SOUTH-EAST LONDON
General survey of South London--South-east London: its most populous
portion--Three small open spaces--Camberwell New Park--Southwark
Park--Kennington Park--Fine shrubberies--Greenwich Park and
Blackheath--A stately and depressing park--Mutilated trees--The
extreme East--Bostell Woods and Heath--Their peculiar charm--Woolwich
and Plumstead Commons--Hilly Fields--Peckham Rye and Park--A
remonstrance--Nunhead and Camberwell Cemeteries--Dulwich
Park--Brockwell Park--The rookery.
South London, comprising the whole of the metropolis on the
Surrey and Kent side of the Thames, is not here divided into two
districts--South-east and South-west--merely for convenience sake,
because it is too large to be dealt with in one chapter. Considered with
reference to its open spaces and to the physical geography of this part
of the metropolitan area, South London really comprises two districts
differing somewhat in character.
Taking London to mean the whole of the area built upon and the outer
public open spaces that touch or abut on streets, or rows of houses,
we find that South London, from east to west, exceeds North London in
length, the distance from Plumstead and Bostell to Kew and Old Deer
Park being about nineteen miles as the crow flies. Not, however, as the
London crow flies when travelling up and down river between these two
points, as his custom is: following the Thames in its windings, his
journey each way would not be a less distance than twenty-seven to
twenty-eight miles. At the eastern end of South London we find that the
open spaces, from Bostell to Greenwich, lie near the river; that from
Greenwich the line of open spaces diverges wide from the river, and,
skirting the densely populated districts, extends southwards through a
hilly country to Brockwell and Sydenham. On the west side, or the other
half of South London (the South-west district), the open spaces are,
roughly speaking, ranged in a similar way; but they are more numerous,
larger, and extend for a much greater distance along the river--in fact,
from Richmond and Kew to Battersea Park. There the line ends, the other
open spaces being scattered about at a considerable distance from the
river. Thus we have, between the river on one side and the retreating
frontier line of open spaces on the other, a large densely-populated
district, containing few and small breathing-spaces, but not quite so
badly off in this respect as the most crowded portion of East London.
The Post-Office line dividing the Southern districts cuts through this
populous part of South London, and has a hilly country on the left side
of the line and a comparatively flat country on the right or west side.
The west side is the district of large commons; on the east side the
open spaces are not so many nor, as a rule, so large, but in many ways
they are more interesting.
All that follows in this chapter will relate to the open spaces on the
east side of the line.
* * * * *
The most densely populated portion of South-east London lies between
Greenwich and Kennington Oval, a distance of about four miles and a
half. This crowded part contains about twelve square miles of streets
and houses, and there are in it three open spaces called 'parks,'
but quite insignificant in size considering the needs of so vast a
population. These three spaces are Deptford Park, a small space of 17
acres opened in 1897, Southwark Park, Kennington Park, and Myatt's
Fields; the last a small open space of fourteen acres, a gift of Mr.
William Minet to the public; formerly the property of one Myatt, a
fruit-grower, and the first to introduce and cultivate the now familiar
rhubarb in this country.
Southwark Park (63 acres) is the only comparatively large breathing-place
easily accessible to the working-class population inhabiting Deptford,
Rotherhithe, and Bermondsey.
How great the craving for a breath of fresh air and the sight of green
grass must be in such a district, when we find that this comparatively
small space has been visited on one day by upwards of 100,000 persons!
An almost incredible number when we consider that less than half the
space contained in the park is available for the people to walk on,
the rest being taken up by ornamental water, gardens, shrubberies,
enclosures for cricket, &c. The ground itself is badly shaped, being a
long narrow strip, with conspicuous houses on either hand, which wall
and shut you in and make the refreshing illusions of openness and
distance impossible. Even with a space of fifty or sixty acres, if it be
of a proper shape, and the surrounding houses not too high to be hidden
by trees, this effect of country-like openness and distance, which gives
to a London park its greatest charm and value, can be secured. Again,
this being a crowded industrial district full of 'works,' the atmosphere
is laden with smoke, and everything that meets the eye, even the leaves
and grass, is begrimed with soot. Yet in spite of all these drawbacks
Southwark Park is attractive; you admire it as you would a very dirty
child with a pretty face. The trees and shrubs have grown well, and
there is a lake and island, and ornamental water-fowl. The wild bird
life is composed of a multitude of sparrows and a very few blackbirds
and thrushes. It is interesting and useful to know that these two
species did not settle here themselves, but were introduced by a former
superintendent, and have continued to breed for some years.
