Camberwell is a district of London, England and forms part of the London Borough of Southwark.[1] It is a built-up inner city district located 2.7 miles (4.3 km) south east of Charing Cross. To the west it has a boundary with the London Borough of Lambeth.
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Etymology
Camberwell appears in Domesday Book as Cambrewelle.[2] The name might derive from the old English Cumberwell or Comberwell, meaning Welsh well. Springs and wells are known to have existed on the southern slope of Denmark Hill, especially around Grove Park. Alternatively, the name Camberwell may have come from the Saxon language, meaning Cripple Well, which developed as a hamlet where people from the City of London were expelled when they had life threatening diseases like leprosy, for treatment by the church and the clean waters from the wells.
History
It was already a substantial settlement with a church when mentioned in the Domesday Book, and was the parish church for a large area including Dulwich and Peckham. It was held by Haimo the Sheriff (of Kent). Its domesday assets were: 6 hides and 1 virgate; 1 church, 8 ploughs, 63 acres of meadow, woodland worth 60 hogs. It rendered £14. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, Camberwell was visited by Londoners for its rural tranquillity and the reputed healing properties of its mineral springs. Like much of inner South London, Camberwell was transformed by the arrival of the railways in the 1860s. Camberwell St Giles formed an ancient, and later civil, parish in the Brixton hundred of Surrey.[3] The parish covered 4,570 acres in 1831 and included Peckham to the east and Dulwich to the south. The width of the parish tapered in the south to form a point at Crystal Palace.[3] In 1801 the population was 7,059 and by 1851 this had risen to 54,667.[4] In 1829 it was included in the Metropolitan Police District and in 1855 it was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works, with Camberwell Vestry nominating one member to the board. In 1889 the board was replaced by the London County Council and Camberwell was removed from Surrey, to form part of the County of London. In 1900 the area of the Camberwell parish became the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell.[5] In 1965 the metropolitan borough was abolished and its former area became the southern part of the London Borough of Southwark in Greater London.
Today
Camberwell today is a mixture of relatively well preserved Georgian and twentieth century housing, including a number of tower blocks. Camberwell Grove and Grove Lane have some of London's most elegant and well preserved Georgian houses. The crossroads at the centre of Camberwell is the site of Camberwell Green, a very small area of common land which was once a traditional village green on which was held an annual fair of ancient origin which rivaled that of Greenwich. The green was once a peaceful place, but, owing to the noise of passing traffic, now could not be described as peaceful. An extensive range of bus routes have stops at Camberwell Green (see the link to the bus spider map below for details). The Salvation Army's William Booth Memorial Training College, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, was completed in 1932: it towers over South London from Denmark Hill. It has a similar monumental impressiveness to Gilbert Scott's other local buildings, Battersea Power Station and the Tate Modern, although its simplicity is partly the result of repeated budget cuts during its construction: much more detail, including carved Gothic stonework surrounding the windows, was originally planned. Camberwell is home to one of London's largest teaching hospitals, King's College Hospital with associated medical school the Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ (GKT) School of Medicine. The Maudsley Hospital, an internationally significant psychiatric hospital, is also located in Camberwell along with the Institute of Psychiatry. As well as the significant Camberwell College of Arts Camberwell is home to several art galleries including the South London Gallery and numerous smaller commercial art spaces. The annual Camberwell Arts Festival is well supported.
Transport
Camberwell is connected to central London by Camberwell Road in the north and Camberwell New Road in the west. It is very well served by bus routes: its location means that it is easy to travel into central London with journey times of 12-20 minutes, though often much longer in the rush hour. Camberwell had been served by three railway stations until the First World War, Camberwell Gate, Camberwell New Road and Denmark Hill. Like many less well used stations in inner London, Camberwell Gate and Camberwell New Road were closed in 1916 'temporarily' because of war shortages and were never reopened. London Underground have planned to extend the Bakerloo Line from Elephant and Castle to Camberwell on at least three occasions since the 1930s, and this is again said to be under consideration.[6] Nearest railway stations:
Demography
The local ethnic mix includes a large proportion of people of Caribbean and African descent, a Greek Cypriot community, and number of immigrants of Middle Eastern origin. The area is also popular with art students, as it is home to the Camberwell College of Arts (part of the University of the Arts London - formerly the London Institute) on Peckham Road. King's College London (part of the University of London) also has a hall of residence (King's College Hall) on nearby Champion Hill. Goldsmiths College is also found in nearby New Cross with many students living in Camberwell.
