Bumper news bag

Lots of Camberwell stuff in my Google News Alert this morning;

The news (reported in the comments, below) that Mayor Johnson has raised that old chestnut of extending the Bakerloo line, which may or may not pass through here. I’d like to see it, but I really can’t plan that far ahead.

A (very) little more background on Burgess Park, winner of a parks development pot.

19 pubs have closed down in Camberwell & Peckham since June 2007. The Bickleigh and Pharoahs are two is one; who can think of more?

And Page 3 lovely Zoe (link NSFW) is a Camberwellian. Never saw her name on the Wikipedia list. OK, that isn’t really news.

Speaking of news, I’ve set up a way for interested parties to receive latest blog posts by email, so you never have to miss out on exciting content like this again. Just fill in your email address on this form, and you’ll be sent new posts on the day they’re published. You can, of course, unsubscribe whenever you wish.

Author: Peter

Long-time resident of Camberwell, author of this blog since July 2004.

177 thoughts on “Bumper news bag”

  1. Peter: sorry for misleading you in my tweet — Pharoahs has been closed for a good long time as the building was damaged by fire when I moved to the area in 2006 and has just been further damaged by fire … I don’t think it counts as one of the 19!

  3. **** More News (nearly) ****

    Someone is setting up a vegetarian/vegan/wholefood café on Bellenden Road, Peckham.

    To be called Grass Roots Whole Food, says a notice in the window.

    Yay!

  6. The health food shop has closed already.

    Tough crowd in Peckham for that kind of pitch — too pricey and not whole-earth enough to get wannabe hippies like me through the door regularly.

    The whole food cafe could easily go the same way. Not sure rents are aligned with succesful business and vibrant local shopping.

  8. @Gabe — yes, it’s not so much the grant spend on Bellenden Road I envy as the conscious effort to make it a place worth visiting, and pleasant to remain in.

    A similar place could not happen in the centre of Camberwell (due to false footfall), but could somewhere on the outskirts. However, Southwark Council’s sinister phrases,

    “Camberwell Green will continue to be a lively centre that services the local and wider community”, and

    “Camberwell town centre is a place of opportunity for small businesses”,

    in its description of Camberwell’s business community, reveal why formerly bustling traditional outer Camberwell shopping parades such as on Denmark Road, Wyndham Road, Southampton Way and Camberwell New Road, have all fallen into decline as residential conversions were rubber-stamped.

  9. Grove Lane parade is not unlike Bellenden. A bit shorter but the statues dick the bollards..

  10. Totally off topic, but can anyone recommend any of the local bike shops as places to buy a second-hand bike? I’ve always got new in the past from big shops (On your Bike at London Bridge is great!)however after having my second bike pinched in two years I want to get a cheap run-around bike instead. I was thinking of visiting Edwardes and Pedal-It (up at Elephant). Has anyone bought a bike from either shop and would you recommend their fayre?

  11. YOu can buy nicked mountain bikes for £15 on Brick Lane.

    You might find exactly what you’re missing.

  12. Wilson’s, Peckham High Street near Persepolis, is excellent. Bob’s Bikes, 9 John Ruskin Street SE5 0NS, is legendary for value and effort. Edwardes second-hand selection on the pavement is always good, though they have a British Leyland attitude towards the customer. Always have repairs done at Wilson’s or Bob’s.

  13. Dagmar — excellent recommendations. More on Bob’s here.

    Alan ? — Get past Seymours of old, and Grove Lane is full of converted and boarded up shops blocked off by residents’ cars, in an uncanny display of cause and effect, with a bricked up former corner bookshop as a final phuk U to small business, even near Camberwell Green and within Society striking distance.

  14. Bellenden appears to be dying on its backside to me. There’s little of interest there, apart from Review, the chocolate place and the mysterious Cave of Spirits!

    Edwardes has the best selection of second hand bikes in the area. Wilsons is good for repairs, but not for second hand bikes. Bob’s ditto, but didn’t seem to have many good bikes when I was there the other day (other than a thief magnet of a Gary Fisher). The Elephant place is ridiculously overpriced. Camben Bikes is the best in London for second hand bikes, but a bit of a trek.

