Gipsy Hill in south London is a hilly neighbourhood spanning the southern parts of the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. It is known for its views of Dulwich and the City of London.
Historically, north of its traditional Westow–Central Hill southern limit, it was split between the southern projections of the West Norwood daughter parish of Lambeth and the St Giles church daughter parish of Camberwell in Surrey, until urban reforms in 1889 created the County of London. It takes in, due to a diagonal, slightly weaving border, somewhat less of the London Borough of Southwark, and it has a ridge-top border along the retail/services/leisure street Westow Hill and residential street Central Hill with Upper Norwood in the London Borough of Croydon.
History and geography
Gipsy Hill is the name of the central road that runs south upwards from Gipsy Road, where it becomes Alleyn Park near the southern end of Croxted Road, up to Central Hill and Westow Hill (a brief eastern continuation in the Crystal Palace Triangle). The latter are two crest-top roads marking the limit of Upper Norwood, part of the London Borough (and, here, former parish) of Croydon. Due to its station, as common across London, the name has been taken to extend to encompass a wider, in this case, upper hill-side zone in extreme projections of the two relevant boroughs.[citation needed]
The district takes its name from the presence of Gypsies in what was, until the 19th century, a sparsely populated rural area.[2][3] On 11 August 1668, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that his wife had visited "the gypsies at Lambeth";[4] Keats also wrote about the Norwood gypsies.[5]
The hill and particularly its southern climactic ridge are part of a much larger formation, the Norwood Ridge.[citation needed]
The area rapidly developed after Gipsy Hill railway station was opened in 1856: at first large private houses were constructed (most of which are now subdivided), then in the mid-20th century blocks of council housing were built, a little of which remains as social housing.[2] An 18-room nuclear bunker was constructed between 1963 and 1966 as part of a block of flats on the Central Hill Estate called Pear Tree House on Lunham Road.[6]
Gipsy Hill Police Station was on the A214, Central Hill, the western continuation of Westow Hill. It was London's highest station: an old Bench Mark SW, opposite, stated 360.6 feet (109.9m)Above Ordnance Datum.
Pubs and independent breweries
Three of the pubs are central on the street Gipsy Hill: The Colby Arms, The Bull and Finch, and The Great Southern.[8] Higher but before Westow Hill, The Railway Bell is on Cawnpore Street, a side street.[8] The Two Towers and Paxton are on the relatively low, north-west Gipsy Road.[citation needed]
Two independent companies brew beer commercially: the Gipsy Hill Brewing Co. and the London Beer Factory.[9]
The tower of Christ Church, Gipsy Hill; converted in to a house following a fire in the nineteen-eighties.
Nearest places
a rarely surviving boundary marker for Camberwell/Lambeth parishes along the eastern branch of the Effra at Gipsy Hill is now a little buried by pavement
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