Thames Tributary Effra - Forest Hill

Thames Tributary Effra
Springs in this area flow north and west to join other tributaries to the Effra

Post to the west Dulwich
Post to the north East Dulwich
Post to the south Sydenham Hill
Post to the east Forest Hill


Cox’s Walk
A formal avenue of oaks cut planted in the 1740s by Francis Cox to connect his Green Man Tavern, now The Grove Tavern, and Dulwich Wells with Sydenham Wells. Home to woodpeckers and nuthatch, and owned by Dulwich Estates.
Bridge. The railway to Crystal Palace ran under a big cantilevered bridge in brick and wood built in 1865. It was renewed in teak in 1908 to the design of the 1865 original. Camille Pissarro painted Lordship Lane station from here. Thick woodland and shrubbery now obscure the view from the bridge in the painting of 1871 now in the Courtauld Institute Galleries.
Railway - through this aea the line is climing at 1:78 which many steam locomotives found difficult.
Cedar of Lebanon in a large clearing,
Effra. A tributary is said to, flow down from the woods of Sydenham Hill, alongside Cox’s Walk to Dulwich Common.
Sham ruin. A ‘ruined monastery’ lies in the midst of the woods surrounded by brambles and ivy, a folly that once stood in the garden of 36 Sydenham Hill. A broken fragment of stone archway

'Donkey Alley'
Path onto Dawson’s hill, horses and donkeys were kept in a paddock on the hill. Local riding schools and police horses use it.

Fireman’s Alley
Alongside site of the old fire station

Forest Hill
Named from the extensive woodland which once covered the area. It was part of the Great North Wood. Building followed enclosure in 1810.

Highwood close,
A development of 2005 on the site of the former Highwood Barracks of the Territorial Army in Lordship Lane. High Wood was the scene of an engagement during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916, when the First Surrey Rifles took a line of German trenches with a huge loss of life. The courts are named after forests in England and Scotland: Ashdown, Caledonian, Epping, Mercia, Savernake, Sherwood and Stoke

Horniman Drive
Named after Frederick John Horniman a tea merchant who lived in a large house named Surrey Mount here. The house was damaged by bombing in the Second World War, and demolished in the 1950's.
Horniman Gardens. A park on a sloping site. Springs from this area would have fed the Effra running via Lordship Lane, Dulwich and Herne Hill. On old maps it is the site of Hensford's Pond. The main gate from London Road was that to the drive to Surrey Mount; the railings are original. The Summer Garden has a rose garden and a sunken garden. The Water Garden is a series of small ponds on the hillside feeding the Centre for Understanding the Environment pond and they also have a recycling pond. The Gardens and the museum were presented to the people of London in perpetuity in 1901 by Emile John Horniman, a Member of the London County Council. Newer developments are centered around the new museum entrance, with mixed borders near the newly restored Victorian glasshouse and tropical-style planting beneath the turf roof of the educational building. There are also 200 barnacle geese, wallabies.
The railway nature trail which runs alongside the park has been open since 1973. The trail runs along the Victoria to Crystal Palace High Level line which closed in 1954. Most of the land has been allowed to grow wild. The track bed is now a nature reserve of line side scrub and woodland, plus meadow and pond. Trees include oak, silver birch, rowan and sallow, together with later plantings of holm oak and walnut.
Sundials. A feature of Horniman Gardens. On the west face of the Museum is the Vertical West Facing Sundial, designed by Ray Ashley 1994. Near the Conservatory is the Scaphe Sundial, an inner bowl with a rough exterior designed by Angela Hodgson 1994; the shadow of the gnomon falls on an hour line shown on the inner bowl. the Double Polar Sundial, has the Horniman logo and the inscription 'and hours run mad, e'en as men might’ an anagram of The Horniman Museum and Gardens', designed by John Moir 1997 and it is on a Portland Stone plinth. At the highest point of the Gardens, on the site of Surrey Mount, is the Analemmatic Sundial, designed by Barry Small 1994; standing on the month, the numbered slab on which your shadow falls is the time in British Summer Time. In the garden is the Horizontal Sundial, designed by John Moir 1997. There is also a Sundial by the entrance to CUE, and in a window of the Conservatory.
Dutch Barn, brought from Holland by Frederick Horniman,
Bandstand, designed by Harrison Townsend 1912.
Play Park. On the site of what was once thought to be a 'plague pit’, a formal park bordered by trees and shrubs.
Horniman's School. Designed by Michael Manser 1972. The school on a steep hillside away from the road. It is clad in russet ribbed plastic sheets, and visible through small white cones.
27 Small, front garden with shrubs making a tapestry of green. Back garden with emphasis on colour using perennials, roses and shrubs.

