CHAPTER XII
SOUTH-EAST LONDON
General survey of South London--South-east London: its most populous portion--Three small open spaces--Camberwell New Park--Southwark Park--Kennington Park--Fine shrubberies--Greenwich Park and Blackheath--A stately and depressing park--Mutilated trees--The extreme East--Bostell Woods and Heath--Their peculiar charm--Woolwich and Plumstead Commons--Hilly Fields--Peckham Rye and Park--A remonstrance--Nunhead and Camberwell Cemeteries--Dulwich Park--Brockwell Park--The rookery.
South London, comprising the whole of the metropolis on the Surrey and Kent side of the Thames, is not here divided into two districts--South-east and South-west--merely for convenience sake, because it is too large to be dealt with in one chapter. Considered with reference to its open spaces and to the physical geography of this part of the metropolitan area, South London really comprises two districts differing somewhat in character.
Taking London to mean the whole of the area built upon and the outer public open spaces that touch or abut on streets, or rows of houses, we find that South London, from east to west, exceeds North London in length, the distance from Plumstead and Bostell to Kew and Old Deer Park being about nineteen miles as the crow flies. Not, however, as the London crow flies when travelling up and down river between these two points, as his custom is: following the Thames in its windings, his journey each way would not be a less distance than twenty-seven to twenty-eight miles. At the eastern end of South London we find that the open spaces, from Bostell to Greenwich, lie near the river; that from Greenwich the line of open spaces diverges wide from the river, and, skirting the densely populated districts, extends southwards through a hilly country to Brockwell and Sydenham. On the west side, or the other half of South London (the South-west district), the open spaces are, roughly speaking, ranged in a similar way; but they are more numerous, larger, and extend for a much greater distance along the river--in fact, from Richmond and Kew to Battersea Park. There the line ends, the other open spaces being scattered about at a considerable distance from the river. Thus we have, between the river on one side and the retreating frontier line of open spaces on the other, a large densely-populated district, containing few and small breathing-spaces, but not quite so badly off in this respect as the most crowded portion of East London.
The Post-Office line dividing the Southern districts cuts through this populous part of South London, and has a hilly country on the left side of the line and a comparatively flat country on the right or west side. The west side is the district of large commons; on the east side the open spaces are not so many nor, as a rule, so large, but in many ways they are more interesting.
All that follows in this chapter will relate to the open spaces on the east side of the line.
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The most densely populated portion of South-east London lies between Greenwich and Kennington Oval, a distance of about four miles and a half. This crowded part contains about twelve square miles of streets and houses, and there are in it three open spaces called 'parks,' but quite insignificant in size considering the needs of so vast a population. These three spaces are Deptford Park, a small space of 17 acres opened in 1897, Southwark Park, Kennington Park, and Myatt's Fields; the last a small open space of fourteen acres, a gift of Mr. William Minet to the public; formerly the property of one Myatt, a fruit-grower, and the first to introduce and cultivate the now familiar rhubarb in this country.
Southwark Park (63 acres) is the only comparatively large breathing-place easily accessible to the working-class population inhabiting Deptford, Rotherhithe, and Bermondsey.
How great the craving for a breath of fresh air and the sight of green grass must be in such a district, when we find that this comparatively small space has been visited on one day by upwards of 100,000 persons! An almost incredible number when we consider that less than half the space contained in the park is available for the people to walk on, the rest being taken up by ornamental water, gardens, shrubberies, enclosures for cricket, &c. The ground itself is badly shaped, being a long narrow strip, with conspicuous houses on either hand, which wall and shut you in and make the refreshing illusions of openness and distance impossible. Even with a space of fifty or sixty acres, if it be of a proper shape, and the surrounding houses not too high to be hidden by trees, this effect of country-like openness and distance, which gives to a London park its greatest charm and value, can be secured. Again, this being a crowded industrial district full of 'works,' the atmosphere is laden with smoke, and everything that meets the eye, even the leaves and grass, is begrimed with soot. Yet in spite of all these drawbacks Southwark Park is attractive; you admire it as you would a very dirty child with a pretty face. The trees and shrubs have grown well, and there is a lake and island, and ornamental water-fowl. The wild bird life is composed of a multitude of sparrows and a very few blackbirds and thrushes. It is interesting and useful to know that these two species did not settle here themselves, but were introduced by a former superintendent, and have continued to breed for some years.
