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Brockley is a district and an electoral ward of south London, England, in the London Borough of Lewisham south-east of Charing Cross. It has been named the best area of London to live in. It is an area rich in Victorian and Edwardian domestic architecture, historic trees and original lanes and mews. This is protected by a conservation area and the Brockley Society. It has a strong community and numerous popular cafes and restaurants. The station is on both the mainline railway and the Windrush Line. The London Borough of Lewisham'
/ref> proposes linking the station to the Victoria to Dartford line which crosses Brockley station by 2030.
Formerly part of the county of Kent, Brockley fell into both the Metropolitan Borough of Lewisham and the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford in the County of London from 1900. The division was roughly around Hilly Fields, with the area to the north falling within Deptford. Brockley was subsequently reunified with the creation of Greater London in 1965 under the London Borough of Lewisham, which incorporated the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford.
Brockley has its origins in a small agricultural hamlet of the same name located in the area of the "Brockley Jack" (rebuilt 1895), a large public house that today houses the Brockley Jack Theatre. Brockley Hall (demolished 1931) stood nearby and now gives its name to a road on a 1930s housing estate. Crofton Park railway station was built nearby in 1892 by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway.
Brockley railway station opened on 6 March 1871 and is currently served by London Overground and Southern in Travelcard Zone 2. As is often the case in London, the location of the station defines the geography of the district and areas to the north and west of Brockley Station, previously considered as Hatcham, New Cross, Telegraph Hill (SE14) and St Johns (SE8), are now considered Brockley. Ordnance Survey maps of Brockley up to the 1940s tend to centre on the location of the Jack, the Hall, and Crofton Park railway station, but recent maps are now more centred on Brockley Station and nearby areas, such as with the electoral ward map demarcating Brockley. While the name Crofton Park was invented by the railway company, it was given official sanction with the naming of Crofton Park Library, a fine arts and crafts building, in 1905, and is now the name of an electoral ward to the south.
The oldest surviving house in the area of what is now considered to be the northern extent of Brockley is the "Stone House" on Lewisham Way (opposite LeSoCo) built in 1773 by the architect George Gibson the Younger. which is a Grade II* listed building building and was historically considered to be in Deptford.
Brockley market gardens were famous for their enormous Rhubarb which were fertilised by 'night soil' from London. There were orchards too and some ancient fruit 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.
Industrial development arrived in 1809 in the form of the Croydon Canal running from Croydon to Bermondsey. This was later filled in and replaced by the London & Croydon railway which runs through the original canal cutting between Brockley (opened in 1871) and New Cross Gate stations. Some of the oldest houses in Brockley are the cottages and shops which form a small terrace on Coulgate Street, just east of 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.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Tyrwhitt-Drake family developed the north side of Brockley with grand villas, large terraces and semi-detached houses (Tyrwhitt Road and Drake Road are named after the family).Brockley Central http://brockleycentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-history-of-brockley-part-two-got-to.html Development started south of Lewisham Way in the late 1840s with the modest cottages at 2–22 Upper Brockley Rd and spread south and east towards Hilly Fields. 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.
Many grand houses in Brockley were occupied by the owners and managers of factories in neighbouring industrial areas such as Deptford and Bermondsey. At 63 Breakspears Road lived Edwin Watts, owner of 'ER Watts and Son', a mathematical instrument making company in Camberwell Road. Charles Booth's Map of London Poverty (1900) describes the residents of Wickham Road and Breakspears Road as "well-to-do" or "wealthy". The actress Lillie Langtry was one notable resident during this period. The terraced streets west of Brockley Rd were more mixed: "comfortable and poor". The artist/poet David Jones, whose father was a printer, grew up in Howson Road. Some of David Jones's paintings and illustrations depict his parents' house and garden. The writer Henry Williamson, the son of a bank clerk, was born in nearby Braxfield Road.
Brockley contains several fine churches: St Mary Magdalen's RC Church, Howson Road (completed in 1901), St Peter's, Wickham Rd (completed 1870), the Grade II listed St Andrews, Brockley Rd (1882) – originally a Presbyterian Church, which contains the modern stained glass New Cross Fire memorial window (2002) – and the Grade II listed St Hilda's, Crofton Park 1908. The latter was designed by J E Newberry in the Arts and Crafts movement style and still contains its original interior. A Methodist Church stood on Harefield Road (Now demolished).
After World War I, Brockley began to lose its exclusivity as the wealthy began to relocate to the outer suburbs and the big houses were increasingly sub-divided into multiple occupation. The typical inter-war houses on Upper Brockley Gardens and on Harefield Rd are clearly more modest than their Victorian era neighbours and in the case of Harefield Road, were built on a large house's garden. Small industrial workshops also became established in the mews behind the large houses.
The Grade II listed Rivoli Ballroom (originally a cinema) dates from 1913 but was remodeled as a dance hall in 1951. It has a unique and outstanding interior, which has featured in many films, videos and fashion shoots.see The Guardian magazine 10 November 07 In 2007 The White Stripes rock band played a secret gig here. Other notable live performances include those by Florence + the Machine (2009, 2012) and Damon Albarn (2014). The building has recently been listed (2007) and is now protected from demolition.