Kennington Park (19 acres) is less than a third the size of Southwark
Park; but though so small and far from other breathing-spaces, in the
midst of a populous district, it has a far fresher and prettier aspect
than the other. It resembles Highbury Fields more than any other open
space, but is better laid out and planted than the miniature North
London park. Indeed, Kennington Park is a surprise when first seen, as
it actually has larger and better-grown shrubberies than several of the
big parks. The shrubberies extend well all around the grounds, and have
an exceptionally fine appearance on account of the abundance of holly,
the most beautiful of our evergreens. With such a vegetation it is not
surprising to find that this small green spot can show a goodly number
of songsters. The blackbird, thrush, hedge-sparrow, and robin are here;
but it is hard for these birds to rear their broods, in the case of the
robin impossible I should say, on account of the Kennington cats. Here,
as in the neighbourhood of the other open spaces in London, the evening
cry of 'All out!' is to them an invitation to come in.
Two things are needed to make Kennington Park everything that so small a
space might and should be: one is the effectual exclusion of the cats,
which at present keep down the best songsters; the other, a small pond
or two planted with rushes to attract the moorhens, and perhaps other
species. It may be added that the cost of making and maintaining a
small pond is less than that of the gardens that are now being made at
Kennington Park, and that the spectacle of a couple of moorhens occupied
with their domestic affairs in their little rushy house is infinitely
more interesting than a bed of flowers to those who seek refreshment in
our open spaces.
* * * * *
From these small spots of verdure in the densely-populated portion of
South-east London we must now pass to the larger open spaces in the
outer more rural parts of that extensive district. The more convenient
plan will be to describe those in the east part first--Greenwich,
Blackheath, and eastwards to Bostell Woods and Heath; then, leaving
the river, to go the round of the outer open spaces that lie west of
Woolwich.
Greenwich Park and Blackheath together contain 452 acres; but although
side by side, with only a wall and gate to divide them, they are utterly
unlike in character, the so-called heath being nothing but a large green
space used as a recreation ground, where birds settle to feed but do
not live. Greenwich Park contains 185 acres, inclusive of the enclosed
grounds attached to the ranger's lodge, which are now open to the
public. But though not more than half the area of Hyde Park, it really
strikes one as being very large on account of the hilly broken surface
in parts and the large amount of old timber. This park has a curiously
aged and somewhat stately appearance, and so long as the back is kept
turned on the exceedingly dirty and ugly-looking refreshment building
which disgraces it, one cannot fail to be impressed. At the same time
I find that this really fine park, which I have known for many years,
invariably has a somewhat depressing effect on me. It may be that the
historical associations of Greenwich, from the effects of which even
those who concern themselves little with the past cannot wholly escape,
are partly the cause of the feeling. Its memories are of things
dreadful, and magnificent, and some almost ludicrous, but they are all
in some degree hateful. After all, perhaps the thoughts of a royal
wife-killing ruffian and tyrant, a dying boy king, and a fantastic
virgin queen, affect me less than the sight of the old lopped trees.
For there are not in all England such melancholy-looking trees as those
of Greenwich. You cannot get away from the sight of their sad mutilated
condition; and when you walk on and on, this way and that, looking from
tree to tree, to find them all lopped off at the same height from the
ground, you cannot help being depressed. You are told that they were
thus mutilated some twenty to twenty-five years ago to save them from
further decay! What should we say of the head physician of some big
hospital who should one day issue an order that all patients, indoor and
outdoor, should be subjected to the same treatment--that they should be
bled and salivated with mercury in the good old way, men, women, and
children, whatever their ailments might be? His science would be about
on a par with that of the authors of this hideous disfigurement of all
the trees in a large park--old and young, decayed and sound, Spanish
chestnut, oak, elm, beech, horse-chestnut, every one lopped at the same
height from the ground! We have seen in a former chapter what the effect
of this measure was on the nobler bird life of the park.
