The Dulwich Society Journal for Spring 2023.
Enclosed with this Journal is a copy of our Dulwich Gardens open for Charity 2023 booklet, with details of local gardens that will be opening this year and that we hope you will take the chance to visit.
A lovely garden (or a group of two or even more) showing at its best, often with home-made teas and the chance to buy plants that you may just have seen, is a winning formula and a great source of gardening ideas. It also involves a lot of behind-the-scenes work, so congratulations to the garden openers.
Many thanks also to Ann Rutherford for producing the booklet and to colleagues on the Gardens committee for help distributing it. Further copies are available in local garden centres and other outlets.
Dulwich Society visit to Sussex Prairie Garden & Wakehurst, West Sussex - Wednesday 5th July 2023
Our annual coach outing this year is to Sussex Prairie Garden and Wakehurst. Full details are in the brochure and also on the Society’s website, www.dulwichsociety.com/gardens. Sussex Prairie Garden is an attractive, eight-acre prairie garden. Wakehurst, “Kew’s wild botanic garden”, has 500 acres of designed gardens and landscapes and is also home to the Millennium Seedbank, the UK’s largest conservation project.
Our coach will leave from the front entrance to Dulwich Picture Gallery, College Road, SE21 7BG - 8.45am for 9.00am departure; back around 5.30pm. Tickets, including transport and entrance to Sussex Prairie Gardens, are £35 each and may be purchased through Eventbrite (www.eventbrite.co.uk - search “Dulwich Society”) or by sending a cheque (payable to The Dulwich Society) with a note of the names of those you are booking for, your email address, telephone number, and a stamped addressed envelope to Jeremy Prescott, 142 Court Lane, London SE21 7EB. Non-members of the National Trust will need to pay an additional £13 for entrance to Wakehurst - this will be collected on the coach.
Enquiries to Jeremy Prescott -
All members of the Dulwich Society and friends are welcome to these events.
The mimosa tree (Acacia dealbata), not to be confused with the Mimosa genus of herbs and shrubs, is also known as silver wattle and blue wattle. It is native to south-eastern Australia, and grown for ornament in the United Kingdom on account of its attractive yellow flowers. It is fast-growing and the most hardy species of the Acacia genus and therefore widely grown in warmer temperate areas in Europe. But it is susceptible to prolonged frost and therefore confined to warmer areas in England. For that reason, and because it is relatively short-lived (typically 30 to 40 years), it is rare as a street tree in London.
It has distinctive feathery compound leaves and, in late winter and early spring, flowers which form a striking mass of tiny bright yellow balls of stamens. The bark is greenish grey in younger trees but darkens with age, becoming blackened and wrinkled in older trees.
In Dulwich and its neighbourhood mimosa trees are not widely planted, but there is a good example in the garden of St Barnabas Church in Calton Avenue, and another in a private garden on the corner of Melbourne Grove and Chesterfield Grove in East Dulwich. The best example on London streets is perhaps the one in Lupus Street, Pimlico, at the junction with Moreton Terrace.
David Beamish
Obituary: Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Boyce KG GCB OBE DL (1943-2022)
The death of Admiral Boyce in November occurred after the Journal had gone to print. A long-term resident of Woodwarde Road, where he and his first wife Harriette brought up their son and daughter, his naval duties prevented him from taking a more active role in local affairs. All this changed when he retired in 2003 after 42 years in the service. He took up a wide range of voluntary and honorary roles, the first of which was to succeed the Queen Mother as Lord Warden of the Cinque ports, a post which he filled with great dedication to the delight of the mayors of the various Cinque Port towns. He was also chairman of the RNLI, Vice-President of the White Ensign Association, trustee of the National Maritime Museum, and president of the RN Submarine Museum in Gosport. In Dulwich, he was appointed as a governor of Alleyn’s School by its headmaster Dr Colin Niven, former president of the Dulwich Society, who was impressed by the support Mike Boyce gave to his son and daughter when they were pupils at the school, turning up to watch their games whenever possible. “He was an outstanding governor, serving the school for many years”, remarked Colin Niven.
