macroban

I think it's the Burial Law Amendment Act 1880. As I'm old I checked this a few years ago to find out the cheapest legal means of body disposal. I seem to remember there was a loophole in the legislation whereby a body could be legally be disposed of in a black bin-liner with the domestic refuse. I'm not sure how this fits in with Southwark Council's recent rubbish recycling rules.

It's so hard to kill off these myths about London plague pits and get folk to distinguish them from mass graves in consecrated gound. Unfortunately it would be illegal for dulwichmum to be buried under Goose Green roundabout.

I wonder if this thread should be in the smoking lounge. I've been thinking about the economic impact on East Dulwich. How many of the East Dulwich alcohol drinking businesses are marginal and a drop of (say) 10% of turnover would threaten their survival?

Townleygreen made an interesting point about (non) future of East Dulwich in the context of the current estimate that sea levels will rise 65 metres when the ice caps have melted. Some years back when I first read about the ice caps melting I got out an old 6" Ordnance Survey map of East Dulwich and checked the benchmarks and spot heights. These ranged from about 160 feet above sea level at The Plough going down to about 60 feet above sea level at Goose Green. I thought about a few decades in the future when The Plough pub would be renamed The Marine Hotel and the Plough area would be East Dulwich-on-Sea. I even had a smirk about a smart young entrepreneur starting a business offering boat trips to the Alexandra Palace. But that was when the estimates were up to 50 metres. Now the estimates are 65 metres and more we are talking about Crystal Palace-on-Sea and Crystal Palace Parade being a seaside promenade. The timescales for the current estimates are much debated but many of the estimates are within the lifespans of homes now being bought in East Dulwich. So, a question. When people have a site survey done for a prospective home purchase in East Dulwich is there now a section in the survey report that details the height above sea level of the property and its implications? I've heard that some of the smart mobile phones young people have these days have built-in GPS devices. I be interested in some reports of the heights above sea level of some of the East Dulwich landmarks such as the Crystal Palace Tavern.

Thanks, snorky. I'd appreciate feedback.

For clarity I should have written that the old Goose Green area was more like the area we now know as Grove Vale. I have seen no evidence on maps dating from 1744 up to present for ponds on any part of the old Goose Green area including what we now call Goose Green. I suppose I ought to check some of the older books like Brayley's "History of Surrey" and Blanch's "Ye Parish of Camerwell" just in case there are references I have forgotten to small ponds that never made it to the maps. Probably the quickest way to nail the ponds is to contact John Beasley through the Peckham Society and ask for his source(s) especially for the pond said to be under St John's. For the moment it seems to me there is a circular argument here. Something like: It's called Goose Green so there must have been geese There were geese so there must have been a pond There was a pond so there must have been geese There were geese and that's why it's called Goose Green I have also never seen any evidence for underground streams in the Marsden Road area. I know little of geology, but I understand that natural underground streams don't happen in clay soils and that where people think there are underground streams it is actually just surface ground-water that is unable to permeate through the fine particles of the clay. Large scale Ordnance Survey maps exist for the Marsden Road area from when it was still enclosed fields. There are no overground streams shown which could have been re-routed underground when the area was developed for housing. However there are field boundaries shown of what was the old Friern Manor. I would not be surprised if there were agricultural drainage ditches along these boundaries. I've not checked the historic field boundary alignments with the present day Marsden Road, but it is plausible that a house was "jerry-built" over one of these ditches. I'm quite intrigued about the source of the information about underground streams.

Yes, this is the East Dulwich Forum, where the Sitting Room is "The Lounge".

John Beasley is a respected local historian, however you will note that your quote from page 66 of his book "East Dulwich" is, in this case, reportage with the key words and phrases "It may have" and "Another theory is". Map evidence shows that the name "Goose Green" was ossified by no later than 1744. At that time the land we now know as Goose Green was part of an enclosed field then extending as far as what we now call Oglander Road. Locals didn't, as far as I know, graze their geese on enclosed land. The long-standing local story about Old Dame Dench is a good one, but the chronology doesn't work. It's in the same class as the Horniman plague pits - until someone finds some evidence. I've always liked the theory about "Gorse Green", but again I've never seen any evidence to support this.

We can all trust government statistics - when we know exactly what is being measured. In this case it sounds like the clock only starts when the letter/email is actually opened. So, it may be true that there is no backlog.