Of all the crows that formerly inhabited Greenwich, a solitary pair of
jackdaws bred until recently in a hollow tree in the 'Wilderness,' but
have lately disappeared. The owls, too, which were seen from time to
time down to within about two years ago, appear to have left. The lesser
spotted woodpecker and tree-creeper are sometimes seen; nuthatches
are not uncommon; starlings are very numerous; robins, hedge-sparrows,
greenfinches, chaffinches, thrushes, and blackbirds are common. In
summer several migrants add variety to the bird life, and fieldfares may
always be seen in winter. In the gardens and private grounds of Lee,
Lewisham, and other neighbouring parishes small birds are more numerous
than in the park.
* * * * *
London (streets and houses) extends along or near the river about
five miles beyond Greenwich Park. Woolwich and Plumstead now form one
continuous populous district, still extending rows of new houses in all
available directions, and promising in time to become a new and not
very much better Deptford. Plumstead, being mostly new, reminds one
of a meaner West Kensington, with its rows on rows of small houses,
gardenless, all exactly alike, as if made in one mould, and coloured red
and yellow to suit the tenants' fancy. But at Plumstead, unlovely and
ignoble as it is in appearance, one has the pleasant thought that at
last here, on this side, one is at the very end of London, that the
country beyond and on either side is, albeit populous, purely rural. On
the left hand is the river; on the right of Plumstead is Shooter's Hill,
with green fields, hedges, woods, and preserves, and here some fine
views of the surrounding country may be obtained. Better still, just
beyond Plumstead is the hill which the builder can never spoil, for here
are Bostell Woods and Heath, the last of London's open spaces in this
direction.
The hill is cut through by a deep road; on one side are the woods,
composed of tall fir-trees on the broad level top of the hill, and oak,
mixed in places with birch and holly, on the slopes; on the other side
of the road is the Heath, rough with gorse, bramble, ling, and bracken,
and some pretty patches of birch wood. From this open part there are
noble views of the Kent and Essex marshes, the river with its steely
bright sinuous band dividing the counties.
[Illustration: BOSTELL HEATH AND WOODS]
Woods and heath together have an area of 132 acres; but owing to the
large horizon, the broken surface, and the wild and varied character of
the woodland scenery, the space seems practically unlimited: the sense
of freedom, which gives Hampstead Heath its principal charm and tonic
value, may be here experienced in even a greater degree than at that
favourite resort. To the dwellers in the north, west, and south-west of
London this wild spot is little known. From Paddington or Victoria you
can journey to the end of Surrey and to Hampshire more quickly and
with greater comfort than to Bostell Woods. To the very large and
increasing working population of Woolwich and Plumstead this space
is of incalculable value, and they delight in it. But this is a busy
people, and on most working days, especially in the late autumn, winter,
and early spring months, the visitor will often find himself out of
sight and sound of human beings; nor could the lover of nature and of
contemplation wish for a better place in which to roam about. Small
woodland birds are in great variety. Quietly moving about or seated
under the trees, you hear the delicate songs and various airy lisping
and tinkling sounds of tits of several species, of wren, tree-creeper,
goldcrest, nuthatch, lesser spotted woodpecker, robin, greenfinch and
chaffinch, and in winter the siskin and redpole. Listening to this
fairy-like musical prattle, or attending to your own thoughts, there is
but one thing, one sound, to break the illusion of remoteness from the
toiling crowded world of London--the report at intervals of a big
gun from the Arsenal, three miles away. Too far for the jarring and
shrieking sounds of machinery and the noisy toil of some sixteen to
eighteen thousand men perpetually engaged in the manufacture of arms to
reach the woods; but the dull, thunderous roar of the big gun travels
over wide leagues of country; and the hermit, startled out of his
meditations, is apt to wish with the poet that the old god of war
himself was dead, and rotting on his iron hills; or else that he would
make his hostile preparations with less noise.