London Road
The road and its extension in Lordship Lane is the only road going along the col created by the drainage basin of the Effra tributaries between the two sets of hills.
Horniman Museum. Built by Harrison Townsend for the tea merchant Frederick Horniman in 1901. On the front is a Greater London Council blue plaque: The Horniman Museum & Gardens were given to the people of London in 1901 by Frederick John Horniman who lived near the site'. Horniman was a collector of natural history, music, and ethnography. He was the son of John Horniman, who first sold tea in packets. He moved here in 1860 and in 1888 to Surrey House, where his collection was on view to the public. He later moved to Surrey Mount using Surrey House for the collection. In 1898 he commissioned Harrison Townsend to create the museum, which in 1901 was donated to the London County Council. It has a stone clock tower and original barrel-vaulted halls. Under a gable is the inscription The Horniman Museum', below it a mosaic by Anning Bell, called 'Humanity in the House of Circumstance and a representation of experiences of birth and death. Dedication panel by Pomeroy. There is an extension of 1911 and the Emslie Horniman Gallery. The original entrance is accessed by a grand staircase, with a bronze bow originally a fountain, by Rollins and a foundation stone of 1898. The 'Horniman 2001' scheme, designed by Allies & Morrison, sited a new main entrance giving access from the Gardens.  Was originally into houses and built a personal invitation only open to the public in 1890 garden opens in 1895. The Museum North and South poles in 1898's the exhibition hall in Westport in 1934 funded by Haldeman's son LCC education Centre 1869.  Surrey Mount house destroyed informing 1913 nine
Pelican Coade stone for the Pelican Life Insurance Office. Now in the Museum of London.
Education Centre, a small building of 1969; replaced by a new building designed by A H Morrison as part of 'Horniman 2001'
CUE (Centre for Understanding the Environment) reached by a bridge over a pond. Designed by Jonathan Hines of Architype 1995; it is planned as an auditorium and exhibition area. It is clad in Douglas fir, internally in pine. It has a living roof of grass and project nine ventilation columns. The roof is irrigated by a solar-powered pump. There are two sundials - On the ceiling is the Ceiling by Ray Ashley and John Moir; where light from the sun is reflected from a small hole producing a small spot of light on the ceiling, which moves with the sun indicating solar time. On the bridge is the Butterfly Sundial by Frivvin Ruell
Totem pole, with the inscription: ‘this Indian totem pole was carved by Nathan Jackson of Alaska for the America Festival of 1985 and erected by the Greater London Council 1985'
The Horniman Conservatory. A fully glazed conservatory built in 1894 for Frederick Horniman at Coombe Cliff, Croydon and moved to this site in 1988. The white painted ironwork is by Macfarlane & Co, Saracen Foundry, Glasgow. In the south wall is stained glass sundial, designed by Roselyn Loftin 1994.
Drinking fountain. Black pillar with push button water supply.1995.
Horse trough on the corner with Sydenham Hill. In memory of Mrs. Prescott of Somerville Halifax. Gone.
Across the road from the museum children's playground on the side of the plague pit.. Perhaps