  15. I bought my bike at Edwardes, and always have my repairs & service done there; never had a problem. They’ve repaired punctures for me for free, and never minded on the few occasions I’ve asked to go out to the workroom to watch them do something so that I can learn it myself. I unhesitatingly recommend them.

  16. Reg — keep going… Grove Lane continues from the intersection with Champion Park to the start of Dog Kennel Hill.

    That’s where Odie and Amanda, Buddha Jazz and the Canning are.

    The statues was the clue. ‘Run’ by Leigh Dyer..

  17. Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. I’ll have fun looking around some of the shops tomorrow!

    I agree re: Wilson’s in Peckham for repairs and services. I think that the’re the best in the business.

  19. @florian, sort of know what you mean about Bellenden Road. Sort of disagree.

    There’s a car stereo shop, a hardware store, Review, a Caribbean bakery, Fenton Walsh, a chocolate shop, a dog accessories shop, a hairdressers, an OK cafe.

    So quite bit of diversity in among the pubs, fast-food places, and convenience stores.

  20. True. I sort of disagree with me too. What I really miss is a decent place to eat or drink though. I had great hopes of the Montpleier, but …

    I’m with Peter in recommending Edwardes. Cheap too, if you buy last year’s models and do a deal (eg part chop your old bike).

  21. I bought my bike from Edwardes, following many enthusiastic recommendations, and I was very impressed with service and selection. I’ve since been back in to ask stupid questions and they have been lovely and helpful.

  23. Florian, I agree re Elephant bikes. They have fab antique bikes, but at boutique prices.

    Peter, unhesitatingly, I am sure at the top end Edwardes are very good, I have heard this before. You spend £500, they look after you. But if you need a repair for an old but Flann-O’Brien-part-of-you bike, they often let you down about when it’s done. You go back again and again to serially, exponentialy agreed times and they just laugh in your face with nasty contempt. Their service in that way is shit, British Leyland style.

    Golly, I am chuntering on like some Hermit Crab! Talking of which, Harriet has evidently been told by “Gordon-said-so” Brown to say that she was wrong about her throw-em-to-the-dogs retrospective law “idea” on pensions. It would seem she will not now be the Labour leader we are looking for. Maybe Mandelson will be, she is good on the greasy pole of politics. Why not? Up Disraeli!

    So whilst it is important not to boil in one’s own piss like some Nova Scotia lobster, it is essential to realise that the oleaginous “apologise/unacceptable/going foward/you know/Tony Branson/Richard Blair/hard choices” way of “leadership” talking down may have had its day.

    Barack Obama now has the chance to rule with the new talkability.

    Has anyone else gone a little crazy, as Seal would say, after drinking Wray & Nephew Red Label Wine in pokey public spaces at night in Penge?

  24. @Dagmar: Your experience differs to mine, then, because my bike is a generic runaround, far from top-end and about 75% less than £500, yet their service has never been less than very good.

  26. No broadband so on phone; apols if repeated. Cube/teamwork has a buyer so hopefully at least one business saved from nailKebab hell.

  27. Shut Pubs. The ones I can think of now: There was:

    The Orange Tree on Havil Street, now a block of flats
    The British Legion on Benhill Road now a block of flats
    The Denman on Denman Road now a private residence
    The Enterprise on Coldharbour Lane now Eastern Tree, a Thai restaurant
    The Mucky Duck on Coldharbour Lane now boarded up but sold for redevelopment
    The Harriers on Wanless Road now demolished
    The Plough on Coldharbour Lane, now Amaryllis
    The Rose and Thistle on Warner Road now a Christian evangelical training college
    The Denmark on Denmark Road now housing association
    The Wickwood on Flaxman Road now private housing
    There’s another one whose name I don’t know on the far corner of Addington Square just before Southampton Way
    The Athenaeum corner of Warner Road and Camberwell Road now a failed Apollo Video
    Father Red Cap on Camberwell Green but who knows what on earth’s happening there?
    The George IV on Camberwell New Road now a film studio location
    The George IV on Burgess Park boarded up

    There’s bound to be more tucked away in the recesses

  28. There’s one in Peckham that was called Mantis for a while.

    That whole post is probably best regarded as a red herring. I now realise I didn’t note the bit about ‘since 2007’. 19 pubs have not closed since then I think. 19 will have changed hands though.