At the end of day, windless after wind, or with a clear sky after rain,
when the guns have ceased to boom, the woods are at their best. Then the
birds are most vocal, their voices purer, more spiritual, than at other
times. Then the level sun, that flatters all things, fills the dim
interior with a mystic light, a strange glory; and the oaks, green with
moss, are pillars of emerald, and the tall red-barked fir-trees are
pillars of fire.
Some reader, remembering the exceeding foulness of London itself, and
the polluting cloud which it casts wide over the country, to this side
or that according as the wind blows, may imagine that no place in touch
with the East-end of the metropolis can be quite so fresh as I have
painted Bostell. But Nature's self-purifying power is very great. Those
who are well acquainted with outer London, within a radius of, say, ten
miles of Charing Cross, must know spots as fresh and unsullied as you
would find in the remote Quantocks; secluded bits of woodland where you
can spend hours out of sight and sound of human life, forgetting London
and the things that concern London, or by means of the mind's magic
changing them into something in harmony with your own mood and wholly
your own:
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Bostell Woods is a favourite haunt of birds'-nesting boys and youths in
summer, and as it is quite impossible to keep an eye on their doings,
very few of the larger and rarer species are able to breed there; but in
the adjoining wooded grounds, belonging to Christ's Hospital, the jay,
magpie, white owl and brown owl still breed, and the nightingale is
common in summer.
* * * * *
Not far from Bostell we have the Plumstead and Woolwich Commons, together
an area of about 450 acres; but as these spaces are used solely as
recreation grounds, and are not attractive to birds, it is not necessary
to describe them. West and south-west of Greenwich, in that rural
portion of the South-east district through which our way now lies, the
first open space we come to is the Hilly Fields (45 acres) at Brockley;
a green hill with fine views from the summit, but not a habitation
of birds. A little farther on, with Nunhead Cemetery between, lies
Peckham Rye and Peckham Rye Park (113 acres). The Rye, or common, is a
wedge-shaped piece of ground used for recreation, and consequently not a
place where birds are found. From the narrow end of the ground a very
attractive prospect lies before the sight: the green wide space of the
Rye is seen to be bounded by a wood (the park), and beyond the wood are
green hills--Furze Hill, and One Tree, or Oak of Honor, Hill. The effect
of distance is produced by the trees and hills, and the scene is, for
this part of London, strikingly rural. The park at the broad extremity
of the Rye, I have said, has the appearance of a wood; and it is or was
a wood, or the well-preserved fragment of one, as perfect a transcript
of wild nature as could be found within four miles of Charing Cross.
This park was acquired for the public in 1891, and as the wildest
and best portion was enclosed with an iron fence to keep the public
out, some of us cherished the hope that the County Council meant to
preserve it in the exact condition in which they received it. There the
self-planted and never mutilated trees flourished in beautiful disorder,
their lower boughs mingling with the spreading luxuriant brambles; and
tree, bramble, and ivy were one with the wild grasses and woodland
blossoms among them. If, as tradition tells, King John hunted the wild
stag at Peckham, he could not have seen a fresher, lovelier bit of
nature than this. But, alas! the gardeners, who had all the rest of the
grounds to prettify and vulgarise and work their will on, could not keep
their hands off this precious spot; for some time past they have been
cutting away the wild growths, and digging and planting, until they have
well nigh spoiled it.
There is no doubt that a vast majority of the inhabitants of London,
whose only glimpses of nature can be had in the public parks, prefer
that that nature should be as little spoiled as possible; that there
should be something of wildness in it, of Nature's own negligence. It is
infinitely more to them than that excessive smoothness and artificiality
of which we see so much. To exhibit flower-beds to those who crave for
nature is like placing a dish of Turkish Delight before a hungry man:
a bramble-bush, a bunch of nettles, would suit him better. And this
universal feeling and perpetual want of the Londoner should be more
considered by those who have charge of our open spaces.
