Louise House – The Way Forward?

Louise House was listed at Grade II by English Heritage in August 2008. The building consists of a structure like a house with three large rooms on the ground floor, an unusual central staircase and three large rooms on the first floor. There are a number of smaller rooms towards the rear on both floors. There is a front garden, currently used for parking, and a rear garden which has mainly been surfaced as a play area. The rear garden has a long, single storey building which once housed the Laundry facilities, which has south facing windows.


Lewisham Council owns the building and has said that it may make it available either by transfer or on a long lease at a negligible rent to a community organisation which has a viable plan that benefits the local community. “Expressions of interest” where sought from the community between November 2009 and March 2010.

The Council is currently working with the Crystal Palace Community Development Trust (CPCDT) on its proposal. The CPCDT was set up in 2004 to help with regeneration projects in the wards surrounding Crystal Palace Park. The Trust has submitted a proposal to Lewisham Council for a refurbished Louise House to provide workspace particularly for start-up businesses. The main “house” would thus become a serviced office development. It is also interested in exploring ideas for refurbishing the Laundry as a community nursery with affordable places.

Since March 2010, Lewisham Council has funded a full condition survey of the buildings. Meanwhile, the Forest Hill Ward's Locality Fund has given CPCDT £4,000 which has been used to complete a Feasibility Study. This study indicated that the proposal for a serviced office and community nursery was viable both financially and in terms of the suitability of the building.

This has been taking place against the backdrop of the Forest Hill Pools development next door, which recently gained planning permission. The architects of the pools, Roberts Limbrick, have visited Louise House. In their plans for the pools, they have made provision for a common treatment of the “front garden” areas of the pools, Louise House and the Library which would seek to unify the Victorian frontages behind a common green treatment with disabled access to all three buildings. This is in the future, but the plans for the pools do not create obstacles to the eventual realisation of this part of the scheme.

In July 2010, Louise House, the old pools frontage and the Library all became part of the extended Forest Hill Conservation Area.

CPCDT is working with Lewisham Council to seek funding which will enable the project to move forward. In the current economic climate and against a background of public sector cuts this will be challenging. But there are hopes that the Autumn round of Lottery funding will provide some support.

For more information on Louise House, visit www.louisehouse.notlong.com
For more photos of the interior, visit www.flickr.com/photos/tim_walder

Richard Hibbert, Chair of the Forest Hill Society, writes…

We hope you have all had a relaxing summer and are now ready to get more involved in the Society. Our AGM is being held at 7:30pm in The Hob on Thursday, 21st October and will be your chance to air your concerns and volunteer to join one of the four committees (transport, development, environment and communications). We are always looking for fresh ideas and willing people to help us tackle the issues which matter to you, the members; getting involved need not be a daunting prospect and will only take as much time as you want to spare. Please contact me on richard@foresthillsociety.com if you would like to find out more about any of the committees.

The Society covers the whole of SE23 and, ideally, our committees should be made up of people from the whole area. But the Crofton Park side of our patch is currently under represented even though we have plenty of members there. Crofton Park has received a double whammy with its library threatened with closure and the fire damage at Stillness School. I would particularly like to encourage members there to join the Executive so that their needs are addressed.

Most of you will have been affected in some way by the closure of the London Road stretch of the South Circular. Rather than moaning and fretting about the inconvenience, we decided to organise a little picnic on what we like to think of as our temporary Forest Hill Promenade. While not the most picturesque venue, it was fun to reclaim the South Circular for a few hours!

That section of the South Circular is now open again in time for the beginning of the school term but by the time you read this Newsletter a section of the South Circular further east, near the Co-Op, may be closed.

I look forward to hearing from you.



Photo: Stillness School fire. Photo © Rob Finn 2010

The Capitol

The Capitol is also taking part in this year’s Open House. Formerly the Capitol Cinema, it’s a Grade II listed building and a rare survival of a complete 1920's cinema in Art Deco style.

The architectural tour will take you behind-the-scenes to the largely untouched first floor area. Saturday, 18th September 10am-5pm. Sunday, 19th September 10am-5pm. Pre-book ONLY on 020 8291 8920.

Café Society

Whether you’re after a standard black coffee or an extravagant flat white, the stretch of road between Forest Hill Station and the Horniman has become a real meeting place for coffee lovers. We asked the owners to tell us the secret of a great coffee.