Notable people born in Camberwell
- Pete Bennett
- Jérôme Napoleon Bonaparte
- John Bostock
- Robert Browning
- Joseph Chamberlain
- Pat Coombs
- Leslie Grantham
- Chris Harris
- Patricia Hayes
- Giant Haystacks
- Benjamin Jowett
- Boris Karloff
- Timothy Laurence
- Clement le Neve Foster
- Anthony James Leggett
- Martin McDonagh
- Nosher Powell
- Kenny Sansom
- Edward Burnett Tylor
- Claude Rains
Notable people who have lived and worked in Camberwell
- Syd Barrett
- The House of Love
- Lord Avebury
- Peter Preston
- Robert Browning
- Jarvis Cocker who lived in a squat in Camberwell and frequently visited the art college in the early 1990s - Pulp's song 59 Lyndhurst Grove is about going to a party in Lyndhurst Grove on the Camberwell/Peckham border
- Humphrey Lyttelton
- Mike Leigh
- Chiwetel Ejiofor
- Tim Roth
- John Ruskin
- Jack Jones
- Jenny Eclair
- Jeremy Bowen
- Emma Thompson
- Kenneth Branagh
- Nicholas Serota
- Albert Houthuesen
- Robbie Coltrane
- Howard Hodgkin
- Richard Long
- Antony Gormley
- Michael Landy
- Anish Kapoor
- Euan Uglow
- Bill Woodrow
- Cathy de Monchaux
- Gillian Ayres
- Maggi Hambling
- Gillian Wearing
- Tom Phillips
- Terry Jones
- Bryan Ferry
- Michael Caine
- Steve Chandra Savale (guitarist and composer) Asian Dub Foundation
- Lord Whitty of Camberwell
- Zoe Williams
- Erin O'Connor
- John White
- Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
- Jenny Agutter
- Peter Richardson
Camberwell Beauty
The Camberwell Beauty is a butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) which is rarely found in the UK - it is so named because two examples were first identified on Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell in 1748.
Nearest places
Trivia
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- Jarvis Cocker frequently visited the art college in the early 1990s - Pulp's song 59 Lyndhurst Grove is about going to a party in Lyndhurst Grove on the Camberwell/Peckham border
- Camberwell carrot" is the name of the enormous spliff rolled using 12 rolling papers, by Danny the dealer in the film Withnail and I. His explanation for the name is that "I invented it in Camberwell and it looks like a carrot".
- Felix Mendelssohn stayed with relatives in 1842 and wrote a piano piece called 'Camberwell Green', whose popularity increased after it was renamed the 'Spring Song'.
- W. S. Gilbert also made ironic mention of it in the comic opera, Trial by Jury.
- Jenny Eclair's novel Camberwell Beauty is set in a house on Camberwell Grove.
- Muriel Spark's novel, The Ballad of Peckham Rye also makes mention of places in and around Camberwell
- UK dance act Basement Jaxx released a track called I Live in Camberwell
References
- ^ Southwark London Borough Council - Community guide for Camberwell
- ^ Mills, A., Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names, (2001)
- ^ a b Vision of Britain - Camberwell parish (historic map)
- ^ Vision of Britain - Camberwell population
- ^ Vision of Britain - Camberwell MB (historic map)
- ^ Tube line 'may extend south within 20 years'
External links
- Camberwell Arts
- Camberwell College of Arts
- Camberwell Society
- Minet Conservation Association
- South London and Maudsley NHS Trust
- SE5 Forum, a community group
- The CamberwellOnline blog
- Camberwell Environment
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| Districts |
Bermondsey · The Borough · Camberwell · Crystal Palace · Dulwich · Elephant and Castle · Herne Hill · Nunhead · Peckham · Rotherhithe · Surrey Quays · Walworth |
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| Attractions | ||
| Street markets | ||
| Bridges |
Tower · London · Southwark · Millennium · Blackfriars · Waterloo |
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| Constituencies | ||
| Parks and open spaces in Southwark | ||
