What are the oldest surviving buildings in Peckham?

An unassuming group of buildings tucked away behind two shops on Peckham High Street, built in the 1720s, reveal the rich history of Peckham's town centre.

58-62 Peckham High Street are the oldest group of buildings that still remain today, while none of them are officially the oldest building in Peckham, they are indeed the oldest buildings for which we have a decent amount of information on.

The accolade of Peckham's oldest building goes to a standalone house, built around the same time as 58-62 Peckham High Street, located on Wood Road off Queen's Road, next to John Donne Primary School. It is believed to have been built in the late 1600s, although there appears to be no official date. The house has recently undergone a restoration project and been turned into flats after it was left in a 'perilous' state of disrepair by previous occupants.

2 Wood's Road

Indeed, Wood Road has undergone so many changes that 58-62 Peckham High Street is a better example of Peckham's architecture from this period as they have retained a lot of their original features.

The terrace sits on a barely visible terrace behind large shop fronts, and is now used as storage for Afro Queen, a women's hair store, and Tasty, an African restaurant.

The terrace has been at the centre of local restoration drives by community groups. Number 58 Peckham High Street succeeded in getting Grade II listed status in 2009, after a campaign by the local historic group Peckham Society.

Google Street view of 58-62 Peckham High Street today.

In the 1930s, the Royal Commission surveyed the 17th and 18th century buildings dotted along Peckham High Street. Many of these buildings have now been lost, with some demolished as recently as the 1980s.

When was the terrace built?

The terrace was built in the 1720s and incorporated building material from the 1600s, with shop fronts not added until the 1800s.

They were constructed in a period where London expanded away from the City after the Great Fire of London in 1666. After the devastating fire, Londoners decided to move away from the City to the safety of the leafy suburbs.

Peckham would have been considered almost like the countryside to those people living in the built-up and cramped mass of largely wooden houses in the city centre.

However, these houses would not be for the poor or even the upper-working-class people of 17th century London. In the 1930s, The Royal Commission said they were used as 'dwellings', and would have been owned by wealthy people.

The buildings survive today with much of their original fabric remaining intact, such as timber frames, twin-newel stairs, a mantleshelf, a fireplace surround and some architraves frames around the doors.

Benny O'Looney, an architect and member of the Peckham Society has been conducting research on the group of houses and has been helping to restore number 62 in his job as architect.

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Benny, alongside the late Derek Kinrade and the Peckham Heritage Regeneration Partnership, published a book, Peckham's Heritage: Past, Present and Future , which sheds light on the terrace and explores Peckham's rich history.

58 Peckham High street is visible on the junction of Rye Lane and Peckham High Street on this map from 1746 (J. Rocque, An Exact Survey of the City’s of London, Westminster… and the Country near Ten Miles Round, 1746)

Peckham's History:

When this terrace was built in the early 18th century, Peckham was not the urban corner of south London it is today. Instead, it was a rural hamlet centred on the junction between Rye Lane (formerly South Street) and Peckham High Street.

Peckham began life as Pecheham (Village on the River Peck), named in the Domesday Book of 1086 and was on the main road from Camberwell to Greenwich.

It was owned by King Henry I from 1100 - 1135 before he passed the small village to his son, Robert Early of Gloucester.

By the 17th century, Peckham was a market garden town with orchards, and supplied fresh produce like figs, melons and grapes to London's markets. This is where Melon Road, just off Peckham High street, gets its name.

Peckham also acted as a stopping point for cattle drovers who were taking their livestock to markets in the centre of London.

The large houses on the junction and surrounding areas, like 58-62 Peckham High Street, were owned and occupied by members of the gentry.

In the 19th century, the terrace had the garden of Peckham Manor to the north, Basing Manor House to the south and Hanover Chapel to the east. Basing Manor House later became a school in 1850.

It was first named Manor House School and later Collyer School, named after a prominent non-conformist William Bengo’ Collyer who left his mark in Peckham, but by the middle of the twentieth century the school had gone for good. At one point it was an employment exchange: but now it is just a car park for Lidl supermarket behind our terrace of 58-62 Peckham High Street.

