Goose Green flooding

[David Mc]

So I asked John last night and had a note through the door this morning:

In Mary Boast's booklet "St John's, East Dulwich, Church & Parish" it says that an eminent lawyer, Charles Jasper Selwyn, agreed to give a site for the new church on his land, "the South East corner of the Great Field". This was how St John's came to be built on Goose Green. In 1863 upwards of 1,000 loads of earth from Denmark Hill were taken to fill in the pond on the site. Drain pipes were also laid down but problems with damp occurred at various later dates.

David: That's the best I can do from what I've got. I've left a message for Mary Boast to ring me.

Will keep you up-to-date.

[macroban]

Many thanks for the information about the St John's pond, David Mc.

I thought that St John's wasn't on Goose Green but adjacent.

There had to be a reason for building the church on an unsuitable site. Could it be the land was unsuitable for housing development? I wonder if Mr Selwyn also owned what is now Marsden Road!

Did Mr Beasley have anything to say about the alleged Goose Green ponds?

[David Mc]

I'll ask him when Mary calls him and he tells me her info. He's very reliable - so watch this space!

[snorky]

Good work - havent seenm him in a couple of days - give him a nudge to get onto the forum and post!"

[David Mc]

He doesn't have a computer at home.

Anyway today he told me Mary didn't know all that much more than I've already told you. Just that the church was built in the most prominent space in the area at the time which happened to be either a pond or waterlogged so they brought "stuff" from Denmark Hill to fill it in.

Apparently there's a map ("Dewhirst's 1842 Map) showing the ponds which you can go and see in the Southwark Local History Library. Wherever that is!

[Amelie]

I am not sure but I think the Local History library may be at the John Harvard Library on Borough High Street.

[macroban]

This map pre-dates St John's. I believe it dates from 1861.

There are no ponds. Not even on the site of St John's.

[snorky]

What a fascinating map!

Interestingly, the whole oglander environs - obviously not yet biult on - shows no/little sign of use - pasture / meadow maybe ?

Not does it showe any watercourses - then agaion, the map doesnt seem to show many anyway

I think the fact that theres nothing on the land to the Souteast of DKH and North of GG itself may suggest something

or does it ?

[mockney piers]

It is a fantastic map. I noticed that ruskin park had what appeared to be a bunch of smallholdings on it along side Denmark hill. All gone now. And I loved the little traffic island atop dog kennel hill, so much nicer than the traffic lights.

More roundabouts, less traffic lights I say!!

[Muttley]

This map is a real gem, where did you find it?

[Ted Max]

I see Crystal Palace Road seems to have been called Harris's Road. A bit of early "carpet" bagging from the local peer?

And is the modern day The Gardens a throwback to the Market Gardens as marked on the same site? Surely it is.

Lovely map, and I'm sure you've all done this already but if you cut off the after the slash stuff and put www.mappalondon.com in yer browsers you can see a lot more of London.

[Louisa]

Peckham and Dulwich and the area which is now ED were all famed for there market gardens and which supplied London with it's various English fruits. I would pay a fortune to go back and see it as it was, I imagine it to be beautiful. I notice the old Kings Arms on the corner of EDR and Peckham Rye junction. That is one local landmark that has been sorely missed every since it was flattened during the Blitz. The rebuild pub was never upto the stanard of the old Inn, and is now a block of private flats I believe? Great map!

[macroban]

I've exhausted the carto-bibliogrphic references I have at home and those I can find on the internet.

The "Diwhurst" maps (and their pre-copyright "analogues") certainly have a very interesting and complicated history.

However none of those catalogued are at a large enough scale to have a resolution down to a pond on or near Goose Green.

All the carto-bibliographies have caveats about incomplete coverage.

If there is a large scale "Diwhurst" map at the Local Studies Library it needs to be inspected with Mark I eye-ball.

Does anyone work in The Borough who could pop in one lunch-time?