The Knight family was prominent in Dulwich and West Norwood from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Knights Hill itself, west of Rosendale Road (not to be confused with the Knights Hill linking West Norwood with Beulah Hill, SE27) is first mentioned in the Dulwich Court Rolls, by reference to ‘the pound outside the manor called Knighte[s]hill pound’, in 1608. Lord Thurlow, the then Lord Chancellor, bought the Knights Hill Estate from the Duke of St Albans in 1785, and in 1846 his heirs sold it to Charles Ranken (another lawyer) of Belair. Ranken’s heirs in turn sold it in 1859 to Dulwich College, which promptly made a handsome profit on the deal by selling off part of it to the railway company.