Son of Commander Hugh Boyce DSC and his wife Madeleine (nee Manley), born in Cape Town in 1943 where his father was serving in the Royal Navy, Michael Boyce attended Hurstpierpoint College, West Sussex and in 1961 joined Dartmouth Naval College as a cadet. Promoted lieutenant in 1966, he was a submariner, serving at the height of the Cold War. He served on three submarines before being given command of HMS Oberon and then, on promotion to the rank of captain, of HMS Opossum. He was promoted to commander and was captain of the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Superb from 1979-81. He once commented, “One cannot muck around with a nuclear submarine when trying to remain undetected in hostile waters”, a reflection which might have some resonance in naval circles today. He was given his first surface ship command, the frigate HMS Brilliant, in 1983.His rise up the promotional ladder was rapid, rear admiral in 1991, vice admiral 1994 and knighted the same year, and fifteen months later elevated to full admiral and appointed second sea lord and C in C fleet, NATO C in C Eastern Atlantic and commander allied naval forces, NW Europe. In 1998 he was made head of the Royal Navy as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. After only two years in this post, in 2001 he became Chief of the Defence Staff.
Although a shy, even austere man to many, among friends and family Mike Boyce was relaxed and charming; on periods of leave he would take his children to the Children’s Church at Christ’s Chapel and when the eldest of the two celebrated her eighteenth birthday, gave her his ceremonial sword to cut her birthday cake. He willingly obtained the service records of a former Dulwich Society member, Wilf Taylor, who had served at Bletchley Park and in the Royal Navy in order that a full account of his career might be revealed in his obituary in this journal. In his official roles he was tough, unyielding and nobody’s ‘yes man’.
This trait came to prominence in his confrontations with the Blair government during the Iraq War 2003 when Admiral Boyce was Chief of the Defence Staff and when he demanded a guarantee from the prime minister that he was acting legally in sending British forces into Iraq. Boyce would later say that “My concern was always that the troops should be absolutely confident that what they were doing was absolutely black-and-white legal.”
In his evidence to the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq War given in 2009 and in 2011, he attacked the Treasury for inadequate funding of the war and failing to provide for the aftermath of the invasion, and also criticized the Ministry of Defence for equipment shortcomings, accusing them of playing a ‘Jejit’ (Just enough, just in time) policy for procurement.
So deep was the rift between himself and the Blair government, and Geoff Hoon the defence minister in particular, that Boyce’s term as CGS was not renewed for a further year as was customary and Admiral Boyce retired in 2003. He was given a peerage and used this as an opportunity while in the House of Lords to attack the government on its procurement policies. He was made Knight of the Garter in 2011 and an honorary admiral of the fleet in 2014.
The death of his second wife, Fleur in 2016 left him devastated and a slow spiral into ill-health followed.
Boundary post restored
The Friends of Sunray Gardens are delighted that the historic 1870 cast iron marker delineating the boundary between the parishes of Camberwell and Lambeth and found buried during gardening restoration work they were carrying out, has been excavated and restored. The restoration was carried out by Priest Restorations and the marker returned to its original location in Sunray Gardens.
Paul Millington reports: “We came across the top of the boundary marker earlier this year after clearing some weeds. Most of it was deeply buried, and the base was surrounded by a large amount of concrete and tree roots. Thanks to local councillors Margy Newens and Richard Leeming we were allowed to use some unspent CGS funds to have it excavated, cleaned up, and repositioned so that it would be visible. We would also like to thank the Dulwich Society for the funds for the welding repairs when it was discovered to be broken. Thanks also to Lewis who led the team from Priest Restorations who took the greatest care with the excavation and repair. And many thanks to everyone who has given advice and help in getting this project completed.”
A Second Listening Post for Dulwich
Following on from the success of the installation of a listening post in front of the Old College and Edward Alleyn statue, a second is planned for the interesting area around Cox’s Walk. The Society’s Local History group hopes to have several different recordings, each lasting around 3 minutes, drawing attention to the rich heritage to be found in the vicinity, including the story of the Green Man, a popular venue in the Georgian period and home to Dulwich Wells. In time, this was repurposed as Dr Glennie’s Academy, where Lord Byron was educated from the age of 9. The listening post will also tell the story of Sydenham Hill and Dulwich Woods and there will be the opportunity to listen to birdsong of species which visit the woods. The cost of the post will be drawn from the Mary Boast Fund, a legacy for local history initiatives left by a former member.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism 31 March - 10 September 2023
Dulwich Picture Gallery will present Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism, the first major UK exhibition of the renowned Impressionist since 1950. In partnership with the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, it will bring together over 30 of Morisot’s most important works from international collections, many never seen before in the UK, to reveal the artist as a trailblazer of the movement as well as uncovering a previously untold connection between her work and 18th century culture, with around 15 works for comparison. A founding member of the Impressionist group, Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was known for her swiftly painted glimpses of contemporary life and intimate domestic scenes. She featured prominently in the Impressionist exhibitions and defied social norms to become one of the movement’s most influential figures. Now, in a bold new retelling of Morisot’s story, Dulwich Picture Gallery will draw on new research and previously unpublished archival material from the Musée Marmottan Monet to trace the roots of her inspiration, revealing the ways in which Morisot engaged with 18th century art and culture, while also highlighting the originality of her artistic vision, which ultimately set her apart from her predecessors.
