Camberwell Area Guide

This is an arty neighbourhood, too. It is home to Camberwell College of Arts, now part of the University of the Arts London, and the South London Gallery in Peckham Road — one of the capital’s leading contemporary art galleries, which recently extended into a former sausage factory on the opposite side of the road.

The Camberwell Arts Festival, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary, will run a festival of arty events around the neighbourhood from June 15-23 and is raising funds with the sale of Colour in Camberwell, a colouring book containing 25 scenes of Camberwell life by different artists.

Contrary to popular belief it was Camberwell and not New Cross which nurtured the generation of Young British Artists such as Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume and Mat Collishaw who studied at Goldsmiths in the Eighties.

This was when Goldsmiths’ Fine Art course was based in the Millard Building in Cormont Road opposite Myatt’s Fields Park in Camberwell, close to Hirst’s first studio in Minet Road.
Estate agent Becky Munday of Munday’s, who has been selling homes in Camberwell for 15 years and established her own agency four years ago, says people are attracted to the district’s many conservation areas, the green spaces, independent shops and cafés and, in spite of the lack of a Tube station, an easy commute into central London.

She says those who don’t know Camberwell are often surprised by what they find there, although she admits that these days many buyers are beginning their search in fashionable Peckham nearby, and only come to Camberwell when they can’t find what they want there.

“This is a complete reversal of the situation 10 or 15 years ago when many buyers thought of Peckham as a no-go area.”

Camberwell is three-and-a-half miles from central London with Walworth and Elephant & Castle to the north; Peckham to the east; Herne Hill and Dulwich to the south and Brixton to the west.

The property scene


There are Georgian houses in Camberwell Grove, Grove Lane and along Camberwell New Road. Grove Park is an area of large Edwardian semi-detached houses and Addington Square off Camberwell Road close to Burgess Park is an early Victorian garden square.

There are large Victorian houses in the enclave around Myatt’s Fields Park and some Thirties detached and semi-detached houses off Denmark Hill south of Ruskin Park.

Camberwell also has a number of interesting period buildings that have been converted from other uses into flats.

St Gabriels Manor in Cormont Road overlooking Myatt’s Fields Park was converted from a Christian seminary, which did service as a hospital in the First World War; Mary Datchelor House in Camberwell Grove was a girls’ grammar school that closed in 1981 rather than become a comprehensive; St Giles’ Hospital and Tower in Havil Street was once the workhouse infirmary and Silverthorne Lofts in Albany Road was once a board school.

Ruskin Park House in Champion Hill is a large estate of Art Deco flats which the late trade union leader Jack Jones called home.

There are also many estates of social housing including Sceaux Gardens Estate, an early post-Second World War estate in the Sceaux Gardens conservation area.

Lakanal House, on the estate, is where six people died in a fire in July 2009 and many commentators have claimed that, had recommendations of the report into the blaze been acted upon, the Grenfell Tower disaster of 2017 might have been avoided.

The most expensive house currently for sale in Camberwell is Oakridge in Grove Lane, a large contemporary 6,000sq ft home with five bedrooms, an indoor swimming pool and cinema, for £4.5 million.
Interior designer Peggy Prendeville is selling her converted chapel in St Gabriels Manor for £3.5 million. There are two Georgian houses in Camberwell Grove for sale, one with six bedrooms for £2 million and one with four bedrooms at £1.75 million.

There is a large extended four-storey, five-bedroom Victorian house for sale for £2.1 million in Talfourd Road, in the ladder of streets between Peckham Road and Lyndhurst Grove.
In one of these roads, estate agent Becky Munday remembers with embarrassment valuing garden designer Dan Pearson’s house and, on seeing the lovely garden, asking him if he was a gardener.

In Ruskin Park House prices range from £405,000 for a two-bedroom flat to £625,000 for a three-bedroom home.

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Camberwell Area Guide

This is an arty neighbourhood, too. It is home to Camberwell College of Arts, now part of the University of the Arts London, and the South London Gallery in Peckham Road — one of the capital’s leading contemporary art galleries, which recently extended into a former sausage factory on the opposite side of the road.

The Camberwell Arts Festival, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary, will run a festival of arty events around the neighbourhood from June 15-23 and is raising funds with the sale of Colour in Camberwell, a colouring book containing 25 scenes of Camberwell life by different artists.

Contrary to popular belief it was Camberwell and not New Cross which nurtured the generation of Young British Artists such as Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume and Mat Collishaw who studied at Goldsmiths in the Eighties.

This was when Goldsmiths’ Fine Art course was based in the Millard Building in Cormont Road opposite Myatt’s Fields Park in Camberwell, close to Hirst’s first studio in Minet Road.
Estate agent Becky Munday of Munday’s, who has been selling homes in Camberwell for 15 years and established her own agency four years ago, says people are attracted to the district’s many conservation areas, the green spaces, independent shops and cafés and, in spite of the lack of a Tube station, an easy commute into central London.

She says those who don’t know Camberwell are often surprised by what they find there, although she admits that these days many buyers are beginning their search in fashionable Peckham nearby, and only come to Camberwell when they can’t find what they want there.

“This is a complete reversal of the situation 10 or 15 years ago when many buyers thought of Peckham as a no-go area.”

Camberwell is three-and-a-half miles from central London with Walworth and Elephant & Castle to the north; Peckham to the east; Herne Hill and Dulwich to the south and Brixton to the west.

The property scene


There are Georgian houses in Camberwell Grove, Grove Lane and along Camberwell New Road. Grove Park is an area of large Edwardian semi-detached houses and Addington Square off Camberwell Road close to Burgess Park is an early Victorian garden square.

There are large Victorian houses in the enclave around Myatt’s Fields Park and some Thirties detached and semi-detached houses off Denmark Hill south of Ruskin Park.

Camberwell also has a number of interesting period buildings that have been converted from other uses into flats.

St Gabriels Manor in Cormont Road overlooking Myatt’s Fields Park was converted from a Christian seminary, which did service as a hospital in the First World War; Mary Datchelor House in Camberwell Grove was a girls’ grammar school that closed in 1981 rather than become a comprehensive; St Giles’ Hospital and Tower in Havil Street was once the workhouse infirmary and Silverthorne Lofts in Albany Road was once a board school.

Ruskin Park House in Champion Hill is a large estate of Art Deco flats which the late trade union leader Jack Jones called home.

There are also many estates of social housing including Sceaux Gardens Estate, an early post-Second World War estate in the Sceaux Gardens conservation area.

Lakanal House, on the estate, is where six people died in a fire in July 2009 and many commentators have claimed that, had recommendations of the report into the blaze been acted upon, the Grenfell Tower disaster of 2017 might have been avoided.

The most expensive house currently for sale in Camberwell is Oakridge in Grove Lane, a large contemporary 6,000sq ft home with five bedrooms, an indoor swimming pool and cinema, for £4.5 million.
Interior designer Peggy Prendeville is selling her converted chapel in St Gabriels Manor for £3.5 million. There are two Georgian houses in Camberwell Grove for sale, one with six bedrooms for £2 million and one with four bedrooms at £1.75 million.

There is a large extended four-storey, five-bedroom Victorian house for sale for £2.1 million in Talfourd Road, in the ladder of streets between Peckham Road and Lyndhurst Grove.
In one of these roads, estate agent Becky Munday remembers with embarrassment valuing garden designer Dan Pearson’s house and, on seeing the lovely garden, asking him if he was a gardener.

In Ruskin Park House prices range from £405,000 for a two-bedroom flat to £625,000 for a three-bedroom home.