The Herne Hill Society blog

Sunset over Herne Hill

This piece is reproduced, by kind permission, from Pat Roberts's Fawnbrake Blog

A new and deeply interesting book about John Ruskin and Herne Hill has just been published by the Herne Hill Society.

John Ruskin spent his childhood and most of his working life here in Herne Hill. When he died in 1900 just a year before Queen Victoria – about the same time as many of the houses in Herne Hill were built – he had become one of the most original,  controversial and globally influential thinkers and writers of the 19th century.

Despite the cascade of studies and biographies of Ruskin over the last hundred years, this is the first book to look with authority and in depth at the importance of South London in shaping Ruskin’s thinking.

Despite all his foreign travels, public lecturing, the academic posts at Oxford, his work for London’s museums, and those messianic forays into the new industrial regions of England, Herne Hill was the place where Ruskin spent his childhood and most productive years. Here he wrote the increasingly passionate books, articles and speeches that made him nationally and indeed globally celebrated.

It was also from here, and well into his old age, that he studied and pronounced upon his shifting world.

A witness to a degrading environment

Even from his early age a precocious and acute observer of nature, Ruskin loved the then unspoilt hills, skies, rivers and fields of Herne Hill, Dulwich, and Norwood.

But his affectionate memories of this unblemished (but as he discovered, all too fragile) environment also turned out to be a painful benchmark for what developed in later decades. So it was also in Herne Hill, as the years passed, that Ruskin witnessed and described, with increasing horror, the destruction of the natural environment through railway building and uncontrolled suburban growth.

A prophet of climate change?

As early as 1860, he had written “Whenever I look or travel in England or abroad, I see that men, wherever they can reach, destroy all beauty.” (Modern Painters V). His vivid 1876 watercolour “Sunset at Herne Hill through the Smoke of London”, featuring on the front cover of the new book, is a melancholy and prophetic attempt to illustrate this change.

This important new book by local historians Jon Newman and Laurence Marsh, based on meticulous research, brings sensitive and original insights into the development of Ruskin’s distress about the world and the environment, as he prophesied how manufacturing and hasty urbanisation was damaging society and the climate across England, and especially, from his own bedroom window, in the world metropolis that his native city had become.

Sunset over Herne Hill concludes with a rewarding examination of the social and historical context of Herne Hill and Denmark Hill during Ruskin’s lifetime and his family’s place within South London as the 19th century progressed, when London was becoming the most prosperous and populous city in the world, as well as probably the most polluted.

“This illuminating and touching book restores John Ruskin to South London… the authors of ‘Sunset over Herne Hill’ take us back to the neglected roots of the great Victorian romantic’s creativity” – Andrew Saint, Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, general editor of the Survey of London, and author of the newly-published London 1870-1914: a City at its Zenith

The book has 160 pages with 80 colour & b/w illustrations, with a map by David Western.

£17.00 (including delivery) by mail order from the Herne Hill Society, or from Herne Hill Books.

Patrick Roberts

Herne Hill for Independent Businesses

We came across this excellent short video made by George Okello. 

Featuring: Seasons of England, Afro Barbers, Jo's House, The Flower Lady, The Illusioneer, Herne Hill Books, 198 Contemporary Arts, Brockwell Art Services and Tales of Moon Lane.

It must have been filmed very recently as Jo Hill has not been open for more than a few weeks. 

The Ten (Food) Commandments by Jay Rayner - book review

Jay Rayner is a novelist, journalist, musician and familiar figure on television (Masterchef, The One Show), as well as in and around Herne Hill. It would be difficult to mistake him for anyone else. A big man with big hair, he looks like someone who eats (and writes about it) for a living. You may see him in Dugards, where this little paperback is on sale, or in Mimosa, or even in Sainsbury’s. He is not shy, and his forthright views have no doubt made him more than a few enemies. It cannot be otherwise for a restaurant critic. Personally, I have found him to be approachable and courteous.

This book is as much about the author as about the business of eating food. He is frank about his less attractive traits. A fat child who was no good at sports, he found his macho side in swallowing, and enjoying, almost anything his parents put in front of him: snails, oysters... anything but baked beans - not through juvenile snobbery but because he did not like the taste or texture. He is greedy, messy, and a self-confessed “terrible Jew”, who adores chorizo, andouillette, scratchings, a bacon butty: pig-meat in any guise. 

I enjoyed the witty and trenchant myth-debunking: ‘Thou shalt not cut off the fat’ (fat is where the flavour is, and eating fat is not in itself unhealthy), ‘Thou shalt not mistake food for pharmaceuticals’ (superfoods do not exist, and nothing you eat will prevent you from getting cancer let alone cure it), ‘Thou shalt always worship leftovers’ (“there’s only one problem with leftovers. It’s the word ’leftovers’”). There are straightforward recipes throughout that attest to his tastes.

Rayner writes thoughtfully about the moral and economic issues surrounding meat-eating. While - for most of us - meat tastes good, and is a key element of our diet, it is undeniably resource-heavy to produce. And not many of us would enjoy the prospect of slaughtering a lamb or a squealing pig. In any case we are going to have to get used to eating less meat as demand grows in Asia and inevitably forces prices up. So, eat more offal, and be more imaginative in the use of vegetables. In ‘Thou shalt not sneer at meat-free cookery’ he takes aim at the Quorn sausage and other so-called meat substitutes that constitute “a lack of imagination on a plate”. Surely better to enjoy a roasted cauliflower with cheese and almonds? Or a porcini risotto? And better still to admit that you don’t really like steak than ask for it well done and be served with a piece of shoe-leather that is an insult to the chef - and the cow.