Talks are on the first Tuesday of the month at 8pm. The next talks are:
7 March: Social Reformers in Dulwich in the late 19th and early 20th century by Duncan Bowie
4th April Gentle ‘gentrification’ in an area of East Dulwich: statutory housing action in the 1970s and its legacy.by Julia Atkins
2nd May The Hotel at Spy Corner: MI5’s surveillance of Nazi sympathisers in Dulwich during WW2 by Brian Green
The talks will be given online via Zoom in association with Bell House Dulwich, with any surplus going towards Bell House activities. Tickets £5 through www.bellhouse.co.uk/events
The redevelopment of the former United Dairies site in Croxted Road, West Dulwich, has taken almost 20 years. The original intention had been to build a residential mews scheme carried out by a private developer but this fell away following insistence from Lambeth planners that the scheme should include other employment uses as well as shops. In the end, the Dulwich Estate decided to carry out the scheme itself and retain it within its property portfolio. The employment requirement was solved by including accommodation for a GP practice moving from Rosendale Road. The development includes four shops, nine residential units - four two-storey three-bed maisonettes and five two and three-bed flats. All these have been let rather than being sold.
The site is a constrained one and both the Estate and Lambeth Council were looking to maximise the residential component of the scheme - hence the additional floor and the need to bring the building line forward. The site also slopes downwards as you walk northwards and the elevation responds to that - look carefully and you can see how the level changes have been used to break up the elevation of what is quite a large building into a more appropriate scale. Shop servicing is from the rear, from Park Hall Road.
The building is constructed from a concrete frame on the lower floors and a timber frame higher up. The elevations use contemporary buff-toned brickwork, and window and other openings are framed in light-toned precast concrete. A similar material is used to form the surrounds of the shop fronts at street level in an attempt to provide a more ‘civic’ quality not often seen in suburban shopping areas. The dual pitched roof, with its dormer windows, is clad in copper coloured metal panels and the down pipes on the front elevation are finely detailed in stainless steel. All the flats and maisonettes have some dedicated outside space and the architect has also tried to use the materials in their natural form where possible, including well detailed exposed brickwork, concrete and timber.
The surgery design is particularly successful. Located behind the retail units and accessed via its own private entrance pavilion alongside the pharmacy, it includes a top-lit waiting area. The real feature though is the richly planted courtyard that the treatment and consulting rooms look out onto. It provides a private and relaxing environment for staff and patients alike.
Completed in 2019, Panter Hudspith Architects have designed a well-mannered scheme that makes a positive contribution to the area. It is clearly a design from the first part of the twenty first century and makes no attempt, probably rightly, to match up with its older surroundings. The architect, Simon Hudspith lives locally in Herne Hill.
This year, the Dulwich festival turns 30. To celebrate, plans are well underway for the ten days (and nights!) of local fun! For three decades, the festival has celebrated the people, art, culture, and history of this area. In her second year as Director, Annie Mitchell is excited by the response she has seen from locals wanting to be involved.
“My role as Director, is to create a platform upon which locals can showcase their own creativity - in whatever form that comes. In turn, this provides opportunity for the whole community to access a wonderful array of arts and cultural offerings - right here in their own neighbourhood. We encourage people from across the community to contribute, coming together with neighbours and friends, to build something really special. The long history of creative collaboration in Dulwich is truly unique”.
In 2022, the festival had nearly 100 people who contributed; helping with programming, creating events, marketing, distribution, stewarding and other administration tasks. There is an army of volunteers who support. There are 3000 participants such as artists, performers, and stall holders. The 2022 event drew around 50,000 attendees. Annie, who only moved to London two years ago remarked “there are so many passionate locals, with so much to offer. It’s been an absolute pleasure getting to know them all!”
