Brockley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brockley is an area of the London Borough of Lewisham in England. Situated about 5 miles (8 km) south east of London Charing Cross, it is covered by London postal district SE4, and lies on the old boundary between the Lewisham and Deptford parishes. The name 'Brockley' is derived from either 'Broca's woodland clearing', or a wood where badgers are seen (broc is the Old English for badger).
The oldest surviving house in the area is the 'Stone House' on Lewisham Way (opposite Lewisham College) built in 1776. The area remained agricultural until the nineteenth century, the most notable building of the time being the 'Brockley Jack', a hostelry reputed to be a favourite amongst highwaymen. The market gardens were famous for the enormous Victoria rhubarb which were fertilised by night soil from London. There were orchards too and some ancient pear trees survive in local gardens.
Industrial development arrived in the early 19th century in the form of the canal running fron Croydon to Bermondsey, this was later filled in and replaced by the existing railway line which runs through the original canal cutting between Brockley and New Cross Gate stations. Some of the oldest houses in Brockley are the tiny cottages which form a small terrace on Coulgate street, these are believed to date from 1833 and where probably originally associated with the canal.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Wickham and Drake families developed the north of Brockley with large villas, terraces and semi-detached houses. This part became the Brockley conservation area in 1974, when also the Brockley Society was formed. The area suffered significant V1 bomb damage in WW2 and the post-war blocks of council flats at the south end of Wickham Rd and at the west end of Adelaide Ave are evidence of this. After the war many of these big houses where devided up into flats and bedsits. In the 1950s and 60s these provided housing for the growing African-Caribbean population, many of whom found work in nearby Deptford and New Cross. The 1970s saw a growing 'bohemian' influx of artists, muscians and academics attracted by large (and at the time) cheap victorian houses and the areas close proximity to Goldsmiths College and Camberwell Art College. By the late 1990s the area was being 'discovered' by young proffesionals trading in thier flats in North and West London for bigger properties south of the river. The planned East London Line Extension is likely to result in further development around Brockley Cross.
Although mainly urban and residential in character, there are several open green spaces in the area, amongst them Blythe Hill, Brockley Cemetery and Hilly Fields. The latter was saved from development by the Commons Preservation Society and local groups in the 1880s and 1890s (including Octavia Hill, one of the founders of the National Trust). 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 (then later renamed Brockley County Grammar School), now Prendergast School, a Grade II listed building, is situated at the top of the hill (with listed murals dating from the 1930s by Charles Mahoney, Evelyn Dunbar and other students of the RCA, considered some of the best examples in the country of the neo-romantic style. 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 2004.
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[edit] Famous Residents
- Alan Brownjohn, the poet and novelist attended Brockley County School
- Kate Bush, the singer, lived on Wickham Road and performed at the Rose of Lee.
- Gabrielle, the singer, lived in Brockley
- David Haig, the Actor and writer, lives on the corner of Harefield and Wickham Road.
- Darren Johnson, Green Party politician
- David Jones, poet and artist, was born in Brockley in 1895 and lived in Howson Road for much of his earlier life. He attended Camberwell College of Art in 1909.
- David Lodge (author), grew up in Brockley and writes about the area in his novels [[The Picturegoers]] and [[Therapy]].
- Marie Lloyd, the music hall singer, lived at 196 Wickham Terrace in 1891-2.
- Tony Malone (designer), Local resident.
- Sybil Phoenix, former Mayoress of Lewisham and first black woman to receive the M.B.E., to become a Freeman of the City of London and Freeman of the Borough of Lewisham, local resident.
- Montague Summers, eccentric writer, taught at Brockley County School
- Edgar Wallace, author and original screenwriter of King Kong, lived at 6 Tresillian Crescent, Brockley, between 1900 and 1932.
- Willard White (C.B.E), famous opera singer, born Jamaica 1946, lived in Montague Avenue, Brockley.
- Henry Williamson, writer and author of Tarka the Otter, was born in 1895 at 66 Braxfield Rd and lived at 21 Eastern Road, Brockley, during his childhood in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He describes turn of the century Brockley in great detail in his semi-autobiographical novels, The Dark Lantern and Donkey Boy.
- Shaun Wright-Phillips, the footballer, grew up in Brockley and attended Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College.
- Members of the band indigo Moss are known to have at some point lived in this area.
- Members of the rock band Athlete grew up in and still live in Brockley. The band used to rehearse at the Bear in Deptford High St.
- Anita Klein, artist and printmaker has lived in Brockley for many years.
- Emily Davidson, suffragette, born Blackheath 1872 died at the Epsom Derby in 1913 after stepping in front of the kings horse. Lived for a time in Brockley.
- Paul Theroux, His 1976 novel The Family Arsenal is set in Cliff Terrace, St Johns.
[edit] Nearest places
[edit] Nearest railway stations
- Brockley railway station
- Crofton Park railway station
- Ladywell railway station
- St Johns railway station
[edit] References in popular culture
Linton Kwesi Johnson mentions Brockley in his poem "Inglan Is A Bitch". He spells it "Brackly" as this is roughly how it sounds in Jamaican patwah:
- dem a have a lickle facktri up inna Brackly
- inna disya facktri all dem dhu is pack crackry
- fi di laas fifteen years dem get mi laybah
- now awftah fifteen years mi fall out a fayvah