Small birds are abundant in Peckham Park, but there is no large species
except the now almost universal wood-pigeon. A few rooks, in 1895, and
again in 1896, tried to establish a rookery here, but have now gone
away. The resident songsters are the thrush, blackbird, robin, dunnock,
wren, tits, chaffinch, greenfinch, and starling. Among the blackbirds
there are, at the time of writing this chapter, two white individuals.
Close to Peckham Rye and Park there are two large cemeteries--Nunhead on
one side and Camberwell Cemetery on the other. Both are on high ground;
the first (40 acres) is an extremely pretty spot, and has the finest
trees to be seen in any metropolitan burying-ground. From the highest
part of the ground an extensive and charming view may be had of the
comparatively rural district on the south side. Small birds, especially
in the winter months, are numerous in this cemetery, and it is pretty to
see the starlings in flocks, chaffinches, robins, and other small birds
sitting on the gravestones.
Camberwell Cemetery is smaller and newer, and has but few trees, but
is on even higher ground, as it occupies a slope of the hill above the
park. If there is any metropolitan burying-ground where dead Londoners
find a post-mortem existence tolerable, it must, I imagine, be on this
spot; since by perching or sitting on their own tombstones they may
enjoy a wide view of South-east London--a pleasant prospect of mixed
town and country, of houses and trees, and tall church spires, and green
slopes of distant hills.
It is to be hoped that when this horrible business of burying our dead
in London is brought to an end, Nunhead and Camberwell Cemeteries will
be made one large open space with Peckham Rye and Park.
A mile from the Rye is Dulwich Park (72 acres); it is laid out more as a
garden than a park, and may be said to be one of the prettiest and least
interesting of the metropolitan open spaces. I mean 'prettiest' in the
sense in which gardeners and women use the word. It lies in the midst of
one of the most rural portions of South-east London, having on all sides
large private gardens, park-like grounds, and woods. The bird life in
this part is abundant, including in summer the blackcap, garden-warbler,
willow-wren, wood-wren, redstart, pied wagtail, tree pipit, and cuckoo.
The large birds commonly seen are the rook, carrion crow, daw, and
wood-pigeon. The park itself, being so much more artificial than the
adjacent grounds, has comparatively few birds.
* * * * *
A mile west of Dulwich Park, touching the line dividing the South-east
and South-west districts, is Brockwell Park (78 acres). Like Clissold
and Ravenscourt, this is one of the old private parks of London, with a
manor house in it, now used as a refreshment house. It is very open,
a beautiful green hill, from which there are extensive and some very
charming views. Knight's Hill, not yet built upon, is close by. The
elm-trees scattered all about the park are large and well grown, and
have a healthy look. On one part of the ground is a walled-round
delightful old garden--half orchard--the only garden containing
fruit-trees, roses, and old-fashioned herbs and flowers in any open
space in London. Another great attraction is--I fear we shall before
long have to say _was_--the rookery. Six years ago it was the most
populous rookery in or near London, and extended over the entire park,
there being few or no large trees without nests; but when the park was
opened to the public, in 1891, the birds went away, all excepting those
that occupied nests on the large trees at the main gate, which is within
a few yards of Herne Hill station. They were evidently so used to the
noise of the trains and traffic, and to the sight of people in the
thoroughfare on which they looked down, that the opening of the park
did not disturb them. Nevertheless this remnant of the old rookery
is becoming less populous each year. In the summer of 1896 I counted
thirty-five occupied nests; in 1897 there were only twenty nests. Just
now--February 1898--eight or ten pairs of birds are engaged in repairing
the old nests.
[Illustration: THE ROOKERY, BROCKWELL PARK]
It is very pleasant to find that here, at all events, very little (I
cannot say nothing) has so far been done to spoil the natural character
and charm of this park--one of the finest of London's open spaces.