The 2023 festival will run from Friday 12th to Sunday 21st of May, 2023.
As always, the festival is book-ended by two weekends jam-packed with events, Artists’ Open House, and fairs, most of which are free of charge and very family-friendly! The first weekend of the festival will see much activity around Dulwich Village. Saturday 13th, includes a ‘Day in the Village’ with the inaugural ‘Family Fringe’ held at Alleyn’s, as well as events, walks and open days at Belair house, St Barnabas Village Hall, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Christ’s Chapel, the Village Orchard and Bell House. On Sunday 14th, Emily Montague and the “Friends of Dulwich Park” team, will again host the legendary Dulwich Park Fair - with stalls, food, entertainment, and rides!
Across the second weekend, the festival celebrates the vibrancy and community of West and East Dulwich. On Saturday 20th, Lisa Nugent and the “Love West Dulwich” team will bring us the fun and colour of “West Dulwich Spring Fair”. Whilst Kingswood Arts welcomes everyone to a free family carnival day, Kingwood House. The day will include drumming classes, art workshops, storytelling and more. On Sunday 21st, Shivali Shah and Laurie Sanderson bring the party to East Dulwich, with the Goose Green Fair. A wonderful day out for the whole family.
For those who like to laugh - the Village Comedy Club at the ‘Dog’ is back. If you like to grove, there is a Festival Ceilidh and a Big Band Swing Dance event, as well as the ever-popular pop-up jazz club at the EDT, with Ned Bennett curating 5 nights of fabulous Jazz. For literary lovers, Dr Hester Vaizey is planning a suite of author events - including some big names, not to be missed.
At Christ Chapel, Marylin Harper invites families to explore the organ and to enjoy the annual festival Organ concert. Locals can participate in a Sing from Scratch choral event or be treated to a classical concert at the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Friday 19th. For a relaxed vibe, Cooper Beech at Jags Sports club will play host to a night of spoken word and acoustic guitar, whilst Oru Café on Lordship Lane will host a ‘Jam Sandwich’ musical discovery session. For theatre lovers, the bicycle-powered HandleBards will be performing Romeo and Juliet at Jags Sports Club playing fields, and well-loved Dulwich Players are back, with a special festival performance.
For the younger members of our community looking to explore their own creativity, Rose Chapman is hard at work pulling together the Festival’s Children’s Art Competition, which last year saw 400 children exhibit their works at the first ever Festival Children’s Art exhibition. There is also an open age creative writing competition “Flash Fiction”, the Youth Gala musical concert and Kingsdale School and for the first time, a youth film competition. The film series is being curated by talented local, Tahlee Johnson.
There are many walks on offer too, including a Georgian Architecture stroll with Ian McInnes, and three different social radicals walks with Duncan Bowie. Amanda Greatorex will lead art walks exploring the Dulwich Outdoor Galley, and Letta Jones will guide audiences on a tree walk.
The festival would not be possible without the guidance of the Festival’s trustees or the enthusiasm of the festival team. Many have been mentioned above, and others behind the scenes include Lizzie Summerskill, Sarah Swolfs, Katerina Dean, Sarah Taylor, Mark Arn and Ruth Colvin. The festival is also generously supported by sponsors, programming partners, Southwark and local venues.
“With walks, talks, comedy, art exhibitions, music, theatre, family events, markets, fairs and open days…there really is something for everyone. Much of it free of charge and very family friendly,” said Annie.
Across both weekends, Artists Open House provides a fantastic opportunity to explore the creative works of local artists. Kim Baptise and Yvonne Wilcox, are busy pulling together their second AOH said “we have been amazed by the enthusiasm and talent of local artists community across Dulwich. This year we will have seventeen artforms, across 150+ venues including over 800 exhibiting artists. There’s so much variety to see.”
Dulwich Festival Volunteers - We Need You. If you would like to be involved in some way, please email
Devised by Brian Green. 26.2 miles (42km) and 13.1 miles (608m) and 1000 feet (304m) of ascent.
See www.dulwichsociety.com/news/dulwich-marathon-2023
Approximately 400 metres from the junction of Lordship Lane and Dulwich Common a right turn leads up to the top of Sydenham Hill. Roque’s map of 1746 calls the area West Wood Common and shows the road continuing down into Sydenham Village via the famous medicinal waters of Sydenham Wells (now Sydenham Wells Park). Sixty years later, the 1808 map of the ‘Manor of Dulwich’ surveyed by John Doyley shows the lower parts of both sides of the road as agricultural fields and the upper section as the north western boundary of Lapse Wood. By 1852 the wood had gone and it was all fields, mostly tenanted by Devon-born wine merchant Richard Thomas, the owner of the house at the top of the hill, then known as Crediton but now called Holly Brow.
