Brockley – 1000 years of history.

By Des Kirkland

Very little is known of mediaeval Brockley. There has been occupation of the area by the Anglo-Saxons since about 952AD and was known by them as ‘Brocele’. The name comes from Old English and may have meant OBroca's Wood or Grove. This is due to the fact that the area was mainly woodland and the only large clearing was the area surrounding the brook, the perfect location to found a settlement. In addition to the brook a well was later dug in what is now Mantle Road and most likely sited underneath or adjacent to John Stainer School.

The Doomsday Book reference to Brockley documented it as a “small hamlet” the inhabitants of which were mainly engaged in farming or other agricultural work. It is well documented that there were farms and orchards in Brockley right up to the latter part of the 18^th century. Maps of the area from the mid 16^th century show large parts of what are now Brockley, Crofton Park and Honor Oak as either orchards or fields.

Between the 12th and 15th centuries the area was principally a farming community, with a mixture of arable crops and livestock. The population remained fairly stable until a road was built through the area for coaches between London and Canterbury.

In the 1800s, 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 pear 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.

The area remained largely agricultural until the 19th Century when the Wickham and Tyrwhitt-Drake families developed the area, building the semi detached houses, villas and terraces that remain to this day and give Brockley its unique identity and sense of place.

Religious heritage

Shortly before his death in 1189, Henry II, the Plantagenet King, gave the Manor of Brockley including the common to the Premonstratensian canons. According to the early records, the Manor of Brockley included the land now known as Crofton Park.

The Premonstratensians, also known as the White Canons (from the colour of their habit), were a Christian religious order of ‘Canons Regular’ founded at Prémontré near Laon, a city in northern France in 1120 by Saint Norbert, afterwards Archbishop of Magdeburg.

The order built a monastery on the land now occupied by St Peter’s Church in Wickham Rd, stretching across to what is now Beverley Court; and where during the excavations for the present buildings, the site of the monastery well and fish ponds were found. Between 1205 and 1208 the order moved to Bayham Abbey in Sussex, and the title of the estates and properties were all transferred to that abbey.

The Tudor period was marked by Brockley being endowed by Cardinal Thomas Woolsey for his abortive Cardinal College in Oxford in 1524. The college buildings took over the site of the St. Frideswide's Monastery. When Wolsey fell from power in 1529, the College became property of Henry VIII. Henry re-founded the College in 1546 and renamed it Christ Church College, and so it remains today.

In 1526 Henry VIII requisitioned Bayham Abbey and the Manor of Brockley prior to the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536. The Manor was later split up and sold to the families of the Wickham’s and Tyrwhitt-Drake’s. Brockley Lane was the old road that ran from Deptford to Brockley Greene (later renamed Brockley common around the late 17th century).

Under the new Church of England the Manor of Brockley became part of the Parish of St Nicholas in the diocese of Southwark. The church developed from a small Norman building in the 12th and 13th centuries. Its fine pinnacled tower was added in the 15th, but it owes much of its present furnishings and atmosphere to a thorough and graceful restoration in the 1820s.

The new church of St Paul’s, Deptford was begun in 1713 and built in the Baroque style by architect Thomas Archer who was a student of Sir Christopher Wren, and also was one of the original church Commissioners. The Bishop of London consecrated the church on the 30th June 1730 and. the northern end of Brockley was ceded as part of the Parish of St Paul’s.

It was not until the consecration of St Peters Church in Wickham Rd in 1870 that the exiting parish boundary was formed. St Peters was designed by the architect F Marrable and it took over a decade from the first plans being drawn up until the build was completed. The first stone was laid in 1867 and the church was completed three years later. The project was dogged by money problems throughout, which explains the lack of a spire. St Peter’s is now a showcase for environmental sustainability as the current incumbent Corinne Tournay has installed bio-mass boilers in the crypt and solar electric panels on the roof.

