Brockley
Brockley is a district and an electoral ward of south London, England, in the London Borough of Lewisham south-east of Charing Cross. In 2021 it was named the best area of London to live in. It is an area rich in Victorian and Edwardian domestic architecture, historic trees and original lanes and mews. This is protected by a conservation area and the Brockley Society. It has a strong community and numerous popular cafes and restaurants. The station is on both the mainline railway and the Windrush Line. The London Borough of Lewisham's Draft Local Implementation Plan 2019–41 proposes linking the station to the Victoria to Dartford line which crosses Brockley station by 2030.
History
The name Brockley is derived from "Broca's woodland clearing", a wood where badgers are seen or Brook by a wood. In the late 12th century, a small Premonstratensian house was founded there, before being transferred to Bayham in 1208.Formerly part of the county of Kent, Brockley fell into both the Metropolitan Borough of Lewisham and the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford in the County of London from 1900. The division was roughly around Hilly Fields, with the area to the north falling within Deptford. Brockley was subsequently reunified with the creation of Greater London in 1965 under the London Borough of Lewisham, which incorporated the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford.
Brockley has its origins in a small agricultural hamlet of the same name located in the area of the "Brockley Jack", a large public house that today houses the Brockley Jack Theatre. Brockley Hall stood nearby and now gives its name to a road on a 1930s housing estate. Crofton Park railway station was built nearby in 1892 by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway.
Brockley railway station opened on 6 March 1871 and is currently served by London Overground and Southern in London fare zone 2. As is often the case in London, the location of the station defines the geography of the district and areas to the north and west of Brockley Station, previously considered as Hatcham, New Cross, Telegraph Hill and St Johns, are now considered Brockley. Ordnance Survey maps of Brockley up to the 1940s tend to centre on the location of the Jack, the Hall, and Crofton Park railway station, but recent maps are now more centred on Brockley Station and nearby areas, such as with the electoral ward map demarcating Brockley. While the name Crofton Park was invented by the railway company, it was given official sanction with the naming of Crofton Park Library, a fine arts and crafts building, in 1905, and is now the name of an electoral ward to the south.
The oldest surviving house in the area of what is now considered to be the northern extent of Brockley is the "Stone House" on Lewisham Way built in 1773 by the architect George Gibson the Younger. which is a Grade II* Listed building and was historically considered to be in Deptford.
Brockley market gardens were famous for their enormous Victoria rhubarb which were fertilised by 'night soil' from London. There were orchards too and some ancient fruit trees survive in local gardens. Until the late 19th century a small river flowed northward from Crofton Park and east of Malpas Rd to join the River Thames via Deptford Creek. It is now covered over.
Industrial development arrived in 1809 in the form of the Croydon Canal running from Croydon to Bermondsey. This was later filled in and replaced by the London & Croydon railway which runs through the original canal cutting between Brockley and New Cross Gate stations. Some of the oldest houses in Brockley are the cottages and shops which form a small terrace on Coulgate Street, just east of Brockley station. These are believed to date from 1833 and were probably originally associated with the canal.
From 1872 until 1917, Brockley Lane railway station provided access to the Greenwich Park branch line and the remains of the old station entrance are still visible at Brockley Cross.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Tyrwhitt-Drake family developed the north side of Brockley with grand villas, large terraces and semi-detached houses. Development started south of Lewisham Way in the late 1840s with the modest cottages at 2–22 Upper Brockley Rd and spread south and east towards Hilly Fields. In 1900 Chalsey Rd was the last road to be completed within the current conservation area. However, open farmland remained south of Brockley Grove and west of the railway line into the early 1930s.
Many grand houses in Brockley were occupied by the owners and managers of factories in neighbouring industrial areas such as Deptford and Bermondsey. At 63 Breakspears Road lived Edwin Watts, owner of 'ER Watts and Son', a mathematical instrument making company in Camberwell Road. Charles Booth's Map of London Poverty describes the residents of and Breakspears Road as "well-to-do" or "wealthy". The actress Lillie Langtry was one notable resident during this period. The terraced streets west of Brockley Rd were more mixed: "comfortable and poor". The artist/poet David Jones, whose father was a printer, grew up in Howson Road. Some of David Jones's paintings and illustrations depict his parents' house and garden. The writer Henry Williamson, the son of a bank clerk, was born in nearby Braxfield Road.
