You may have seen that works are underway on three buildings near the junction of Peckham High Street and Peckham Hill Street. These buildings are Phase 1 of the Peckham Townscape Heritage Initiative.
We prepared the Peckham THI update summer 2018 for handing out at the Peckham Rye Park Fete on Saturday 1st September. It has information about Phase 1 plus news on other aspects of the THI.
Available from September 2018, the Peckham History Trail is another of the Peckham Townscape Heritage Initiative community projects.
It’s been designed to be enjoyed as an adventure by families with primary-school aged children. Peckham has a long history and this Trail reveals clues to its past. Enjoy!
Particular thanks to the families at the Tomas Carlton Centre who contributed early ideas to the project, and to Julie Garton who researched and wrote it.
The PECKHAM HERITAGE REGENERATION PARTNERSHIP is part of the PECKHAM TOWNSCAPE HERITAGE INITIATIVE and has been running for two years.
What does the Partnership do?
The Partnership is a formal requirement of the Heritage Lottery funding and meets quarterly (currently on Tuesday evenings) to consider 3 main areas:
• Review and advise on the main capital programme to restore heritage buildings within the Peckham town centre;
• Work collaboratively to prioritise, develop, publicise and review the programme of Community Activities funded through the Peckham Townscape Heritage Initiative;
• Identify opportunities to work collectively to promote awareness and take action to enhance the Rye Lane Peckham Conservation Area and Peckham town centre.
Activities to date include
• Funded and launched the new website – www.peckhamheritage.org.uk
• Hosted a series of Peckham Heritage Talks, including the public meeting on Managing Change in Conservation Areas;
• Hosted an event on Caring for Traditional Buildings and funded the development of a Heritage Learning Resource for primary schools.
THERE ARE MANY IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO TAKE THE WORK OF THE PARTNERSHIP FORWARD. NEW MEMBERS ARE SOUGHT TO HELP DO THIS.
We currently have 5 places available for membership/co-option. These can be individual residents as well as local businesses, organisations & groups.
IDEALLY YOU WILL BE:
• passionate about Peckham; interested in its local history and architecture & design;
• interested in working to raise awareness of the Rye Lane Conservation Area
• interested in community activities that raise awareness of local history, the built environment, and bring people from different communities together
Apart from attending meetings it would be valuable if you had time to take on some practical tasks in between meetings:
• plan and help out at events or information stalls to promote the Conservation Area, the town centre & local heritage;
• review and comment on planning applications & other relevant documents;
• helping out with communications – website, Tweets etc.
HOW TO APPLY?
Please complete this applicaton form Best 2018 Application to PHRP
and send this by midday Thursday 8th March to julie.mallett@southwark.gov.uk
ANY QUESTIONS?
Contact Julie Mallett on 0207 525 3265
Derek Kinrade, local historian has provided two more fascinating sketches about buildings in the Rye Lane Conservation Area – The Greyhound, 119 Peckham High Street and 117-125 Rye Lane. Check them out in the Heritage Information section.
Peckham Heritage Regeneration Partnership’s first event of 2018:
‘Conservation Areas’ are 50 years old. The first one was designated in 1967 and there are now over 10,000 in England.
Peckham town centre is within the Rye Lane Peckham Conservation Area, and there are three more Conservation Areas adjacent.
This PUBLIC MEETING will be opportunity to explore a range of questions including:
We’ve gathered an esteemed panel to share their thoughts an observations around these questions:
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 at All Saints Church Hall, Blenheim Grove, Peckham, SE15 4QS. 7-9pm (6.30pm for refreshments).
Booking is advised. Contact julie.mallett@southwark.gov.uk / 0207 525 3265
Our Hut, a charity which uses architecture as a starting point to develop fun learning resources for schools, has been funded by the Peckham Townscape Heritage Initiative to develop and test a series of creative and interactive lessons about Peckham town centre, its history and architecture.
Peckham has a fascinating history and there are many interesting buildings from different eras that show various architectural styles. The buildings and their history provide an exciting springboard for children to learn about the neighbourhoods they live in, how they developed and how areas change over time.
Here is the Introduction to the Resource and the Session Plans [pdf 0.86Mb]. This and all the other resources can be downloaded free of charge from ‘Community documents’ in the Community section. The resource has elements for both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 children, and can be used in its entirety or adapted by classroom teachers to suit their needs.
Central Hall, this picture taken June 2017, is now branded a ‘Solutions Centre’ by Crusaders Ministeries International. This fine Victorian building is the centrepiece of a once magnificent terrace, but today it is sadly dilapidated; its chequered history consonant with a trajectory of decline and neglect. Read more Central Hall: 43 Peckham High Road
91 Peckham High Street is likely to be the first of Peckham THI buildings to have work started. Planning permission was secured as part of the permission to re-develop Peckham Library Square. Works will include reinstating both timber windows and a traditional timber shop-front.
Equivalent works will be undertaken at 93 Peckham High Street at the same time, so a considerable impact will be made on this central area of the town centre. Both buildings are owned by Southwark Council. It is anticipated that works will begin in the autumn of 2017.
Here is the drawing for the front of both buildings that formed part of the planning application. You can read about 91 Peckham High Street from page 52 of The Regeneration Practice’s Peckham THI Repair and Restoration Proposals [10.6Mb pdf].
‘The impressive Tower cinema was opened in Rye Lane by actress Gladys Cooper in 1914. During the First World War the basement was an official air raid shelter.’ Read more Peckham past: Tower cinema and Holdron’s
The partnership has an independent Chair, Claire Hegarty, who brings to the partnership here her love of urban settings and her experience of running an architecture practice in North London. Claire has been working with historic buildings for over twenty years.
‘Coming to Peckham from a different part of London and reading and looking at the work that has been going on in Peckham, what strikes me is the incredible energy and commitment to the THI project and the work done by local people.
I’m looking forward to this amazing opportunity to work with local people who have such a body of knowledge about Peckham and its history, but it will also be a challenge. London is experiencing great change, which in many cases is positive, but this project is also about creating continuity and keeping that sense of place and history.
Neighbourhoods like Peckham are distinctive to London, with layers of memories and stories that we want to protect and I am very much looking forward to working with the council and local people to do that.’
‘Rye Lane was noted as one of South London’s major shopping centres in the first half of the twentieth century. It was known as the Golden Mile. Its decline began in 1949 when Holdron’s large shop closed. Part of the firm’s chimney, with RONS on it, can be seen in the Copeland Industrial Park. Read more Peckham past: Holdron’s
Our Hut, a London charity which specialises in architecture education, is being funded through the THI to develop teaching resources for primary schools on Peckham’s history and its built environment. They’re also doing a similar project as part of the Brixton THI. Check out the Our Hut website for information on this and other projects they have delivered.
Lucy Lavers, Judy Ovens and Suzanna Prizeman make up the Our Hut team. They’ll be working with St James the Great Primary School to develop and pilot the learning resources. The work will take place in the summer term 2017.
The work took place in summer term 2017, please see our Primary Schools’ education resource news post, and you can download the Teachers’ Resource Pack, which was created by Our Hut, from ‘Community documents’ in the Community section.