Kennington Park (19 acres) is less than a third the size of Southwark Park; but though so small and far from other breathing-spaces, in the midst of a populous district, it has a far fresher and prettier aspect than the other. It resembles Highbury Fields more than any other open space, but is better laid out and planted than the miniature North London park. Indeed, Kennington Park is a surprise when first seen, as it actually has larger and better-grown shrubberies than several of the big parks. The shrubberies extend well all around the grounds, and have an exceptionally fine appearance on account of the abundance of holly, the most beautiful of our evergreens. With such a vegetation it is not surprising to find that this small green spot can show a goodly number of songsters. The blackbird, thrush, hedge-sparrow, and robin are here; but it is hard for these birds to rear their broods, in the case of the robin impossible I should say, on account of the Kennington cats. Here, as in the neighbourhood of the other open spaces in London, the evening cry of 'All out!' is to them an invitation to come in.
Two things are needed to make Kennington Park everything that so small a space might and should be: one is the effectual exclusion of the cats, which at present keep down the best songsters; the other, a small pond or two planted with rushes to attract the moorhens, and perhaps other species. It may be added that the cost of making and maintaining a small pond is less than that of the gardens that are now being made at Kennington Park, and that the spectacle of a couple of moorhens occupied with their domestic affairs in their little rushy house is infinitely more interesting than a bed of flowers to those who seek refreshment in our open spaces.
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From these small spots of verdure in the densely-populated portion of South-east London we must now pass to the larger open spaces in the outer more rural parts of that extensive district. The more convenient plan will be to describe those in the east part first--Greenwich, Blackheath, and eastwards to Bostell Woods and Heath; then, leaving the river, to go the round of the outer open spaces that lie west of Woolwich.
Greenwich Park and Blackheath together contain 452 acres; but although side by side, with only a wall and gate to divide them, they are utterly unlike in character, the so-called heath being nothing but a large green space used as a recreation ground, where birds settle to feed but do not live. Greenwich Park contains 185 acres, inclusive of the enclosed grounds attached to the ranger's lodge, which are now open to the public. But though not more than half the area of Hyde Park, it really strikes one as being very large on account of the hilly broken surface in parts and the large amount of old timber. This park has a curiously aged and somewhat stately appearance, and so long as the back is kept turned on the exceedingly dirty and ugly-looking refreshment building which disgraces it, one cannot fail to be impressed. At the same time I find that this really fine park, which I have known for many years, invariably has a somewhat depressing effect on me. It may be that the historical associations of Greenwich, from the effects of which even those who concern themselves little with the past cannot wholly escape, are partly the cause of the feeling. Its memories are of things dreadful, and magnificent, and some almost ludicrous, but they are all in some degree hateful. After all, perhaps the thoughts of a royal wife-killing ruffian and tyrant, a dying boy king, and a fantastic virgin queen, affect me less than the sight of the old lopped trees. For there are not in all England such melancholy-looking trees as those of Greenwich. You cannot get away from the sight of their sad mutilated condition; and when you walk on and on, this way and that, looking from tree to tree, to find them all lopped off at the same height from the ground, you cannot help being depressed. You are told that they were thus mutilated some twenty to twenty-five years ago to save them from further decay! What should we say of the head physician of some big hospital who should one day issue an order that all patients, indoor and outdoor, should be subjected to the same treatment--that they should be bled and salivated with mercury in the good old way, men, women, and children, whatever their ailments might be? His science would be about on a par with that of the authors of this hideous disfigurement of all the trees in a large park--old and young, decayed and sound, Spanish chestnut, oak, elm, beech, horse-chestnut, every one lopped at the same height from the ground! We have seen in a former chapter what the effect of this measure was on the nobler bird life of the park.
Of all the crows that formerly inhabited Greenwich, a solitary pair of jackdaws bred until recently in a hollow tree in the 'Wilderness,' but have lately disappeared. The owls, too, which were seen from time to time down to within about two years ago, appear to have left. The lesser spotted woodpecker and tree-creeper are sometimes seen; nuthatches are not uncommon; starlings are very numerous; robins, hedge-sparrows, greenfinches, chaffinches, thrushes, and blackbirds are common. In summer several migrants add variety to the bird life, and fieldfares may always be seen in winter. In the gardens and private grounds of Lee, Lewisham, and other neighbouring parishes small birds are more numerous than in the park.
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London (streets and houses) extends along or near the river about five miles beyond Greenwich Park. Woolwich and Plumstead now form one continuous populous district, still extending rows of new houses in all available directions, and promising in time to become a new and not very much better Deptford. Plumstead, being mostly new, reminds one of a meaner West Kensington, with its rows on rows of small houses, gardenless, all exactly alike, as if made in one mould, and coloured red and yellow to suit the tenants' fancy. But at Plumstead, unlovely and ignoble as it is in appearance, one has the pleasant thought that at last here, on this side, one is at the very end of London, that the country beyond and on either side is, albeit populous, purely rural. On the left hand is the river; on the right of Plumstead is Shooter's Hill, with green fields, hedges, woods, and preserves, and here some fine views of the surrounding country may be obtained. Better still, just beyond Plumstead is the hill which the builder can never spoil, for here are Bostell Woods and Heath, the last of London's open spaces in this direction.
