| Peckham | |
|---|---|
 View from Cerise Road in Peckham with theCity visible in the background, 2019 | |
  Peckham Location withinGreater London | |
| Population | 29,300 |
| OS grid reference | TQ345765 |
| London borough | |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | SE15 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| UK Parliament | |
| London Assembly | |
| 51°28′17″N0°03′45″W / 51.4714°N 0.0625°W /51.4714; -0.0625 | |
Peckham (/ˈpɛkəm/PEK-əm) is a district in south-eastLondon, within theLondon Borough of Southwark. It is 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south-east ofCharing Cross.[1] The areas is home to about 29,300 residents.[2]
Peckham is aSaxon place name meaning the village of theRiver Peck, a small stream that ran through the district until it was enclosed in 1823. Archaeological evidence indicates earlierRoman occupation in the area, although the name of this settlement is lost.The Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names (1991, 1998) gives the origin as from theOld English*pēac andhām meaning ‘homestead by a peak or hill’. The name of the river is a back-formation from the name of the village. Peckham Rye is from Old Englishrīth, meaning 'stream'.
Following theNorman Conquest, themanor of Peckham was granted toOdo of Bayeux and held by theBishop of Lisieux.[3][4] It was described as being a hamlet on the road from Camberwell toGreenwich.[4]
Peckham appears inDomesday Book of 1086 asPecheham. It was held by theBishop of Lisieux fromOdo of Bayeux. Its Domesday assets were: 2hides. It had land for 1plough, 2 acres (8,100 m2) ofmeadow. It rendered 30shillings (£1.50).[5]
The manor was owned by KingHenry I, who gave it to his sonRobert, Earl of Gloucester. When Robert married the heiress toCamberwell the two manors were united under royal ownership.King John probably hunted at Peckham and local anecdotes suggest that the right to an annualfair was granted to celebrate a particularly good day's sport. The fair grew to be a rowdy major event lasting three weeks until its abolition in 1827.
Peckham became popular as a wealthy residential area by the 16th century and there are several claims thatChristopher Wren had local links. By the 18th century the area was a more commercial centre and attracted industrialists who wanted to avoid paying the expensive rents in central London. Peckham had extensivemarket gardens andorchards growing produce for the nearby markets of London. Local produce included melons, figs and grapes.
The formal gardens of the PeckhamManor House, rebuilt in 1672 bySir Thomas Bond were particularly noticeable and can be seen on theRocque map of 1746. The manor house was sacked in 1688, as its then ownerSir Henry Bond was a Roman Catholic and staunch supporter ofJames II. The house was demolished in 1797 for the formation of Peckham Hill Street, as the Shard family developed the area. Today Shard's Terrace, the block that contains Manze's Pie and Mash shop, and the western side of Peckham Hill Street represent thisGeorgian planned expansion.
The village was the last stopping point for many cattledrovers taking their livestock for sale in London. The drovers stayed in the local inns (such as the Red Cow) while the cattle were safely secured overnight in holding pens. Most of the villagers were agricultural or horticultural workers but with the early growth of the suburbs an increasing number worked in the brick industry that exploited the localLondon Clay. In the early 18th century nonconformist preacherSamuel Chandler was minister in Peckham.[4]
In 1767William Blake visitedPeckham Rye and had a vision of anangel in a tree. In 1993, at the request of the Dulwich Festival,[6] artist Stan Peskett painted a mural of Blake's vision next to the Goose Green playground inEast Dulwich.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Peckham was synonymous withPeckham Rye: a "small, quiet, retired village surrounded by fields". Since 1744stagecoaches had travelled with an armed guard between Peckham and London to give protection fromhighwaymen. The rough roads constrained traffic so a branch of theGrand Surrey Canal was proposed as a route from theThames toPortsmouth. The canal was built fromSurrey Commercial Docks to Peckham before the builders ran out of funds in 1826. The abbreviated canal was used to ship soft wood for construction and even though the canal was drained and backfilled in 1970, Whitten's timber merchants stood on the site known as Eagle Wharf until it closed in 2019 and the location was designated for development.[7]
In 1851Thomas Tilling started an innovativeomnibus service from Peckham to London. Tilling's buses were the first to use pre-arranged bus stops, which helped them to run to a reliable timetable. His services expanded to cover much of London until his horses were requisitioned for theArmy in theFirst World War.
During the mid-19th century, housing had spread north and west of Peckham Rye. The area in the north, towardsOld Kent Road, on land previously owned by the Hill family (from whom the name Peckham Hill Street was derived) was initially known asPeckham New Town, although it would later become synonymous with Peckham in general (and the "New Town" was abandoned). In the area west ofPeckham Rye Common andPeckham Rye Park, many large houses were built.