Brockley contains several fine churches: St. Mary Magdalen's RC Church on Howson Road, on Wickham Road, the Grade II listed St Andrews, Brockley Rd – originally a Presbyterian Church, which contains the modern stained glass New Cross Fire memorial window – and the Grade II listed 1908. The latter was designed by in the Arts and Crafts movement style and still contains its original interior. A Methodist Church stood on Harefield Road.
After World War I, Brockley began to lose its exclusivity as the wealthy began to relocate to the outer suburbs and the big houses were increasingly sub-divided into multiple occupation. The typical inter-war houses on Upper Brockley Gardens and on Harefield Rd are clearly more modest than their Victorian neighbours and in the case of Harefield Road, were built on a large house's garden. Small industrial workshops also became established in the mews behind the large houses.
The Grade II listed Rivoli Ballroom dates from 1913 but was remodeled as a dance hall in 1951. It has a unique and outstanding interior, which has featured in many films, videos and fashion shoots. In 2007 The White Stripes rock band played a secret gig here. Other notable live performances include those by Florence + the Machine and Damon Albarn. The building has recently been listed and is now protected from demolition.
Being under the bomber flight path to the London docks, the area suffered significant V-2 rocket and other bomb damage in World War II. The post-war blocks of council flats at the south end of Wickham Rd and at the west end of Adelaide Avenue are evidence of this. During the Second World War, an anti-aircraft gun emplacement was located on Hilly Fields.
Post World War II
After the Second World War, most of the big houses were sub-divided into multiple occupation and the Council would give grants to convert houses into flats. In the period 1945–60s it was very difficult to get a bank loan to purchase a pre-1914-built property, hence the frequent subdivision of the larger older houses during this period.In the 1950s and 1960s these houses provided accommodation for the recently arrived African-Caribbean population, many of whom found employment in nearby Deptford. In 1948, five passengers bound for England from Jamaica on the ship Empire Windrush gave Wickham Road as their intended destination on arrival in London. Other migrants came from Turkey, Cyprus, Italy and South Asia.
Some larger houses were demolished and blocks of flats built or houses built on their gardens.
From the mid-1960s artists started to move into the large and at the time neglected houses on Manor Avenue, beginning the process of 'gentrification' which continues today.
Much of north Brockley was designated a Conservation Area in 1974 and in the same year the was formed with the aim of preserving and protecting the character of the area. This ensure that Brockley remained one of the best preserved and most coherent Victorian suburbs in Inner London containing examples of almost every style of mid- to late 19th century-domestic architecture from
imposing Gothic Revival buildings to modest workmen's cottages. There are also mews behind some of the streets such as Ashby Mews and Wickham Mews. This range of 19th-century architectural styles makes Brockley unusual.
21st Century
In 2000 the Brockley Cross Action Group was set up with the aim of influencing the regeneration of the Brockley Cross area and has been instrumental in the restoration of Brockley Common and the greening of several other derelict sites.The extension of the East London Line, now part of the London Overground network, opened in May 2010. It connects Brockley with north London and encouraged new residential development around Brockley station.
A number of empty sites were redeveloped into flats and Coulgate Street was pedestrianised - increasingly it became a focal point for Brockley as a place to gather away from the main road.
Green space
Brockley contains several attractive open spaces, amongst them Blythe Hill, Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries and Hilly Fields. The latter was saved from development by the Commons Preservation Society and local groups in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1896, after being bought with the proceeds of private donations and funding from the London County Council, the fields were transformed from old brickpits and ditches into a park. The park became a regular meeting place for the Suffragette movement between 1907 and 1914.The old West Kent Grammar School, now Prendergast Hilly Fields College, a Grade II* listed building, is situated at the top of the hill. The School hall contains the 'Brockley murals'. Dating from 1932 to 1935 by Charles Mahoney, Evelyn Dunbar and other students of the Royal College of Art, they are considered some of the best examples in the country of the Neo-Romantic style and illustrate many local scenes.
Close by, a stone circle was erected in 2000 as a millennium project by a group of local artists, which won a Civic Trust Award in 2002. The Hilly Fields Midsummer Fayre has been running for over 30 years and is a much celebrated annual community event. At 160 ft above sea level, Hilly Fields has wide views from Canary Wharf and Shooters Hill to Crystal Palace and the North Downs in Kent.
West of the railway between Brockley and New Cross Gate railway stations lies the Brockley Nature Reserve. This ten acre woodland is home to over 30 species of birds including greater spotted woodpecker and sparrowhawk. The reserve is managed by London Wildlife Trust, access is from the entrance on Vesta Road. Gorne Wood is a three acre piece of ancient woodland, the closest such piece of land to the City of London.