Lisa Etherington and Dan Shardlow at St David’s Café, David’s Road

The key elements to a great coffee are a fantastic roastery, a clean coffee machine, achieving the perfect grind/extraction and finally a great atmosphere in which to enjoy it.


Petros Yiannourkou at The Teapot, London Road

We all like our coffee just so and at The Teapot it’s about creating a cup of coffee that is received with love and satisfaction. We take the leg work out of grinding Guglielmo beans, carefully frothing the milk and creating a mug of joy that hits the spot.


Kollier Bangura at From The Forest, 1 Devonshire Road, opp Forest Hill Station

A great coffee is a blend of carefully selected beans made to the customer's requirements, taking into consideration the strength, texture and temperature. Then it’s served in a warm, comfortable environment with great service from friendly staff.



Hip Ngo at The Lemon Grove, London Road

A great cup of coffee is so many things - the quality of the coffee beans, the roast, the water softener and, of course, the skill of the coffee maker. Then it has to be served with a sprinkle of love!

Honor Oak Park Station

Work is slowly proceeding after the embankment threatened to subside onto Platform 1. Checks are being made to see if the earthworks that have been done have stopped the movement. Once a new retaining wall has been built, it will be possible to remove the existing steel piles. They will then carry out repairs to the canopy and the platform.

It looks like station users will have to endure the narrow platform for quite a while yet.

Forest Hill Conservation Area Review

The Forest Hill Conservation Area is going to be expanded after plans were approved by Mayor and Cabinet in July. At the moment, it covers London Road from the Horniman Museum to the station and all the shops on Dartmouth Road. It also extends along Wood Vale, Manor Mount, and a small section of Devonshire Road.

The new Conservation Area will be extended south along Dartmouth Road as far as Thorpewood Avenue; north along Devonshire Road including Benson Road and part of Ewelme Road; and east to include the railway bridge and 1 Waldram Crescent (the small house next to the railway bridge).

Suggestions made by the Forest Hill Society and others, which are not to be adopted, included extending the boundary east of the railway to include the Waldram and Rockbourne 'triangles', and including part of Tyson Road and more of Honor Oak Road.

Sixteen buildings or groups of buildings will be 'locally listed'. This requires the buildings to be preserved or enhanced wherever possible, but doesn't give any additional planning control. The buildings include the Dartmouth Arms pub, Forest Hill pools frontage, the Horniman bandstand, and various buildings on London Road and Manor Mount.

An Article 4(2) Direction will be made, for the purpose of preserving and enhancing the area's character. This means that houses within the Conservation Area will need planning permission to make alterations such as replacing windows or doors, retiling roofs, or painting the exterior.

Why Theatreland needs SE23

Do you remember the good old days when we had direct trains to Charing Cross? One group of people misses that late night West End train more than most - the theatre performers who find Forest Hill the perfect place to live. Forest Hill Society member, Mark Stevenson, who works with Teatro Vivo and Ampersand explains what makes SE23 so attractive.

My home is as near as you can get to Lower Sydenham whilst still officially being in Forest Hill and on my street alone I know several actors, musicians and dancers - Forest Hill is crawling with us. Look around the train into London and chances are you'll see an actor silently mouthing their lines on their way to rehearsals or a musician strapped to a large and very oddly shaped instrument case.

Straightforward economics play a part here. Performers want a place they can afford and where they don't actually have to live in a garret. That’s especially true if you're a musician who needs a large space for your instrument and tolerant neighbours when you need to practise.

Then there are the trains giving us easy access to the South Bank and the West End. Mind you, since we've lost the direct train from Charing Cross, one actor I know has chosen to cycle instead, cutting out the draughty wait at London Bridge.

It's helpful living in a community near other performers. You can try out ideas, share props, exchange scripts and have a moan about arts funding over a pint in the local pub.

Performers do like to stick together! As soon as a place is discovered (nice housing, leafy gardens, decent takeaways) the performers’ network swings into action to spread the word. If you ever need to get some information out there, just mention it to an actor - it's by far the best way to reach as many ears as possible!

As for performance spaces, there’s the Brockley Jack Theatre and The Albany in Deptford close to hand. The Catford Broadway has a great range of shows in their studio and main house, and London Bubble always make sure they visit Sydenham Wells Park with their outdoor summer show. We also now have the fabulous Arcola (in Dalston) within easy reach thanks to the East London Line.

