Sydenham, London

Sydenham's main commercial area begins on Kirkdale around Cobbs Corner, continuing onto Sydenham Road, often known as "Sydenham High Street". It houses many independent shops, including a bakery, bookshop and several restaurants. Furthermore, Sydenham is noted for the number of independent coffee shops.[9] Chain stores include Boots, Nando's, Lidl, Sainsbury's Local, Subway, Superdrug, Starbucks and Tesco Express. There is a Post Office branch and many estate agents. After recent closures, Natwest remains the only bank with a branch in the High Street. The first ever location of the Morley's chicken chain opened in Sydenham in 1985, and remains in operation today.[10][11]

Since the Transport for London and Lewisham Council funded high street upgrade in 2012–13, there is now a monthly market located within the pocket squares, known as "Queensthorpe Square" and "Venner Square". The 18th century Greyhound pub, demolished by a developer without council permission in 2013,[12] was rebuilt and reopened in 2017.[13] Several new businesses such as a Sainsburys Local opened 2016 and Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward Estate Agents in 2021/22.[13]

Sydenham has a very active community, with several groups concerning the local area. Sydenham Town is the local website for the area, where residents can also voice their opinions in an on-line form.[14] The Sydenham Society is a Civil society formed in 1972 to represent the local community. It holds local events, works with organisations and authorities as well as campaigning for improvements to the area.[15] Green Flag and Mayor of London Award winner, Sydenham Garden, was formed in 2002. It is a charity which is involved in improving the health of residents in the boroughs of Bromley and Lewisham.[16]

Sydenham with Forest Hill won a bid for the national Portas Pilot competition which provided a grant to improve high streets; extra money was provided from Lewisham Council and private developers.[17] Annually every summer since 2009, the Sydenham Arts Festival is held, where there are workshops, music, family activities etc.[18]

Mayow Park was originally known as Sydenham Recreational Ground

Sydenham has seven Conservation Areas: Cobbs Corner, Dulwich Village (covering Crescent Wood Road),[19] Halifax Street, Sydenham Hill/Kirkdale, Sydenham Park and Sydenham Thorpes. Sydenham has the highest concentration of conservation areas in the London Borough of Lewisham[20]

A number of parks are within the Sydenham postcode. Mayow Park, Lewisham's oldest municipal park[21] and Sydenham Wells Park[22] are both Green Flag Awarded. Other open spaces in Sydenham include Alexandra Recreation Ground,[23] Baxters Field,[24] Home Park[25] and Kirkdale Green.[26] Riverview Walk is a nature conservation area[27] which runs along the River Pool from Catford. Additionally, located along the borders of Sydenham, there are Crystal Palace Park, Dulwich Woods, Southend Park[28] and Sydenham Hill Woods.

Alongside Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods is the Dulwich and Sydenham Golf course, dating back to 1893.[29] Located on Lawrie Park Road, there is the Sydenham Tennis Club, while the Beckenham and Sydenham Cricket Ground and the Lewisham Indoor Bowls Centre are both located in the Lower Sydenham industrial estate.

Sydenham Arts is a local charitable organisation,[30] promoting the arts for the local community, which provides free and ticketed cultural events at several festivals through the year.[31][32][33]

Drinking fountain erected to commemorate the 1897 Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria and restored for the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977

• St Bartholomew's church, (1827–1832), at the end of Lawrie Park Avenue, featured in Camille Pissarro's painting of 1871: "The Avenue, Sydenham". The building was designed by Lewis Vulliamy.[34]
• Park Court, (1936), by Frederick Gibberd, pioneering modernist development of residential flats on the estate on Lawrie Park Road adjacent to the famous Crystal Palace Park.[35]
• Six Pillars, (1934–35), by Berthold Lubetkin, on Crescent Wood Road, a villa strongly in the spirit of Le Corbusier with eponymous six pillars at street level.
• Cobbs Corner, takes its name from a draper's shop at 291-307 Kirkdale run by Walter Cobb. The shop grew into a large department store catering to the gentry of the area. Interesting imposing dome where you can find the date on the building.
• 180 and 182 Kirkdale, built in the 1850s in Gothic style, with Tudor doorcases.
• 168–178 Kirkdale, three pairs of Italianate houses built around 1862. Number 174 was briefly the home of the conductor August Manns.
• Memorial to Queen Victoria (1897), baroque-style memorial celebrating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Restored for Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee and designed by Alexander Hennell, a Sydenham resident and architect.
• Jews Walk, it is believed that a wealthy Jewish resident planted a row of trees to define the boundary of his walk from the Common. Numbers 2,4 and 6 are classical villas dating from the 1840s. Karl Marx's daughter Eleanor lived on Jews Walk. On 9 September 2008 a blue English Heritage plaque was placed on the house to commemorate this fact.
• Halifax Street, beautifully preserved street with houses dating from the 1840s. Of notice are in particular the closeness of the houses, the length of the street and the size of the gardens.
• The Kirkdale Building, previously the Sydenham Public Lecture Hall, was built in 1861 by Sydenham resident Henry Dawson.
• Sydenham Community Library is a Carnegie Library built in 1904.

