Category Archives: Herne Hill

Herne Hill, Herne Hill Welcomes Refugees, News

A CELEBRATION WITH HERNE HILL WELCOMES REFUGEES – PLEASE SAVE THE DATE

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Wednesday 8th May will see an important event for Herne Hill.

With wide, compassionate and practical support from all around Herne Hill, including a good number of Fawnbrake Avenue neighbours (and a boosted by generous contribution collected at last July’s Fawnbrake Street Party), a group of local people – Herne Hill Welcomes Refugees (HHWR) – have overcome many challenges to welcome a refugee family into our neighbourhood via the government’s Community Sponsorship scheme.

 

It was never going to be easy. The talents, skills, time and financial support of dozens of individuals made it happen. But Herne Hill can be proud of what the team, with widespread support and encouragement,  have achieved. After a painful and stressful time in the refugee camps of the Near East, a grateful family arrived in December 2018 and is now settling in well.

All are invited to hear about this remarkable project and join in celebrating the journey thus far. The occasion (supported by the Herne Hill Society) is an opportunity for the team to report on what they have learned, to thank the community for its support, and to look ahead.

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Wednesday 8th May , Herne Hill Baptist Church, Half Moon Lane, SE24 9PW, starting at 7:00pm

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Free, everyone welcome. No tickets are required, but the organisers would be grateful if those planning to attend would RSVP  as they will be offering refreshments. Please RSVP to: hhwelcomesrefugees@gmail.com

Herne Hill, John Ruskin 200, News

The King of the Golden River – a new Ruskin musical at St Saviour’s?

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In this bi-centenary year of Herne Hill resident John Ruskin, the Herne Hill Music Festival is hoping to include a musical based on Ruskin’s only children’s story in its programme.

John Ruskin

Professional composer Paul Ayres plans to turn The King of the Golden River by Ruskin (recently republished by Thames & Hudson with wonderful illustrations by Quentin Blake) into a musical to be performed by St Saviour’s Primary School.

The King of the Golden River, republished March 2019

However, they need, quite rightly,  to pay a fee to the composer, and there are other costs of production as well.

The Festival organisers have already had generous support from the Herne Hill Society and  other business sponsors, but they are still short of £350.

 

So there’s a fund-raising campaign

If you can help celebrate John Ruskin and give the young performers from St Saviour’s the unforgettable experience of taking part in a musical, have a look at the fund-raising page and perhaps consider making a donation.

Herne Hill, Traffic, Transport

We’re going to be ‘liveable’, it seems

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A recent press release from The Mayor and Transport for London (TfL) has announced an extension of the Liveable Neighbourhoods programme that promises improvements in Brixton and Herne Hill. This follows a bid from Lambeth.

The general intention – an ambitious one, for sure – is that junctions will be made safer, new cycle infrastructure built, and traffic reduced on residential streets to enable more Londoners to walk, cycle and use public transport, and clean up the capital’s toxic air. The scheme promises new walking and cycling infrastructure, new pedestrian crossings and rat runs closed to motor traffic. New pocket parks (er, what’s that?) and revamped public spaces will improve air quality and make local streets more attractive places, helping to support local high streets.

Atlantic Road (image from TfL)

The element of the programme closest to us is focused around Atlantic Road in Brixton, which will be transformed for people walking, cycling and using the bus. Local freight access will be maintained with technology utilised to better manage loading and servicing. Investment will overhaul public spaces, widen footways and add new pedestrian crossings, creating a more welcoming environment for the area’s many visitors, residents and businesses.

Brixton to Herne Hill cycle route

There is not much more detail at present, but the official TfL/Mayor’s office statement says the project will build high-quality infrastructure on three key strategic cycle routes: Brixton to Clapham Common, Brixton to Camberwell and Brixton to Herne Hill. “Low traffic neighbourhoods” will be created in the Ferndale and Railton neighbourhoods and a new, fully segregated cycle route will link to the Loughborough neighbourhood.

We await more information with interest. If the project can do something about the heavy and often dangerous traffic along Milkwood Road, and on Herne Hill Road, that would be a bonus.

General, Herne Hill, News

Exit: Burbage

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This March sees the 400th anniversary of the death of Richard Burbage –   artist, entrepreneur, friend of Shakespeare, and celebrated during his lifetime as the most eminent actor of his age.

Our neighbours in Burbage Road, built across the fields in late Victorian times to join Half Moon Lane to Dulwich Village (or vice versa), have launched a timely festival to commemorate Mr Burbage, entitled Exit:Burbage, with the first event (waiting list)  –  a guided Burbage walk between Shoreditch and the Globe Theatre  –  on 13 March, the exact anniversary of Burbage’s death.

Richard Burbage

They have created an excellent website and we can follow them on Twitter: @ExitBurbage

Herne Hill

Junior Open Mic this Sunday

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There will be another session of the successful Free Junior Open Mic, supported by the Herne Hill Forum, this coming Sunday.