In 1865,Peckham Rye railway station opened. With the arrival of the railway and the introduction of horse-drawn trams about ten years later, Peckham became accessible to artisans and clerical staff working in the city and the docks. Housing for this socio-economic group filled almost all the remaining fields except the Rye. In 1868 thevestry of Camberwell St Giles bought the Rye to keep it ascommon land. In 1894, responding to concerns about the dangerous overcrowding of the common on holidays, the vestry bought the adjacent Homestall Farm, the last farm in the area, and opened this as Peckham Rye Park.
With the influx of younger residents with money to spend Rye Lane became a major shopping street. In 1867, Jones & Higgins opened a small shop on the corner of Rye Lane and Peckham High Street that became the best known department store in south London for many years. It closed in the 1980s. In 1870,George Gibson Bussey moved to Peckham and set up a firm described as "Firearms, Ammunition & Shooting” at the Museum Works, Rye Lane, Peckham. The Museum of Firearms was built in 1867. The 1868Ordnance Survey map shows the museum building with a rifle range at the rear extending along the side of the railway embankment for 150 yards.
The late 19th century also saw the arrival of George Batty, a manufacturer of condiments, whose main business stood atFinsbury Pavement. The company's Peckham premises occupied 19 railway arches. It was acquired by theH. J. Heinz Company in 1905 as their first UK manufacturing base.
Peckham came within the newly createdMetropolitan Borough of Camberwell andCounty of London in 1889.[8]
The southern end of Peckham was the location for the railway line that once servedthe Crystal Palace inSydenham. Though the line was eventually dismantled due to the collapse of the embankment into the gardens of Marmora Road it is still possible to see large sections of it. The flats on Wood Vale and the full length of Brenchley Gardens trace its route.
Close by is the Aquarius Golf Club,[9] which is located over the cavernous Honor Oak Reservoir constructed between 1901 and 1909. When it was completed it was the largest brick built underground reservoir in the world[10] and is still one of the largest in Europe.[11] The reservoir now forms part of the Southern extension of theThames Water Ring Main.
Camberwell Old Cemetery, on Forest Hill Road, is a later example of the ring ofVictorian cemeteries that were built to alleviate the overcrowding ofchurchyards that was experienced with the rapid expansion of London in the 19th century. The Stone House at its main entrance was used as a film location forEntertaining Mr. Sloane (1970), adapted from theJoe Orton play. It was gutted by fire in the mid-1970s and rebuilt some years later. Camberwell Old Cemetery did not have the grandeur of nearbyNunhead Cemetery, which was one of the original Londonnecropoleis, and once nearing capacity it was replaced byCamberwell New Cemetery on Brenchley Gardens.
Brenchley Gardens Park follows the route of the old line tothe Crystal Palace culminating at the High Level station. The park runs behind Marmora Road and the remains of the embankment then continues along Wood Vale where flats were built on it. The line was closed in 1954 following a decline in its use after the destruction of the Crystal Palace in 1936 and due to slippage in the structure of the embankment.[12]
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In the 1930s George Scott Williamson andInnes Pearse opened the Pioneer Health Centre in Queens Road. They planned to conduct a large experiment into the effect of environment on health.'The Peckham Experiment' recruited 950 families who paid oneshilling (equivalent to £4 in 2023) a week for access to something like a modern sports club with facilities for physical exercise, games, workshops and socialising with no mandatory programme. The centre moved into a purpose-built modernist building by the architectSir Owen Williams in 1935.
In 1965, the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell was abolished and the area then fell roughly within the newly created London Borough of Southwark.North Peckham was heavily redeveloped in the 1960s, consisting mainly of high-rise flats to rehouse people from dilapidated old houses. It was popular on its completion for offering a high quality and modern standard of living. However, high unemployment and a lack of economic opportunities led tourban decay and a period of decline in the late 1970s. The North Peckham Estate became one of the most deprived residential areas in Western Europe. Vandalism, graffiti, arson attacks, burglaries, robberies and muggings were commonplace, and the area became an archetypal Londonsink estate.[13]
As a result, the area was subjected to a £290 million regeneration programme in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After the beginning of the regeneration, the estate gained nationwide notoriety in the media when 10-year-old Nigerian residentDamilola Taylor was stabbed to death on the estate on 27 November 2000.[14] A gang operating in the area is thePeckham Boys.[15]
In the early 1990s Peckham was a centre of underground music partly due to a large squat known as The Dolehouse in a disused, two-floorDHSS building near Peckham High Street.[16] The building was already known for having featured in the cover shot of a 1980s pictorial biography of 1960s' mods, featuring them on their customised scooters outside the then Camberwell Labour Exchange.
In 1989, the squatters adopted the nameDole House Crew and along with another local group of squatters called the "Green Circus", held regular gigs/parties in the building. They moved on to many otherSouth East London venues after the Peckham Dolehouse was evicted in late October 1990. Asquattedsocial centre called theSpike Surplus Scheme ran from 1998 until being evicted by the council in 2009.