In the early 1860s, the land on the east side of the road (now the Sydenham Hill Estate) was acquired by the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway Company to construct the new railway line from Peckham Rye to the Crystal Palace High Level Station. As soon as the work was finished the remaining land was returned to the Dulwich Estate and in 1866, a year after the opening of Lordship Lane Station, it agreed to lease it for housing development. The first lessee was an east London-based builder and brickmaker called John Perry (1813-94). He had set up his business, Perry & Co, in 1840 and, by the 1870s, the company was one of the most successful contractors in London - its contracts included St. Thomas’s Hospital amongst many others. Quite why he acquired a site in Dulwich is unclear as he lived in Stratford, but perhaps he saw it as an opportunity to make an easy profit on the back of the area’s improved accessibility provided by the new railway line.
The original Building Agreement was dated 1866 but the two houses at the bottom of the hill, between Lordship Lane and the station access road, were not completed until 1896, 30 years later. The reason was that the triangular shape of their sites, surrounded by the station access roads, meant that they were less financially viable as they would be required to pay a disproportionate amount of sewer and paving charges. In June 1895, Herbert Henry Bartlett, John Perry’s business partner, took over the leases on these two sites and agreed to build out the final two houses which he then assigned to his wife, Charlotte. Bartlett had expanded Perry & Co, by the mid 1890’s it was employing over 3000 men, and was one of the main contractors on the original Baker Street and Waterloo underground line (later the Bakerloo). He was president of the London Master Builders Association and three times Master of the Worshipful Company of Patternmakers and was made a Baronet In 1913. Two years earlier, in 1911, he had given £30,000 to University College London to fund a new building for the School of Architecture, along with the Department of Applied Statistics, for studios for the teaching of sculpture. The donation was initially anonymous, but in 1919 he agreed to his name being revealed, and the ‘Bartlett’ is today the UCL Faculty of the Built Environment.
The initial occupant of No 167 Sydenham Hill was bank manager Thomas Addenbrooke, and his widow was still living in the house in the early 1950s. His neighbour at No 169, the house nearest the Lordship Lane junction, was architect and Camberwell District Surveyor, Ellis Marsland. When he moved to the country in 1907, he sold the lease to Austrian national, Otto Hildebert Mueller, a mechanical engineer specialising in the design of pumps - in which he held several patents. He was the chief engineer and manager of the British branch of the American Worthington Pumps Company, whose head office was at 153 Victoria Street. Mueller left for the USA early in WW1 and it was tenanted for a few years by a Mrs Petersen before being acquired by Dr Walter Shuttleworth, then the junior partner in the local GP practice, Batten, Stewart, Carpmael & Shuttleworth - their main surgery was at 97 Dulwich Village. Even though he was born in Leeds, Shuttleworth had a German connection, his birth surname being Schudderkopf. German had been taught at Leeds University since 1877, initially in the oddly named Department of German and Oriental Languages, and his father was a professor there. He must have changed his name just after the outbreak of WW1 when anti-German sentiment was high, and one can see the similarity in the pronunciation of ‘Shudderkopf’ and ‘Shuttleworth’ though their meanings are very different: ‘schuddekopf’ is German for ‘dirty head’ while ‘shuttleworth’ comes from Old English and literally means ‘gated enclosure’.
The first two houses above the station access road, Dalkeith and Haighlands, were both for sale at auction in January 1874 when they were described in the West Surrey Times as ‘two handsome detached family residences, fitted up in the most complete manner and having large gardens.’ The lessee of Dalkeith was Susan Scott, a 64-year-old widow who ran a small ladies’ school. By 1890, the occupier was German born sugar broker Charles Lagemann and his family. Lagemann came from Hamburg and was naturalised in 1887 - the family were living in Canonbie Road in East Dulwich at that point. He was a partner in what was to become one of the largest sugar and commodity brokers in the world, and still is today, C Czarnikow. Starting in London in 1861, German born Caesar Czarnikow’s business expanded to Glasgow and Liverpool and, by 1891, it was operating out of New York as well. Lagemann himself was instrumental in expanding the American business and, in 1913, the partnership was incorporated in the USA as C. Czarnikow & Co. with him as chairman. By 1903 the Lagemanns had moved to a larger house, Uplands, No. 42 Sydenham hill (where Mais House is now). His two sons, Walter Gustav and Eric Emil Otto, both went to Dulwich College.