Junior Open Mic is designed to make young performers feel as special as possible and nurture confidence. The Off the Cuff venue provides a professional sound engineer and a dedicated sound stage featuring an array of mics, fully mic’d up house drum kit, full size Roland keyboard and guitar amps. On-hand is a performers’ assistant, award giver, compere, stage assistant and supportive, friendly audience. And a free soft drink to every performer!

These events started in late 2017 and have become the largest Junior Open Mics in London. They are organised by local parents as community events. Typically, young performers are aged between 4-14 and we see up to 36 performers per session – from solo singers with backing track, poets, instrumentalists to rock bands.

So if you have children who’d like to try it, it’s this Sunday 27 January 2019 – 2:00pm to 4:30pm, at Off The Cuff, Arch 645, 301-303 Railton Road, Herne Hill, London SE24 0JN (just next to Herne Hill Station).

Herne Hill

New Herne Hill magazine out now

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The Winter edition of Herne Hill, the award-winning quarterly magazine published by the Herne Hill Society, is now out and can be bought at @HerneHillBooks by the station.

This issue is packed with news about Herne Hill, interviews with local writers and entrepreneurs, updates on the Station Underpass Mural and the Railton Road shops, the story of the ‘discovery’ of a local girl’s memories of Herne Hill 100 years ago, and a moving reflection by local author Antonia Senior @Tonisenior on the local 11 November commemoration of the centenary of the end of World War 1.

At a mere £2.50, this highly readable magazine is amazing value, so if you aren’t yet one of  the Society’s members (they get it automatically), hurry down to the bookshop while stocks last.

Better still join the Herne Hill Society (easily done online), get it delivered to your home four times a year, and support the Society’s work for a better Herne Hill.

Herne Hill, Our Street, World War I Armistice Centenary

Remembering Herne Hill 1914 – 18: Public Meeting, 12 December

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The Herne Hill Society is hosting an important event on the evening of Wednesday 12 December to update residents on the progress of the Remembering Herne Hill 1914–18 Project, and introducing the newly published memoirs – Grace’s Story – of a young Herne Hill lady who lived through that war and in the difficult years that followed.

Please note that the venue for this event will be the Herne Hill Baptist Church in Half Moon Lane, which is the large red brick building only five minutes’ walk from the station, just a little way beyond The Half Moon pub. No tickets are required. Timings are 7:45 – 9:15pm

Meanwhile the memorial website (see earlier post below) is live. Volunteer researchers have unearthed and filed information about over 370 casualties on the database, with hundreds more still to add. The Society has also created two online maps to indicate where our First World War casualties lived, and also where they are buried or remembered today.

Fawnbrake casualties: Lieutenant Reginald Dell

Reginald Dell is one of at least four Fawnbrake Avenue residents – more may be discovered as the research continues – who were killed during World War I. His military records cite his address as 90 Fawnbrake Avenue.

Reginald Dell was born in Wells, Somerset in 1887. But at some subsequent point he became a resident of Herne Hill. He married Hilda Fox in Wells in early 1918. Tragically, however, he was killed in May of the same year.

Hilda remained at this address for the next 9 years, when she moved to Deepdene Road.

Reginald fought in what was known as the Spring Offensive of 1918. The 20th Battalion of the Machine Gun Corps was formed in March 1918 and fought at the Battle of St. Quentin and suffered heavy casualties at the Battle of Rosieres. In April the troops were withdrawn while they waited for new drafts. However, by this time, Reginald had clearly suffered fatal wounds and died on 5 May. He is buried in the cemetery of Avesnes-sur-Helpe  with the inscription “Here is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England”.

[Extract from the World War I records being assembled by the Remembering Herne Hill 1914 – 1918 Project]

Avesnes-sur-Helpe Cemetery

Herne Hill, Traffic

Railton Road blocked

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A water main failure has resulted in Railton Road being closed between Shakespeare Road and Milton Road.

Railton Road, between Milton Road & Shakespeare Road, 28 Nov 2018

However we’ve talked to the Thames Water repair team. They tell us that they expect the work to be completed and the road reopened by this evening.

Herne Hill, World War I Armistice Centenary

Grace’s Story

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This is the latest publication by the Herne Hill Society.

In this charming, very readable, expertly edited and generously produced book, Grace MacFarquhar, née Lucas (1906-2001), describes her life in Herne Hill and the surrounding area during and shortly after the First World War. Grace was an intelligent and imaginative child, the eldest of five children. Her 80-page account, written many decades later, has an exceptionally vivid quality.

Grace’s Story – published in December 2018 by the Herne Hill Society

Grace’s father Fred was killed in France in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. How the family dealt with this blow, everyday life in London, escapes to the countryside while London was under attack from the air, Grace’s thwarted hopes of going to art college – these and many other events are described with compassion and humour.

This memoir offers a rare insight into the life of a London family 100 years ago. It will be available at the Society’s  next event on Wednesday 12 December (see our next post), or can be bought from Herne Hill Books or online through the Herne Hill Society website.