The hill is cut through by a deep road; on one side are the woods, composed of tall fir-trees on the broad level top of the hill, and oak, mixed in places with birch and holly, on the slopes; on the other side of the road is the Heath, rough with gorse, bramble, ling, and bracken, and some pretty patches of birch wood. From this open part there are noble views of the Kent and Essex marshes, the river with its steely bright sinuous band dividing the counties.
Woods and heath together have an area of 132 acres; but owing to the large horizon, the broken surface, and the wild and varied character of the woodland scenery, the space seems practically unlimited: the sense of freedom, which gives Hampstead Heath its principal charm and tonic value, may be here experienced in even a greater degree than at that favourite resort. To the dwellers in the north, west, and south-west of London this wild spot is little known. From Paddington or Victoria you can journey to the end of Surrey and to Hampshire more quickly and with greater comfort than to Bostell Woods. To the very large and increasing working population of Woolwich and Plumstead this space is of incalculable value, and they delight in it. But this is a busy people, and on most working days, especially in the late autumn, winter, and early spring months, the visitor will often find himself out of sight and sound of human beings; nor could the lover of nature and of contemplation wish for a better place in which to roam about. Small woodland birds are in great variety. Quietly moving about or seated under the trees, you hear the delicate songs and various airy lisping and tinkling sounds of tits of several species, of wren, tree-creeper, goldcrest, nuthatch, lesser spotted woodpecker, robin, greenfinch and chaffinch, and in winter the siskin and redpole. Listening to this fairy-like musical prattle, or attending to your own thoughts, there is but one thing, one sound, to break the illusion of remoteness from the toiling crowded world of London--the report at intervals of a big gun from the Arsenal, three miles away. Too far for the jarring and shrieking sounds of machinery and the noisy toil of some sixteen to eighteen thousand men perpetually engaged in the manufacture of arms to reach the woods; but the dull, thunderous roar of the big gun travels over wide leagues of country; and the hermit, startled out of his meditations, is apt to wish with the poet that the old god of war himself was dead, and rotting on his iron hills; or else that he would make his hostile preparations with less noise.
At the end of day, windless after wind, or with a clear sky after rain, when the guns have ceased to boom, the woods are at their best. Then the birds are most vocal, their voices purer, more spiritual, than at other times. Then the level sun, that flatters all things, fills the dim interior with a mystic light, a strange glory; and the oaks, green with moss, are pillars of emerald, and the tall red-barked fir-trees are pillars of fire.
Some reader, remembering the exceeding foulness of London itself, and the polluting cloud which it casts wide over the country, to this side or that according as the wind blows, may imagine that no place in touch with the East-end of the metropolis can be quite so fresh as I have painted Bostell. But Nature's self-purifying power is very great. Those who are well acquainted with outer London, within a radius of, say, ten miles of Charing Cross, must know spots as fresh and unsullied as you would find in the remote Quantocks; secluded bits of woodland where you can spend hours out of sight and sound of human life, forgetting London and the things that concern London, or by means of the mind's magic changing them into something in harmony with your own mood and wholly your own:
Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade.
Bostell Woods is a favourite haunt of birds'-nesting boys and youths in summer, and as it is quite impossible to keep an eye on their doings, very few of the larger and rarer species are able to breed there; but in the adjoining wooded grounds, belonging to Christ's Hospital, the jay, magpie, white owl and brown owl still breed, and the nightingale is common in summer.
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Not far from Bostell we have the Plumstead and Woolwich Commons, together an area of about 450 acres; but as these spaces are used solely as recreation grounds, and are not attractive to birds, it is not necessary to describe them. West and south-west of Greenwich, in that rural portion of the South-east district through which our way now lies, the first open space we come to is the Hilly Fields (45 acres) at Brockley; a green hill with fine views from the summit, but not a habitation of birds. A little farther on, with Nunhead Cemetery between, lies Peckham Rye and Peckham Rye Park (113 acres). The Rye, or common, is a wedge-shaped piece of ground used for recreation, and consequently not a place where birds are found. From the narrow end of the ground a very attractive prospect lies before the sight: the green wide space of the Rye is seen to be bounded by a wood (the park), and beyond the wood are green hills--Furze Hill, and One Tree, or Oak of Honor, Hill. The effect of distance is produced by the trees and hills, and the scene is, for this part of London, strikingly rural. The park at the broad extremity of the Rye, I have said, has the appearance of a wood; and it is or was a wood, or the well-preserved fragment of one, as perfect a transcript of wild nature as could be found within four miles of Charing Cross. This park was acquired for the public in 1891, and as the wildest and best portion was enclosed with an iron fence to keep the public out, some of us cherished the hope that the County Council meant to preserve it in the exact condition in which they received it. There the self-planted and never mutilated trees flourished in beautiful disorder, their lower boughs mingling with the spreading luxuriant brambles; and tree, bramble, and ivy were one with the wild grasses and woodland blossoms among them. If, as tradition tells, King John hunted the wild stag at Peckham, he could not have seen a fresher, lovelier bit of nature than this. But, alas! the gardeners, who had all the rest of the grounds to prettify and vulgarise and work their will on, could not keep their hands off this precious spot; for some time past they have been cutting away the wild growths, and digging and planting, until they have well nigh spoiled it.