Being under the bomber flight path to the London docks, the area suffered significant V-2 rocket and other bomb damage in World War II. The post-war blocks of council flats at the south end of Wickham Rd and at the west end of Adelaide Avenue are evidence of this. During the Second World War, an anti-aircraft gun emplacement was located on Hilly Fields.
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.Joan Anim-Addo, The Longest Journey, 1995. Other migrants came from Turkey, Cyprus, Italy and South Asia (especially Sri Lanka).
Some larger houses were demolished and blocks of flats built or houses built on their gardens.
From the mid-1960s artists (some associated with nearby Goldsmiths College) started to move into the large and at the time neglected houses on Manor Avenue, beginning the process of 'gentrification' which continues today.
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. This ensure that Brockley remained one of the best preserved and most coherent Victorian suburbs in Inner London containing examples of almost every style of mid- to late 19th century-domestic architecture from vast Gothic Revival piles to modest workmen's cottages. There are also mews behind some of the streets such as Ashby Mews and Wickham Mews. This range of 19th-century architectural styles makes Brockley unusual.
The extension of the East London Line, now part of the London Overground network, opened in May 2010. It connects Brockley with north London and encouraged new residential development around Brockley station.
A number of empty sites were redeveloped into flats and Coulgate Street was pedestrianised - increasingly it became a focal point for Brockley as a place to gather away from the main road.
The old West Kent Grammar School (later renamed Brockley County Grammar School), now Prendergast Hilly Fields College, a Grade II* listed building, is situated at the top of the hill. The School hall contains the 'Brockley murals'. Dating from 1932 to 1935 by Charles Mahoney, Evelyn Dunbar and other students of the Royal College of Art, they are considered some of the best examples in the country of the Neo-Romantic style and illustrate many local scenes.
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 2002. The Hilly Fields Midsummer Fayre has been running for over 30 years and is a much celebrated annual community event. At 160 ft above sea level, Hilly Fields has wide views from Canary Wharf and Shooters Hill to Crystal Palace and the North Downs in Kent.
West of the railway between Brockley and New Cross Gate railway stations lies the Brockley Nature Reserve (formerly known as New Cross Gate Cutting Nature Reserve). This ten acre woodland is home to over 30 species of birds including greater spotted woodpecker and sparrowhawk. The reserve is managed by London Wildlife Trust, access (when open) is from the entrance on Vesta Road. Gorne Wood is a three acre piece of ancient woodland, the closest such piece of land to the City of London.
The Lewisham Art House, housed in a grand Edwardian building (which was formerly Deptford Library) on Lewisham Way, provides art classes, studio and exhibition space. The Grade II listed library building is a Carnegie Library, made possible by the philanthropy of the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. It opened in 1914 and was designed by Sir Alfred Brumwell Thomas.[1] The Brockley Jack Theatre has recently been refurbished and has a high reputation for performances of new plays and is the home of the Brockley Jack Film Club. Each summer local artists host a thriving Brockley Open Studios weekend. Since 2004 Brockley has also hosted the Brockley Max performing arts festival involving many local musicians and singers. In 2015, the neighbourhood hosted the first annual Brockley Street Art Festival, which saw the creation of more than twenty high quality murals in the area.
In the early 2000s all of Brockley Ward's three councillors were from the Green Party and combined with neighbouring Ladywell ward, Lewisham Council had six Green Party councillors; one of the highest number of Green party councillors in the UK. However, in the 2010 Local Elections, held at the same time as the 2010 General Election, the Green party lost all but one of their seats. The remaining seat was held by Darren Johnson in Brockley. In the 2014 Council elections the Green Party retained one of Brockley's council seats, which was held by Councillor John Coughlin.
A proposal to create a new Brockley Interchange, linking the existing station to the to Lewisham station line with new platforms at the former Brockley Lane station, is included in the London Borough of Lewisham's 2019–2041 transport strategy. The document gives an approximate date of 2030 and states that funding from TfL and
/ref> The document states that TFL is to provide an estimated cost.
The musician Nick Nicely's 1982 cult psychedelic track "Hilly Fields" was inspired by the park of the same name.
Two early novels by Henry Williamson (who lived on Eastern Road) describe Brockley in great detail, as it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Edgar Wallace's fictional 1920s detective J. G. Reeder lived in Brockley Road. Wallace himself lived in Tressillian Crescent, Brockley, for over 30 years. His book The Duke in the Suburbs is also based in Brockley.
The Picturegoers, the first novel by David Lodge, is set in and around a rundown cinema in 1950s Brockley; thinly disguised as 'Brickley'.
Blake Morrison's novel South of the River (2007) is set in Brockley.
Colin Wilson's book The Outsider (1956) opens with a reference to Brockley.
In 2003, the BBC1 documentary Worlds Apart showed two contrasting Brockley families living within yards of each other; one in a small council flat, the other in a large house.
The Rivoli Ballroom has featured in numerous films, TV shows and fashion shoots, and was used for the debut album launch for Florence and the Machine, the video for Tina Turner's Private Dancer and a secret gig by The White Stripes.
The Metros' song "Last of the Lookers" from their 2008 album More Money Less Grief mentions meeting a girl who is later found out not to be from their native Brockley.
Laura Wilson, the series' narrator and protagonist of ongoing comic book series The Wicked and the Divine lives in Brockley at the start of the series.
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