Peckham was one of the areas where riots took place during the2011 England riots.[17]
Peckham was home to the Peckham Black Women's Centre until 1990,[18] and tothe Black Lesbian and Gay Centre from 1992 to 1995.[19] In 2024 aRainbow Plaque commemorating the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre was unveiled onBellenden Road.[20]
Since the 1990s theEuropean Union has invested in the regeneration of the area; partly funding the award-winningPeckham Library,[21] a new town square and new housing to replace the North Peckham Estate. State funding is being provided to improve the housing stock and renovate the streets. This includes funding for public arts projects like theTom Phillips mosaics on the wall of the Peckham Experiment restaurant.[citation needed]
1994 saw the completion of thePeckham Arch designed by architects Troughton McAslan and funded in part by a £1m SRB (Single Regeneration Budget) grant.[22] The arch is due to be demolished to make way for 19 flats; the decision was made despite public protests.[23]
The main shopping street is Rye Lane and the largePeckham Rye Park is nearby.Bellenden Road is an area of small independent shops.
Peckham has never been an administrative district, or a singleecclesiastical parish in its own right, but it developed a strong sense of identity in the 19th century when Rye Lane was one of the most important shopping streets insouth London. The area is identified in theLondon Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.[1]
The area known as Peckham covers a large area of south London and takes in many diverse communities. The British Nigerian community forms a sizeable component of the population of the area, with the area being dubbed "Little Lagos" as a result.[24] As of 2011, the whole Peckham area had a Nigerian-born population of 5,250 people.[25]
A traditional London working class community now coexists with communities that have their origins in theCaribbean,China,India,Ghana,Zimbabwe,Nigeria,Somalia,Pakistan,Bangladesh,Turkey,Eastern Europe andVietnam. As well as these communities there has been a steadygentrification of some of the areas in the south of Peckham and this has meant an influx of cafés,wine bars, niche shops and artists' studios.
Peckham is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the UK. These are the 2011 statistics forthe ethnic groups in the Peckham ward.[26] This ward is about one-fifth of the place called Peckham, and not representative of the ethnic and cultural distribution in the other four wards.
Peckham is part of thePeckham constituency for elections to theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom[27] andPeckham ward for elections toSouthwark London Borough Council.[28]
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Muriel Spark's 1960 novelThe Ballad of Peckham Rye is set in the area.
Peckham was the setting of the television sitcomOnly Fools and Horses in its run as a regular series from 1981 to 1991, as well as Christmas specials until 2003. The majority of the scenes were filmed in Bristol, and around other parts of London. The spin-off,Rock & Chips, was also set in Peckham in the 1960s.
The television situation comedyDesmond's, made byChannel 4, as well as its spin-off,Porkpie, were filmed and set in Peckham. The comediesMeet the Adebanjos andThe Tboy Show, both directed by Debra Odutuyo, were set in Peckham.
A 30-minute musical calledWe The Ragamuffin[29] was set in Peckham, and filmed in the area, mainly on the North Peckham Estate. The film used local musicians with an improvised script and was broadcast onChannel 4 in February 1992. The film was written and produced by Russell Newell and directed byJulian Henriques.
Peckham was home of the fictional characterRose Tyler, a former leading character in the British TV showDoctor Who. Her flat on a fictional council estate in the area is regularly shown during her time on the show.
TheE4 showYoungers is filmed and set in Peckham.
In the television seriesFoyle's War, Series Eight, Adam Wainright, Samantha's husband, is elected in 1947 as Labour Member of Parliament for the fictional constituency of 'West Peckham'.
Four of the 12 main characters inBernardine Evaristo's 2019 novelGirl, Woman, Other are connected to the fictive Peckham School for Boys and Girls as either teachers or pupils.
The 2023 filmRye Lane is largely set in Peckham, and is named for the street there. The film features real-life locations, including the restaurants Coal Rooms and Il Giardino, Rye Lane Market, the Rye Lane branch ofMorley's, and the Peckhamplex cinema.[30]
Key scenes in the 2023 romantic comedyLove at First Sight take place at the fictional Peckham House.
Like most of southeast London, Peckham has never been served by theLondon Underground. If and when theBakerloo line extension is complete, a new tube station will be built on Asylum Road northeast of the centre of Peckham, near the A2 road andBrimmington Park. It will be located between another new station atBurgess Park and the existing railway station atNew Cross Gate. Existing railway stations in the district are as follows:
Peckham bus garage is operated byLondon Central and is situated in Blackpool Road. It opened in 1994 and replaced a similar but larger facility in Peckham High Street on part of whose site the present bus station now stands. A viaduct behind it carries the railway east of Peckham Rye railway station.
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