Miraculous vision

In the late 15th century there is a literary reference to a vision of St. Mary being seen at a spring locally. For the last 250 years it has been assumed that the spring was at Ladywell, as in the 18th Century there was a road crossing the River Ravensborne also called Brockley Lane. However in view of the proximity to the old abbey and its dedication, it is possible that the vision occurred at Brockley Greene.

The old manor house of Brockley stood to the west of Manor Avenue. However as is common with old estates the manor house was relocated in the 18th century to be built in the latest style. Its location was to the west of the Brockley Jack, just south of Brockley Grove. The old manor house continued to exist as Brockley Manor Farm up until the 19th century.

During the early part of the 18th century construction started on a large abbey dedicated to Saint Mary in the area roughly where St Andrews church now occupies. The nearest source of fresh water to the Abbey was a spring that flowed from an area of the common land known as Brockley Greene.

The spring dried up when the cutting for the Brighton railway was put through the common land. A well site replaced it to feed the early steam trains on the Brockley line and the Brockley Lane line that runs through to Victoria Station.

The spring flowed into a small stream that ran across Brockley Greene and northwards in the valley between Telegraph Hill and the Brockley Conservation area at the rear of the properties to the east of Malpas Road and around the north side of the old village of Deptford Bridge. At the time of the Doomsday Book this village was known as Merratun, an Anglo-Saxon name meaning the town in the marsh.

Mediaeval link

It is interesting that the boundary of this ancient village adjacent to the Ravensborne and the Roman Road Watling Street was roughly oval and it has been speculated, was possibly a Bronze Age or earlier enclosure. The fresh water for the Town came from the stream to the south and the spring at the common.

We know that in the 18th century the Brockley common had a public house just to the south of the now demolished Maypole pub (in Mantle Road), it too may have been called the Maypole and could have been the centre of a thriving village farming community.

On the 1861 ordinance survey map of Brockley before the platforms of the station were extended adjacent to Platform One, a large horizontal stone possibly four meters long is indicated. Whether this stone was ever a standing stone ritually linking the Bronze Age community to the north to the origin of its water supply is unknown. The stone may still exist in its prone position just south of the shelter under the platform.

Infamous past

Before the area was built up, the principal buildings in Brockley were Brockley Farm, Brockley Hall, and the Brockley Jack public house. The Brockley Jack was formerly a picturesque wooden building, and was said to have been a haunt of highwaymen. It was owned by the Noakes family, who were brewers of several generations, they lived at Brockley Hall.

In 1787 when the diarist, Gerald Bulsom wrote the above in his journal, “God forsaken and smelling badly of stale urine.....”, it was in reference to a weekend spent at a cousin’s farm in Brockley. Whether the entry refers to the cousin’s hygiene or the area in general is not made clear.

Brockley even in those days was a place best avoided. Surrounded by inhospitable woods and terrible roads, it was a dank, unwelcome place. It was a popular stopping point for roaming gipsy tribes, and regularly attracted other types traditionally frowned upon by civil society.

Matters weren’t helped any by the notoriety of Brockley’s most famous son, the highwayman nicknamed Brockley Jack, whose debauched reign of terror began in 1784 and ended with his arrest and subsequent hanging in 1789 by angry locals.

Jacks modus operandi was to waylay unsuspecting gentlemen on the way home from local ale-houses, hold them at pistol point, rob them of their valuables then force them to remove their trousers and perform lewd acts with his horse 'Long Jarvis'.

The Industrial Revolution

Industrial development arrived in 1809 in the form of the Croydon Canal running from Croydon to Bermondsey. The Croydon Canal opened on 22nd October 1809 and ran from a junction with the Grand Surrey Canal near New Cross Gate to a site now occupied by West Croydon station.

With 28 locks grouped into two flights, and numerous swing bridges, the canal linked the Thames to Croydon via Forest Hill, Sydenham, and Anerley. It was a financial failure, the £100 shares falling in value to just two shillings in 1830. The proprietors realised that the coming of the railways was an opportunity not to be missed, and they sold the canal for use as the course of a railway. It closed on 22nd August 1836 and was drained.

