Camberwell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Camberwell (disambiguation).

Location
Camberwell


OS grid reference:	TQ325785
Latitude:	51.48985578881664°
Longitude:	-0.09057028950997026°
Administration
London borough:	Southwark
County level:	Greater London
Region:	London
Constituent country:	England
Sovereign state:	United Kingdom
Other
Ceremonial county:	Greater London
Historic county:	Surrey (1889)
Services
Police force:	Metropolitan Police
Fire brigade:	London Fire Brigade
Ambulance service:	London Ambulance
Post office and telephone
Post town:	LONDON
Postal district:	SE5
Dialling code:	020
Politics
UK Parliament:	Camberwell and Peckham, Dulwich and West Norwood, Vauxhall
London Assembly:	Lambeth and Southwark
European Parliament:	London
London \| List of places in London

Camberwell is a district of London in the London Borough of Southwark. It is an inner-city district located 2.7 miles (4.3 km) southeast of Charing Cross. Its western edge borders the London Borough of Lambeth.

1 History
2 Camberwell today
3 Transport
4 Camberwell population
5 Hospitals
6 Notable people born in Camberwell
7 Notable people who have lived and worked in Camberwell
8 Trivia
9 Nearest places
10 Other places called Camberwell
11 External links

[edit] History

The name Camberwell probably derives from the old English Cumberwell or Comberwell. i.e. British well, and springs and wells are known to have existed on the southern slope up Denmark Hill, especially around Grove Park. It was already a substantial settlement with a church when mentioned in the Domesday Book. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, Camberwell was visited by Londoners for its rural tranqullity and the reputed healing properties of its mineral springs. The Camberwell Beauty butterfly was identified on Coldharbour Lane in 1748 but is now rare in Britain. Like much of inner South London, Camberwell was transformed by the arrival of the railways in the 1860s. From 1899 to 1965 Camberwell was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell.

[edit] Camberwell today

Camberwell today is a mixture of relatively well preserved Georgian and cheaper housing, including a number of tower blocks. Camberwell Grove and Grove Lane have some of London's most elegant and well preserved Georgian houses.

Camberwell Green

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 now it is unfortunately impossible to ignore the noise of the passing traffic. However, a very 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.

[edit] Transport

Camberwell 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. Camberwell railway station closed in 1916. At one stage London Underground planned to extend the Bakerloo Line to Camberwell but this was abandoned in 1949 after work had started on extending the line from Elephant and Castle.

Nearest railway stations:

[edit] Camberwell population

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 popular with 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. Kings College (part of the University of London) also has a hall of residence (King's College Hall) on nearby Denmark Hill.

[edit] Hospitals

Camberwell has one of London's large teaching hospitals, King's College Hospital. The associated medical school is the (recently merged) Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ (GKT) School of Medicine. The Maudsley Hospital, a renowned psychiatric hospital which is an international leader in developing specialist training in psychiatry, and its academic partner, the equally distinguished Institute of Psychiatry, are also close to Denmark Hill station.

[edit] Notable people born in Camberwell

[edit] Notable people who have lived and worked in Camberwell

Robert Browning
John Ruskin
Jack Jones
Jenny Eclair
Paul Elliot
Jeremy Bowen
Emma Thompson
Kenneth Branagh
Nicholas Serota
Robbie Coltrane
Laurens Postma
Antony Gormley
Anish Kapoor
Bill Woodrow
Christopher Le Brun
Tom Phillips
Terry Jones
Bryan Ferry
Mark McGowan
Donnachadh McCarthy
Michael Caine
Steve Chandra Savale (guitarist and composer) Asian Dub Foundation

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.

[edit] Trivia

"Camberwell carrot" is the name of the enormous spliff rolled 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".