The Haighlands was leased by a retired army officer, Captain Samuel Handy Halahan. Born in India, he was educated in England, staying with his relative Vinus Hodgkinson Crosby (a great nephew of former City of London Mayor and Dulwich resident Brass Crosby) and his family - they had a considerable impact on him as each of his seven sons had Crosby as their middle name. Halahan must also have had private means as he and his wife, Hannah, had four daughters and seven sons, six of whom went to Dulwich College, all of them later joining the armed services. The two youngest joined the navy and, sadly, both were killed on active duty in WW1. Captain Henry Crosby Halahan was killed leading a company of marines on the raid on Zeebrugge in 1918, while Lieutenant Commander Robert Crosby Halahan died when HMS E18, the submarine he was commanding in the Baltic, was lost without trace in January 1916. In October 2009, a Swedish survey ship using an underwater robot found the wreck by accident - photographs showed the submarine with its hatch open, suggesting that it struck a mine while sailing on the surface. Samuel Handy died in March 1897 and was buried at Nunhead Cemetery. His wife, Hannah, died in 1902, aged 54, and the lease was up for sale the following year. It appeared to remain unsold as there was no new resident noted in any street directories until Mrs Adeline Elizabeth Alsop in 1907. She was an elderly widow living on a private income, along with three servants, and she remained there until her death, aged 91, in 1923.
Rosemount, the next house, was leased by Edward Besley QC. Born in 1826 in Exeter, he was the son of the proprietor of the Devonshire Chronicle and Exeter News. Originally a reporter for the Morning Chronicle and the Times, he joined the Middle Temple in 1859 and practised at the Central Criminal Court and on the Home and South Eastern Circuits - later in life he was also Recorder of Bury St Edmunds. He was also clearly interested in utilities’ infrastructure, being a director of the Lambeth Water Works and three gas companies, the Commercial, the European and the Hornsey. He died in 1901 and, following his wife’s death in 1913, the house was taken over by Col Henry Thomas Knaggs, a retired RAMC surgeon. He moved to Cheltenham in 1936 but the next tenant, Miss Loveday, was short lived - the Estate found that she was illegally letting unfurnished rooms and she also liked cats - keeping 30 of them at the house. Not surprisingly she was asked to leave following complaints from neighbours about the smell and general nuisance.
The topmost house, Holmwood, had been the first to be completed and was the largest, with a double plot. The initial tenant was 42-year-old builder, Edwin Robinson - although John Perry was the lessee, it is most likely that the four upper houses were actually built by Robinson. When he died in 1886, he left nearly £135,000, a considerable legacy at that time. His wife, Hannah, remained in the house until her own death in 1918. Between 1919-36 Holmwood became the Sydenham Hill School - the principals being A Crofton-Atkins MA and Gervais Riddell BA. The latter owned other similar schools including the Northwood Preparatory School in Middlesex (since 2015 part of the Merchant Taylors’ School). Several contemporary advertisements in the local press said that it catered for boys aged 6½ -14, preparing them for the Public Schools entrance scholarships and the Royal Navy. Two other supposed benefits that the school offered were that it was located 300 feet above sea level and that all the boys’ bedrooms had a westerly aspect. In 1936 Riddell assigned his lease to a Miss Mabel Hankin, a cousin of the Bishop of Croydon, who wished to use it as a rest home for professional businesswoman suffering from stress. Surprisingly, the Governors gave her permission, no doubt reflecting the difficulty all the houses now had in securing decent tenants.
A survey of the upper four houses in November 1937 showed them to be in poor condition, with broken fences and gates, neglected front gardens, and defective pointing and roofs. WW2 did little to help. They were taken over by Evans Cook depositories to store furniture from bomb-damaged houses and were then left empty. When Camberwell council and the LCC served a compulsory purchase order on the site in July 1947, the Estate were quite happy to see the houses go. The two lower houses were still occupied in the early 1950s but they too were taken down when the railway station was demolished and the Sydenham Hill Estate was extended down to the junction with Lordship Lane.