This was later filled in and replaced by the London and Croydon railway line which runs through the original canal cutting between Brockley and New Cross Gate train stations. The name Crofton Park was invented by the railway company for its new station and has no historical significance.

Brockley and Crofton Park benefited from the arrival of the railway. The large amount of good quality clay in the area was perfect for making bricks and pottery, which the railway could transport. The map of 1860 shows four brick fields in Brockley with more in neighbouring Telegraph Hill. A large local pottery was located at the top of what is now Vicars Hill and may have occupied part of Hilly Fields. At the Deptford end of Brockley was a number of Tanneries which took fresh cow hides and treated them to make leather. The road where they plied their trade still bears the name Tanners Hill.

Local Government

From 1898 Brockley became a part of the Civil Parish of Deptford. Civil Parishes were created with the election of parochial boards. They were a local government unit with only civil responsibilities. They were founded anytime after the sixteenth century, most commonly between 1845 and 1975. Until 1930 civil parishes were defined as 'areas for which a separate poor rate is or can be assessed'.

Many boundaries between civil and ecclesiastical parishes diverged after 1845. For instance, civil parishes were often previously subordinate areas of a mother parish known as hamlets, tithings, townships, chapelries or lordships. Many of these areas had individual poor law rates and to avoid confusion the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866 stipulate that these were to be given the status of 'parishes'. Brockley remained part of Deptford until the creation of the new London Boroughs when it became part of the Borough of Lewisham, although the link with the past is maintained through the parliamentary constituency name ‘Lewisham Deptford’.

Suffragette influence on Hilly Fields

Hilly Fields was saved from redevelopment in the 1880s by local activists alongside the Commons Preservation Society. Octavia Hill, a well known suffragette and one of the founders of the National Trust helped this cause and in 1896 it was finally transformed from old brick pits and ditches into the beautiful open space it is today. The park was a regular meeting place for the Suffragette movement between 1907 and 1914.

London’s oldest Bowls club, the Sir Francis Drake was founded in 1906 in Hilly Fields and has continued ever since, despite having a UXB drop into the middle of the green in 1941 and the wooden club house being burnt down by an incendiary device. A new club house was erected in 1947 after a public appeal for subscriptions.

A rather spectacular bandstand was erected in hilly fields just before the outbreak of the First World War. It was destroyed sometime during the Second World War.

The old West Kent Grammar School (later renamed Brockley County Grammar School), and now Prendergast School, is a Grade II listed building and situated at the top of the hill. At 160ft above sea level Hilly Fields has views across the City, Shooters Hill and Crystal Palace.

A stone circle was erected in Hilly Fields in 2000 as a millennium project by a group of local artists, which won a Civic Trust Award in 2004. The cross carved in the central slab is aligned with the cardinal compass points.

War damage

Brockley suffered from the bombing in WWII. The main route for German bombers was along the line of the Thames, as even on over-cast nights the pilots could still see the reflection of the water surface. They would fly in towards their intended targets of the munitions factories at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich or the docks complex in the East End and at Rotherhithe.

Their exit route was to turn south crossing New Cross, Brockley, Forest Hill, Crystal Palace and Anerley, during which they would discard any bombs still in their bomb-bays before swinging east to head out over the Kent coast to allow them to achieve greater height, speed and manoeuvrability to try and evade being shot down by the batteries of anti aircraft guns on the outer fringes of London and along the Kent coastal area.

The area also suffered significant V-2 rocket and other bomb damage in World War II. The partial destruction of the road bridge over the railway by Brockley Station and the post-war blocks of council flats at the north and south ends of Wickham Rd, in Shardeloes Rd and at the west end of Adelaide Ave are all evidence of this.

The Ordinance Survey maps from 1910 to 2000 give an illuminating insight into the both the evolution of Brockley and the changes caused by the war. The bowling green clubhouse is shown in almost all, but there is a change in the shape of the building as seen from above in the 1948 map compared to the earlier versions. The London Metropolitan Archive holds a complete list of all bombs which were dropped during the conflict and has maps showing the destruction of buildings. Though not unfortunately, for parks or other open spaces.

