Open House, PSAs, and Mary Boast

Written by Peter | Filed under General

It’s Open House London this weekend, and there are five events in Camberwell. Private residences at Coleman Road, Grace’s Mews and Camberwell Grove will be open for visits, and there will be a walk around Burgess Park. St Giles church will also be open — I’ve still never been inside, so I’m keen on that one. Unfortunately the tower at William Booth College won’t be open this year, I’d imagine that’s because of the building works that are ongoing.

A bit of a public service announcement — Southwark Council have asked me to post the following couple of links: first is to a service which helps parents whose children are starting school in September — southwark.gov.uk/schooladmissions; and second is an online questionnaire about violent crime in the borough: southwark.gov.uk/keepingyousafe.

Now, unless I’m spectacularly unobservant and have never noticed it before, the passage that cuts between Camberwell Grove and Grove Lane, where the Grand Union sits, has been named Mary Boast Passage Walk in honour of the local historian and long-time (life-long?) resident, who died earlier this year.

Mary Boast wrote the well-known The Story of Camberwell, still probably the definitive history of the area despite being written in 1972. I have a copy here at home, and refer to it often. She was a Freeman of the Borough of Southwark, and lived in the flats at the top of Denmark Hill, which have wonderful views all across Camberwell, until she passed away in June of this year, aged 89.