There is no doubt that a vast majority of the inhabitants of London, whose only glimpses of nature can be had in the public parks, prefer that that nature should be as little spoiled as possible; that there should be something of wildness in it, of Nature's own negligence. It is infinitely more to them than that excessive smoothness and artificiality of which we see so much. To exhibit flower-beds to those who crave for nature is like placing a dish of Turkish Delight before a hungry man: a bramble-bush, a bunch of nettles, would suit him better. And this universal feeling and perpetual want of the Londoner should be more considered by those who have charge of our open spaces.
Small birds are abundant in Peckham Park, but there is no large species except the now almost universal wood-pigeon. A few rooks, in 1895, and again in 1896, tried to establish a rookery here, but have now gone away. The resident songsters are the thrush, blackbird, robin, dunnock, wren, tits, chaffinch, greenfinch, and starling. Among the blackbirds there are, at the time of writing this chapter, two white individuals.
Close to Peckham Rye and Park there are two large cemeteries--Nunhead on one side and Camberwell Cemetery on the other. Both are on high ground; the first (40 acres) is an extremely pretty spot, and has the finest trees to be seen in any metropolitan burying-ground. From the highest part of the ground an extensive and charming view may be had of the comparatively rural district on the south side. Small birds, especially in the winter months, are numerous in this cemetery, and it is pretty to see the starlings in flocks, chaffinches, robins, and other small birds sitting on the gravestones.
Camberwell Cemetery is smaller and newer, and has but few trees, but is on even higher ground, as it occupies a slope of the hill above the park. If there is any metropolitan burying-ground where dead Londoners find a post-mortem existence tolerable, it must, I imagine, be on this spot; since by perching or sitting on their own tombstones they may enjoy a wide view of South-east London--a pleasant prospect of mixed town and country, of houses and trees, and tall church spires, and green slopes of distant hills.
It is to be hoped that when this horrible business of burying our dead in London is brought to an end, Nunhead and Camberwell Cemeteries will be made one large open space with Peckham Rye and Park.
A mile from the Rye is Dulwich Park (72 acres); it is laid out more as a garden than a park, and may be said to be one of the prettiest and least interesting of the metropolitan open spaces. I mean 'prettiest' in the sense in which gardeners and women use the word. It lies in the midst of one of the most rural portions of South-east London, having on all sides large private gardens, park-like grounds, and woods. The bird life in this part is abundant, including in summer the blackcap, garden-warbler, willow-wren, wood-wren, redstart, pied wagtail, tree pipit, and cuckoo. The large birds commonly seen are the rook, carrion crow, daw, and wood-pigeon. The park itself, being so much more artificial than the adjacent grounds, has comparatively few birds.
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A mile west of Dulwich Park, touching the line dividing the South-east and South-west districts, is Brockwell Park (78 acres). Like Clissold and Ravenscourt, this is one of the old private parks of London, with a manor house in it, now used as a refreshment house. It is very open, a beautiful green hill, from which there are extensive and some very charming views. Knight's Hill, not yet built upon, is close by. The elm-trees scattered all about the park are large and well grown, and have a healthy look. On one part of the ground is a walled-round delightful old garden--half orchard--the only garden containing fruit-trees, roses, and old-fashioned herbs and flowers in any open space in London. Another great attraction is--I fear we shall before long have to say _was_--the rookery. Six years ago it was the most populous rookery in or near London, and extended over the entire park, there being few or no large trees without nests; but when the park was opened to the public, in 1891, the birds went away, all excepting those that occupied nests on the large trees at the main gate, which is within a few yards of Herne Hill station. They were evidently so used to the noise of the trains and traffic, and to the sight of people in the thoroughfare on which they looked down, that the opening of the park did not disturb them. Nevertheless this remnant of the old rookery is becoming less populous each year. In the summer of 1896 I counted thirty-five occupied nests; in 1897 there were only twenty nests. Just now--February 1898--eight or ten pairs of birds are engaged in repairing the old nests.
It is very pleasant to find that here, at all events, very little (I cannot say nothing) has so far been done to spoil the natural character and charm of this park--one of the finest of London's open spaces.