The records show that a total of 4 bombs landed on Hilly Fields during the war. There was an anti aircraft battery located at the highest point on the fields; the 1948 map shows the concrete bases where the five guns had been and the location as the flat piece of land where the Millennium Stone Circle is now.

There was a barrage balloon unit also, which was manned by RAF personnel. Its exact position is currently unclear though it is fair to assume that the two units were not in close proximity to ensure that the AA post did not inadvertently sever the balloon hawsers or bring one down whilst firing on enemy aircraft. Anecdotal reports from elderly residents of Brockley place it to the west side of the school on the section of park close to Montague Avenue.

Personal accounts

No.1 - Muriel Simpkins resident of Malpas Road.

”We had an Anderson shelter in the garden. You were supposed to go into the shelter every night. I used to take my knitting. I used to knit all night. I was too frightened to go to sleep. You got into the habit of not sleeping. I've never slept properly since. It was just a bunk bed. I did not bother to get undressed. It was cold and damp in the shelter. I was all on my own because my husband was in the army. You would go nights and nights and nothing happened. On one occasion when my husband was on leave, I think it was a weekend, we decided we would spend the night in bed instead of in the shelter. I heard the noise and woke up and I would see the sky. They had dropped a basket of incendiary bombs and we had got the lot. Luckily not one went off. Next morning the bombs were standing up in the garden as if they had grown in the night”.

No.2 - Edward Munrow from his diary entry dated 10th September 1940

”For three hours after the night attack got going, I shivered in a sandbag crow's-nest at the top of a tall building near the Thames. It was one of the many fire-observation posts. There was an old gun barrel mounted above a round table marked off like a compass. A stick of incendiaries bounced off rooftops about three miles away. The observer took a sight on a point where the first one fell, swung his gun-sight along the line of bombs, and took another reading at the end of the line of fire. Then he picked up his telephone and shouted above the half gale that was blowing up there, "Stick of incendiaries, - between 190 and 220 - about three miles away." Five minutes later a German bomber came boring down the river. We could see his exhaust trail like a pale ribbon stretched straight across the sky. Half a mile downstream there were two eruptions and then a third, close together. The first two looked as though some giant had thrown a huge basket of flaming golden oranges high in the air. The third was just a balloon of fire enclosed in black smoke above the house-tops. The observer didn't bother with his gun-sight and indicator for that one. Just reached for his night glasses, took one quick look, picked up his telephone, and said, "Two high explosives and one oil bomb", and named the street where they had fallen”.

“There was a small fire going off to our left. Suddenly sparks showered up from it as though someone had punched the middle of a huge camp-fire with a tree trunk. Again the gun sight swung around, the bearing was read, and the report went down the telephone lines: "There is something in high explosives on that fire at 59." There was peace and quite inside for twenty minutes. Then a shower of incendiaries came down far in the distance. They didn't fall in a line. It looked like flashes from an electric train on a wet night. One sight at the middle of the flashes and our observer reported, "Breadbasket at 90 - covers a couple of miles". Half an hour later a string of fire bombs fell right beside the Thames. We could see men shovelling those fire bombs into the river. One burned for a few minutes like a beacon right in the middle of a bridge. Finally those white flames all went out. No one bothers about the white light, it's only when it turns yellow that a real fire has started. I must have seen well over a hundred fire bombs come down and only three small fires were started. The incendiaries aren't so bad if there is someone there to deal with them, but those oil bombs present more difficulties”.

No.3 - Kathleen Brockington (former resident of Overcliff Rd)

”I married my husband in June 1939 at the age of 23 and can remember clearly that day in September hearing the Prime Minister tell us on the wireless that war had started. For the first few days a lot of people were very frightened. I can remember my Mother-in-Law bursting into tears and putting her gas mask on that first day; she wore it for about an hour but nothing happened and she took it off again when we gave her a cup of tea and she realised she couldn't drink it with the gas mask on!”

