. I must have walked or run past this hundreds of times, don't know how I never noticed it before. I assume it marks the boundary between the Metropolitan Boroughs of Lewisham and Deptford, before they were combined as the London Borough of Lewisham in 1965. The Metropolitan Boroughs were created in turn in 1900, so the marker probably dates from around the time - before that it was all Kent round there. The park itself was once part of Deptford Common, saved as an open space following a campaign in the late 19th century.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are loads of boundary markers from that sort of era around Lewisham & Greenwich, although they are very easy to miss - earlier in the year I followed the three Kid Brooks from source to outflow and was quite surprised by the number I found often in quite incongruous places - there is one for example on the front lawn on Morden College.

dimps said...

It is indeed a boundary post. There is/was another close by and a boundary marker. I have taken a picture of the 1895 OS Map. I can't find a way of sharing it here, so shall Tweet it.

Tamsin said...

Or parish boundary? There is a sunken post on the top of One Tree Hill with the legend "ERWELL" which we worked out must have been the boundary of the Parish of Camberwell when the population was much sparser and the local parishes covered a much greater area.