Lordship Lane
549 important listed building, in a derelict state. Built in 1873 by Charles Drake of the Patent Concrete Building Company. In 1867 Charles Drake had patented his own method for building with concrete using sheet iron panels instead of timber shuttering. The house is a rare example of a 19th concrete house -there is no other known property of this type. Southwark Council has refused permission for it to be demolished and wants it restored.
Bews Corner - old name for the pub site.
522 The Harvester. Grove Tavern There has been a pub here for nearly 300 years – and the pub was once called the Green Man. – when the innkeeper was John Cox, after whom Cox’s walk named. It was the site of Dulwich Wells and water from a well in the garden was thought to be medicinal – to cure apoplexy, falling sickness, palsy, dizziness and head ache. Later the inn was converted by Dr Glennie into a school for young gentlemen whose most famous pupil was the poet Lord Byron, who spent two years here while a London specialist treated his clubfoot. Was also called Lordship Tavern. It is on the site of Bew Corner where a sulphur spring found. The Ambrook River flows from the golf course to here and is joined by streams from East Dulwich and from Forest Hill and then goes towards Dulwich Park.
Lordship Lane station. Opened1st September 1865 and Built by London, Chatham & Dover Railway on the south side of Lordship Lane west of Sydenham Hill. Dulwich College made the railway build a posh station out of timber. It was never much good and was too near Forest Hill station. The French impressionist artist, Camille Pissarro, painted a view of the station from the Cox's Walk footbridge. The picture is owned by the Courtauld Gallery and shows a double armed signal post on the down platform, prior to the building of the signal box. There was a subway to the up platform revealed during demolition.. The station was closed 1917 – 1919 and again 1944-46. Then bombed and partly demolished and in 1954 closed, completely demolished 1957
Signal Box.  Closed in 1924.
Railway Bridge. This was at the point where London Road becomes Lordship Lane. Demolished in 1958 it was extremely ornate to suit Dulwich College.
Highwood Barracks. Territorial Army Centre on part of what was a much larger site. Cadet Centre for Air Cadets
St.Peter’s Church. This is now the Deeper Life Bible Church. Built 1873 by Charles Barry. Jun. The tower with slated spire and the church built in Kentish rag with a polychrome interior. Stained glass window with pictorial scenes of c. 1891.Site given by Richard Thornton of Sydenham Hill.
Telephone Exchange. Opened on 2 May 1962 on the site of the old fire station. It was named Townley to commemorate Margaret Townley, Alleyn’s mother. The natural choice for the new telephone exchange’s name was ‘Dulwich’, but DUL was the same as FUL, which was the dialling code for Fulham.
Dulwich Fire Station, opened in 1893, It had one officer, nine firemen, all married, one coachman, four horses, one steamer, one manual engine, hose and four fire escapes. It was bombed and closed in 1947 and demolished in 1958.

Lordship Lane Estate
Area behind the Grove Pub built by Camberwell Council in the early 1950s
Bew Court: the site of the Grove Tavern was once, known as Bew's Corner, after Old Mother Bew who ran a tea-shop there.
Byron Court. Lord Byron, the poet, attended Dr.Glennie’s school on the site
Campbell Court: Thomas Campbell, poet, lived at Sydenham and visited the school
Glennie Court: Dr Alexander Glennie ran a private school here at the end of the 18th
Maxwell Court: Charles Maxwell bought The Green Man public house in 1774 after the school closed.
McLeod Court: Sir Donald McLeod, was a pupil at the school.

Mount Adon Park
Named after a local big house “Adon Mount’. Home of a Mr. James Henderson.
49 Odyssey. Centre for people with learning disabilities

Overhill Road
Dawson’s Hill. Ice-age, glaciers formed valleys and hills. It is 255 feet high and was part of the Great North Wood. Streams would have run down the hill and fed the Effra. It is on a 'ley line' Celtic artefacts found in the 1950s
Bronze Age barrow could he seen here until the 1950s
A Roman fortress was here alongside Roman Wood Vale
Dawson’s Brickworks site in the early 20th on the north foot of the hill
Dawson Heights. Two twelve-storey brick ziggurats face each other across a drab stretch of green. By Southwark Architects Department called the ‘Inca housing estate’ because - it was meant to be inspired by a great ship, or an Inca temple
Landells is an old name,
63b wildlife garden with pond. Plants from all over the world, including acacias, banana trees, abutilons, tree ferns, palms, cannas, hostas, Bonsai trees and carnivorous plants.

Underhill Road
58 Plaque erected 1990 to C.S. Forester 1899-1966 'novelist lived here' best known for creating Horatio Hornblower

Westwood Park
Springs from this area would have fed the Effra running via Lordship Lane, Dulwich and Herne Hill

Wood Vale,
Said to be part of a Roman Road from Woodbridge to Chichester. The name is a reminder of the West Wood - part of the Great North Wood. It was 500 acres and there were Commoners Rights from Lewisham which were lost rights James I - Colfe protested. 1615 march and the rights were re-won. The road is the boundary between Lewisham and Southwark and has been on the line of the boundary between Kent and Surrey.
110 Moore Park Hotel. Gone
Five old oak pollards Between Woodlands Court which are relic boundary markers. On the opposite side are a number of gardens featuring a Chilean pine-the monkey puzzle tree-a Victorian favourite but now threatened in its native habitat she

Comments

Anonymous said…
The ex-Moore Park Tavern building and ex-brewery buildings still exist on Langton Rise & Woodvale having been coverted to flats and a garage respectively.

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