Rayner urges us to shun the food Taliban, get stuck in with our fingers, eat a balanced diet, and enjoy our lives. It is, as the saying goes, “not rocket science” [pun intended]. Although he could pass for an Old Testament prophet in the right get-up, it turns out he’s not Moses after all. We are encouraged to make up our own commandments.

The Ten (Food) Commandments is published by Penguin at £6.00

First published in Herne Hill (the magazine of the Herne Hill Society) number 138, Summer 2017.

Colin Wight

A Brockwell Boy

This delightful memoir recalling Brockwell Park, in particular as it was in the 1930s and 40s, has long been out of print but has now been revised and will be republished by the Society on Wed 17 May.

Author Jeffrey Rumble was born in 1931 and grew up in Herne Hill a “depression kid”, living for 45 years in the same house in Hawarden Grove off Rosendale Road until 1976, when his work took him out of Lambeth. Brockwell Park, a stone’s throw from his home, was his playground. The memoir vividly recalls the Park as it was, not least in the years of the Second World War: as the author says, “a very disturbed period of our national history”. Contemporary photographs and the author’s own drawings punctuate the book.

This is a picture drawn with wit and affection, undimmed by the passage of time. It is a world of childhood adventures, no-nonsense Park Keepers and the dangers of “doodlebugs”. This new and revised edition makes available a story that anyone who values the role Brockwell Park plays in the life of Herne Hill will have pleasure in reading.

A Brockwell Boy can be purchased from Herne Hill Books or direct from the Society, price £3.50. To buy online go to http://www.hernehillsociety.org.uk/HHS_store/product/a_brockwell_boy

 

Herne Hill in 2013

2013 has been an interesting year...

Commiserations to those badly affected by this summer's awful flood, especially the traders who have still been unable to open.

In other respects, Herne Hill has gone from strength to strength. The year began with the welcome announcement that Thameslink trains calling at Herne Hill will continue to run north of Blackfriars post-2018. Our Sunday market is now well established, while several new businesses (and a primary school) have opened. The Velodrome benefited from major infrastructure improvements.

The Lambeth Country Show was held in fine weather and attracted a huge crowd. Brockwell Park has been beautifully renovated, with the Bristowe bust installed in the Hall. The Clock Tower Appeal reached its target quite quickly, owing to the vitality and generosity of local people.

It has also been a successful year for the Society. Our website won the Walter Bor Media Award from the London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies, while the Henry Bessemer book was commended and is selling well. We welcomed a considerable number of new members.

Always a highlight - with animals, food, entertainment and lovely Herne Hill folk to meet (including our committee) - the annual Christmas Fair on Sat 14 December was very well attended. Here's a taste; watch for a famous gourmet passing by.

Now to 2014: for those interested in the history and built heritage of the area, January's event will preview the completely revised edition of the Herne Hill Heritage Trail.

First produced in 2003 as an 88-page guide to sites of interest in the area, our new Trail will feature 157 entries on 160 pages, with 97 illustrations, 28 of them in colour.

Wed 8 January 2014, 7:45pm
“Herne Hill Heritage Trail Preview”
Herne Hill United Church
London
SE24 9PW

Admission free. We hope to see you there.

Policing and crime consultation in Southwark

The MOPAC (Mayor of London Office for Policing and Crime) is conducting consultations across London during the first quarter of 2013 to deliver its vision for changes in policing for London, against the backdrop of a significant drop in central funding.

Southwark’s consultation was held on 9 January at City Hall, and I attended on behalf of the Herne Hill Society. The evening was interesting and fast paced, but raised a lot of questions that were left unanswered. The panel comprised 2 Met, 1 Mayoral and 1 Council representatives, and the audience was primarily politicians and local councillors with representation from schools and societies such as Herne Hill’s too. The main presentation was of the MOPAC challenge to the Met to the following:

• -20% on 7 priority crimes
• +20% public confidence
• -20% reduce spend

Val Shawcross made a good point that putting a 20% cut in costs as a "challenge" alongside two positive challenges is misleading, as this is NOT something that is a benefit to Southwark. The Met currently has one of the lowest rates of public confidence, so a 20% increase may not be a particularly high target.

There were numerous statistics in the presentation, but of particular note was the fact that of 1200 additional officers for London, Southwark is being allocated only 2, despite having higher than average crime levels. This was queried by a member of public but, as with most awkward questions, was dodged by the panel.

The issue of closing East Dulwich station was discussed at length, with the panel repeatedly telling us that it was outdated and not needed. However a number of people in the audience raised the less tangible benefits of having a visible "counter" service, and also the huge area of southern Southwark that would be a considerable distance from a station if it closed.

Cllr Robin Crookshank Hilton asked a very direct question as to why they had not responded to her suggestion for relocation to the Dulwich Hospital site, and this generated a heated disagreement between the Mayoral and Council representatives about budgets which was just left hanging, again without a satisfactory response.

There is a follow-up consultation for Southwark at the end of February, the only borough to have a second consultation, which would suggest that they too saw that a lot of questions were not satisfactorily answered, and that a number of proposals did not meet with general approval.

Richard Hayes