Tony doesn't live in Brockley, but is nonetheless so beguiled by the place that he has written this article - "Crofton Park and Brockley Green - A Micro-History" - based on his own research. At the end, he has a question, which he hopes BC readers can help with:
Stand on the corner of Sevenoaks Road and Brockley Road, and let me take you back to 1833. You’re now standing near the centre of the original Brockley - a small hamlet on the road into London. It’s described as a hamlet, because it has no church. It does however have a pub, The Castle (originally called ‘The Crooked Billet’ and later renamed the ‘Brockley Jack’), and looking north, you’ll see Brockley Hall, a large private residence. The Hall is just before the modern roundabout - the roundabout itself is on the site of a small village pond, after which the road splits - Brockley Grove to the right, Brockley Road straight on, although confusingly both roads at the time were known as Brockley Lane. Beyond that, it’s just fields until we reach Tanner’s Hill (now part of St John’s) in Lewisham.
To the south, the road curves sharply to left (at another village pond) and curves round Brockley Green, a small collections of houses round Duncan’s Farm. The modern Brockley Rise follows this curve.
Looking to the north, just ahead of you, is a footpath that connects the wells of Camberwell and Ladywell, and Sevenoaks Road now follows this path to the east. To the west, the path winds round the back of the pub, and you can still follow the line of the footpath as the alleyway connects Cypress Gardens to the bridge across the railway.
To the west, a short distance behind the pub, is the Croydon Canal, opened in 1809, but a financial failure. It will close in just a few years, in 1836.
With the closing of the canal comes the railways, and the beginning of considerable change for Brockley. The London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) purchase the canal and drain it, replacing it with train track. The oldest remaining houses in Brockley, on Coulgate Street, were built around this time in the area then known as Brockley Cross. It was here, in 1872, the new Brockley station was opened - and with new property development round the station, the centre of gravity of Brockley moved north, away from the sleepy hamlet of Brockley Green.
Brockley Green didn’t stay sleepy for long. By 1900, Stondon Park carried on the line of Brockley Road straight across the old farms and ponds of the Green, and terraces of Victorian houses were appearing between the road and railway. In 1886 Honor Oak Park station was opened, followed by Crofton Park in 1892 on the new ‘Catford Loop’ line. After this the old hamlet was lost, and the area itself became known as Crofton Park - a name invented by the railway company.
Some things still remained, though. The Castle had been renamed ‘The Brockley Jack’, although its days as a picturesque wooden building were numbered. The pub had long been associated with highway men (although with little evidence). Allegedly there was a staircase that could be removed, so the people hiding in the room upstairs would not be discovered. The pub’s sign was written on a whalebone, which is still exhibited in the pub, above the fireplace. There is also a whalebone, outside, on the high gable. The old building was condemned in 1898 and replaced by the current brick and stone building.
Brockley Hall survived a little longer. Dating from at least 1745, by 1900 the house was in the hands of the Noakes family, local brewers and owners of the Brockley Jack. The 1901 census shows Bertram Noakes living there with his five spinster sisters, Pauline, Elizabeth, Kate, Ada and Maude. Maude was the last survivor, dying in 1931. The property was then sold and demolished and the 1930s houses of Sevenoaks Road, Brockley Hall Road, Otford Crescent and others were built in its grounds.
My question is:
In the 1800s, if you lived in Brockley Green, where did you go to church? There's certainly no church in Brockley at the time, and all the local churches now seem to be Victorian?