Sir George Grove English Heritage Blue Plaque at Westwood Hill

Blue plaque marking the home of Ernest Shackleton at 12 Westwood Hill, Sydenham

Burnage Court, Lawrie Park Avenue, Sydenham, complete with 1888 datestone

• A-ha - Norwegian pop band lived in Sydenham and recorded early demos at Rendezvous studios on Kirkdale with John Ratcliff.[36][37]
• John Arnott — footballer[38]
• Edward Aveling — biologist and social activist, partner of Eleanor Marx[39]
• John Logie Baird — inventor of both the first publicly demonstrated colour television system, and the first purely electronic colour television picture tube[40]
• George Baxter — inventor of colour printing, lived on Peak Hill from 1860 till his death in 1867.[41] Has a memorial at former Christ Church, Forest Hill.[42]
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• David Bowie — spent five years living in Sydenham in his early adult life
• Bill Bradley — cricketer[43]
• Kelly Brook — the model and actress once shared a home with then boyfriend Billy Zane in Lawrie Park Road[44]
• Thomas Campbell — poet[45]
• Louise Creighton — social activist and writer, born in Sydenham[46]
• Connie Fisher — singer and actress, winner of the BBC TV program How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?[47]
• Bud Flanagan — music hall singer/entertainer, died in Sydenham[48]
• Denis Gifford — comics and film historian[49]
• Wilfrid de Glehn — painter, was born in Sydenham[50]
• W. G. Grace — England's greatest cricketer[51]
• George Grove — of musical dictionary fame[52]
• Rolf Harris — musician, television personality, painter and actor, was a key figure in the Sydenham Society[53]
• Norman Hunter — writer and creator of Professor Branestawm
• Kazuo Ishiguro — Literature Nobel Prize winner, Booker Prize winning novelist, wrote The Remains of the Day in Sydenham[54]
• Richard Jefferies — the naturalist and author, lived at 20 Sydenham Park (a blue plaque indicates the house)
• Shivani Kapoor — Indian model, cousin of famous Bollywood sister actresses Karisma & Kareena Kapoor
• Flora Klickmann — editor of The Girls Own Paper from 1908 to 1931
• René Lalique — according to Henri Vever, Lalique studied at Sydenham Art College between 1878 and 1880
• Prof Edmund Albert Letts FRSE — chemist, born in Sydenham
• Margaret Lockwood — star of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938)
• Lionel Logue CVO — Australian speech therapist and stage actor who successfully treated, among others, King George VI. He lived in a villa named Beechgrove from 1933 to 1940
• Linda Ludgrove — Commonwealth gold medallist swimmer
• Eleanor Marx — daughter of Karl Marx, lived and died in Sydenham[55]
• Tsakane Valentine Maswanganyi — Opera singer, she first came to public notice as a member of the world-famous opera band Amici Forever
• John Dudley North – aircraft designer, born at Sydenham[56]
• Sandy Powell — three-time Academy Award winning costume designer
• John Scott Russell — naval architect who built the SS Great Eastern
• Dame Cicely Saunders — founder of the modern hospice movement[57]
• Ernest Shackleton — the Antarctic explorer[58]
• Francis Pettit Smith — one of the inventors of the screw propeller[59]
• Charlene Soraia — alternative singer/songwriter, born and grew up in Sydenham
• Jason Statham — film actor[60]
• David Henry Stone — Sheriff and Lord Mayor of London, lived at 'Fairwood' on Sydenham Hill
• Baroness Mary Warnock - philosopher, writer and life peer[61]
• David Wiffen — singer/songwriter, born in Sydenham in 1942
• Bill Wyman — member of The Rolling Stones, grew up in Sydenham[62]
• Billy Zane — the Titanic actor once shared a home with then girlfriend Kelly Brook in Lawrie Park Road[44]

• Sydenham for London Overground and Southern services to London Bridge, London Victoria, East & West Croydon, Clapham Junction, Caterham, Shoreditch High Street and Highbury & Islington. This is the busiest station, with up to 12 trains per hour off peak and a usage of 4 million passengers in year 2015-16[63]
• Sydenham Hill and Penge East stations for Southeastern services to London Victoria, Brixton, Bromley South and Orpington.
• Lower Sydenham station also is served by Southeastern but with services to London Charing Cross, London Waterloo East, London Cannon Street, London Bridge, Hayes and Lewisham.

The area is served by routes 75, 122, 176, 181, 194, 197, 202, 227, 352, 356, 363, 450 and N63 linking Sydenham to Central London, Lewisham, Catford, Croydon, Thornton Heath, Bromley, Shirley, Peckham, Camberwell, Elephant & Castle, Blackheath, Forest Hill, Penge, South Norwood and Grove Park.[64][65][66][67]

The South Circular Road passes close by in Forest Hill. High Street improvements being funded by Transport for London from September 2012 are making the increasingly busy Sydenham Road (A212) more user friendly. So far, Kirkdale to Mayow Road has been completed, with Mayow Road to Kent House Road currently, as of December 2013, being upgraded. The Kent House Road to Bell Green section is still waiting for funding to be found.[68]

The nearest Met Office climate station is based in Greenwich Park: