May days

 

Pleasure gardens

 

I may well be preaching to the converted but on Sunday I broke free of my Goose Green / Dulwich Park habits and went to Peckham Rye Park. It was incredible. I don’t know how many people are putting their time into those gardens and woods, but you can feel the effort at every turn. No doubt it’s lovely the year round, but right now it’s quite something.

As well the gentle pleasures of just wandering around, there’s an adventure playground, two other playgrounds, a table tennis table, a pond (with ducks), various streams, and a bowling green with cafe (£3 per adult per hour if you’re tempted). Most details are here. And I suspect these people deserve an awful lot of credit.

Railway Rise rises

I went past the Railway Rise cottages near the station to see exactly what some people wanted to knock down. On a lamppost across the road from them, this was taped to a wall. And it’s right. The proposal has been rejected. Confirmation is here on the Southwark website. So the cottages remain, which I think for most of us feels like very good news.

Patch work

Things are moving quickly in the pub formerly known as the Patch. The Lordship is the new name and it is opening its doors on Thursday with some nibbles and drinks for any of us who’d like to come along. Then Friday, it’s all systems go.

The new owner also has a pub in Barnes and The Easton in Clerkenwell so he knows what he’s doing. I’m assured the food’s going to be good though perhaps less ‘foodie’ and less pricey than the Patch. We’ll know soon enough.

I was reading a thread on the EDF the other day comparing this spot to the one currently occupied by the Crooked Well in Camberwell.

The comparison is a good one.

Several people tried and failed to make pubs work in that unit on Grove Lane and everyone concluded it must be the location. Then along came the Crooked Well and now you need to book to have any chance of a table on the big nights of the week. Let’s hope the same thing happens here.

You’ll also note from the picture that The Lordship is hiring…

Perhaps see some of you in there on Thursday.

Here goes

Hi. Welcome to a new endeavour which I hope will be of interest and of use to those of us who live on Melbourne Grove. I’m aiming at a gentle mix of very local news, and some exploration of the street’s history.

Clearly the East Dulwich Forum is the all-conquering leader at covering everything to do with the area. I’m hoping my effort will be a small boat in the flotilla following the flagship.

Just in case any of you have any concerns, I won’t be compromising anyone’s privacy. No-one’s names, houses, details, anything will appear here without express permission being granted. And I won’t be giving the impression that I represent the street in anyway. If there are issues that divide opinion (the development of the Dulwich Hospital site for instance), I’ll certainly pass on relevant information but won’t be using this as a platform to favour one view or another.

Let’s see how it goes.