Perhaps because of all this, there are now several theatre companies based in the area - 'Bold & Saucy', 'Spontaneous Productions', 'Teatro Vivo', and my own company 'Ampersand'.

I work mainly with companies that perform in non-theatre spaces. I directed Teatro Vivo's 'Supermarket Shakespeare' in Forest Hill Sainsbury's and Ampersand's 'Headlines' in The Dolphin on Sydenham High Street. Spaces that people use everyday get transformed into magical places. And audiences interact directly with the action - one lovely man coached one of our (tense) characters in the supermarket in relaxation techniques right in the middle of a scene; kids tell off our grown-up characters, elderly ladies have given advice on love.

For me, it feels like this is the theatre I want to make, where the community has as big a part to play as the actors, especially the community where we are most at home.

Photo: Teatro Vivo perform Supermarket Shakespeare in Sainsbury’s. Photograph by Tim Sutton.

Local Libraries May Close

Lewisham Council is considering closing Crofton Park Library, Sydenham Library and three others in the Borough as part of its plan to reduce Council spending by £60 million over three years. Karen Jonason says Crofton Park Library is very well used and she’s set up an online petition and Facebook page to fight the closure.

You can find the petition at www.ipetitions.com/petition/savecroftonparklibrary. Or you can sign the paper petition on September 11th between 11am and 1pm at the corner of Brockley Grove and Brockley Road.

There’s also a petition to save Sydenham Library at www.ipetitions.com/petition/savesydenhamlibrary

The final decision will be made by the Mayor on 17th November.

Getting Around

The Overground has become a regular part of many people’s everyday commute from SE23. The air conditioning now seems to work and the service is reliable – but the trains are already packed to capacity in the morning rush hour. We’ve asked Transport for London for load numbers and will be interested to hear how they propose to provide more capacity.

For the moment, we are happy that there appears to be adequate capacity to and from London Bridge on Southern but we will be continuing to monitor the situation.

The success of the Overground has increased the parking problems around both Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park and we will be working with Lewisham Council and residents to see what, if anything, can be done about this.

Lewisham Council accept that the changes made in Sydenham Rise haven’t pleased everybody. There has been displacement of car parking to other less suitable locations, and the coaches that were parking there have moved to a more residential area. In the long term, the solution is to provide a proper footpath on the park side of the road which would prevent visitors to the Museum and the Park having to struggle on an uneven and overgrown surface and the bus build out could be removed. More parking could then be provided without causing an obstruction to the road or compromising pedestrian safety. It is not clear that this option was properly investigated before the changes were made to Sydenham Rise and funding constraints mean that such major changes are not likely to happen soon. However, the Council are investigating whether the yellow lines above the bus build out could be reduced to provide about three more parking spaces and will be pressing TfL to review the pedestrian crossing at the junction with London Road. No major changes are likely in Sydenham Rise in the near future.

TfL has rejected our suggestion that traffic flow on the A205 might be improved by restricting right turns into and out of Devonshire Road. We will, however, be looking at the problems caused by traffic queuing to turn right to get to Perry Vale. A better right turn lane might help here.
Sometimes a relatively simple change makes a big improvement to local transport. A suggestion by a local resident has resulted in the northbound 356 bus stopping at Forest Hill Station. Previously it didn’t stop between Perry Vale and Wetherspoon’s.

If you have any suggestions that you would like the Forest Hill Society to pursue on your behalf, please email andrew@foresthillsociety.com

Forest Hill Pools Update

Mounds of rubble lie on the site of the pocket park. Buddleia sprouts from the superintendant’s house. Thomas Ardwinckle’s Forest Hill Baths are no more. But in late 2012 we will have two new pools, a gym, a community room and a cafe on the site.

Planning permission was granted on 22nd July at Lewisham Town Hall. Concerns remain in a number of areas. Local residents are worried about the impact of pool users parking on surrounding streets. The internal lift is planned to be one person only. The pedestrian versus coach access at the front entrance is confusing and the mass of plant block beside the superintendent's house will probably intrude unattractively on the streetscape.

But in spite of these problems, the Forest Hill Society believes that this is easily the best proposal Lewisham Council has put forward since they first started consulting on the issue in 2005. It is on the better site (not Willow Way!) and we will have two pools (only one was proposed in 2005). The conservationists are in part satisfied by the retention of the superintendent's house which, together with Louise House and Forest Hill Library forms the Victorian “Face of Forest Hill” and behind this façade, we will have a modern facility built to twenty-first century standards.