Interesting text in the advert. Has anyone seen the evidence for educational under-attainment in East Dulwich? Perhaps this thread should read: Harris Academy (new boys school in East Dulwich)

Florins? More gentrification. In the good old days these were East Dulwich two-bob-bits.

I thought a tessa was a savings scheme where you don't pay tax.

I'm sorry, but I don't know the etymology of "Goose Green". I've never been able to get my hands on the English Place Name Society volume on Surrey that was published way back in 1934, and "Goose Green" is probably far too small to get a mention there. From reading other EPNS material and books by Gelling and Hoskins I do know that the modern rendering and ossification of ancient place names can be extremely deceptive as to the early names for a place and their derivation. So much so that it is highly unlikely that "Goose Green" had anything to do with geese whatsover. That said, it would be pleasent to discover that there were once geese on Goose Green. Perhaps there is a local historian who has some evidence. I don't think Goose Green itself has ever been a water-logged area, but residents of East Dulwich Road might know better. I was writing specifically about the Goose Green roundabout. It may be a natural hollow or just the result of bad workmanship when the tram-lines were removed. Even today after many minor road and pavement realignments, road resurfacing, road regradienting and recambering the roundabout still sits in a hollow. You just need to walk by and look.

There are two distinct things here. Muttley wrote about a recent pipe-burst. I wrote about flooding caused by heavy rainstorms fifty odd years ago. These were more or less centered on the Goose Green roundabout and never when I saw them did they stretch much more than 50 feet from the roundabout nor at their worst were they much more than about a foot deep. Since the storm drain/sewer was put in there has been no more than a couple of inches of surface water during the heaviest rainstorms. This could be why you step ~up~ into the retail units at 96 and 98 Grove Vale.

No. The only waddling animals were humans.

-- moved topic --

It's raining again. Makes me remember the regular Goose Green flooding that used to happen before the new big storm sewer/drain was put in under Grove Vale. Must have been put in during the late 1960s. The excavations lasted for months. I never saw the flooding much deeper then about twelve inches. I wish I had a photograph of pedestrians wading around the Goose Green roundabout. Perhaps someone did take one that can be shared? I suspect this is nearly forgotten local history. I'll be surprised if contemporary house surveys in the area include a flood risk assessment. I hope this flooding will never be a problem again despite Southwark Council not seeming to dredge the street drains as often as they used to. I think I've only seen a couple of basement extensions in the area so far.

> By the way - are you saying that ED'ers had a closed gene pool from the early 1900's until the 1970's. I don't remember the early 1900s. The core housing stock of East Dulwich was built between c1880 and c1914. You can check a map for earlier housing development. I suppose we could call the first ever residents "settlers" rather than "incomers". I wasn't attempting an historic working definition - if so I would probably have to take into account East Dulwich male heads of household who took a wife from outside East Dulwich and the wife took on her husband's attributes. There was some more housing development between the wars, but not on the same scale. There would have been some incomers then, but my impression is that these properties were lived in by the children of of the settlers. My impression is also that East Dulwich was a pretty stable community and there was not much house moving. For a long time three estate agents were sufficient to meet the needs of the community. Then came the Second World War with landlords' properties being requistioned to house the bombed-out folk from further north - the old boroughs of Bermondsey and Southwark. Many of these folk were tenants to the east of Lordship Lane well into the 1960s. After the Second World War there was a fair amount of in-fill housing on the bomb-sites. So. no, not a closed gene pool, but a more stable community. I thought I was attempting a current definition.

> It's only Fish and Chips for @#$%& sake. That's what the British government thought - until the First World War came along. It seems that the government was a little out of touch with the lives of ordinary people. When the government realised the importance of fish fryers to sustaining the home front government policy was reversed. If anyone wants to read about it they can do so here: John K. Walton Fish and Chips and the British Working Class, 1870-1940 Leicester University Press

> I didn't hear anyone bemoaning the loss of the glass shop for example. Are you familiar with East Dulwich? The "glass shop" is not lost - it just moved a little way to Shawbury Road.

"the last ten years"? The first significant wave of incomers was in the early 1970s. Children of incomers will normally fall within the working definition. Seems that I should both "Get outta town" and be confined to a newly designated East Dulwich ghetto. But... I do like the idea of a Native-American style reservation and its tax exemptions. Here comes the East Dulwich Casino.

Where and how do White Stuff source their thingies?

I think there are more than ten children born to incomers in the last 18 years?

It preserves the innocence of children who are not responsible for their parent(s)' decision.

Asset asked for a definition: Someone who first lived in East Dulwich after they completed their secondary education.