Basing Manor House, High Street Peckham. Water colour painting from 1872

Peckham's Lidl, on the site where Basing Manor House would have stood

Who owned the houses?

As the Royal Commission in the 1930s established, the houses were likely owned by wealthy people.

An unlikely link between Peckham and Australia was made in 2009. Charles Kershaw's 1830 painting (pictured below) was carefully wrapped by Mr John Doddemeade in Perth and sent to London.

The painting was passed down within John's ancestors, who had relocated to Australia, as he was seeking to identify the location of the houses it depicted.

A 1830 century painting by Charles Kershaw of 58-66 Peckham High Street. Image provided by Peckham Society.

Screenshot

Google Street view of 58-62 Peckham High Street today.

Benny O'Looney and Derek Kinrade explained that the painting came via the local History Library to John Beasley, the then editor of the Peckham Society News. John realised he was looking at a depiction of the high street.

John Doddemeade explained that the painter was a distant family member, who had lived in Coldharbour Lane, and his own great-great grandfather Edward Early had owned the terraced 58-66 Peckham High Street.

In the painting, the houses have weatherboard fronts, visible by the faint lines on the front of number 60-62. But, by the end of the 19th century, the front gardens in the painting had been built over with shop fronts.

This formed a shopping parade and the beginning of the High Street as we know it today, with the old houses being used for storage space for shops.

An undated photograph of the terrace. Image provided by Peckham Society.

The 'speculation' boom:

The late 17th and early 18th centuries were a transformative time more widely and as the centre of Britain's Industrial Revolution, London saw such a rapid growth that Peckham was swallowed up into the city itself.

By start of the First World War it not the leafy suburb it once was, but part of an industrial landscape that saw factory owners and then those working for them moving into streets of terrace housing built in and around the area.

Our original terrace of 58-62 Peckham High Street was built as a speculation by a man named Isaac Bennett as part of the 'speculation boom', which means he built the houses before having confirmed buyers.

Speculation became increasingly common in this period, as wealthy landowners started to lease land to builders. The builders financed the construction themselves and sold the houses once completed, in a risky but lucrative business.

Many of the houses in the1600s were made of timber and plaster, yet by 1700, brick was the dominant material. This was also the beginning of terraced housing, like the houses surrounding 58-62 Peckham High Street.

Many of these speculative buildings had low standards, so it's remarkable that 58 Peckham High Street remains in such good shape today.

Before Afro Queen, the shop attached to the 18th century structure was occupied by Cracker Jack Convenience Store and has seen numerous shop fronts over the years as Peckham changed.

Peckham High Street in 1979. Image supplied by Peckham Society and is featured in Peckham's Heritage- Past, Present and Future.

58 Peckham High Street when Cracker Jack's store occupied the shopfront. Photo credit: English Heritage and Brian Mawdsley

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/history-plus/why-is-there-a-large-steel-box-on-the-elephant-and-castle-roundabout/

Claire Hegarty, a member of Peckham Heritage, put together nominations for the Council's Local List for protection, with 58-62 Peckham High Street included on the list.

Peckham Vision, a local community group, has campaigned successfully over the years to raise local community awareness on the town centre's rich heritage and historic buildings.

Their campaign work has saved numerous buildings and spaces from demolition including:

The Bussey Building on Copeland Road

Copeland Park

133, 135 and 125A Rye Lane

Peckham multi-storey

Two Art Deco buildings on Blenheim grove

The Old Mill Building on Blackpool Road

To learn more about Peckham's history, you can buy the Peckham Society's book here: https://peckhamheritage.org.uk/buy-our-book/

https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/bermondsey/bermondsey-town-hall-from-victorian-splendour-to-a-bomb-site-and-now-a-sainsburys-local/

What are the oldest surviving buildings in Peckham?

The terrace was once home to wealthy Londoners and is now used as storage space for the shops below

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