  29. Ah yes, was in Teamwork today and was delighted to find that they have a buyer and will be remaining open. Got my hair done to celebrate.

    Wonder what happened in Camberwell Green portaloo today: it was surrounded by police (who were hiding the scene from public view using red towels, randomly)…

  32. “A grotty shared flat in Camberwell, South London” is where Jake Myerson lives, the lad in the current Julie Myerson, parents-eat-their-children scandal. Parents do try and eat their children, but he escaped — to here at the moment. If we see Jake round here we should grant him his privacy, but we’re also pleased to have him here. I’d say. He is a music student and will probably go far. He can earn £20 an hour busking, so he must be good. The interview he talks in today — in the Daily Mail, good on ’em — is extremely good and can found by punching in Daily Mail Jake Myerson. He is a son of a gun!

  34. Mark, it was the Anchor & Hope in Addington Square, a legendary large local. Those who went there have many tales to tell, but they lie mainly under the sod of old Ireland, in the cold London Clay or in the structural concrete of motorway bridges.

  35. QI question — I know why there are so many pubs called Marquis of Granby; but why so many called Anchor and Hope? Retired Jolly Jack Tars?

  36. @Drew … pubs with Anchor in the name are often connected with the water; not only landlords hoping to attract sailors to their establishment but also pubs alongside canals where bargees would be welcome. There is a second association with the use of the word anchor and its religious, Hebrews 6:19, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope …”

  37. John Manners, general, Marquis of Granby, helped retired NCOs (Corporal, Sar’nt, Staff Sar’nt) especially those wounded, to run pubs.

  38. Morning. Not pleasant news for a Monday but keep yourselves safe my flatmate had her bag snatched in broad day light on the way to work this weekend — Plod say this is becomming an increasing problem (not just in camberwell i’d add)

  39. Great to have Jake M rolling Camberwell Carrots on location.

    His Mum seems to be an ignorant self promoting see you next Tuesday.

  40. Re: Cruson

    I really hope that someone takes it over as an ongoing concern, but tries modernising it a little and introducing a broader range of fresh foods.

  41. Thanks John, despite a pretty fair knowledge of the KJB I didn’t know that Hebrews provided the chorus of one of my favourite hymns, Will Your Anchor Hold?

  43. Pixie Geldof has been turned down by Camberwell art College, according to the Daily Mail in its most purel Christian form, the “Mail on Sunday”. We should lobby the Daily Beast to get the decision reversed and Camberwell ever more revered.

  45. OT as usual, but can someone recomend a good NHS dentist. Pref one that is open on saturday.

  46. Dentist-wise I go to the one on Camberwell New Road near to the Co-Op — tel 020 7582 2562. I think there are two dentists operating there and they were fine for the root canal work I had done last year. I’m not sure that they are open on Saturdays though

  48. 703 0301, Patel, 6 Camberwell Church Street, just by the Green Hermits side, best dentist ever invented.

    There are a few Nissan Bluebirds around Camberwell still in excellent condition, built by ex-shipwrights in Sunderland. There’s a message there in these dire times. One on McNeill Road, in a beige, is from DAN DAN THE NISSAN MAN (Ruislip, Slough and Wycombe).

    Those personalised number plates are funny. I saw MAN-I‑B on a Range Rover getting a ticket on Grove Lane today Nearby is TH PRY. That’s T.H. Pry, presumably. I would Google him but I wouldn’t like to be so nosey.

  49. Definitely recommend Patel’s on Camberwell church street.

    Very good, and very friendly. Not your average depressing dentist surgery.

  50. I was East Dulwich today and in the space of about 90 minutes I (well, my more observant girlfriend) spotted Timothy Spall and Anna Massey. Not together, I should add, for fear of sparking gossip.

    In four years in SE5 my celeb count amounts to Erin O’Connor (admittedly on a near-weekly basis) and Jenny Eclair. Oh yes, and that bloke who writes a gardening column for the Observer.

    Should we be worried?

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