“In 1940 the air raids started up proper. Like lots of others down our street we had an Anderson Shelter in our garden, but it was dreadfully damp so in the end we used to sleep under our big oak table. If the air raid sirens went off in the evening we would just ignore them and carry on eating our tea or playing cards until we heard bombs getting a bit close and then we would dive under the table for cover. The night I was bombed out my husband was away fire fighting around St Paul's Cathedral and the East End of London which was getting a proper pasting. Lots of people were sleeping in the tube after the last train had gone. When the bomb dropped I wasn't even under the table! I heard the plane and recognised it was a Jerry because I'd heard so many. There was a tremendous BANG! and I ducked. All the windows came in and the ceiling and a couple of walls came in and there was incredible smoke everywhere. I was shaking like a leaf but I wasn't hurt”.

“I tried to get out but the door was stuck and I had to climb through where one of the windows had been. I could see there were lots of houses affected, glass everywhere in the street so I knew it was a big 'un. I ran to the Air Raid Post but the Warden said "Look missus, we're gonna be busy digging bodies out; if you've got a roof you're better off where you are. There's lots worse off than you". Funnily enough he was wrong; about 50 houses were badly damaged and a couple of them just turned into heaps of rubble, but nobody was actually killed”.

“I went home and climbed back through the window. There was dust and glass and bricks everywhere but I slept on my bed in my clothes until 6am, then went to stay with my mother. I was very shocked of course, and worried that when my husband got back from working day and night putting out fires he would go home and assume the worst. One of my mum's neighbours had a telephone and I tried to find out where he was but around the East End of London it was a proper mess and nobody knew anything”.

“After a few months the house was patched up by a local firm (the government paid for that) so I could live in it. A right shoddy job they made of it too. When they finished there were still big cracks in the walls, bare pipes, dust and dirt everywhere for weeks on end; but like the wardens said, there were lots worse off and at least I was still alive”.

Brockley Cross

The west side of the old canal cutting now forms a woodland nature reserve managed by the London Wildlife Trust. Some of the oldest houses in Brockley are the tiny cottages and shops which form a small terrace on Coulgate Street adjacent to 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. A tram terminus was created at the turn of the 19th Century at Brockley Cross joining the twin rail stations of Brockley and Brockley Lane.

Modern Brockley

After the Second World War, many of the big houses were sub-divided for multiple occupation. 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.

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. The oldest surviving house in the area is the 'Stone House' on Lewisham Way (opposite Lewisham College), built in 1773 by the architect George Gibson.

The Rivoli Ballroom (originally a cinema) dates from 1913 but was remodelled 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. The building has recently been listed (2007) and is now protected from demolition.

The 1970s saw a growing 'bohemian' influx of artists, musicians and students attracted by large, neglected and (at the time cheap) Victorian housing and the close proximity to Goldsmiths College and Camberwell School of Art.

Much of north Brockley was designated a Conservation Area in 1974 and in the same year the Brockley Society was formed with the aim of preserving and protecting the character of the area. In 2000 the Brockley Cross Action Group was formed to re-invigorate the local area and works closely with the Brockley Society and Lewisham Council to make Brockley an exiting place to live or work.

Brockley today is one of the best preserved Victorian suburbs in Inner London and contains examples of almost every style of mid to late 19th century domestic architecture from vast Gothic piles to modest workmen's cottages. It is this contrast which makes the area unique.

Authors note:

This history is an ongoing research project. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of a large number of people, including a few who are mentioned by name within this document.

I have also verified many key facts with the help of the archivists at the London Metropolitan Archive, the British Library, The Lewisham Local History Society, the Kentish Observer archives, Lewisham Borough News archives, Ordinance Survey and the Lewisham Local History and Archives Centre.

And finally to author Lewis Blake and his books, Red Alert, South East London 1939-45 and Bolts from the blue.